You are currently viewing the stories for October, 2006

“An Orthodox Jew Walks into a McDonald’s…”

by 10/31/2006
Neighborhood: Union Square

I am not expecting it to be so pink. The floor is tiled light mauve-ish, though it’s having a brown sort of day, what with the rain and the customers tracking in the muck from outside. The counters and tables are a marbleized pink and the occasional wall panel is deep purple. I had been […]

What Goes Around

by 10/31/2006
Neighborhood: All Over, Bronx

It’s 1978, the annual “summer offensive” is well underway and chaos rules the streets. The ghettoes are burning and there are more fires than there are units to fight them. If TV stars and politicians resided here, you could bet we would be operating with a full second alarm assignment but here in Hunts Point […]

Thanksgiving With The Blonde in The Brown Jacket

by 10/31/2006
Neighborhood: Harlem

If you find yourself awakened by an eccentric, foul-tempered neighbor called el Jefe in the hallway of an apartment building known for its vermin while fully installed with a vodka hangover and reeking of pizza-flavored snack treats, be as pleasant as possible. Especially if you are seeking assistance in the forcible entry of your own […]

Mr B at Mo Pitkin’s on Avenue A

by 10/31/2006
Neighborhood: Manhattan

MR. BELLER’S NEIGHBORHOOD READING SERIES CONTINUING MARCH 11 AT MO PITKIN’S HOUSE OF SATSIFACTION! The Webby Award-nominated website Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood has published stories with an autobiographical as well as geographical focus since 2000. In that spirit, the site takes over a space at Mo Pitkin’s the 2nd Sunday of every month. Readers on March […]

Defending the Park Slope Food Coop

by 10/24/2006
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Park Slope

[Here it is: The moment Fran Giuffre Fran Giuffre first realized that war was at hand. The first of countless responses to Giuffre’s critical evisceration of the Park Slope Food Coop, it was followed, many long and difficult years later, by Erica Weitzman‘s similarly devastating counterattack. –Ed.] Dear Fran, I read your horror story about […]

Snot-Suction Thing

by 10/24/2006
Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad, West Village

It’s snowing when our plane touches down in Washington, D.C. Christmas morning, cold and dark. The terminal doors slide open and we are hit with a blast of bitter air. We bundle the girl in blankets and she stares through the car windows at the falling flakes of snow. The wipers beat back and forth […]

The Super With The Toy Face

by 10/24/2006
Neighborhood: Harlem

[A few months after this piece was originally published, Ennis Smith sent us a revision which we have also published here. Look at the two versions side by side and see if you learn anything about how revision figures in the writing process. –Ed.] They called him the neighborhood watchdog. He was the super of […]

What My Daughter Heard On The Balcony

by 10/24/2006
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Outer Boroughs

After my daughter was born, I spent part of each day on the balcony of our third-floor apartment in Sheepshead Bay, rocking her in her stroller. Even when chilly, we’d sit out. Just like her mama and papa when they were little in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sasha has spent much of her first year wrapped […]

Confronting the Park Slope Food Coop

by 10/17/2006
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Park Slope

[Since its initial publication on Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, this piece has unleashed a firestorm of debate so fierce, and so utterly acrimonious, that it is easily the most controversial piece in the history of this website. Of the many responses that we received, the two that we are legally permitted to publish are by Erica […]

Loaded Hallways

by 10/17/2006
Neighborhood: All Over, Multiple

The campus of my public school building in New York City is a fortress these days. Gazing through the mesh caging of any stairway window, I can spot faculty deans, campus security (a branch of the NYPD with arresting powers), as well as regular NYPD uniformed officers patrolling the grounds like medieval sentries. As I […]

Hindsight is 13,000: Playing the Stock Market in 1999-2000

by 10/17/2006
Neighborhood: Upper East Side

I have just taken over the passenger car from Roberto. There are three tenants in the elevator and they are discussing their vacation plans. 3A and her family will be hitting the slopes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming; 5C is going to work on his tan and try his luck at the blackjack tables in Aruba; […]

Lubricated Intruder

by 10/10/2006
Neighborhood: Murray Hill

Golden slumbers. I slept like an heir apparent, drifting in satin oblivion from Sunday to Monday. I had been away for the weekend. I had visited my family: my nieces and nephews, my successful older siblings, my mother and father. We did wholesome things as sign of our shared familial concern and love. And for […]