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Passing For 62
by Kent 12/15/2011Neighborhood: Uncategorized, Union Square, Williamsburg
Every Spring, tennis players in New York City who want to play on the city courts have to buy a tennis permit. The Parks Department doubled the price this year to $200 for an adult permit. Seniors only pay $20 . If I can pass for 62, I’ll save $180. I'm unemployed. The first time [...]
Bear Patrol
by Rob Williams 07/19/2011Neighborhood: Featured, Midtown, Park Slope
The door to Karen’s office was open and I waved a little hello as I entered, indicating that I would only be a second. Karen was the creative director at the magazine publisher where I was freelancing as a copy editor. I thought there was something cozy about her, something very motherly, in a distracted [...]
Cy’s Place
by JB McGeever 07/19/2011Neighborhood: Midtown
The voice on the phone is asking what I see, and since this is the third time we’ve spoken, I’m feeling a bit chummy. “Police cruisers,” I say, taking in the block. “A whole shit load.” We’ve been tracking each other since Penn Station, this voice and I, for precautionary reasons I’m told, and this [...]
A Bar called B-Side
by Matt Proctor 04/17/2011Neighborhood: East Village
A skinhead handed Henry a beer. When you’re alone, other loners find you, and they are often alone because they’re fucking weird and the Lower East Side of New York City has the most professional weirdoes on the planet. “Mickey Skin,” he said. He ran his hand over his scalp, then held his fist in [...]
Balloon Man
by Donald Dewey 01/24/2011Neighborhood: All Over
Connie was all for being a hooker, but Martin wasn’t. Connie wanted to be in the movie, Martin didn’t want her to be unless she played a nun, a Red Cross worker, or the head of the National Academy of Sciences. The trouble was, there were no parts for nuns, Red Cross workers, or heads [...]
Life Imitates Art
by Kelly Kreth 01/24/2011Neighborhood: Midtown
This weekend I went to see a film called The Wrestler. I am quite neurotic about going to the movies. Because in New York City, theaters, especially on weekends, tend to fill up and sell out quickly, I make it a point to show up about an hour early. I feel panicked when there are [...]
And Bingo Was Her Name
by Christine Nieland 02/06/2010Neighborhood: Greenwich Village, West Village
She looked like a collection of spheres stuck together to represent the female body. Round little torso, round little head, protruding chipmunk cheeks like those on the marionettes on that TV show “Spitting Image.” Dark little eyes that glared from some bottomless well of anger and pain. Her mail came addressed to two completely different [...]
Lick Us
by Kurt Rademacher 09/01/2008Neighborhood: Midtown
It’s 31 degrees on the third Saturday in February and I’m ignoring everyone on 9th Avenue. I am not a native and my ability to ignore is still a blunt instrument, numbing when engaged, so that walking down the street feels a bit like being led by a string out of a dark tunnel into [...]
Mystery Goat Man at Lincoln Center
by Monika Romare Fisher 06/08/2008Neighborhood: Manhattan
“You are beautiful.” “Thanks,” I say, looking up from my monitor to face the man expressing the compliment. To my disappointment he is much older than me and resembles a crooked, worn goat, with strangly strands of grey hair, shaped in a horseshoe around his baldness. He does not fit into the sterile library environment [...]
Magic City: Not In Our Town
by Patrick J. Sauer 12/22/2007Neighborhood: Across the River, Bronx
One of the great, underrated things about living in New York is meeting all those people who come from everywhere else. Not that Gotham natives aren’t a barrel of monkeys, but it’s cool that someone always seems to have a different frame-of-reference, a different slice of life about where they came from, which is my [...]
You’re in the Quiet Car
by Hal Sirowitz 10/09/2007Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
“Whether you know it or not, you’re in the Quiet Car,” the conductor announced. “That means you have made a commitment to silence. The first obligation is to shut off your cell phones. And just because the train stops at a station doesn’t give you the right to turn it back on to listen to [...]
Malice at the Brooklyn Central Library
by Catherine Pearson 06/14/2007Neighborhood: Brooklyn
On a damp Saturday afternoon, in the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, my boyfriend, Ben, is attacked. We share a table on the second floor—I study, Ben reads—when a pale, rangy teenager approaches us. He pauses, then begins to slam Ben’s face with a volume of Compton’s Encyclopedia. “Stop being condescending,” the boy [...]
