You are currently viewing the stories for June, 2000

The Dynamite Brothers Meet The Slapper

by 06/19/2000
Neighborhood: Lower East Side

I was sitting in my 4th floor fire escape window on a hot summer afternoon, watching the sparse street life on 3rd St., a few people sitting around on our buildings stoop, a couple of guys had lawn chairs, a few guys standing outside the bodega…like that. Mine was a junky/hippie building, yeasty like the […]

Extreme on Rivington Street

by 06/04/2000
Neighborhood: Lower East Side

Junkies are ghost-slinking around the block, looking for their man, banging on window gates and ringing doorbells. I scan their eyes for some glimpse of what their lives are like, staring at their rumpled, smack-hunting clothes, matted hair and mottled skin. They only care about taking care of business, up their nose or in their […]

John Epperson: The Real As Imitation

by Thomas Beller 06/03/2000
Neighborhood: West Village

I was at the bar of Florent very late Sunday night. A snow storm was raging outside. Pastis, that seat of slutty mayhem, sat up the block. There are now tastefully bright lights all over the meat packing district, where there was once just meat and the people who packed it. It was strange to […]

Leonardo DiCaprio and Clair Danes in Baz Luhrman’s “Romeo and Juliet”

by Thomas Beller 06/01/2000
Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad

Bewitched by the Charm of Looks (II chorus) “Good morrow!” Leonardo DiCaprio calls out as he arrives on the set of Romeo and Juliet. “Good morrow!” reply a several burly crew members who are struggling with a large piece of equipment–their biceps strain to lift it, but their smiles are easy. Their glance in Leonardo’s […]

The Harmonie Club

by Thomas Beller 06/01/2000
Neighborhood: Upper East Side

This story is part of the novel, The Sleep-Over Artist ** Arnold Gerstein often took friends to his father’s club, the Harmonie, on 61st Street just off Fifth Avenue, where they could “use the facilities” (as Arnold’s father put it) for free. They would shoot hoops on the small basketball court, whose wooden floor had […]