You are currently browsing the stories about the Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood
Louie and Me
by Ted Hamm 08/14/2022Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn
“Mr. Hamm, this is Detective Scarcella. You’re the guy who only said one nice thing about me–that I’m ‘fit.’ ” “It’s true!” I replied. “You were the big guy in the back, correct?” he said, referring to the Brooklyn courtroom where he testified in mid-May. “You could say that, sure,” I said, taking his jab. […]
Subway Stories
by Paul Sheridan 05/22/2022Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn, Lower East Side, Prospect Heights
Cars and Crimes and Trains My wife (we weren’t yet married at the time) had a fairly new ’81 Toyota Starlet stolen in Brooklyn. We took a city bus to the police precinct to report it stolen (no over the phone reports back in those days). Halfway there, we insisted that the driver stop the […]
The Best Basketball You Never Saw
by Matt Caputo 08/15/2020Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn
It was the dying days of the springtime professional circuit known as the United States Basketball League (USBL). A one-time proving ground for NBA hopefuls, the League had fallen on hard times. Teams going out of business weren’t being replaced. In the 2006 season, the USBL was a faded attraction, split in two between a […]
I Know About His Ear
by Michael Simon 05/03/2015Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn
Aunt Judy’s a teenager and my grandmother takes her shopping at Mays Department store in Downtown Brooklyn. Nana chooses the item she wants, then leans close to Judy. “Watch this.” Nana trumpets: “This is too expensive! I’m not paying this much!” A clerk says, “Ma’am, that’s the price.” “Oh, no! You’re not doing that to […]
On the Train in Winter
by Ryan Lejarde 02/08/2014Neighborhood: Across the River, All Over, Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens, Downtown Brooklyn, Gowanus, Greenwich Village
I have always lived near subway stations that are above ground, meaning that many of my days have begun by standing in the cold for a few minutes waiting for the train to roll in – the 1 at 125th Street, then the F at Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street in Brooklyn. During the winter […]
Starry Night
by Kevin Kinsella 12/04/2012Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn
“If stars are lit…” – V. V. Mayakovsky Had the receptionist been Dante Alighieri, he might have strung a banner along the wall of the windowless waiting room advising visitors to “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” But the person who pointed me in the direction of this circle of Hell was no Dante–nor […]