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Hurricanes in the Hamptons
by Karen A. Frenkel 11/26/2012Neighborhood: East Hampton, Uncategorized
One glorious and balmy summer weekend in the late 1990s, I sat in the house my parents built for their retirement, enjoying the spectacular view of Gardiner’s Bay. A flotilla of sailboats lilted in the wind, guided by red buoys that demarcated a channel in the otherwise shallow waters. My gaze shifted southeast, towards Napeague, [...]
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 [...]
Bensonhurst Nicknames ca. 1966 – 1980, Annotated.
by Dave Mandl 11/12/2012Neighborhood: Bensonhurst, Featured
[This list contains all the nicknames of kids I can remember from my childhood (age 7 - 21, approx.) in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. See explanatory notes for each nickname below.] 1. Angelo Head 2. Rabbit 3. Ape 4. Frankie Airlines 5. Joey All-Star 6. Vinnie Barbarino 7. Turtle 8. Tortoise 9. Harry O. 10. Frank Asshole [...]
Crust, Mantle, Core
by Sara Lippmann 10/23/2012Neighborhood: Bay Ridge, Featured
A sinkhole is threatening to swallow up 79th Street in Bay Ridge. Police, fire, city workers are on the scene. Supposedly, the sewers had something to do with it.“The beginning of the end,” laments a longstanding neighborhood resident on local TV. He is wearing a trucker hat and gold chain and undershirt. Behind him, elders [...]
The Love Seat (A Ghost Story)
by Thomas R. Pryor 10/21/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Yorkville
As a boy in the early 1960s, I'd go up my grandparents' second floor apartment on York Avenue several times a week. Their hallway was lit by one low watt exposed bulb. The dark hall frightened me. Sometimes my fear was compounded when I'd hear fuzzy radio sounds coming from the usually locked basement. I [...]
On Randall’s Island
by Candy Schulman 10/18/2012Neighborhood: Randall's Island
Why am I on Randall’s Island, shivering in a ski jacket, gloves, a scarf, and a blanket wrapped around me? It is 7 PM on a Friday evening, and I can see the Manhattan skyline lights flickering on. Normal people—sane people—are warm in bars, toasting pisco sours instead of facing blustering winds on Randall’s Island. [...]
Hiding in a Transparent City
by Deirdre Faughey Davison 10/10/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Upper East Side
When I was fourteen, I auditioned for the School of American Ballet and was accepted. The school was too far from my home to travel back and forth everyday, so I lived in the dormitory at Lincoln Center during the week and travelled back to Long Island on the weekends. Every Sunday night, after a [...]
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 [...]
When the Therapist Lost Her Mind
by Raanan Geberer 10/03/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Gramercy Park, Stuyvesant Town
My wife Sarah and I had been seeing our therapist, Brenda, for years - both separately and as a couple. When I met Sarah, she was already seeing Brenda, who was then in training to be a psychiatric social worker after a long career as a high school social worker and Spanish teacher. After we [...]
Larry’s Bench
by Elizabeth S Titus 09/25/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Upper West Side
Larry Polshansky, dead. I cannot believe this. He wasn’t that much older than my husband, Gregory, who died of melanoma at age 56, five years ago. Larry chain-smoked, I remember. Maybe it was lung cancer that got him. I am walking my two dogs, Sophie, an eager-to-please golden retriever, and Henry Longfellow, a less-than-eager-to-please piebald [...]
Look Homeward, Brooklyn
by Robert Weinberger 09/07/2012Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Gramercy Park, Long Island
We move the summer before ninth grade from our four-room apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, to a four-bedroom Colonial house with a two-car garage on the south shore of Long Island. A town where every street is a drive or a place or a court. A place where kids play softball in the street and [...]
Thanksgiving 1979
by Robert Scherma 09/07/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Gravesend
At a Scherma family holiday meal there was usually mayhem. Thirty people including Sadie, chief chef, and Frank and their four sons and their families and friends and Aunt Angie sat around a set of long tables. The youngest kids were placed nearby at a separate table. There was always too much food and the [...]
