You are currently browsing the stories about the “Manhattan” neighborhood.
On the first day of the New York City transit strike of 2005 I went to talk to Rosa Gutgold. She sells pearls, and is usually good for a few pearls of wisdom. But Rosa did not come to work on the first day of the strike. Nor the second. On the third day the tiny kiosk she normally occupies [...]
A psychic stopped me on the street today after having accidentally looked into my soul. “I see something in you,” she told me. “Something in your past!” “Be careful looking back,” I told her, concerned. “. . . Should you turn into a pillar of salt.” “I want to talk to you.” I felt compelled to stop. “There is something [...]
I was recently musing about my time as a trainer at Manhattan's most prestigious 1980's gym: The Vertical Club. The place was loaded with the beautiful people and the celebrities they yearned to be. A regular in the weight room was one Bruce Cutler, the late John Gotti's lawyer. The barrel chested Cutler was a popular figure in the trendy [...]
I have an idea for a new diet book. Dress up as a cartoon character for an hour. It is guaranteed to take off at least five pounds. At the behest of my friend Dawn, who works for the non-profit PBS affiliate Channel 13/WNET, I answered an ad for volunteers for a function sponsored by her station. They were seeking [...]
Autumn has arrived and the cooler air has dampened but not ended the fires of this years "Summer Offensive." Somewhere the trees are changing color but here in Hunts Point it has been one of those days. We've already caught more work on this day tour than any company outside the ghetto will see in six months and the smoke [...]
It took me a while to realize that Kenny was missing. I had been out of town for the holidays, visiting family in California. After almost a week without seeing him since my return, I began to grow concerned. I live on the Upper East Side in an area that used to be, in the ‘60s and ‘70s, a thriving [...]
After my boyfriend and I broke up, I was lonely so I put an ad on Craigslist. What is it about a man that makes him think sending a picture of his private parts is going to turn a woman on? A little mystery and anticipation is a great thing. I put the ad under "women seeking men." Hoping to [...]
“If you want to tell a story – start telling it. It might come out OK. It might not. At least you tried – better than leaving it in the fridge of memory. Sooner or later, like all man-made things, fridge will stop working and all goods will rot.” --Some guy on the steps near Ganga in Varanasi, India 1. [...]
Heath Avenue. I recognized the building right away. Public housing always stands out from all other domiciles. It looms, and, like a tall man, commands your attention. But when you look up, expecting to see his face, you see a blank outline, no distinguishing features. No nose. No mouth. No eyes. We parked on the side street around the corner. [...]
Oh man, he's going to die! I live 100 feet from Interstate 95 and from my living room window have an unobstructed view of this sea of vehicles. Having lived here many years the sounds of impending trouble are familiar. So when the horns started blaring it was a cue to look out the window and I did so, just [...]
It’s weird, how often you’ll find in out-of-the-way urban areas—below an overpass, next to a river or stream, next to railroad tracks—a pair of jeans, a pair of shoes, unmatching dirty socks, filthy underwear, cast off as if these places were just other rooms, were the private dressing quarters of the damned. I’ve always wondered at this: “These goddamned jeans [...]
I looked out the window and saw a woman come walking up the street eating a cupcake. She was blonde, in sneakers, alone. The cupcake’s icing was white. The woman’s timing was perfect— I had begun reading on the computer at dusk; by the time it ran out of power, and the screen went suddenly black, the sky had become [...]
You would think that everyone would know about the New York City Transit Strike, with its coverage in newspapers and television around the clock. On the 2nd day of the strike, I discovered I was wrong. After meeting with a friend at a Starbucks in Morningside Heights, I faced the prospect of either walking to my apartment on 23rd St. [...]
1. If one peers through the storefront windows of the National Jewelers Exchange on West 47th Street, past the hundred or so feet of bustling merchants and shoppers and side-by-side display cases filled with gold and silver, all under the harsh track lighting suspended on cables from the 20-foot ceiling, one can just make out two old-fashioned words painted onto [...]
Christ Zig, what did you do? Whenever I'm asked if the fire department had an effect on my personal life, those six words explode into my brain. It's a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon in 1977 at the Bronx zoo with my wife and three kids. The kids are riding a camel and shouting what all exicited kids shout, "Look at [...]
The public school kids of New York City learned that they could go to school 2 hours late during the strike. At least for the kids who live within walking distance of the school, and didn’t have to take a car service or walk miles in the cold, this was fun and exciting. When I went to pick up my [...]
Tale of the Tiger #1: Three weeks ago. One of my best friends from growing up in Billings, MT, stand-up comic Auggie Smith, moved to New York after years of occasional visits and constant prodding on my part. We go out to celebrate and hit the Blind Tiger on a Sunday night. We settle in, get a beer and Auggie [...]
Because I’m Jewish, my Christmas decorating habit started small. Creating yards of silver sparkle, I drizzled hundreds of tinsel strips on hanging plants spanning my living room window, which overlooks 77th Street near First Avenue. I clustered evergreens in vases too. Although my husband David came from a more observant family than mine, he didn’t mind the white poinsettias I [...]
