You are currently viewing the stories for March, 2012
A Forgotten Game
by Peter Wortsman 03/27/2012Neighborhood: Jackson Heights
I don’t know who invented the game or whether it is still played today. Slap Ball had a brief vogue in New York City schoolyards in the early Sixties, and in Jackson Heights, Queens, where I grew up, it attained minor cult status as the game of choice for the physically challenged. A welcome alternative […]
A Frothy Goodbye
by Nicholas Soodik 03/26/2012Neighborhood: Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill
Every English teacher needs a café of his own, and my weekend joint for nearly seven years has closed. The Fall Café frothed its final latte in early December. I hope my students understood why their last batch of essays was returned later than usual. Signs of the café’s demise were written everywhere, literally. Last […]
I Love You, U-Bet
by Candy Schulman 03/26/2012Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay
When I was a young man—no bigger than this A chocolate egg cream was not to be missed Some U-bet’s chocolate syrup, seltzer water mixed with milk Stir it up into a heady fro—tasted just like milk You scream, I steam, we all want Egg Cream. […]
Queen of the Plaza
by peter nolan smith 03/17/2012Neighborhood: Midtown
St. Patrick’s Day promised to be another disaster for the Retail Collection of the Plaza Hotel. Hordes of green-clad spectators streamed down the escalator into the basement. Their eyes averted the luxury goods on offer, as their destination was the hotel’s public bathroom. Within the first hour I had given directions to the toilet over […]
Lost In Transit
by Kerri Doherty 03/17/2012Neighborhood: All Over
It was 5PM on a Friday evening and somehow I was the only person on the train. I may have put the “new” in “New Yorker,” but I was no stranger to the stuffy sardine cans that subway trains turn into during rush hour. I craned my neck to get a look into the adjoining […]
To The Basketball Playing Men and Women of Letters
by Thomas Beller 03/14/2012Neighborhood: All Over, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Caroll Gardens, Carroll Gardens, Manhattan, Upper West Side, West Village
I recently read a fanciful article in which a literary East/West all-star basketball game is imagined and scouted. Dave Eggers and Stephen Elliott are the starting back court for the West. Ben Marcus is cast as the starting center for the East not on the grounds of basketball skill but because, according to the writer, […]