You are currently browsing the stories about the Uncategorized neighborhood
Don’t Look
by Jessica Pishko 05/01/2011Neighborhood: Herald Square, Uncategorized
When I took a position at a legal research firm, I became a frequent rider of the subway, sometimes spending more time under than above ground. My new job had me traveling from office to office during the day giving presentations and training attorneys. I hate to drive, so I've never minded the subway. Usually [...]
Lies My Canvasser Told Me
by Mac Barrett 05/01/2011Neighborhood: Herald Square, Uncategorized
I support a poor kid whose name I don’t know in a country I don’t remember the name of, somewhere in South America, I think. This happened because I was stopped on the street on my way to meet a friend for dinner at a nice restaurant, singled out from the after-work stream of people [...]
G-2183
by Phyllis Schieber 05/01/2011Neighborhood: Featured, Uncategorized
When Jeffrey and I argue, my mother always weeps. "Shame on you," she says. "I wish my brother, Shmuel, was still here for me to argue with. Shame on you!" My brother and I hang our heads. We wait for her to leave the room, but she is not yet finished. "Is this what I [...]
The Longevity of Women
by peter nolan smith 04/17/2011Neighborhood: Featured, Uncategorized, Upper West Side
My Uncle Carmine had a theory that the reason for the longevity of women was due to the fact that their sex makes men wait for them and every minute and hour of a man’s waiting is stored within the genetic code of a woman’s body. In America that advantage of life over death is [...]
Half-Blind Faith
by Karen A. Frenkel 04/17/2011Neighborhood: Uncategorized, Upper West Side
I settled into my bus seat, put on my glasses and continued editing my book proposal. As I considered rearranging a few words, the letters seemed to blur. Mist from the April rain, perhaps? I removed my specs and passed my index finger through the ring that should have encircled a lens. I dreaded going [...]
Wurst Lust
by Peter Wortsman 04/11/2011Neighborhood: Featured, Jackson Heights, Uncategorized
What is it, I wonder, about the German fondness for the flesh of the pig and the Jewish abhorrence of it? Like lust, revulsion too is a visceral thing fueled by the same hunger, only in reverse, a passion linked to the salivary glands that passes down the gullet to tantalize and taunt the gut. [...]
Baby Through the Looking Glass
by Patrick J. Sauer 04/11/2011Neighborhood: Lower East Side, Uncategorized
On a brisk bright February afternoon, father and baby daughter entered the Sunshine Theater on Houston Street. A planned Cobble Hill Cinemas screening of Duck Soup the month before had been canceled due to a single-digit temperature (sorry Groucho, Daddy really wanted it), so this was to be the four-month-old infant’s maiden moviegoing voyage. The [...]
Close Shave
by Nicholas Soodik 04/03/2011Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens, Uncategorized
On a steamy afternoon last July, I paid a barber to shave my face. I had no real reason to indulge in this service. I had no company party to attend, no weekend away with the missus scheduled. I didn’t even have firm dinner plans for the night. Like eating and ironing, shaving is one [...]
Low Point at High Point
by Rob Williams 04/03/2011Neighborhood: Featured, Park Slope, Uncategorized
As I walked past High Point Coffee on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, a heavy bag of groceries in each hand, I was surprised, even alarmed, to see that the windows were dim. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet on a warm April evening. However, I reflected as I approached, I am High Point Coffee’s only [...]
69 Years After
by Debbie Nathan 03/24/2011Neighborhood: Featured, Greenwich Village, Lower East Side, Uncategorized
In the spring of 1980 I was a cocky new teacher of English as a Second language, fresh from education grad school, with innovative pedagogy that I couldn’t wait to try out on students. My first job in New York was a gem: "Vocational ESL." It was funded by the feds and I'd gone to [...]
Courting Coincidence
by Cullen McVoy 03/13/2011Neighborhood: Morningside Heights, Uncategorized
With amorous eyes I looked forward to the summer of 1976. Not long out of law school, I had just landed a job with a landlord/tenant law firm in lower Manhattan, and had rented a beach house on Fire Island for the season. I was dating a girl named Elizabeth, and though we had not [...]
My Life Among The Pedicabbers
by Robin Kilmer 02/20/2011Neighborhood: Featured, Midtown, Times Square, Uncategorized
I usually hate Times Square. At its best it is a bunch of light bulbs on steroids, marquees on acid and fluorescence on speed. But no real light penetrates this galaxy as reflected milky ways of neon; garish, overpowering signs and streaming advertisements all compete to be the best travesty of the sun. While light [...]
