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School Spirits
by JB McGeever 03/20/2013Neighborhood: Featured, Jamaica
I’ve been teaching Writing and Literature in New York City’s public school system for almost nine years. This spring, my former building will graduate its final class just shy of reaching the century mark. The school’s phase-out process followed the usual script that no ‘education reformer’ cares to discuss: a decent school declared dangerous, unable [...]
Letting Go of My Faux Boyfriend
by Nina Camp 11/13/2012Neighborhood: All Over, Citifield, Midtown, Tribeca
Last week I officially let go of my faux-boyfriend. The moment of truth happened in a lavender room with a gray sofa and wooden lectern at the Office of the City Clerk on Worth Street. Jamie and Tomoko said, “I do,” and smiled. They kissed each other and thanked the clerk. I waited for something [...]
It’s Not A Cult
by Zola Acker 10/10/2012Neighborhood: All Over, Featured, JFK/LGA, Letter From Abroad
"I have to get to New York" says the woman in front of me at the Portland, Oregon airport. "You don't understand, I have to get there." She repeats this urgently, in a slightly hysterical voice to a man in uniform behind a counter. I smile at her sympathetically. The flight to JFK has been [...]
Donald
by Heidi Rain 08/24/2012Neighborhood: Sunnyside
Daniel and Donald were the boys who lived next door to me when we were growing up. Well, they weren’t boys, really, but it was before the expression “teenager” was popular for those past childhood. By the time I was old enough to notice them - and their mother, a widow, Grace Grant - they [...]
Sanassa’s Phone Call
by JB McGeever 08/08/2012Neighborhood: Jamaica
A new school year is on its way and I did not get any of the classes I requested. My classroom’s been changed from the second floor to the basement, and my attendance list has another teacher’s name on it. Due to the unstoppable ramifications of mayoral control, my school has been whittled away, hallway [...]
The Places You’ll Go, The People You’ll Meet
by Ben Fergusson 05/30/2012Neighborhood: Featured, JFK/LGA
We smiled at the woman as we took our seat beside her. She smiled back. “Hi,” she said, “Jean.” We introduced ourselves, Tom more engagingly than me. I was worried about getting too friendly with her – she was looking at us in that way people who want to talk to you do, nodding, catching [...]
All That They Can Be?
by JB McGeever 05/16/2012Neighborhood: Bushwick, Ridgewood, Uncategorized
The local recruiter is at my classroom door again and I really wish he’d stop doing this. When I explain that there are designated areas throughout the building for him to speak with students or ‘potential recruits’ as they’re called in his line of work, he apologizes profusely. In fact, his demeanor and etiquette is [...]
As Elevators Shrink
by Ellen Greenfield 04/16/2012Neighborhood: Flushing, Pomonok
When had the elevator gotten so small? When I was ten and living on the top floor of a building in the New York City Housing Project called Pomonok -- a word the Algonquin Indians used for Long Island -- I dreamed of stabling my horse in that elevator. The fantasy of actually having my [...]
Any Kid In The City
by JB McGeever 04/06/2012Neighborhood: Flushing
The students enter the building through a side door, where they promptly submit backpacks and any other personal items to the NYPD safety agent who greets them at the steps. There’s a male agent for the boys, a female for the girls. Everyone is scanned for weapons, cell phones and drugs upon entering the building. [...]
From Howard Beach To An Ashram; A Mafia Journey
by eugene baron 04/06/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Howard's Beach
All names in this story have been changed. It is not every day that one visits an Ashram for yoga and encounters a “retired” Mafia soldier, adrift there because of illness and poverty. From my end, I envisioned a documentary film covering his faded world; however, for his own security - though the events occurred [...]
A Forgotten Game
by Peter Wortsman 03/27/2012Neighborhood: Jackson Heights
I don’t know who invented the game or whether it is still played today. Slap Ball had a brief vogue in New York City schoolyards in the early Sixties, and in Jackson Heights, Queens, where I grew up, it attained minor cult status as the game of choice for the physically challenged. A welcome alternative [...]
Secret Staircase
by Heidi Rain 05/22/2011Neighborhood: Sunnyside, Uncategorized
On beautiful May mornings like this one, when the sky holds a brightness that hints at a sunshiny day and the birds are all a-twitter, I miss Nancy terribly. I miss knowing that after school we’ll go beyond the alley that stretches out behind my back yard, to the communal gardens there. As we do [...]
