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The Calypso Women
by Thomas Beller 02/03/2008Neighborhood: Upper East Side
We went into Calypso, on Madison Avenue and 69th Street. The first thing I noticed upon entering the store was a young woman paying for something at the register while she distractedly texted. Then, as she texted, she got an actual phone call. She picked up and announced her coordinates and her purchase, “A gray [...]
The Check Thieves
by Tina Portelli 08/31/2007Neighborhood: 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. [...]
Here I am in Bergdorf Goodman
by Sarah Miller-Davenport 08/24/2007Neighborhood: Manhattan
Here I am in Bergdorf Goodman, and not for the first time, holding up the left half of a pair of $900 boots with the kind of delicacy usually reserved for fine antiques and newborn babies. It’s an exercise in frustration, a form of self-inflicted torture: I barely have $900 in the bank, let alone [...]
Living with Nicola’s Single Life
by Jed Lipinski 06/01/2007Neighborhood: East Village
Nicola is a lively twenty-year-old girl of Thai and Italian descent, born and raised on the Upper East Side. She has been my roommate on East 4th Street for four months, since I answered her apartment ad on Craigslist, and she works as a cocktail waitress at Thor—a fashionable nightclub in the Lower East Side—until [...]
Water, One Dollar
by Beth Schwartzapfel 11/24/2006Neighborhood: Financial District
Mohammad B. Miah is a small man. He stands about five feet tall with his red and white and black leather hi-top sneakers on. He lives in Astoria, Queens, and he wants to know whether I work for the city. He motions in the direction of City Hall. “You have a job?” he asks. “I’m [...]
TIM is MONY
by Joseph Scalia 11/16/2006Neighborhood: Boro Park, Brooklyn
(The original title “Time is Money” was shortened in the interest of saving both time and money.) “Time is money,” my ex-wife used to say. Of course she said it mostly when she wanted me to go out and get a second job, and she said it usually from a reclining position on the couch [...]
Hindsight is 13,000: Playing the Stock Market in 1999-2000
by Mr. Murphy 10/17/2006Neighborhood: Upper East Side
I have just taken over the passenger car from Roberto. There are three tenants in the elevator and they are discussing their vacation plans. 3A and her family will be hitting the slopes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming; 5C is going to work on his tan and try his luck at the blackjack tables in Aruba; [...]
Target Practice
by Audrey Ference 08/14/2006Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Fort Greene
I was walking my boyfriend, Frank, to the Target near our house. We were out of paper towels and Diet Coke, and it was his turn to do the shopping. A few blocks away, he closed his eyes, and began breathing deeply, in and out. I grabbed his arm and steered him gently away from [...]
Monthly Nut
by James Braly 07/26/2006Neighborhood: Upper West Side
I am sitting at my desk in my coop one day on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, paying my monthly expenses: coop mortgage; coop maintenance; coop insurance; four other kinds of insurance–health, for four people (I’ve got a stay-at-home wife and two kids); life, in case I die on them; disability, in case I [...]
Love and Money at Sun Lin Garden
by Tom Diriwachter 06/04/2006Neighborhood: Chinatown
It’s common practice for a bar/restaurant to save their first dollar and hang it on the wall. Sometimes it’s framed. Other times it’s taped. But it’s up there for luck. Or at least celebration. A sort of diploma from the school of capitalism. Some businesses even save their first dollar bill, five dollar bill, ten [...]
David Zuva: Shoemaker
by John Bowe (interviewer) 06/03/2006Neighborhood: West Village
My name is David Zuva. I’m from Russia, from Odessa. I’ve been here twenty years. I’m a shoemaker. I repair shoes. This my profession. I worked in Russia in the same profession. I learned when I was small boy. My father teach me. All the family shoemakers–my whole family–my wife, me, my father, my brothers, [...]
Homesteading the Intellectual Prairie
by Thomas Beller 06/03/2006Neighborhood: Midtown
A company called Viacom has recently purchased another company called Paramount for about ten billion dollars. This followed several months of intensive maneuvering between Viacom and another company called QVC. The competition held the businessmen and a large segment of the media in thrall. It was also good news for poets and the like. It’s [...]
