You are currently browsing the stories about the Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood

Louie and Me

by 08/14/2022
Neighborhood: 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 05/22/2022
Neighborhood: 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 08/15/2020
Neighborhood: 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 05/03/2015
Neighborhood: 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 02/08/2014
Neighborhood: 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 12/04/2012
Neighborhood: 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 […]