You are currently browsing the stories about the “Manhattan” neighborhood.
This man is proud of his work. He's from Russia.
In the reading room at the Public Library they were working in the pleasantly vague, ethereal light, the faint smell of body odor hanging in the air, the many laptops and furtive glances. In Bryant Park, behind the library, a girl sat amidst a sea of chairs and stared out at the empty lawn. The sky was grey, a white [...]
In a city with an Irish pub on every corner, where are the other kilt-wearing Celts to be found? Since returning from a trip to the Scottish Highlands, I have noticed a distinct lack of Scottish presence in New York, particularly when compared to the Irish. I searched in vain for the Whisky Mac, a mellow drink of equal parts [...]
The train lurches out of 33rd Street, and I fall, more than sit, into a seat that has miraculously become available at the height of rush hour. A slight but not unhandsome man beside me helps me catch my balance. "Come here often?" he jokes, and I laugh briefly, and his eye catches mine for a second before he looks [...]
The name: Stillman's Gym still is magical to old ring veterans--rapidly vanishing--but it's mostly just a revered icon like Jack Johnson or Boyle's Half-Acre that fight purists have read about in an old issue of Ring Magazine or on the internet in vintage columns of Dan Parker and Jimmy Cannon. For me, Stillman's isn't like talking about Benny Leonard or [...]
On a Monday night at the Tenth Street Lounge, the Third Wave met the Second Wave. The woman I was dating told me some older feminists were having their works read and asked if I was willing to be a token boy. I'd been a lone wolf studying feminist theory in college in the mid-80s, so I figured I could [...]
There’s Antenna Lady, the black woman who stands in front of the building next to mine with the silver antenna-thing pierced through her face. Though she must be in her forties, her face is studded with all sorts of St. Marks-like piercings, the most shocking being the long one poking out of her left cheek. Every time she sees me [...]
Adrian Dannatt is not a man easily persuaded to perform manual labor, or labor of any kind. Anything that requires physical effort usually elicits from him an expression of mild horror and incredulity, as though you'd asked if he'd like to stroke a pet cockroach. Therefor it was a memorable occasion when I came upon Dannatt carrying a night table, [...]
The pictures on this page are 360 panoramic images. If you do not have Quicktime (and you'll know if there are no pictures visible even after a minute), Download it here. These are not static pictures. You can move them left and right, up and down. To move the image: Hold down mouse button and drag mouse in desired direction. [...]
Snow and cold are anathema to the skateboarder. The winter in New York can be a frustrating time to pursue an activity best done wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Hardcore skaters still hit the streets to skate midtown's smooth plazas on frigid nights, but that can be a slightly masochistic and uncomfortable experience. One remedy is to move the action [...]
The peculiar thing about these 360 degree images is that when shooting in low light, or when there is a lot of movement, individuals can blur to the point of being non-existent. My friend calls these barely present people "ghosts." An example can be seen below. Never mind the couple making out passionately (when they stopped kissing they began walking [...]
An old friend came to town not long ago and we met for a late lunch on the Upper West Side. Trilby ordered a burger, no bread, with brie; I ordered half a roasted chicken with mashed potatoes. The food was slow in coming but we had so much catching-up to do that we didn't care. My chicken, when it [...]
'Scape is a new theater company that will stage ten short plays on a Brooklyn rooftop this June. To cast the plays the new theater company employed an old tradition, the audition. The plays will be outdoors and open air, but the audition was held in a small white room in a Bleeker Street cellar--closed air. For three hours the [...]
One American flag pin is not enough for the woman across the aisle from me on the L train to Brooklyn. She wears one on her lapel, one on her coat, one on the front of her Le Sportsac bag. All are bejeweled. Her eyes are closed; her head falls to the side. She has blonde hair, blonder highlights. She [...]
All those who believe Tupperware parties have gone the way of Suzy Homemaker may have cause to break out the crinoline. As a party at PROUN space studio has recently demonstrated, Tupperware is alive and glib in the West Village. No longer the exclusive domain of Valium-popping post-WWII housewives, this particular Tupperware party, given by architects Gustavo Bonevardi and John [...]
I got the call at 9:00 am. They wanted me to go to a Central Park West address, the home of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones. The celebrity couple had just had their second child, a girl, two days earlier, and were expected back from the hospital at any moment. Rounding the corner in front of the address, I [...]
Several years ago, in the Spring of 2003, I endured one of those moderately shattering moments of identity crisis – a break-up – and resorted to drugs to ameliorate its effects. Included among the expected substances and liquids was the powerful drug of technology, specifically a new gadget, even more specifically a neat-o cool-o camera attachment that allowed you to [...]
