You are currently browsing the stories about the Brighton Beach neighborhood
Trying to Cash in Nazi Stamps for a Millennium Falcon
by Jack Szwergold 09/23/2023Neighborhood: Brighton Beach
In the fall of 1980, The Empire Strikes Back had already come out and while I was getting tired of my Star Wars action figures, I really, really, really wanted a Millennium Falcon spaceship playset. It was huge, cool and could fit my 3.75” action figures without issue. But at $29.99 it was expensive for a 12 year old […]
Hanging out in Tribeca in the 1970s
by Jack Szwergold 07/15/2023Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Tribeca
If you want to call me a cool kid, please do. You see, back in 1975 when I was seven years old , I visited Tribeca for the first time…with my mom and dad. We didn’t go to the Mudd Club or Artists Space or anything like that; instead we went to a factory just south […]
Bill the Burnout
by Jack Szwergold 04/29/2023Neighborhood: Brighton Beach
I have no idea where Bill came from, but one spring, sometime in the late 1970s, he showed up and started hanging out every day on our Ocean Parkway block in Brighton Beach. He was a white guy with a red haired, frizzy Jewfro, and he wore a denim jacket. Bill would stand out there […]
The Horseshoe Crab and the Rain Collector
by Stas Holodnak 10/04/2020Neighborhood: Brighton Beach
“If I had a dollar for every dead Subaru battery, I would be a millionaire”, the roadside assistance man tells me in a tone that is both wishful and annoyed. “Since Subaru started manufacturing their own batteries, people keep on calling. If it’s not recharged frequently, the battery will run out of juice, especially in […]
Old Lefties: An Oral History
by Paul Buhle 04/21/2019Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Co-op City, Lower East Side, Ozone Park
Editor’s Note — These poems emerged out of oral histories of the American Left that Paul Buhle conducted forty years ago. They are not literal transcripts, but lyrically condense the stories he heard. Buhle traveled New York from Coop-City to Ozone Park to the Lower East Side to Brighton Beach for this project. The old […]
Carlisle the Violinist
by Stas Holodnak 09/16/2018Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Coney Island
On the Saturday evening of Memorial Day weekend, I found myself seated at a snow-white draped table next to a card featuring my first and last name in italicized letters. The joyous occasion was the wedding of a childhood friend. It was no different from the other weddings I’ve attended, except for a violinist, who […]
Rejoice for the Winter that Was
by Candy Schulman 03/28/2014Neighborhood: All Over, Brighton Beach, Central Park, Union Square
Long lines at Whole Foods in Union Square again. It feels like the Russian bread lines, but no, it’s another snowstorm shopping spree. I’m not the only one anxious about running out of food—even though the streets are always plowed before my stomach growls uncomfortably. Everyone is complaining. Too cold, windy, snowy, sleety, Too much […]
Look Homeward, Brooklyn
by Robert Weinberger 09/07/2012Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Gramercy Park, Long Island
We move the summer before ninth grade from our four-room apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, to a four-bedroom Colonial house with a two-car garage on the south shore of Long Island. A town where every street is a drive or a place or a court. A place where kids play softball in the street and […]
In The Living Room Of The Beggar
by Glora Manuilova 04/13/2012Neighborhood: Brighton Beach
He sat sprawled on the furthest side of the Q train, nose plumped with alcohol and ears flushed a chili-pepper red — laughing so hard his breath left two giant spheres of fog on the window. The rest of us were bunched on the other side, in an attempt to escape the stench of human […]
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. […]