You are currently viewing the stories for December, 2011
Talking Back: My First Encounter with the Human Microphone
by Jean Garnett 12/31/2011Neighborhood: Financial District, Uncategorized
I first visited Occupy Wall Street on a chilly evening in the middle of October. A few hundred people were gathered near the eastern steps of Zuccotti Park for the nightly meeting of the General Assembly. On the steps a young man was shrieking inaudibly. A few yards away, a jackhammer was being applied to […]
Gratuity
by Robin Kilmer 12/30/2011Neighborhood: West Village
Everyone thinks the French are so cute. But I’m a waitress, so I know better. I deal with plenty of tourists. I don’t mind them while they’re at the restaurant and I do my best to decipher their accents and answer their questions—though I do draw a blank when they ask me where all the […]
Richie Two-Ax
by Donald Reilly 12/29/2011Neighborhood: Gowanus, Manhattan, Park Slope
When my father walked onto the construction site of the Western Electric Building on Broadway and Fulton, he asked a dark-skinned guy in hard hat where Richie Two-ax was. The construction worker eyed my father’s neatly pressed slacks and asked, “Who are you?” “I’m his friend? He told me to meet him here for lunch,” […]
Passing For 62
by Kent 12/15/2011Neighborhood: Uncategorized, Union Square, Williamsburg
Every Spring, tennis players in New York City who want to play on the city courts have to buy a tennis permit. The Parks Department doubled the price this year to $200 for an adult permit. Seniors only pay $20 . If I can pass for 62, I’ll save $180. I’m unemployed. The first time […]
Appearances
by Sharon Silver 12/12/2011Neighborhood: Upper West Side
I bumped into Tim Gunn again the other day. That Tim Gunn, Project Runway guru Tim Gunn. It is Wednesday afternoon, right before Thanksgiving, and I had two seconds to get to the ATM before my son Leo’s ride dropped him off. As I am crossing Broadway, talking on my cell to my mother, I […]
Aspirational Items
by Claudette Bakhtiar 12/11/2011Neighborhood: East Village
It was the mid-90s. I had just graduated from college and had no job but wanted to move to Manhattan anyway. I thought I could manage on what I had in my savings account for a few months until I found a job but whatever apartment I got needed to be cheap. I scoured the […]
We Had Never Heard of Pearl Harbor
by FRED J ABRAHAMS 12/09/2011Neighborhood: Uncategorized, Upper West Side
I hated Saturdays. We had been moderately observant Jews in the small German town where we had lived before we fled to the US. The trauma and anxiety of starting over in a new land with two young children and the horror stories that were filtering out of Europe pushed my mother towards the security […]
Payback
by Ann Mintz 12/01/2011Neighborhood: Midtown, Uncategorized
My first real job was in a recording studio on 8th Avenue and 44th Street, producing movie commercials for broadcast on the radio. I was the second engineer, which sounds a lot more impressive than it was. I set up microphones, recorded the talent, edited sound effects and music, layered the voice over the background […]
The Immigrants’ Daughter Learns A Lesson
by Mindy Greenstein 12/01/2011Neighborhood: Brooklyn
I learned about sex when I was twelve. My mother called me over while she was watching a rerun of The Honeymooners on the 13” black and white TV in my bedroom. She often watched there, because my father couldn’t stand her smoking in their room. My parents are Holocaust refugees. My mother had lived […]
Dr. Shoe
by Lisa Bergtraum 12/01/2011Neighborhood: Uncategorized, Upper West Side
The next time your life coach tells you to reinvent yourself, think of this. During the years I worked on West 57th Street, I would sometimes browse in Daffy’s, a discount department store. I grew to expect to see (and hear) a certain salesperson who roamed the women’s shoe department, intoning, “Doctor Shoe here! Doctor […]