You are currently browsing the stories about the Fort Greene neighborhood
The Grindstone
by Jasmin Sandelson 08/12/2018Neighborhood: Fort Greene, SoHo
I was two weeks old the night we met in SoHo and you showed me how the world works. Back then, I still couldn’t sleep through the night. I’d lie face-up on the bed I’d bought from the last roommate, listening to the traffic on the BQE a block away. The cars whooshed all night […]
The Laughter of the Maestro
by peter nolan smith 03/09/2014Neighborhood: Fort Greene
Last week I was walking home through a snowstorm. Turning the corner toward Fulton I called Cecil Taylor, who lived in the last unrenovated brownstone on that street. We knew each other from back in the 70s. The jazz pianist’s manager James Spicer had been a mutual friend, until the silver-haired impresario ripped off my […]
Just Another Night
by peter nolan smith 01/12/2014Neighborhood: Fort Greene
Last night was New Year’s Eve. My redheaded poetess friend Irene phoned to invite me to a 20-something party in Bushwick. “You’ll be the oldest man there.” Irene was going solo. “Almost three times older.” We were just friends. “I think of you as 16.” She had seen me being silly on more than one […]
Moonlight Exterminator
by Jennifer Gerend 07/12/2007Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Fort Greene
It’s all taken on a certain familiarity. I unlock the door, turn on the light, drop my bag at the foot of the bed, and move towards the kitchen. With a flick of the light, there is the scurry of roaches and waterbugs across the tile and under the counter. Like clockwork, I begin to […]
Target Practice
by Audrey Ference 08/14/2006Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Fort Greene
I was walking my boyfriend, Frank, to the Target near our house. We were out of paper towels and Diet Coke, and it was his turn to do the shopping. A few blocks away, he closed his eyes, and began breathing deeply, in and out. I grabbed his arm and steered him gently away from […]
Invasion of the Caucasian
by Denise Campbell 06/04/2006Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Fort Greene
Sitting in my first floor apartment window, people watching, it hits me (hard) that three out of the last five people who had just passed by were white. “When did this happen?” my daughter who had been out of the country for over a year asked in astonishment. It was her second day back in […]
Look for the Clock Tower
by Simona Catherine Sills 05/18/2006Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Fort Greene
Heather stopped and pulled down her pants. Adam and I stood in the shadow of a large building on the still Brooklyn street, allowing no person to see. Urine trickled down the contaminated sidewalk as we left. The journey commenced, and on we walked to the worst place in New York to buy coke, Kokies. […]
One of the Singer Girls
by Fran Giuffre 03/24/2003Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Fort Greene
I had just completed my freshman year at Cornell University, where I was majoring in Functional Apparel Design. The program focused on designing clothes for people with specific needs. My degree would be nothing like those awarded to fashion design students at F.I.T. No, nothing frivolous for me. But what I didn’t realize when I […]