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Citi Something-else Place

by 04/06/2010
Neighborhood: Flushing

“Citi Field,” the New York Mets new home, is a misnomer. Someone needs to coin a word to describe a venue that is part amusement park, food court, a Brooklyn Dodger mini-museum, sports specialty shop, tourist trap, and that by the way, also happens to contain a poorly designed baseball playing field. My first visit [...]

Trolling Whores for Coke: How to Get Started

by 03/17/2010
Neighborhood: Chelsea, Washington Heights

So you’ve got the wife and the kids. You’ve got and are just barely hanging onto, the co-op in the chic enclave, you’re so middle-aged. Some men, finding themselves adrift in a wood in their middle years, go to the gym: I troll whores for coke. After you’ve seen the horrors of Chelsea Pier’s ice [...]

Street Ball

by Thomas Beller 08/09/2009
Neighborhood: 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 [...]

You Gotta Believe

by 07/02/2009
Neighborhood: 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 05/20/2009
Neighborhood: 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 05/08/2009
Neighborhood: 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 05/08/2009
Neighborhood: 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 11/18/2008
Neighborhood: 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 [...]

The View from Ebbets Field, 60 Years after Jackie Robinson Broke Baseball’s Color Barrier

by 11/10/2008
Neighborhood: 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 [...]

Marie’s Golden Cue

by 10/04/2008
Neighborhood: 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 08/26/2008
Neighborhood: 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 [...]

Surviving the 5 Boro Bike Tour

by 06/01/2008
Neighborhood: 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 [...]