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Fruit Man = Bad Man

by 11/07/2008
Neighborhood: West Village

Yesterday I left for work without having eaten anything all morning. For a person with a normal schedule this would be no problem, but I start work at 12:30 PM and don’t take “lunch” until about 5:00 PM. My office is on Hudson and King Streets and I take the C train to the Spring [...]

Sharing Vectors with Jesse Lee

by 03/07/2008
Neighborhood: Chelsea

“Do you know–” “Of any sports bars around here?” I interrupted. The towering man paused, chapped lips parted in a bewildered grin revealing white teeth caulked with white material. “You looking for one too?” “No,” I said, “you asked me that last week.” We stood this December afternoon on 22nd off 6th. Last time, 19th [...]

The Check Thieves

by 08/31/2007
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens

In my downtown Brooklyn neighborhood were raised a breed of men who are check thieves. A rare breed of men who are slowly becoming extinct. Their turf is Court Street to Smith, Degraw Street to President. These are the sons of the older generation men, who would never let a woman pay for a check. [...]

Cappozelle

by 07/20/2007
Neighborhood: East Village

When I was a kid, Avenue B was a neighborhood for the working poor. Old guys would sell hot knishes from a portable oven on wheels for a nickel, and in my family, that was considered “eating out.” We didn’t have a phone, or even a radiator, until the city made the landlady put one [...]

Trying on Murray Hill Girl

by 06/09/2007
Neighborhood: Murray Hill

One Halloween, I decided to wear something different than my usual orange shirt from the 1989 Westchester Girl Scouts Jamboree. On the evening of disguises, I tried on a very local one. I dressed as a stereotypical “Murray Hill” Girl, a costume that required an explanation and a bibliography. The costume evoked a particular New [...]

The Iguana Incident

by 12/31/2006
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Park Slope

In Park Slope, Brooklyn, on a week-day afternoon a woman was trying to sell her iguana for twenty-five dollars. She was giving it up for a more traditional pet, like a cat who didn’t need to be constantly put out in the sun to digest its meal but could do so underneath the bed. “It [...]

The Smell of Bologna (An Essay in Ten Parts)

by 12/31/2006
Neighborhood: Bronx, East Bronx

[Patrick J. Sauer also has a website. --Ed.] The sense of smell is the most powerful reminder of past events. It’s the hardest sense to pin down, the hardest to define. A smell is never described as it is, only in simile form. It smells like burning leaves. You know, it smells wet, like…like…like a [...]

Locust Horde

by 12/31/2006
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Park Slope

“Those Goddamn kids! I swear to God I can’t take it anymore. I can’t even get coffee without running into a giant mass of those little bastards at the Starbucks. It’s like a fucking daycare center in there during the mornings.” I looked up from the book I was reading at my brother, who had [...]

You’re Supposed to Make Mistakes

by 12/31/2006
Neighborhood: West Village

“Just like a boxer in a title fight you’ve got to walk in that ring all alone You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes but they’re the only things that you can truly call your own” –Billy Joel I was looking at some apartments with my realtor, Harriet Loshin, just west of Union square, [...]

I $^(&$#*! NY

by 12/31/2006
Neighborhood: Lower East Side

6:30 A.M. I’ve only been able to sleep about six hours because there are three bars downstairs which close at around 3 A.M. It’s just getting light. I’m in a corner apartment on the 6th floor overlooking Orchard and Stanton Streets facing South and East. The morning sky is streaked with indigo, pink and brown. [...]

A Fair Trade

by 12/31/2006
Neighborhood: Outer Boroughs, Queens

Somewhere, over the din, a thin voice called out, “Open!” I darted around, swaying from one foot to another, but before I could realize what had happened the elderly woman in line behind me had already scampered around to the newly opened lane. In her shamrock green coat and stiff knit hat, she leaned over [...]

Who Wants To Be An Extremist?

by 12/31/2006
Neighborhood: Upper West Side

I buy my morning paper from a little shop on the corner of West 83rd Street called the Columbus Avenue Food Corp. & Convenience Store. When you walk in, standing behind the counter on your left is Shahid, a very sunny and trim Pakistani man in his 50s with a thinning salt-and-pepper comb-over and a [...]