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Some Lice to Live
by Carol Paik 03/02/2008Neighborhood: Midtown
I come home to find a message on my answering machine from the nurse at my daughter’s school. “We had a case of head lice in the 5th grade, so we did a school-wide check.” Pause. “Meredith has some nits.” I immediately think of The Thorn Birds, which I read when I was a kid. I [...]
The Fig Trees of Bensonhurst
by Thomas Maschio 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Outer Boroughs
I hesitated before walking through the alleyway that led to my old backyard. I could see that my mother and father’s old fig tree was still there in the yard. It was late summer and there had just been a light rain. This would have been prime fig picking time back in the old days. [...]
The Bird Funeral
by Lucy Baker 07/27/2006Neighborhood: Midtown
This morning I saw a dead bird on 52nd Street. It was lying on its back on the sidewalk in between Park and Madison Avenues, in front of a Duane Reade Pharmacy. Its feet were in the air. At first I wasn’t sure if it was dead. It looked like it was just dozing, sunning [...]
Earth First (And Last)
by Thomas Beller 06/04/2006Neighborhood: West Village
Bill Dilworth may have one of New York’s most relaxing jobs. He is keeper of the New York Earth Room, a permanent installation by the artist Walter DeMaria, sponsored by the Dia Foundation. The work has been on display at the same location at 141 Wooster Street for over ten years, and Mr. Dilworth has [...]
There’s No Rainbow on the FDR
by Josh Lefkowitz 05/31/2006Neighborhood: Upper East Side
It was an unseasonably cool Sunday evening in July, and, like the weather, I was feeling a bit out of sorts. I was looking for a new job and getting used to the pressures and angst of being in my first serious relationship. Walking on 78th Street between First and York, heading to the subway station [...]
Tulips and Addresses
by Edward Field 05/31/2006Neighborhood: Midtown
The Museum of Modern Art on West Fifty-third Street Is interested only in the flower not the bulb. After the Dutch tulips finished blooming in the garden last year, They pulled them up and threw them away–that place has no heart. Some fortunately were rescued and came into my possession. I kept them all winter in a paper bag from [...]
Fiberglass Dogs
by Griffin Hansbury 09/27/2005Neighborhood: Times Square
There was a while when it seemed like every year New York played host to a parade of hand-painted fiberglass animals. The cows were the most famous. The German shepherds were a lot less famous and they disappeared from the streets pretty quick. But, here and there, you’ll still see one, sitting guard outside the [...]
Tulips in the Dark
by Thomas Beller 04/20/2005Neighborhood: West Village
I saw Ed in the shadows on Perry street. A streelamp must have gone out because it was very dark. There was a helicopter circling the neighborhood, it’s spotlight straffing. “A sign of things to come,” he said, as though they were looking for him. A couple of houses down from where Ed sat there was a [...]
Post Oaks in Pelham Bay Park
by Bram Gunther 09/27/2004Neighborhood: Bronx
We were looking for the old oak trees, the ones rumored to be down by the shoreline. The day was already sweat-lodge hot, at 8 a.m., the seagulls circling lazily in the morning light. We stood in the parking lot, plotting our route; the sweat boiled up under our long sleeved shirts and long pants—protection [...]
For the Birds
by Angela Cardinale 03/12/2004Neighborhood: Murray Hill
This week’s meeting of the New York Companion Bird Club of Manhattan was held at the Jackson Hole Restaurant. This would be the first bird club meeting of my life. I have never liked birds very well. In my last year of undergraduate college, I transferred to San Francisco State University, and discovered that the cafeteria [...]
Unleashed
by Bram Gunther 07/16/2003Neighborhood: Central Park
I was a New York City Urban Park Ranger usually stationed in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, but for this day I was detailed out to Central Park, the park of my childhood. In Van Cortlandt Park I knew where the hophornbeam trees lived in a valley of white oaks and tulip poplars. I knew [...]
David Brown’s Flower Shop
by Thomas Beller 09/18/2002Neighborhood: West Village
What follows are some stories about David Brown and his flower shop. But before I tell you about him, I have to explain why, whenever I look into the store window I now see, in addition to all the flowers, a face. For a period of several months David Brown was absent from his own store. [...]
