You are currently browsing the stories about the West Village neighborhood
St. Vincent’s
by Josh Gilbert 09/11/2010Neighborhood: West Village
The other day I was walking down 11th Street in the West Village past the recently shut down St. Vincent's Hospital building when something in the alcove on the corner of 7th Avenue caught my eye: a pile of stuffed animals laying in a heap: a teddy bear massacre. St. Vincent's used to [...]
Three Basketball Vignettes, 2001
by Thomas Beller 06/03/2010Neighborhood: Chelsea, Featured, West Village
1. March 25th, 2001 Basketball City Chelsea Piers There Were Horses A pick up game at Basketball city. Cold Sunday afternoon. The academy awards that night. Dreading them. Miserable but psyched about the game. We ended up playing four on four full court. On the other team were the guys I play with in my [...]
At Least You Have Pride
by Jennifer Paddock 04/15/2010Neighborhood: West Village
My first apartment in New York was on the second floor of a seven-story walk-up on MacDougal Street, between West Third and Bleecker. It was a three-hundred-square-foot one-bedroom with a view of a chain-linked pen where the building kept the trash, always bags and bags of it. I was twenty-five and feeling very lucky. I [...]
The Nameless Old Lady Who Jumped
by Candy Schulman 03/25/2010Neighborhood: Featured, West Village
The sidewalk in front of my apartment building was wrapped in crime tape. An ambulance waited idly on East 10th Street. Policemen strode in and out of the lobby. It was a mild winter Saturday afternoon, and I’d come downstairs for my mail. My doorman looked ashen. “A woman jumped,” he said. “18G.” He was [...]
Why I Like Law & Order
by Iris Smyles 03/25/2010Neighborhood: West Village
What I like most about Law & Order is that it’s always on. For a long time I didn’t watch Law & Order, and then one day I did. I used to turn the TV on, flick around for something to watch, and on nearly every other channel find Law & Order reruns featuring either [...]
Twelfth Street
by Eve Glasberg 02/12/2010Neighborhood: Greenwich Village, West Village
Of all the streets in New York, 12th Street is the one with which I most identify. I’ve never actually lived on it, but it has threaded its way through my life and clung there. The street represents both some of my best and worst times. Not all of 12th Street, which runs from Avenue [...]
Sitting Behind Cybill Shepherd
by Hal Sirowitz 02/06/2010Neighborhood: Featured, West Village
I took a Chaucer English Literature class in 1968 at New York University. I was told Chaucer used a lot of dirty words. An erotic film was made based on ‘The Canterbury Tales.’ I figured the professor wasn’t going to screen it in class but maybe I could take a female classmate to see it [...]
And Bingo Was Her Name
by Christine Nieland 02/06/2010Neighborhood: Greenwich Village, West Village
She looked like a collection of spheres stuck together to represent the female body. Round little torso, round little head, protruding chipmunk cheeks like those on the marionettes on that TV show “Spitting Image.” Dark little eyes that glared from some bottomless well of anger and pain. Her mail came addressed to two completely different [...]
Street Ball
by Thomas Beller 08/09/2009Neighborhood: West Village
Poke, poke, poke went his finger against my head. I was playing basketball at my local basketball court and some static had developed between me and a guy nicknamed Homicide. I stared straight ahead, trying to ignore his jabbing finger. “You stink!” he yelled, barking right into my face. “You know that?” He was six [...]
Upcoming Readings
by Thomas Beller 07/05/2009Neighborhood: West Village
Please join us for our upcoming readings: Wednesday, July 8th 12:30pm Bryant Park: Bryant Park Reading Room Thomas Beller will moderate a panel discussion on writing in New York, with Joseph O’Neill (Netherland), Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin), Jonathan Ames (The Double Life Is Twice as Good) and Alice Mattison (Nothing Is Quite [...]
A Comic’s First Open Mike in NYC
by Clara Morris 11/18/2008Neighborhood: West Village
Some people take their High School Senior Superlatives a bit too seriously. No, I’m not talking about Mary, my class’s “Worst Driver,” devoting her life to turning over a new leaf as a professional chauffer. I’m talking about my very own “Class Clown” award spurring my standup comedy career. Ever since my first time performing [...]
At the Minetta Tavern Without Joe Gould
by Roseann Lake 11/10/2008Neighborhood: West Village
He was puckish and presumptuous, impudent and ebullient; a bantam and bumptious, dastardly and delirious hand-out seeking hotdogger with a bare head, bushy beard, and bushels of personality. On many nights he could be found fast asleep on a bench in Washington Square Park, his belly careening with gin and ale that he had bamboozled [...]
