You are currently viewing the stories for June, 2008
Niketown, Your Town
by Russell Ricard 06/26/2008Neighborhood: Upper East Side
December 2001. Like every other New Yorker, it still feels like the towers just fell. Bush said spend, Bloomberg called upon you to stimulate the economy. Niketown, Your Town. The makeshift commercial plays in your head as you peruse the store; it is after all one of your favorite places. Just do it. Besides, it’ll […]
My Blue Period
by Daniel Krieger 06/22/2008Neighborhood: East Village
I was temping at a law firm, stocking the goodies that helped lawyers get through their miserably long days. My supervisor told me to be peppy when I brought them their Diet Cokes and cappuccinos, their Toblerones, Mrs. Field’s and macadamia nuts. But peppiness not being my forte, I performed my duties sullenly, and often […]
A Blue Chicken, and My First Naked Lady
by Tom Diriwachter 06/22/2008Neighborhood: Chinatown
Growing up on Staten Island, a trip to Manhattan, while covering only several miles, and less than an hour away, was an adventure. There are things I remember about “going to the city” from my childhood. I remember holding my ears and laughing when the horn of the Staten Island Ferry sounded. I remember eating […]
Richard is a Forkhead
by peter nolan smith 06/14/2008Neighborhood: All Over, Manhattan
I drove a stolen car from Boston to New York in 1976. It wasn’t really stolen. A Back Bay lawyer paid $300 for the disappearance of his Olds 88. I left the Detroit gas-guzzler by the Christopher Street pier. It was after midnight. I switched the plates and left the keys in the ignition. Within […]
After Dark
by Michele Carlo 06/14/2008Neighborhood: Bronx, East Bronx
“Nothing good ever happens after 2:00 am.” That’s what my mother told me when I tried to get my curfew raised. I was 19 and thought I had made the right choice by choosing to stay home and go to the School of Visual Arts instead of Art Center in California. I could get Latin […]
The Fool of Abingdon Square Park
by Thomas Beller 06/08/2008Neighborhood: Manhattan
The fool of Abingdon Square Park entered the park in a huff. He marched up to the person speaking at the microphone, and tapped her on the shoulder with a rolled up newspaper. She was in the middle of reading from a work about being the mother of an adopted Ethiopian girl, and all the […]
Susan Connell-Mettauer RIP
by Thomas Beller 06/08/2008Neighborhood: East Village
About six months ago I got a call from an editor inquiring about Susan Connell-Mettaur. He had discovered her writing on this site and wanted to know more about her. His taste is literary and eclectic. One of his pet subjects, as an editor and writer, is the sixties. It made sense that her writing […]
Tolerance
by Paul Vidich 06/08/2008Neighborhood: Times Square
I didn’t know I had a problem until the telephone call. It was 2:31 a.m. I know the exact time because we have a digital clock by our bedside phone. I lay in bed next to Linda in my mismatched pajamas because we’d come home slightly drunk at midnight from Balthazar and I couldn’t find […]
Mystery Goat Man at Lincoln Center
by Monika Romare Fisher 06/08/2008Neighborhood: Manhattan
“You are beautiful.” “Thanks,” I say, looking up from my monitor to face the man expressing the compliment. To my disappointment he is much older than me and resembles a crooked, worn goat, with strangly strands of grey hair, shaped in a horseshoe around his baldness. He does not fit into the sterile library environment […]
Get Off the Train Now!
by Danielle Winston 06/08/2008Neighborhood: Union Square
As the glass doors to Trader Joe’s swing away from me I struggle to enter the real word again: the one without cheap organic produce, and shelves of exotic cookie combinations like cashew caramel chip. Water spits down from the darkened sky, frizzing up my hair. All at once I’m balancing three overstuffed shopping bags, […]
Surviving the 5 Boro Bike Tour
by Bryan Charles 06/01/2008Neighborhood: All Over, Manhattan
This winter I spent two months in Michigan working on a book. Halfway through my stay my girlfriend called and said her parents were visiting New York soon, coming from California to ride in the annual Five Boro Bike Tour. She said they wanted us to do it with them. I said I’d think about […]
It Was One Hell of a Ride
by Thomas R. Ziegler 06/01/2008Neighborhood: Bronx, East Bronx
Fuck… you… fireman. I had never known such rage. There was no conscious thought to exiting the rig and beating each member of this group to death. Unguided, my hand found its way to the door handle. But try as I might, the door would not open. That’s when I started to climb out of […]