You are currently viewing the stories for September, 2009
Where Have You Gone, Amelia Earhart?
by Joseph Scalia 09/22/2009Neighborhood: Across the River, Long Island
For decades my libertarian desire for privacy kept me lining up with the teeming hordes of commuters at the Verrazano and Throgs Neck Bridges because I didn’t want “them” to know where I was going to or coming from, and how often. But eventually, against my better judgment, I silenced the screaming voices in my […]
The Gramercy Park Litmus Test
by Elizabeth Beller 09/14/2009Neighborhood: Gramercy Park
I moved into Gramercy Park through sheer dumb luck. I didn’t discover Eden with my own bumpkin nose; I had help in the form a lanky, soft-spoken boy who was returning home after living as a piste-addicted ex-pat. I met him after some of my own colossally unproductive post-college years in Colorado. We had in […]
Sotto Voce
by Liane Kupferberg Carter 09/14/2009Neighborhood: Greenwich Village
“If you could be anything in the world and talent and money weren’t an issue, would you still be doing what you do, or something else?” My husband posed this question in an attempt to liven up a rather staid Upper East Side party one night. The gathered Wall Street wizards, lawyers and M.B.A. types […]
The Piano
by Raanan Geberer 09/14/2009Neighborhood: Across the River, Bronx
The old upright piano was in the living room from my earliest recollection until the day my father died. He must have brought it sometime in the early ‘50s, soon after he’d gotten married. Dad would spend hours playing Brahms, Schumann, Clementi, Chopin. At the end, he would always start playing an old Russian folk […]
The Last Lesson
by Allan B. Goldstein 09/07/2009Neighborhood: Across the River, Brooklyn
Our hands had not touched–other than to acknowledge each other’s presence or successes–in over thirty-five years. Now his open right hand lay by the side of his softly draped figure, a whisper’s distance from where I was sitting. A curtain, walling off a roommate, shadowed us from the bright day. “Remember how we agreed I’d […]
Imperfect Strangers
by Amanda Green 09/07/2009Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
There’s a low of five degrees today, and a woman gets off the 2 train with no hat, gloves, or scarf. An older man offers her some space under his umbrella, and she graciously accepts. I walk ahead of them, keeping my eyes down and forward to keep from slipping. Having underestimated the snow, I […]
A Snow Storm in Brooklyn
by Flo Gelo 09/07/2009Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Williamsburg
A tree grows in Brooklyn, and snow falls. Both are scarce, as were friendships on Madison Street. My only friend was a girl my age whose single mother was a police officer. Only once was I invited to her house to play. It was a row house like mine with three long rooms: windows in […]
Two Readings This Week: St. Marks Books, Housing Works Cafe
by Neighborhood Writers 09/07/2009Neighborhood: Greenwich Village
Thursday, Sept 10th: The St. Mark’s Books Reading Series presents a reading from “Lost and Found: Stories From New York,” featuring Sam Lipsyte, Bryan Charles, Betsy Berne, Debbie Nathan, Courtney Coveney, and Thomas Beller. @ Solas Bar 232 E. 9th Street (between 3rd and 2nd Aves) 7:30PM sharp ** Monday, Sept 14th: The Saint Ann’s […]