You are currently viewing the stories for July, 2006
Over the Falls in a Barrel
by Michael Higgins 07/31/2006Neighborhood: East Village
“Now, you know, when I was a young girl, before your Granddad came along, I lived in Chicago. And boy was that an experience.” My grandmother takes a sip off her still steaming coffee; black the only way she’ll take it. “It was a grand time. So much energy, so lively. And then we moved […]
The Chain Dance
by Thomas Beller 07/31/2006Neighborhood: West Village
I have an intimate relationship with my bike lock. In fact, I dance with it. It is not, at first glance, an obvious dancing partner—a heavy chain swathed in a black nylon sleeve, but then there are many unlikely dance partners in our lives. Just as many people will do an unconscious two-step when they […]
Alice Quinn
by Josh Lefkowitz 07/31/2006Neighborhood: Chelsea
The woman comes into the New York restaurant where I work and is reading a poetry magazine. “Say,” I say, “is that some sort of poetry magazine?” “Yeah,” she says. “I like Billy Collins,” I say. “Yeah?” she says. “Yeah,” I say. “But don’t you think Poetry is Dead, kinda?” “Not really,” she says, and […]
Power (Outage) to the People
by Mickey Z. 07/27/2006Neighborhood: Astoria, Queens
I slept on my fire escape one night last week but it wasn’t due to martial strife or a daredevil spirit. Rather, the sight of yours truly three flights up sporting boxer shorts and a death grip on the bars came courtesy of Con Edison (with a nod to Mayor Bloomberg). The lights first dimmed […]
The Bird Funeral
by Lucy Baker 07/27/2006Neighborhood: Midtown
This morning I saw a dead bird on 52nd Street. It was lying on its back on the sidewalk in between Park and Madison Avenues, in front of a Duane Reade Pharmacy. Its feet were in the air. At first I wasn’t sure if it was dead. It looked like it was just dozing, sunning […]
Monthly Nut
by James Braly 07/26/2006Neighborhood: Upper West Side
I am sitting at my desk in my coop one day on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, paying my monthly expenses: coop mortgage; coop maintenance; coop insurance; four other kinds of insurance–health, for four people (I’ve got a stay-at-home wife and two kids); life, in case I die on them; disability, in case I […]
Aroma-Deo
by Suzanne Comeau 07/26/2006Neighborhood: West Village
The women lined up early for a chance at the best gift bags. Some had spent the past 20 hours miserable and sleepless on a Greyhound from Iowa, such was the desire to inhale some combination of cupcake accord, sumac leaf note, and diet brambleberry liqueur that was reputed to possess magical and potentially aphrodisiac […]
The Origin of Pickles
by Hal Sirowitz 07/26/2006Neighborhood: Queens
“Where does a pickle come from?” I asked my second grade class. “It comes from a diner,” one student answered. “And before it got to the diner, what was it?” “It was always a pickle,” he said. “It was once a cucumber,” I countered. “It was soaked in vinegar until it became a pickle.” “You’re […]
The Soon-to-be-Senior Mixed Doubles Circuit
by Candy Schulman 07/19/2006Neighborhood: West Village
A.K. is as often used in mild, fond condescension as it is in derision: “Let him alone: He’s just an A.K.”…I make no special plea for alter kocker, but I certainly prefer A.K. to its English equivalent, “old fart.” –Leo Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish We arrive for our weekly game on Mercer near Houston […]
Flipturn
by Marla Lehner 07/19/2006Neighborhood: Midtown
During my second year of living in the city I almost drowned in despair. I refused to admit it to myself – and especially not to my nagging parents who regularly suggested I move home to California –but New York was crushing me. The city had delivered a series of blows, starting with a broken […]
Scenes from a Jewish Girlhood
by Alice Elman 07/19/2006Neighborhood: Bronx, East Bronx
On my corner of 167th Street and Grant Avenue in the Bronx was a small grocery that sold “Appetizers”—dairy foods, pickles, milk, eggs, and fresh tub butter and cheeses in large refrigerated glass cases. The owners were refugees. From the War, my mother said. I was twelve and that War had ended fifteen years ago. […]
Finding Fred: Death and Ice Cream
by Allan Goldstein 07/19/2006Neighborhood: All Over, Brooklyn
I was riding in our friend’s red, rattling car. The car that had been filled with balloons to celebrate my last birthday—the time we traveled to visit Mom. Now my wife and I were going to inform my forty-five year old brother of her death. To inform, support, and console my kid brother—the brother who […]