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Manhattan Elevators: They Have Their Ups and Downs
by Mr. Murphy 01/27/2008Neighborhood: Upper East Side
I return from my break to hear Vince screaming in Maltese. It seems two women, a real estate broker and her client, had been getting a little impatient waiting for the elevator and gave the button several long pushes. This would infuriate the most mild-mannered of elevator operators. Vince is not mild-mannered. “Who the fuck [...]
Window Washer Thrill Comedy
by Peter F. Eder 01/06/2008Neighborhood: Across the River, Manhattan
One of the pleasures of living in a ranch style home is that I can clean all of the outside windows while standing firmly on the ground. Here is why that’s important to me. 219 Audubon Avenue Once each season in my growing up years in the 1940s and 50s, my mother would wash the [...]
Intrepid
by Kelly McMasters 01/04/2008Neighborhood: Midtown
Driving along the West Side Highway in New York City, there is a sign that reads: Intrepid Museum returning Fall 2008. And every time I’ve seen it these past two years, I think, “By the time the Intrepid returns, my book will be finished.” I first saw the USS Intrepid in 1999, not as part [...]
Unto You a Candle is Born
by Eva DeVirgilis 12/09/2007Neighborhood: Midtown
The candle does not just smell of street-corner pine forests and homemade apple pies; it also smells of tinsel, traffic, and the extra table leaves in place to make room for four, five or–if they really squeeze–six more cousins. Honestly, if you’ve never owned a Slatkin Holiday candle, you’ve never really been home for Christmas. [...]
From the Captain’s Point of View
by Bill Schell 11/18/2007Neighborhood: Across the River, Manhattan
The Captain sensed an uneasiness in the room. The two men in front of him were looking off to their right. They had strange expressions on their faces. Was it disgust? Was it fear? Was it an expression of embarrassment or shame? None of these emotions had been noticed by this Captain during several years [...]
Eye Only Has Eyes For You
by Martine Byer 07/02/2007Neighborhood: Upper East Side
Luciana, my aesthetician, is administering my facial. I come to see her in this upscale New York city dermatologist’s office about every three months or when I just need a pick me up. As she is stroking my skin with a warm creamy make-up remover, we are sharing our usual catch up questions about kids, [...]
Meet the Old Boss
by Suzanne Comeau 06/18/2007Neighborhood: Midtown
I took the subway uptown to stop by my old boss’s townhouse. Drop by any time, she’d said. Just ring the bell. We were on good terms. I had quit that job to take something downtown. The new job paid a little bit more, but it hadn’t worked out. Now I was back working as [...]
They’re behaving like animals
by Kevin Nolan 06/01/2007Neighborhood: Gramercy Park
Madison Square Park confirms New York as civilized city. The park is a cultured green in Manhattan’s punishing grid: the Flatiron Building to its southwest, Broadway to the west, the century-old architecture, the clock tower to the east, buildings that house Credit Suisse First Boston and some of the globe’s most powerful corporations, America’s wealth, [...]
Who Wants To Be An Extremist?
by James Braly 12/31/2006Neighborhood: 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 [...]
More or Less How It Got To Be 4 O’Clock
by Bill Teitelbaum 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
Six months out of college, with an undergraduate degree in English literature and still operating on the assumption that my real life had not yet begun, I was offered a job conducting interviews for a market research company. The firm occupied a converted warehouse in a Garden City industrial park, but most of my assignments [...]
Christmas with Fidel
by Susan Connell-Mettauer 12/16/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
Most people I knew in 1969 thought they would live for ever or die young and pretty. Consequences for bold acts were not important, although less for some than others. I, for example, could push things just so far. There were no lawyers in my family, no connections, no one to bail me out of [...]
Aging of Aquarius
by Catherine Bergart 12/01/2006Neighborhood: Gramercy Park
The first time I was interviewed by a child was in the dotcom era. The spiky-haired, droopy-butted-jeans wearing creative director greeted me when I got off the elevator in the loft-like Chelsea space. “Great . . . Wow,” I said, feigning interest in the “hang out” room and basketball hoops he mumbled on about as [...]
