Where Am I?
You are currently browsing stories tagged with Sweet and Sour
Hurricanes in the Hamptons
by Karen A. Frenkel 11/26/2012Neighborhood: East Hampton, Uncategorized
One glorious and balmy summer weekend in the late 1990s, I sat in the house my parents built for their retirement, enjoying the spectacular view of Gardiner’s Bay. A flotilla of sailboats lilted in the wind, guided by red buoys that demarcated a channel in the otherwise shallow waters. My gaze shifted southeast, towards Napeague, [...]
Letting Go of My Faux Boyfriend
by Nina Camp 11/13/2012Neighborhood: All Over, Citifield, Midtown, Tribeca
Last week I officially let go of my faux-boyfriend. The moment of truth happened in a lavender room with a gray sofa and wooden lectern at the Office of the City Clerk on Worth Street. Jamie and Tomoko said, “I do,” and smiled. They kissed each other and thanked the clerk. I waited for something [...]
Crust, Mantle, Core
by Sara Lippmann 10/23/2012Neighborhood: Bay Ridge, Featured
A sinkhole is threatening to swallow up 79th Street in Bay Ridge. Police, fire, city workers are on the scene. Supposedly, the sewers had something to do with it.“The beginning of the end,” laments a longstanding neighborhood resident on local TV. He is wearing a trucker hat and gold chain and undershirt. Behind him, elders [...]
It’s Not A Cult
by Zola Acker 10/10/2012Neighborhood: All Over, Featured, JFK/LGA, Letter From Abroad
"I have to get to New York" says the woman in front of me at the Portland, Oregon airport. "You don't understand, I have to get there." She repeats this urgently, in a slightly hysterical voice to a man in uniform behind a counter. I smile at her sympathetically. The flight to JFK has been [...]
When the Therapist Lost Her Mind
by Raanan Geberer 10/03/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Gramercy Park, Stuyvesant Town
My wife Sarah and I had been seeing our therapist, Brenda, for years - both separately and as a couple. When I met Sarah, she was already seeing Brenda, who was then in training to be a psychiatric social worker after a long career as a high school social worker and Spanish teacher. After we [...]
Doc Pomus
by Mary Shanley 10/03/2012Neighborhood: Upper West Side
My songwriter friend Robin called me with an opportunity to make some easy money, fast. She gave me the name and address of a friend of hers and, although I was pretty busy kicking drugs and booze, I jumped at the chance of making some money. I hopped the number two express on Seventh Avenue [...]
Larry’s Bench
by Elizabeth S Titus 09/25/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Upper West Side
Larry Polshansky, dead. I cannot believe this. He wasn’t that much older than my husband, Gregory, who died of melanoma at age 56, five years ago. Larry chain-smoked, I remember. Maybe it was lung cancer that got him. I am walking my two dogs, Sophie, an eager-to-please golden retriever, and Henry Longfellow, a less-than-eager-to-please piebald [...]
Thanksgiving 1979
by Robert Scherma 09/07/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Gravesend
At a Scherma family holiday meal there was usually mayhem. Thirty people including Sadie, chief chef, and Frank and their four sons and their families and friends and Aunt Angie sat around a set of long tables. The youngest kids were placed nearby at a separate table. There was always too much food and the [...]
You Go
by Elizabeth S Titus 08/30/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Upper West Side
I have two photos of my daughter Lili on my desk, one taken in front of the the Brownstone School on West 80th Street in New York City in September 1996, the other taken at Ithaca College just a few days ago. I also have one of those acrylic, etched pieces she gave me for [...]
Cross Streets
by Trevor Laurence Jockims 08/28/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Upper East Side, West Village
I was running late for a new faculty meeting at NYU. "411 Lafayette," I said, jumping into a cab. The driver looked at me in the mirror with squinting, my-English-is-not-great eyes. "411 LA-FAY-ETTE," I said, raising my voice, hoping to hurry us along. I checked the time: If traffic was very light I might—might—make it [...]
The Problem With Bliss
by Risa Mickenberg 07/12/2012Neighborhood: Uncategorized, Upper West Side
Her niece laughed in his face and squirmed out of his grasp and ran down the hall and slammed the bathroom door. Her fiancé stomped out of the room and she could hear him pounding on the bathroom door and her niece shrieking. It was good, so good that they all got along. Her brother, [...]
Baby Fever
by Samuel Howard 07/07/2012Neighborhood: Cobble Hill, Featured
My wife and I live on the ground floor of a brownstone in Brooklyn's Cobble Hill. Freak luck. I'd never last the brutal NYC housing quest, let alone land in such a choice spot. But just when we resolved to move out of my brother's spare matchbox bedroom years back, a friend with connections gave [...]
