You are currently browsing the stories about the Greenpoint neighborhood

Big Eric

by 01/13/2023
Neighborhood: Greenpoint

Big Eric is an alcoholic. I know this because he talks to me about his life when we work together. He’s 40-years old, and he tells me he’s feeling stressed and alone, and that the only time he feels peace is when he drinks. He lives around the corner from the café and sometimes in […]

The Price of Inclusion

by 10/01/2022
Neighborhood: Chelsea, Fire Island, Greenpoint, Meatpacking District

I didn’t get invited to go to Fire Island this year, which makes me feel like a gay pariah. I’m painfully aware of this after watching the movie, Fire Island. I loved it, but it reinforced my feeling that I lacked a queer community, and notably, one with a summer share in the Pines. My […]

The Ohio Convention

by 03/03/2019
Neighborhood: Greenpoint, Port Authority, Woodside

I ran into Dad’s room after hearing my name called. “Take off your shoes,“ he said. I wondered what the heck was going to happen now. That morning my mom had told me that I would be going to Akron, Ohio with Dad to see the people who caused his nightmares and screaming. His war […]

Becoming American in New York

by 10/01/2009
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint

When asked why I left Germany for New York, I have two answers, depending on my mood and on the patience of the listener. The short answer is: I fell in love with an American. The second answer is: On our birthdays my sisters and I were given pieces of silverware from a prestigious German […]

Crossing the Pulaski Bridge

by 02/07/2004
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint

The Greenpoint where I live is separated from Long Island City by a slough named the Newtown Creek. Its western boundary is the East River. East is Ridgewood and South is Williamsburg. Manhattan Avenue, Ash, and Commercial streets intersect a block away from the Brooklyn shore of the creek. In the space between the creek […]

New York Orientation Part II: On Not Getting the Job

by 12/19/2003
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint

Dear Muze.com, I was out on the front stoop today, where I have to smoke now that the super of my building has declared the fire escape off limits, on account of he found a few cigarette butts on the pavement underneath. There’s a whole funny story about this, actually, considering my roommate begins tearing […]

New York Orientation: Part One

by 08/22/2003
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint

8-21-03 Next Wednesday, Mars will be closer to the Earth than it has been in 60,000 years. Already it’s the brightest object in the night sky. I assume by then I will be no closer to having a job. That’s not so bad, really — by next Wednesday, I will have only been living in […]

Gangland in Greenpoint

by 07/23/2003
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint

Krea-Krac! Thick, guttural laugher floats up from the street into our bedroom. Krea-Krac! Krea-Krac! Blearily, I grope the nightstand for my glasses. The bedside clock tells me it’s just past midnight. Krea-Krac! Krea-Krac! Krea-Krac! When I was a boy and it was time for bed, my father had a favorite ritual. He would stand up, […]

Mr. Impatient

by 01/20/2003
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint

Wonders of Modern Commuting, Part 1: At around 8:25 every day, Mr. Impatient’s train pulls up to the Greenpoint platform. Mr. Impatient is a G(1) train conductor who is always in a very big hurry to get the train where it’s going. I have yet to get a glimpse of him, but I can hear […]

Now Leaving Manhattan; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Brooklyn

by 01/07/2003
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint

Having lived in Manhattan for most of my life, I saw a move to Brooklyn as a giant step in the wrong direction. And Greenpoint, well, Greenpoint was a digression I wasn’t sure I could handle. I was thirty-six years old and by god, I had standards. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the bank account to […]

Being Steve Malkmus

by 12/27/2002
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint

Something like ten years ago, I was walking with a friend of mine down Westnedge Avenue, in Kalamazoo, MI. We were talking about rock music, and my friend, who’s about as brainy as they come, got onto the subject of the band Pavement. More specifically, he began deconstructing what he perceived to be the average […]

Trash Like White Elephants

by 01/20/2002
Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Greenpoint

There is a man who looks just like Hemingway who lives on India Street in Brooklyn in a building called the Astral, a dismal place with huge arching windows to remind you of its past glamour as an apartment building for international sailors (Mae West is said to have been born there). He lives right […]