Where Am I?
You are currently browsing stories tagged with Sports and Recreation
A Forgotten Game
by Peter Wortsman 03/27/2012Neighborhood: Jackson Heights
I don’t know who invented the game or whether it is still played today. Slap Ball had a brief vogue in New York City schoolyards in the early Sixties, and in Jackson Heights, Queens, where I grew up, it attained minor cult status as the game of choice for the physically challenged. A welcome alternative [...]
Date Night At The Gambling Den
by Elioutte Green 02/15/2012Neighborhood: Midtown
My husband has figured out a way to play poker round the clock, save when he is at work, in the shower, reading a book or in bed sleeping. He plays it on his phone against other poker enthusiasts in round-the-clock online tournaments. It doesn’t bother me – he’s not the type to bet [...]
King of Handball
by Raanan Geberer 01/24/2012Neighborhood: Brooklyn Heights, Featured
By any standards, Mark Margolies, who is now in his late sixties, lived an uneventful life. He was modest and soft-spoken. Even after he graduated from Brooklyn College, he lived with his parents until he was 30, mainly staying in his room, working only sporadically, and reading philosophy books. Then, on a weekend hiking trip, [...]
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 [...]
Overheated In Gravesend
by Candy Schulman 06/20/2011Neighborhood: Gravesend
It’s hot. We have one air conditioner and one TV. The TV is black-and-white; the air conditioner is in my parents’ bedroom. I usually sleep with my door wide open, letting in a cool breeze from the back door to our attached row house, the access to our backyard. Back then no one imagines someone [...]
The Haters: The Angriest Softball Team in New York City
by Patrick J. Sauer 10/01/2009Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Williamsburg
Last August, on a brutally hot Sunday afternoon, after a debilitating outdoor 90-degree basketball game courtesy of The Word bookstore league, I was shuffling along the sidewalks from Greenpoint to the Bedford L stop trying to bring my core temperature below triple-digits. Needing a respite, I stopped to watch a softball game on a playground [...]
The Greatest Game
by Ron West 07/19/2009Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
Some people say the 1958 NFL Championship game between New York and Baltimore was the greatest game ever played. Some say it was the playoff game where Carlton Fisk hit that home run. Some say it was the 1980 Olympics when the US Hockey Team beat the Russians. All those people are wrong because I [...]
Playing Games With Kamran Shirazi
by Thomas Beller 06/04/2006Neighborhood: West Village
Depending on how you look at it, Kamran Shirazi is famous in the world of chess for his flamboyant and innovative style of play, or for his amazing ability to lose, or perhaps both. He cobbles together a living by combining prize money from chess tournaments with fees from chess lessons, for which he charges [...]
A Face in the Crowd
by Thomas Beller 06/03/2006Neighborhood: Chelsea
An odd thing happened during game two of the Knicks’ first round play-off series, against the Indiana Pacers. With a little under six minutes left in the third quarter, the Knicks were fighting there way back from a 10 point deficit, when Anthony Mason made a spectacular reverse dunk. The Pacers immediately called a time [...]
I Wanna Be Sedated: A Night at the Roxy
by Abigail Frankfurt 06/03/2006Neighborhood: Chelsea
Between 10th and 11th avenue, on the north side of 18th street sits the Roxy night club which, on Wednesday nights, houses a medley of characters whom appear to have been pickled by time. Wednesday at the Roxy is “disco night.” Everyone is on roller skates. The speakeasy secrecy of this sub-culture scene contaminates one [...]
A Biker in the City
by Thomas Beller 06/03/2006Neighborhood: Midtown
For some people, a bicycle is something to be taken out for a pleasant jaunt in the park on weekends, an opportunity to feel the breeze in your hair and to coast alongside novice roller bladers whose eyes are wide with terror. Then there are the brave souls who use it to make a living, [...]
The Slump at Shea
by Thomas Beller 05/31/2006Neighborhood: Midtown
1993 Like most of the people who haunt Shea Stadium these days, Steve Calandro is a diehard Mets fan. He’s also a vendor, and the vendors, like the Mets, aren’t having a terribly good year. The vendors work for the Harry M. Stevens Corporation, and when things are slow, as they have been this season, [...]
