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A Snow Storm in Brooklyn
by Flo Gelo 09/07/2009Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Williamsburg
A tree grows in Brooklyn, and snow falls. Both are scarce, as were friendships on Madison Street. My only friend was a girl my age whose single mother was a police officer. Only once was I invited to her house to play. It was a row house like mine with three long rooms: windows in [...]
The Funny Company
by Peter Cherches 08/16/2009Neighborhood: Midtown
Morty Gunty grew up in my neighborhood. Morty Gunty was a two-bit standup comic. Morty Gunty played himself in Woody Allen’s film “Broadway Danny Rose.” Both Morty and Woody went to my high school, Midwood High, but Morty doesn’t rate a Wikipedia mention. Perhaps his greatest exposure was as the backup host for the Cerebal [...]
My First (And Only) Paid Appearance as a Violin Soloist
by Philip Wesler 08/25/2008Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
Most violin students must diligently practice on their instruments many hours a day, for many years, before even thinking of turning professional. Some may give it up long before they become proficient. And even should they pursue their musical studies, and become skilled at playing the violin, there are only a limited number of professional [...]
Remembering a Barber Shop
by Philip Wesler 06/01/2008Neighborhood: Jamaica, Queens
Some years ago, I came across a story in a magazine, possibly The New Yorker, entitled “Emil J. Paidar”. That name struck a familiar chord. I had seen it staring at me so often from the footrests of the barber chairs where I had my hair cut, in my early childhood, that it was practically [...]
What My Daughter Heard On The Balcony
by Yuliya Chernova 10/24/2006Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Outer Boroughs
After my daughter was born, I spent part of each day on the balcony of our third-floor apartment in Sheepshead Bay, rocking her in her stroller. Even when chilly, we’d sit out. Just like her mama and papa when they were little in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sasha has spent much of her first year wrapped [...]
Blood Brothers
by Evan Ginzburg 08/24/2006Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Flatbush
Edgar was a nice kid. He was soft-spoken and respectful and called my mom “Ma’am.” (I had never called anyone “Ma’am” in my life.) Edgar had to be coaxed over and over before he relented and agreed to call my dad “Artie” like the rest of the kids did. Edgar wasn’t handsome like Peter, or stocky [...]
The Circle Be Unbroken
by Albert Stern 08/14/2006Neighborhood: East Village
Adam Purple cycled by me as I walked down Second Avenue near 3rd Street early on a sunny spring morning. It was nothing unusual—in the past twenty-five years he has pedaled by me dozens of times while making his rounds below 14th Street. A few weeks earlier, I had seen a photograph of Mr. Purple’s long-since [...]
Scrambling Along the Roots and Rocks
by Jessica Allen 08/10/2006Neighborhood: Harlem
We took the train to the very top of Manhattan, exiting the subway into a neighborhood of large boulevards and boarded-up storefronts. Black sedans cruised by and occasionally stopped to ask us if we needed a taxi. At 9:30 on a Sunday morning, it was already steamy. This was only our fifth Sunday in the city. [...]
Scenes from a Jewish Girlhood
by Alice Elman 07/19/2006Neighborhood: Bronx, East Bronx
On my corner of 167th Street and Grant Avenue in the Bronx was a small grocery that sold “Appetizers”—dairy foods, pickles, milk, eggs, and fresh tub butter and cheeses in large refrigerated glass cases. The owners were refugees. From the War, my mother said. I was twelve and that War had ended fifteen years ago. [...]
Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood’s Greatest Hits: A Truncated Retrospective
by The Editors 06/09/2006Neighborhood: Multiple, SoHo
Hello. The 6th Anniversary of Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood is here, and the time has come to pay tribute to the site’s past. So many pieces are coming in all the time, piling up on the surface of the site, that it’s easy to forget how much terrific work has accumulated in the deeper layers of [...]
The Information Superhighway, Circa 1870
by Matthew Wills 06/03/2006Neighborhood: Chelsea
Right up until the time men started to stop wearing hats, the city was woven together by a network of pneumatic tubes that connected post offices and major buildings. A letter took seven minutes to go from Manhattan’s 32nd Street to downtown Brooklyn through this Pneumatic Tube System, or PTS. Making use of the city’s [...]
The Last Police Chief
by William Bryk 06/03/2006Neighborhood: Chelsea
The Mail and Express reported appointment as a patrolman cost $300, promotion to sergeant, $1,400, and advancement to captain, $14,000. Policemen made back their investments by taking bribes. As Luc Sante observed of Big Bill in his book Low Life, "It was well known that he was corrupt; he in fact admitted as much quite readily." [...]
