You are currently viewing the stories for February, 2005

Pete’s Gun

by 02/27/2005
Neighborhood: Astoria, Queens

Even though I’ve trained myself in hand-to-hand combat, I’ve never been eager to fight and I always surprise myself if I do something brave in that area. One of my proudest moments came when I was about 18. My friend Angelo was dating a girl Gina who had been seeing this other guy from another […]

On Eavesdropping

by 02/27/2005
Neighborhood: All Over, Multiple

“And three weeks later I found him dead in his apartment,” I overhear an old man say to his friend as I pass them on a street in the West Village. It’s all I get–the one, disembodied line. Another day, another street. I pass a man and a woman, and at that instant the man […]

Fashion Week Frustration

by 02/25/2005
Neighborhood: Manhattan

This essay appears in the just released book, "Lost and Found: Stories From New York." 1. Rage Reacclimation: Waiting in line for a press credential At the southwest corner of "The Big Tent" in Bryant Park, a snaking, huddled mass of photographers gathers in the cold, waiting for access to the warm, partitioned press cell […]

The Gates, in Context

by 02/24/2005
Neighborhood: Central Park

Central Park exists because of two writers who cared about the well-being of New York City, including all its people: the poet William Cullen (“Thanatopsis”) Bryant, who proposed his idea for the park when he was still studying at Yale and also editing a periodical called the “Evening Post,” and to the landscaper and editor […]

Wagner in the Park

by 02/24/2005
Neighborhood: Upper West Side

The dark woman hated me because I listened to Wagner without guilt or regret. She said that she could never understand how I could enjoy the work of such a fierce anti-Semite. I told her that was not a problem; I had learned to separate the music from the composer, and, besides, Wagner pretty much […]

Letting Loose at Spectrum

by 02/22/2005
Neighborhood: Brooklyn

The rainbow lights coming from the floor below. It’s the summer of 1999. A girl with long brown hair is dancing close with a boy. Lights from the floor pulsing to the beat. The girl is bent backwards on the floor while the boy gyrates above her. A crowd looks on. The, she removes her […]

The Doorman’s Double Life, #2

by 02/20/2005
Neighborhood: Upper East Side

The introduction to this column, and its first episode, can be read here. **     I am here less than an hour before I slice my finger with a box cutter while breaking down some boxes 8B left in the hallway—her weekly fix from the Home Shopping Network. I should probably put a bandage on it, […]

Roshomon on the 1/9 Train

by 02/16/2005
Neighborhood: Upper West Side

Two men on the 1/9 train, heading downtown at night. One of them has a head of wild brown curls that are pushed off his forehead by a headband. The look is part hoodlum, part Jean Michelle Basquiat. His eyes are bloodshot. His body, buried beneath a hugely puffy down jacket, radiates a tense poise. […]

Roshomon on the 1/9 Train

by 02/16/2005
Neighborhood: Upper West Side

I was riding downtown on a 1 train after basketball with two of the players from the game, Nick and Tom. Tom and I are both 6-6 and had spent the previous ninety minutes beating the crap out of each other on the basketball court. We were much like the fox and the sheepdog in […]

Brookti & Me: A Story of Adoption, Episode #2

by 02/13/2005
Neighborhood: Tribeca

The introduction to this column, and its first episode, can be read here. ** Episode #2: I expected freaky racial—and class—‘episodes’, which are inevitably intertwined, when Brookti touched down. I knew the most common ones to expect and assumed I’d easily brush them off. What I didn’t expect: how intricate the race/class hiearchys are (I […]

Love and Heartbreak in New York

by 02/13/2005
Neighborhood: All Over, Multiple

THE GOD OF HIGH SCHOOL by Rachel Cline ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF NOT SEEING HER AGAIN by Alex Jablonski CHRISTINA by Snooder Greenberg WEDDING PROPOSAL AT CAFE LOUP by Meghan Daum and Thomas Beller MAKING IT by Kendra Hurley THE KEPT BOY by John Epperson SEGWAY SIGHTINGS by Maud Newton BUTCH & NANCY by Jenni […]

The Butcher Shift–a Gotham Hazing.

by 02/11/2005
Neighborhood: Washington Heights

In a city that purportedly never sleeps (but does take frequent disco naps), there is a population of workers who must keep the place running while most inhabitants are in fact snoozing. Our commute begins as most are bedding down with Letterman or curling into a vodka-drenched stranger. We are the skeleton crew operating the […]