You are currently viewing the stories for November, 2008

A Visit with the Madison Avenue Sports Car Driving and Chowder Society

by 11/18/2008
Neighborhood: Midtown

Shortly after noon on October 7, a Harpo Marx horn was blown four times and the monthly Madison Avenue Sports Car Driving and Chowder Society meeting came to order. Founded in 1957 by CBS Radio executive Art Peck and advertising executive King Moore to generate media for car enthusiasts, the Society meets monthly to talk […]

A Comic’s First Open Mike in NYC

by 11/18/2008
Neighborhood: West Village

Some people take their High School Senior Superlatives a bit too seriously. No, I’m not talking about Mary, my class’s “Worst Driver,” devoting her life to turning over a new leaf as a professional chauffer. I’m talking about my very own “Class Clown” award spurring my standup comedy career. Ever since my first time performing […]

Barney’s Christmas Spectacular

by 11/18/2008
Neighborhood: Midtown

My legs ached, but we had nothing else to do so we kept circling the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree over and over again. All I had on was this long brown jacket that looked like a cross between a trench coat and a windbreaker. It provided no warmth at all, but I was convinced it […]

The View from Ebbets Field, 60 Years after Jackie Robinson Broke Baseball’s Color Barrier

by 11/10/2008
Neighborhood: Across the River, Brooklyn

Photo by Cannon Kinnard The faded green sign at 1700 Bedford Avenue that reads “NO BALL PLAYING” has had tenants of Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field Apartments laughing at the irony, as they walk across the street to Jackie Robinson Park to play ball. This is the former site of Ebbets Field baseball park; home of the […]

Escape to the Tip of the Island

by 11/10/2008
Neighborhood: Inwood

When I was 14, and living in an affluent, gated community in Manila, a handsome young boy from our neighborhood gave me a sapphire pendant. We were both members of a church youth group and were attending a party for new members. It was early evening. As our friends ate pork kabobs by the pool, […]

At the Minetta Tavern Without Joe Gould

by 11/10/2008
Neighborhood: West Village

He was puckish and presumptuous, impudent and ebullient; a bantam and bumptious, dastardly and delirious hand-out seeking hotdogger with a bare head, bushy beard, and bushels of personality. On many nights he could be found fast asleep on a bench in Washington Square Park, his belly careening with gin and ale that he had bamboozled […]

Fruit Man = Bad Man

by 11/07/2008
Neighborhood: West Village

Yesterday I left for work without having eaten anything all morning. For a person with a normal schedule this would be no problem, but I start work at 12:30 PM and don’t take “lunch” until about 5:00 PM. My office is on Hudson and King Streets and I take the C train to the Spring […]

Gettin’ Racial on Little Rodeo Drive (uh, Bleecker Street)

by 11/02/2008
Neighborhood: West Village

If you have a gloriously Afro’d, insanely talented, sleek sapling of a former student who has given herself a single syllable moniker and released her first hip-hop CD, you want to walk her around your neighborhood like a princess. You want a red carpet to roll out in front of her as she shyly hunts […]

Three O’Clock High

by 11/02/2008
Neighborhood: Midtown

It is 3pm on a weekday, and I have left the office to caffeinate. As I step through the revolving doors and out into the day, I note that summer has seamlessly turned into fall. I gather this not from any change in the weather, but because the kids are back. I work in Midtown […]

The Slow Death of Dan Dinnerstein

by 11/02/2008
Neighborhood: Washington Heights

I met Dan Dinnerstein at a party in 1982, when we were young, single guys in our late twenties. We had a lot in common: we were both were products of the New York State University system, we both came from the same neighborhood in the Bronx (although we hadn’t known each other there), and, […]