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Street Ball
by Thomas Beller 08/09/2009Neighborhood: West Village
Poke, poke, poke went his finger against my head. I was playing basketball at my local basketball court and some static had developed between me and a guy nicknamed Homicide. I stared straight ahead, trying to ignore his jabbing finger. “You stink!” he yelled, barking right into my face. “You know that?” He was six three, [...]
You Gotta Believe
by Emily Meg Weinstein 07/02/2009Neighborhood: Queens, Shea Stadium
My best friend Rebecca’s birthday present this year was two tickets to see the Mets at Shea Stadium. After a bag search and full-body metal-detector sweeping, we made it to our seats just in time to sit out the national anthem. I like to get to a ball game on time, if only for the [...]
The Hidden Deal: Underground Poker in NYC
by JB McGeever 05/20/2009Neighborhood: Across the River, Queens
The story was supposed to begin here at an illegal poker hall in Queens called The River, but The River ran dry and I’m left staring at a blackened door with a mailbox next to it that says, FISH. It must have been a marker or tag for new players to locate the building. Fish [...]
The Duke of Rock
by Peter Nolan Smith 05/08/2009Neighborhood: East Village
Tompkins Square Park had basketball courts. Full-court games were played close to Avenue B. Half-court was against the fences of the asphalt baseball field on Avenue A. Players were 50% neighborhood and 50% from the rest of the city. The quality of the competition was not up to West 4th Street or 125th Street, but [...]
How I Got All of New York to Cheer For Me On My Morning Run
by Connor Gaudet 05/08/2009Neighborhood: All Over, Multiple
This past 2nd of November, I walked two blocks from my apartment to 4th Ave in Brooklyn to watch the 38th running of the New York City Marathon. However, rather than being inspired, I immediately felt jealous. The cheering crowd shouting the runner’s names and shared nationalities as they ran by giving a quick nod [...]
A Visit with the Madison Avenue Sports Car Driving and Chowder Society
by Patrick J. Sauer 11/18/2008Neighborhood: Midtown
Shortly after noon on October 7, a Harpo Marx horn was blown four times and the monthly Madison Avenue Sports Car Driving and Chowder Society meeting came to order. Founded in 1957 by CBS Radio executive Art Peck and advertising executive King Moore to generate media for car enthusiasts, the Society meets monthly to talk auto [...]
The View from Ebbets Field, 60 Years after Jackie Robinson Broke Baseball’s Color Barrier
by Cannon Kinnard 11/10/2008Neighborhood: Across the River, Brooklyn
Photo by Cannon Kinnard The faded green sign at 1700 Bedford Avenue that reads “NO BALL PLAYING” has had tenants of Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field Apartments laughing at the irony, as they walk across the street to Jackie Robinson Park to play ball. This is the former site of Ebbets Field baseball park; home of the Brooklyn Dodgers [...]
Marie’s Golden Cue
by J.H. Palmer 10/04/2008Neighborhood: All Over, Brooklyn
A couple Sundays ago my husband and I played pool, something I haven’t done in years. I’d been invited to an appreciation party for volunteers of the Old Town School of Folk Music, a Chicago institution that recently celebrated it’s 50th anniversary. I’ve never attended an OTSFM volunteer party, but this one took place about [...]
Requiem for William A. Shea Municipal Stadium
by Kevin Nolan 08/26/2008Neighborhood: Across the River, Queens
The Mets new home, Citi Field looms in the outfield at Shea Stadium. (Photo: Kevin Nolan) I recall being shocked the first time I heard someone call Shea Stadium a shithole. He was a stranger, a gray-haired man in a mesh Mets cap, missing several bicuspids and an incisor. I was a wee boy walking across [...]
Surviving the 5 Boro Bike Tour
by Bryan Charles 06/01/2008Neighborhood: All Over, Manhattan
This winter I spent two months in Michigan working on a book. Halfway through my stay my girlfriend called and said her parents were visiting New York soon, coming from California to ride in the annual Five Boro Bike Tour. She said they wanted us to do it with them. I said I’d think about [...]
Small Claims is a War of Attrition
by Sarah Miller-Davenport 04/06/2008Neighborhood: Lower East Side
It is a cool, dry August evening and I am in a windowless room at 111 Centre Street. I leave New York, the city of my birth, in less than a week. Yet, through a series of escalating events, I choose to be here, stubbornly clinging to the dream of winning back a minor sum [...]
Where We’re From
by Jeanette Thornton 04/06/2008Neighborhood: Upper West Side
It is rare, in New York, so I’ve noticed, that conversations pop up with strangers but I have experienced a few. I was in the bakery down the street from my apartment on the Upper West Side, the one with only two tables and a line out the door, and I was searching for the [...]
