You are currently viewing the stories for “March 2005.”
I sent a valentine to Richie but the mailman brought it back. I have sent valentines to Richie every year since 1985, but I knew this day eventually would come: the valentine would be there, but Richie would be gone. Richie ran the news and candy shop on Sullivan Street in SoHo, just a few steps south of Houston. [...]
I felt a little nostalgic as my W2 slips started arriving in the mail. For the first time in two decades I did not receive the form letter from Sheldon, my long term accountant. His annual reminder always opened with the awkward phrasing: "Winter is here and with it the knowledge that April 15 will soon be here." That stilted [...]
A ten-foot painted head bobs down Grand Street, feet furiously shuffling from below the neck. Close on his heels are three metallic-haired 20-year-olds dressed in flimsy black sheets, cinched in a manner that make them look like punk Roman centurions. I can tell I’m getting close. Destination: Deitch Projects gallery in SoHo. A few days earlier I had RSVP’d for [...]
Ladies! Who are suffering from terrible and terrible hair days all the time. Who always get out of your house in such pissed off mood because your hair is not shaped the way you want. Who must get up earlier than others to calm your hair down and end up dozing off at work Who are just simply dissatisfied with [...]
It was the middle of a heavy, overcast day. I was eating lunch in Greenacre Park. Most of the patio chairs were leaning against the tables, draining off the earlier rainfall. Usually this vest-pocket park on 51st Street between Third and Second Avenues is Standing Room Only at lunchtime. But the weather had scared away the usual crowd. So there [...]
Living on the first floor of a tenement can have its advantages—no multiple flights to walk up at the end of a tiring day, or to stumble up after a long night. During the summer, the first floor always remains the coolest, so I don’t feel like I will die a broiling, stuffy death unless I install and run an [...]
October 23 is a cold, gray Saturday. I get off the train F train at Rockefeller Center and step out onto Sixth Avenue, underneath Radio City Music Hall. There is a film crew set up on the northwest corner of Sixth Avenue and 51st Street. A white light fills the corner. At the center of the light, a dark bearded [...]
"Different day, same shit, old mac, new clip Thirty two hollow tips, gloves, no rubber grip…" The reporter and I stand quietly in the underground garage. We don't want to look like we're interested in shooting anyone, in any sense of that word. Two minutes earlier the reporter received a call in the deli across the street. His desk told [...]
We are in Chinatown looking for a good price on a Zippo lighter. My son wants one with with no logo, no Elvis face, no Mets, no #1 Stunner in fancy script. Just plain silver, the size of a matchbox, when matchboxes were the size of matchboxes. He's fourteen and still looks nervous striking a match, like he's afraid it'll [...]
In today's times of rapid change and major chains, it is a comfort to walk to the shopping area of my neighborhood, Court Street, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and see my four favorite stories still doing business in this highly competitive market. I have lived here over fifty years, and these stores remain intact with little interior and exterior change. The [...]
Gooning / n. / the random beating of an unsuspecting victim, usually by a goon gang Usually when I cross the Williamsburg Bridge this late at night I'm thinking, “This would be the perfect place for a random act of violence.” But this particular time the thought didn't occur because I was engrossed in a cell phone conversation—that is, an [...]
It was a muggy Manhattan afternoon in August, and I was between movies. Not because I didn’t have air conditioning, but because I needed to distract my angry, heartbroken self, and movies, carefully spaced, were my drug of choice. I had seen La Ultima Baci at the Sunshine on Houston Street and was on my way to whatever was playing [...]
