You are currently viewing the stories for May, 2012
The Places You’ll Go, The People You’ll Meet
by Ben Fergusson 05/30/2012Neighborhood: JFK/LGA
We smiled at the woman as we took our seat beside her. She smiled back. “Hi,” she said, “Jean.” We introduced ourselves, Tom more engagingly than me. I was worried about getting too friendly with her – she was looking at us in that way people who want to talk to you do, nodding, catching […]
Retweet Your Favorite Stories and Like Them on Facebook.
by Connor Gaudet 05/29/2012Neighborhood: All Over, News
Hey Neighbors, You may have noticed that you can now Like your favorite stories on Facebook and Retweet them on Twitter by clicking the aptly labeled “Like” and “Retweet” buttons in the upper right corner where it lists the story’s neighborhood. It’s a fast and easy way to spread the word about some of New […]
The Gift of Tongues
by Rebecca Moore 05/25/2012Neighborhood: West Village
It’s 1979 and the grown-ups are out of control. They are getting divorced and either going to law school or Studio 54. They are in therapy; they are smoking pot, taking lovers, coming out and finding themselves. My parents are married, but my mother buys Donna Summer’s Bad Girls and uses my Stagelight blue roses nail […]
Get Busy
by Damian Van Denburgh 05/22/2012Neighborhood: East Village
My friend Flip didn’t read, he told me, because he was all about music. Slick, shiny, high-gloss music. Nothing got him more excited than discussing “production values.” He’d play dance remixes for me and practically conduct them as some new version of an awful song stomped and restomped its way through a cathedral-like reverb chamber […]
An Upper West Side Tragedy Set To Music
by ellen schecter 05/18/2012Neighborhood: Upper West Side
He always said, “Hello, I’m so glad to see you? How are you?” even when he no longer knew our names. Starting in the last year, he didn’t care about answers. He cherished his long career as an impresario in the world of music, selecting and programming concerts for major institutions in New York City. […]
Growing Up Beastly
by Maccabee Montandon 05/17/2012Neighborhood: All Over, Letter From Abroad, West Village
In 1986 I became an international pop music recording sensation. I don’t mean that at the age of 15 I admired and tried to emulate Ad-Rock, a squeaky, strutting third of the fresh hip-hop phenomenon the Beastie Boys—I mean I was Ad-Rock. His band mates—Mike D and MCA—were my homeboys. Sure, there had previously been […]
All That They Can Be?
by JB McGeever 05/16/2012Neighborhood: Bushwick, Ridgewood, Uncategorized
The local recruiter is at my classroom door again and I really wish he’d stop doing this. When I explain that there are designated areas throughout the building for him to speak with students or ‘potential recruits’ as they’re called in his line of work, he apologizes profusely. In fact, his demeanor and etiquette is […]
Old Enough To Die In Brooklyn: The Mortician’s Lament
by Chris Pomorski 05/10/2012Neighborhood: Cobble Hill
When the previous resident of my apartment, who was still living in it when my girlfriend and I viewed it for the first time, told us that the funeral home downstairs hardly ever held services, the effect on me was less than palliative. Jenna nodded thoughtfully in the way real estate shoppers are prone, apparently […]
Hello Pizza
by Ernest Merrimont 05/07/2012Neighborhood: Prospect Heights
On a just-cold-enough-not-to-be-warm evening in April I am at work, delivering pizza; mostly on streets lined with brownstones. Down these lanes I pedal doggedly, lurching on an old blue/green mountain bike with a large wire basket mounted above the front wheel and a habit of breaking down with reliable frequency. Tall and thin with a […]