You are currently viewing the stories for January, 2003
Becoming A Badass
by Cara O'Flynn 01/31/2003Neighborhood: East Village
A guy with his earlobes stretched around bingo chips and a bullring through his septum pulled a box of nose studs from the glass case. “How do they stay in?” I asked. “It’s a coil and it rests against the outside of your nostril,” he said, making a swirling motion with his finger. I chose […]
Kansas City Justin
by A. Leigh 01/28/2003Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Williamsburg
I’ve been dating a Mid-western man for the past two months. Well, it’s actually been one month that I’ve been dating him, and one month that he’s been away in Florida “visiting his mother.” This man happens to be the oldest I have ever dated–41–ten years my senior. Perfect, I thought. Older, more mature, has […]
Farewell George’s Five-Dollar Shave
by Scott Schnipper 01/26/2003Neighborhood: Financial District
Along about now, dozens of shaggy guys prowl the streets of New York, looking for a new barber, wondering where and from whose hands their next haircut and a shave are going to come now that the State Barber Shop has closed and Giorgio Campli retired. George left for Italy a few weeks back. There, […]
Crossing The Brooklyn Ferry
by Walt Whitman 01/25/2003Neighborhood: Brooklyn
1. Flood-Tide below me! I see you face to face! Clouds of the west-sun there half an hour high–I see you also face to face. Crowds of men and women attired in the unusual cos- tumes, how curious you are to me! On the ferry boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are […]
Nina Talbot’s Shoppers
by Nina Talbot 01/25/2003Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Flatbush
For the last two years Nina Talbot has been photographing people at her local ShopRite in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, and painting their portraits. Or, more accurately, she’s been painting portraits of the store. "I look for subjects that are close to home," she says. "Whenever I shop I take my camera. I tell […]
Old Boilers and Old Men
by Nick Mamatas 01/20/2003Neighborhood: All Over, Letter From Abroad
P> My boiler broke in February, after the pedestal sink on the second floor of my home gave way and tipped over, thanks to an aging sixpenny nail. The upstairs bathroom quickly filled with water and began seeping through the gaps in the floor’s tile grout. The ceiling of my kitchen, on the first floor, […]
Kristopher Medina: Stunt Double
by Interview by John Bowe 01/20/2003Neighborhood: Greenwich Village
In 1991, I was a student at New York University, working at a bookstore, and this woman came up to me out of nowhere and basically asked me to come audition for her film. She was a casting director for this PBS Masterpiece Theater thing. The part was for a quote-unquote “little person.” I’m four […]
Mr. Impatient
by Tim Traynor 01/20/2003Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint
Wonders of Modern Commuting, Part 1: At around 8:25 every day, Mr. Impatient’s train pulls up to the Greenpoint platform. Mr. Impatient is a G(1) train conductor who is always in a very big hurry to get the train where it’s going. I have yet to get a glimpse of him, but I can hear […]
London Terrace Diary: In The Elevator
by Dean Smith 01/20/2003Neighborhood: Chelsea
Quality of life during my ten-year stay in London Terrace Gardens (the ten-building brick behemoth spanning an entire square block at Ninth avenue and 23rd Street) was greatly enhanced by the presence of elevator men. These were resourceful men, mostly of Hispanic descent who grew up in Chelsea, who kept watch over the building, picked […]
The Ghost of Uncle Dick
by Text and Pictures by Josh Gilbert 01/20/2003Neighborhood: All Over, Letter From Abroad
I just got back from Uncle Dick’s funeral service out in Cortez, Colorado. I didn’t know Dick alive, but I got to know him pretty well during his memorial service, and then later staying at his house while Cheryl’s mother tied up some of his personal affairs. From all traces Dick was an authentic man’s […]
A few scenes from the Pen Literary Gala
by Thomas Beller 01/20/2003Neighborhood: Upper West Side
Paul Simon did not wear a tux. He sat by the fountain in the middle of Lincoln Center, a photographer by his side, and another guy, a journalist? Several people wandered up to him. He seemed very approachable, as though he wanted to chat in the pleasant evening light. He wore a tweed jacket and […]
Shoot-Out at the Plaza Hotel
by Matthew Higgins 01/19/2003Neighborhood: Midtown
I arrived in New York during the summer of 2000 from somewhere else. It doesn’t matter where because nowhere else is like New York. Like most newcomers I was awed by the spectacle. I stole glances at the sky from the sidewalk while I tried to keep pace with other pedestrians. I walked the streets […]