You are currently browsing the stories about the Uncategorized neighborhood
A Dark and Stormy Night
by Christina Maile 01/07/2013Neighborhood: Uncategorized, West Village
Three days after a storm that could have easily been called Gidget or Bob in keeping with the unintended frivolity of its real name – Sandy, two people are sitting on a bench in a dark chaotic lobby of an artists’ residence on the west side of Manhattan. One, a sculptor, is waiting for her [...]
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, [...]
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, [...]
All That They Can Be?
by JB McGeever 05/16/2012Neighborhood: Bushwick, Ridgewood, Uncategorized
The local recruiter is at my classroom door again and I really wish he’d stop doing this. When I explain that there are designated areas throughout the building for him to speak with students or ‘potential recruits’ as they’re called in his line of work, he apologizes profusely. In fact, his demeanor and etiquette is [...]
175 Bleecker Street
by Mary Shanley 02/13/2012Neighborhood: Greenwich Village, Uncategorized
Annie was the whitest, white girl I ever did see. A walking anemic, she looked in perpetual need of a blood transfusion. If she were to walk through the halls of the high school dragging an I.V. pole with a bag of blood hanging off the top, I don’t think anybody would have batted an [...]
Shana Tova!
by Simone Rainey 01/19/2012Neighborhood: Prospect Heights, Uncategorized
It was Rosh Hashana, 2010, and I had just moved into yet another new apartment, as I tend to do about once a year, sometimes twice. This place seemed good enough to fully unpack for, though, so there were boxes strewn around the floor, some open, some still taped tightly shut, waiting. But as much [...]
Talking Back: My First Encounter with the Human Microphone
by Jean Garnett 12/31/2011Neighborhood: Financial District, Uncategorized
I first visited Occupy Wall Street on a chilly evening in the middle of October. A few hundred people were gathered near the eastern steps of Zuccotti Park for the nightly meeting of the General Assembly. On the steps a young man was shrieking inaudibly. A few yards away, a jackhammer was being applied to [...]
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 [...]
We Had Never Heard of Pearl Harbor
by FRED J ABRAHAMS 12/09/2011Neighborhood: Featured, Uncategorized, Upper West Side
I hated Saturdays. We had been moderately observant Jews in the small German town where we had lived before we fled to the US. The trauma and anxiety of starting over in a new land with two young children and the horror stories that were filtering out of Europe pushed my mother towards the security [...]
Payback
by Ann Mintz 12/01/2011Neighborhood: Midtown, Uncategorized
My first real job was in a recording studio on 8th Avenue and 44th Street, producing movie commercials for broadcast on the radio. I was the second engineer, which sounds a lot more impressive than it was. I set up microphones, recorded the talent, edited sound effects and music, layered the voice over the background [...]
Dr. Shoe
by Lisa Bergtraum 12/01/2011Neighborhood: Uncategorized, Upper West Side
The next time your life coach tells you to reinvent yourself, think of this. During the years I worked on West 57th Street, I would sometimes browse in Daffy's, a discount department store. I grew to expect to see (and hear) a certain salesperson who roamed the women's shoe department, intoning, "Doctor Shoe here! Doctor [...]
The Red Berets
by Quilty 11/11/2011Neighborhood: Midtown, Restaurant Row, Uncategorized
In my youth I wore a red beret. Twenty-some years ago, I was a New York City Guardian Angel who patrolled Restaurant Row with Curtis Sliwa and his wife, Lisa, and about ten other vigilantes. We were a small group who made a lot of noise. We also patrolled the “A” train, which we nicknamed [...]
