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You are currently browsing stories tagged with Crime and Punishment
Theft of Service
by Sam Axelrod 05/02/2009Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
It was the third week of what was to become my first real job, at Irving Plaza, the club in Union Square. I was working three days a week after school, doing odd jobs around the venue. Basically whatever tedious tasks they needed me to do. I was a junior that year, and took the [...]
The Fool of Abingdon Square Park
by Thomas Beller 06/08/2008Neighborhood: Manhattan
The fool of Abingdon Square Park entered the park in a huff. He marched up to the person speaking at the microphone, and tapped her on the shoulder with a rolled up newspaper. She was in the middle of reading from a work about being the mother of an adopted Ethiopian girl, and all the [...]
Graffiti
by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh 05/12/2008Neighborhood: Lower East Side
On Saturday night I walked from my apartment on the Lower East Side over to Housing Works in SoHo. It was a little after 8:00 at night and my intention was to spend a few pleasant hours drinking coffee and reading Grapes of Wrath. It was also a way to give my wife some time [...]
What Can Do
by Granger Greenbaum 04/27/2008Neighborhood: Across the River, Brooklyn
My landlord George fled communist Armenia at a young age. Whenever I have occasion to talk with him in the hall he is infallibly cheerful and quick to offer words of encouragement. “How a you doing?” he asks me, “is beautiful day but must still be working, what can do.” He shrugs at the day’s obligations. “Yes, [...]
Detroiters Make Citizen’s Arrest, Save Starbucks CDs
by Eric C. Novack 04/27/2008Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
It was Tuesday and I held the door for a well-dressed black woman on my way into Starbucks at Mack and Woodward. She thanked me and I thought of my mother who had taught me to be a gentleman. I followed her up to the counter where four or five more people were waiting to [...]
Squirrel in the Birdfeeder
by Joseph Scalia 01/19/2008Neighborhood: Across the River, Long Island
There has always been something about the change in seasons, something that has stirred me to make changes in my life. I was married in winter and divorced in the spring, started a new job in fall and quit in the summer. That’s probably why it was in the beginning of winter when I decided [...]
Magic City: Not In Our Town
by Patrick J. Sauer 12/22/2007Neighborhood: Across the River, Bronx
One of the great, underrated things about living in New York is meeting all those people who come from everywhere else. Not that Gotham natives aren’t a barrel of monkeys, but it’s cool that someone always seems to have a different frame-of-reference, a different slice of life about where they came from, which is my [...]
Falling In and Out of Love with a Neckless Scotsman
by Sherri Rosen 12/15/2007Neighborhood: Financial District
He began calling her everyday from Scotland. Once she heard his voice she couldn’t get enough. The first time she spoke to him she was working at home writing up a press release for one of her authors. She forgot all about work. He emailed her the day before from an online dating site saying [...]
Liquid Straightjacket Works Every Time
by Thomas R. Ziegler 11/18/2007Neighborhood: Murray Hill
It’s 1983; I’m on the job ten years and have received my first promotion. Yesterday as a firefighter I carried an axe and fought fires; today as a Fire Marshal I carry a gun and fight crime. In most departments around our country, the title Fire Marshal denotes a person who performs inspectional duties. In NYC, that title [...]
The Chain Dance
by Thomas Beller 07/31/2006Neighborhood: West Village
I have an intimate relationship with my bike lock. In fact, I dance with it. It is not, at first glance, an obvious dancing partner—a heavy chain swathed in a black nylon sleeve, but then there are many unlikely dance partners in our lives. Just as many people will do an unconscious two-step when they [...]
Robert Andrews: Safe Salesman
by David Shapiro (interviewer) 05/31/2006Neighborhood: Midtown
I call myself a security consultant because it sounds better than salesman but, essentially, I’m a salesman. I sell security products, primarily safes. My dad preceded me in this. He was with the Mosler Safe Company starting around 1948 and, quite frankly, as a kid, the work sounded very dull to me. I wanted to [...]
The Extortionists of Sixth Grade
by James Parry 05/31/2006Neighborhood: Upper West Side
It was 1978 and I was in sixth grade at public school I.S. 44 on the Upper West Side. A group of boys robbed me- daily. Tyrone, a mean little black kid in a blue down coat, which he wore regardless of whether it was summer or winter, grew up in the projects just a few [...]
