Where Am I?
You are currently browsing stories tagged with Out of Towners
Gratuity
by Robin Kilmer 12/30/2011Neighborhood: West Village
Everyone thinks the French are so cute. But I’m a waitress, so I know better. I deal with plenty of tourists. I don’t mind them while they’re at the restaurant and I do my best to decipher their accents and answer their questions—though I do draw a blank when they ask me where all the [...]
The Asian Bug
by Joseph Scalia 02/20/2011Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
The Asian bug has bitten my younger son Jesse. I don’t mean the flu that comes around every several years and gets blamed on that continent. No, he has been smitten by the mysterious East, and, like Marco Polo, fallen under the spell of the Orient. He is dating an Asian girl. Not that there [...]
Found in Translation?
by Danielle Ofri 10/26/2010Neighborhood: Featured, Midtown
“Je m’a…,” I’d stuttered to Aristede Mezondes, the serious young man in a grey wool overcoat, standing before me with ramrod posture. “Je m’appelle Dr. Ofri.” There. I’d gotten it out. The language of Descartes, Voltaire, and Balzac had clearly vacated my cortex. Despite those years of French classes and one brief visit to Paris, [...]
The Magic Life of the City
by Sherri Rosen 03/25/2010Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
It was a lousy and bleak first Sunday in May. I walked into City Hall Park, in my neighborhood, and Richard the gardener greeted me and introduced me to the other volunteers. “Can I pull out the tulips?” I said to Richard. “ My knees are in bad shape and I’m afraid of making them [...]
Becoming American in New York
by Sabine Heinlein 10/01/2009Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint
When asked why I left Germany for New York, I have two answers, depending on my mood and on the patience of the listener. The short answer is: I fell in love with an American. The second answer is: On our birthdays my sisters and I were given pieces of silverware from a prestigious German [...]
Almost Feeding the Hungry
by Jeff Kyle, Jr. 05/20/2009Neighborhood: Midtown
I live in New Jersey. That means that I have been known to frequent Manhattan as a somewhat out of place and bemused bridge and tunneler. A friend of mine is a rising star in the New York music scene. (This means that she occasionally gets a free beer and sometimes she even gets paid!) [...]
Barney’s Christmas Spectacular
by Guy Patrick Cunningham 11/18/2008Neighborhood: Midtown
My legs ached, but we had nothing else to do so we kept circling the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree over and over again. All I had on was this long brown jacket that looked like a cross between a trench coat and a windbreaker. It provided no warmth at all, but I was convinced it [...]
Escape to the Tip of the Island
by Tricia Capistrano 11/10/2008Neighborhood: Inwood
When I was 14, and living in an affluent, gated community in Manila, a handsome young boy from our neighborhood gave me a sapphire pendant. We were both members of a church youth group and were attending a party for new members. It was early evening. As our friends ate pork kabobs by the pool, [...]
José and the System
by Michael E. Miller 09/01/2008Neighborhood: Union Square
As he sits on the railing in Union Square Park, surrounded by hundreds of young men and women absorbing the first warm day of the year, José’s hands move nervously over a bottle of orange juice. On the label is an idyllic American farm, no doubt in some far-off corner of the country, where the [...]
Welcome to Washington Heights
by Kristen Bonardi Rapp 08/05/2008Neighborhood: Washington Heights
The day I moved to Washington Heights, a kid stood on the sidewalk and stared at me. And not a trying-not-to stare, either; a slack-jawed, wide-eyed, rooted-to-the-spot stare. It was sweltering that day—the first day of summer—and even though it wasn’t the most practical choice for moving day, I wore one of those tank tops [...]
A Blue Chicken, and My First Naked Lady
by Tom Diriwachter 06/22/2008Neighborhood: Chinatown
Growing up on Staten Island, a trip to Manhattan, while covering only several miles, and less than an hour away, was an adventure. There are things I remember about “going to the city” from my childhood. I remember holding my ears and laughing when the horn of the Staten Island Ferry sounded. I remember eating [...]
Tolerance
by Paul Vidich 06/08/2008Neighborhood: Times Square
I didn’t know I had a problem until the telephone call. It was 2:31 a.m. I know the exact time because we have a digital clock by our bedside phone. I lay in bed next to Linda in my mismatched pajamas because we’d come home slightly drunk at midnight from Balthazar and I couldn’t find [...]
