Where Am I?
You are currently browsing stories tagged with Out of Towners
The Stuff of Life
by Thomas Beller 12/31/2006Neighborhood: West Village
I only wanted it to be over, even as I dreaded its arrival. For weeks I walked around in a clenched state of anticipation, unaware of how tense I had become. “An adventure or an exile?” I asked myself. I couldn’t decide. A few days before the big move, I was sitting in front of [...]
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 [...]
Only customers come down here: Hell’s Kitchen in 1986
by Roger Sewhcomar 11/10/2006Neighborhood: Clinton
So I found myself on the corner of 45th St and 8th Ave, having arrived ten minutes ago in New York City, October 4th, 1986. I was pretty much sitting in the center of the biggest glut of seed you could find per square inch in any city in the world. Wide-eyed crack heads floated [...]
Snot-Suction Thing
by Elisha Cooper 10/24/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad, West Village
It’s snowing when our plane touches down in Washington, D.C. Christmas morning, cold and dark. The terminal doors slide open and we are hit with a blast of bitter air. We bundle the girl in blankets and she stares through the car windows at the falling flakes of snow. The wipers beat back and forth [...]
Lubricated Intruder
by Michael Signorelli 10/10/2006Neighborhood: Murray Hill
Golden slumbers. I slept like an heir apparent, drifting in satin oblivion from Sunday to Monday. I had been away for the weekend. I had visited my family: my nieces and nephews, my successful older siblings, my mother and father. We did wholesome things as sign of our shared familial concern and love. And for [...]
The Midtown Report: Heightened Security Leads to Homoerotic Fondling/Rescue by Dick & Jane
by J Paul Ghetto 09/16/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
It never fails. When I venture outside of midtown, something extraordinary happens. My muse, Madelaine, had a graduation party last weekend at a new downtown club. I invited The Prince of Darkness to accompany me. The Prince of Darkness works like the devil, so, needless to say, it’s difficult to get him out of his [...]
Tour Guide to the Real New York City
by Kate Walter 06/30/2006Neighborhood: East Village
I have no kids and never wanted any, so I was a bit anxious about playing tour guide for my 14 year old niece, Shannon, on her first visit to New York City. But my brother John said she could not wait to see Manhattan. It was quite a trip for an eighth grader from [...]
Detroit, Detroit, Where Did Our Love Go?
by Ronit Feldman 06/08/2006Neighborhood: All Over
When I was seven years old my mother, ignoring my protests, packed me into the station wagon and drove downtown to the Detroit Institute of Art where I proceeded to vomit on the marble floor. I blamed my sick stomach on a sculpture, but it was more likely the stack of pancakes she fed me [...]
I Hate New York, I Like Beijing
by Mike Connelly 06/04/2006Neighborhood: Chinatown
I am one of those people who can’t stand New York. The first time I was in New York I was mugged by a young Hispanic man wielding a Phillips head screwdriver. It was long ago, I was young, and not about to give him $20, all the money I had. We went into a [...]
The Visitors from Philadelphia
by Benjamin Watson 06/03/2006Neighborhood: Chelsea
I am not from New York, nor have I ever lived there; the result, mostly, of not being a multimillionaire, nor having friends who are multimillionaires. I was living in Philadelphia, New York’s embarrassingly second rate little brother, and had traveled up to “da big city” for the day with my girlfriend, to peruse potential [...]
Unexpected Stories Arising From NYC City Streets
by Janet Mulford 05/31/2006Neighborhood: Midtown
My story is true. Every detail I will relate is exactly as it happened on a beautiful spring day, May 16, 2000. This story starts in Kingston, NY, where four co-workers from the Ulster County Department Of Social Services prepare for a wonderful, exciting day in New York City. At 6:30 a.m. all four women, [...]
Parking Trauma
by Benjamin J. Kirby 05/31/2006Neighborhood: Upper West Side
The flat palm of my hand slammed into the steering wheel again and again. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck ME!” Yes, I was being vulgar — and a bad driver — but it had taken more like five or six hour to get from Washington, D.C. to New York, and now it was going to [...]
