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You are currently browsing stories tagged with On the Waterfront
The Circle Line
by Mary Gordon 04/02/2013Neighborhood: Across the River, All Over, Featured
She throws an envelope onto the kitchen table, vaguely in my direction. She has written my name on it, and underlined it twice. I know what’s in it: it’s my birthday and inside it there will be, as always, a check. I am only ten-years-old, and I do not exactly know what to do with [...]
Zone A
by Tom Diriwachter 02/27/2013Neighborhood: Featured, Staten Island
Hurricane Irene bared down on the East Coast, while my mother was in the Vent Unit of Staten Island University Hospital, on a respirator and recovering from her second abdominal surgery. Located in South Beach, designated Zone A, the hospital faced mandatory evacuation. A team of medical personnel, including her surgeon, the Director of the [...]
A Comparative Analysis of the Heroic Exploits of Antarctic Explorer Ernest Shackleton and Downtown Resident Brent Shearer During The Five-Night “Sandy” Blackout
by Brent Shearer 02/07/2013Neighborhood: Lower East Side, Tribeca
October 1915 - Shackleton's ship the Endurance crushed by ice after drifting for nine months. October 28, 2012 - 7:30 pm: Shearer hikes two blocks from residence at 90 Hudson St., #6B, to Hudson River with stated goal of checking out storm surge and keeping feet dry. Forced to wade through three feet of water [...]
Ellis Island
by Robert Viscusi 02/03/2013Neighborhood: Ellis Island
The following sonnets are excerpted from Robert Viscusi's forthcoming book, Ellis Island, which will be published in March 2013 by Bordighera Press. Random arrangements of lines from the 624 sonnets that comprise this epic work can be discovered via the Random Sonnet Generator at ellisislandpoem.com. This is the first time these poems have appeared as written [...]
Pizza at the End of the World
by Tom Diriwachter 01/15/2013Neighborhood: Featured, Staten Island
My apartment building, across from the ferry, in the St. George neighborhood of Staten Island, fared well against Sandy. From my window, I saw the water rise above the seawall, and swallow the municipal parking lot, but situated on the hill, I never felt threatened. When the power went out, I was watching a DVD [...]
Hurricane Kingdom
by Marie A. Sabatino 01/07/2013Neighborhood: Featured, Lower East Side
It was like the prom. Only it wasn’t the prom. It was Hurricane Sandy. All the anxious preparation, the heart slightly aflutter, the pure angst and nervous excitement all at once. What to buy in advance, who to spend the night with, hell, even what to wear. It was Monday afternoon on the Lower East [...]
SMASHING KNIVES
by peter nolan smith 12/28/2012Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Midtown
In the Greater Depression the employment opportunities for a man my age were limited in New York. No company wanted to pay my worth, for a younger man will do the job for a third the wage and his knowledge of labor resistance is zero. However my absolute willingness to work has overcome most obstacles [...]
Hurricanes in the Hamptons
by Karen A. Frenkel 11/26/2012Neighborhood: East Hampton, Uncategorized
One glorious and balmy summer weekend in the late 1990s, I sat in the house my parents built for their retirement, enjoying the spectacular view of Gardiner’s Bay. A flotilla of sailboats lilted in the wind, guided by red buoys that demarcated a channel in the otherwise shallow waters. My gaze shifted southeast, towards Napeague, [...]
On Randall’s Island
by Candy Schulman 10/18/2012Neighborhood: Randall's Island
Why am I on Randall’s Island, shivering in a ski jacket, gloves, a scarf, and a blanket wrapped around me? It is 7 PM on a Friday evening, and I can see the Manhattan skyline lights flickering on. Normal people—sane people—are warm in bars, toasting pisco sours instead of facing blustering winds on Randall’s Island. [...]
A Walk on Columbia Street
by Tina Portelli 08/01/2012Neighborhood: Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Featured
If you never saw Columbia Street before 1960, you missed a lot. The street is still there; the sidewalks, the street sign, but the stores, the people, the charm are all gone. That strip of avenue is unrecognizable, now lined with barrack type housing and no character at all. The house where I was born [...]
On Turtle Bay
by Kevin Kinsella 11/11/2011Neighborhood: Featured, On the Waterfront, Turtle Bay
Twice weekly, we ride the ferry across the East River from the India Avenue landing in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn to 34th Street on the Island of Manhattan. Two hours later, we make the return trip. Each time we come aboard, the pilot, the bill of his cap pulled low on his brow, greets [...]
Where To Begin
by Kate Erickson 10/14/2011Neighborhood: Upper West Side
I was late to the 79th Street Boat Basin, which meant I had missed the introductions of name and sailing experience. Convenient, since of the two, I had only a name. My new boss was telling us our mooring was at NW2. I scanned the orientation packet: bowline, jib, vang. I had thought the position [...]