1. It was a cold, early evening in autumn, and the street was crowded with people. I walked down the street looking down. I was focused on the tiny people in my mind. A friend had been making pottery and attaching these tiny little people to it. She hovered over a large magnifying glass and held each tiny person between [...]
I, along with the rest of the catering staff, had no idea that the party that evening was for a billionaire when we arrived at the loading dock of the old Cunard Shipping Building by Battery Park. All the details had been kept hush-hush until the last minute. Only when all 70 cater waiters and bartenders were gathered in the [...]
I was still young enough to like am radio. I hadn't been exposed to the much cooler fm stations yet. Sometimes, when we drove into the city, my father listened to Bernard Meltzer's call-in advice show. It wasn't so psychology-based, just heavy on common sense and consumer advice. Women could find out how to get their husbands to pay them [...]
It’s January 2, 1997. I head out to the corner bodega to buy coffee and a New York Times. I wear a robe and slippers. I am still hung over from New Year’s Eve. It is the time of year when the frozen ground in Williamsburg forms an admixture of leftover snow and dog turd matter. I say this because [...]
Dear Jon, An airplane crashes into The World Trade Center where you’ve been working for only six days. 97th floor. We are told— incinerated. A friend calls to wake me— turn on the radio. I get through to Erika and ask her how she is. It’s not me, it’s Jon. A memorial service, suicide attempts, rage, denial— grief’s harder to [...]
I'm savoring the last days of Pier 25, which closes next month for a three year renovation. I loved this funky wharf in Tribeca-- a rest stop on my daily bike rides through Hudson River Park. I would visit the Sweet Love Snack Shack for a lemonade or veggie burger grilled on an old fashioned barbeque pit. The guys who [...]
Photo by Ricky Powell In the midst of the most un-ironic activity in the world--sports--Marv Albert is a burst of jazzy, sardonic, droll Brooklynese. Marv is all about cadence and inflection; his initial notoriety was based on the pronunciation of a single word--"Yes!"--drawn out and shaped like a piece of taffy. For 24 years he has called play-by-play for the [...]
So we thought a movie, and he says “you pick one.” I look into it and suggest either that one about the Rwandan genocide or "Raging Bull" in a new print at the Ziegfeld. “Remember,” I ask him, “remember how at some point they started issuing tickets for actual seats at the Ziegfeld, with seat numbers? I wonder if they [...]
They say she’s holed up like a squirrel, nuts to last the winter, glimpses of green bath- robe when she shuffles down the hill to her mailbox to collect more rejection. People start laying bets, perhaps she has a corpse hidden like, what’s her name, was it Emily? Maybe she’s taken a bad spell, some female kind of thing. No, [...]
I took my second grade special education class to my dentist as part of my career education unit. While they were learning about dentistry, I'd also get my teeth cleaned. It seemed too good to be true: taking care of my teeth on school time. I recruited two speech teachers to come along. They were tired of giving speech lessons [...]
We had arrived a little late to the Soapbox Car Derby, and the races were already in progress. Hot Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn, occasional wafts of East-River-in-July. First concern, identifying the car of our friend. (It was, without any bias, certainly the best-looking of the cars: a sleek wheeled coffin with a little cockpit for the driver, complete with roses [...]
I hate high school. I hate the food and the bathroom doors don’t shut. I hate the flickering fluorescent lights and it’s always cold. Most of all, though, I hate the people who claim high school is the best time of your life. Since freshman year, I’ve been looking at colleges. Instead of going to volleyball practice or debate team [...]
My love life is typical in most respects. My relationships all have a beginning middle and end. With me it just happens that this all takes place in the span of a week. I don't like to waste time. Day 1: My last affair began on a dark and stormy night. It was a Wednesday and I had planned to [...]
In New York City, you never know who might inadvertently teach you an impromptu life lesson. Maybe the local bagel maker gives you insight into your love life, or a phrase uttered by a cab driver changes your outlook, at least for the duration of the taxi ride. One recent Saturday, I encountered one of these situations in the most [...]
For some reason I was lonely, even though my dream of being a professional actress was coming true. He seemed lonely too. One day he was just there. He appeared in the lobby of the Maiden Lane Theatre on 44th Street. I was rehearsing my first New York City show, a revival of Under the Yum Yum Tree. He was [...]
The Indian food was 39 minutes late and our guests were hungry. My wife called the restaurant and after a lengthy interrogation determined that the food was actually in the process of being delivered to an apartment in our bulding, on our floor. The only problem was, it wasn’t our apartment. We were apartment E, and somehow, at that very [...]
During my first year of teaching, I became used to crying in public. Not subtle sniffles that I could have, with a considerately discreet audience, played off as a common cold or allergy attack (the watery eyes, the reddened nose, nostrils like cavernous mines), but sheer go-for-the-gusto wailing, sobs shaking my body like I was caught in some Santeria possession-dance. [...]
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