Day 24. Widespread looting in Baghdad. I had been gearing up for three weeks for the antiwar demonstration in D.C., but as it approached I became uncomfortably aware of several things. First of all, none of my friends were going, in fact, most had not even heard about the demonstration. Secondly, I did not like the prospect of having to [...]
On the Wall Reading Series at Cornelia St. Cafe welcomes Mr. Beller's Neighborhood Readers include: Elizabeth Frankenberger Debbie Nathan Gerald Howard and Annie Bruno WEDNESDAY APRIL 23 6:30pm Cornelia St. Cafe 29 Cornelia St. (for directions, go to www.corneliastreetcafe.com)
Yesterday, after visiting my family in my small hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, I took the train back to New York City, my chosen home. Though it was a weekday, the platform was congested with people. Some stood naively about and others, like myself, train-savvy, were waiting in the place where the train's opening doors would stop, poised to board ahead [...]
Day 14. U.S. troops four miles from Baghdad. It was 9 PM and I was out of Breathe Right strips. If I don't have Breathe Right strips I can't sleep soundly, so I put on my coat and my orange button that has a photograph of a very sweet looking little Iraqi girl and the words, "Stop the War on [...]
Photographs by Alexej Steinhardt and Thomas Beller Click here for more information about the 360 One VR When not in use however, the attachment comes with a plastic jar that screws over the mirror ball, to protect it. The plastic jar makes it look downright lethal, weird, and mad-scientistish, and I was a little concerned about wandering around the streets [...]
Day three 1,300 cruise missiles and bombs hit Baghdad. At work I have to use the freight elevator to bring my bicycle into the office. The elevator’s operated by an older Eastern European man with a deeply lined face and thinning hair. He dresses in the company uniform and a pair of beaten Air Jordans. It’s always seemed to me [...]
The late great comic Bill Hicks once said, famously, apropos the first gulf war: "I find myself in the unenviable position of being for the war -- but against the troops." Nobody that I've heard has come up with a similar corker this time around, a line which can sum up the personal confusion and official hypocrisy so succinctly. There [...]
I took a taxi to the peace rally. My driver was a Puerto Rican guy playing loud salsa music. There was no partition. Some post cards were taped to his dash. He sat in the driver's seat with pride of ownership. It was his cab, I was his guest. He had the window down and an elbow out the window, [...]
At about quarter to five this past Thursday I got into a cab at 56th and Broadway; my destination was the Port Authority and the Short Line Bus to my home in Orange County. It was a rainy, miserable day and I was damned glad to get the cab. My driver was relievedly Haitian -- one checks these days. As [...]
The staff of Murder Ink are always answering questions. People want book recomendations. They want to know when their favorite author has another title coming out. Sometimes they bring in a stack of books and ask how much money they can get for them. But the most frequently asked question, always over the phone, goes something like this: "Yo. Can [...]
I first came to Williamsburg in 1992 , to visit a painter friend’s studio. He would travel there every day from the Upper West Side, a long but worthwhile trip because the studio space was so cheap. Back then, the crowd of people that got off with us at the Bedford Avenue L stop disappeared quickly and mysteriously, and we [...]
Tuesday night some friends and I were sitting on a bench in Union Square, talking about the new game shows and dating shows and how there were so many hyped-up programs these days that were really just Candid Camera remakes. If you live long enough you see everything twice. Then we kind of ran out of material and fell into [...]
Late last year, the young Chinese couple who ran the Szechuan D'Or restaurant on East 40th Street were murdered. The incident sparked fear that the crime which had riddled Chinatown was moving uptown. Police launched a citywide campaign to wipe it out. The crackdown played havoc with established vice in Chinatown. Youth gangs, foot soldiers of neighborhood crime, were forced [...]
On Saturday, February 15th, I woke up at my usual time, and as I pattered around the apartment, I glanced out of my window to check the weather. It was bleak, only twenty-five degrees, with blistering winds, and on 47th Street there were at least twenty police vehicles lining the sidewalks. I started to pick up the sounds around me, [...]
The beers cost seven dollars and the DJ had A.D.D. He kept stopping the tracks midway through, throwing the girls off. There were two rooms, and opposite the bar in each room was a stage. The stage in the front room had a baby-blue wooden banister cordoning it off from the bar, and a sign in magic marker on poster [...]
One of the sayings where I work is that we see them all. Creaky old dope fiends with nine lives and wrecked veins, skinny young Africans with silky French accents, and lots of distracted crack smokers with rattling lungs. We also see the occasional sweet matronly mami from Puerto Rico or a doe-eyed young innocent from Harlem. But for the [...]
Jason knew that some kind of incident was imminent the moment the tattooed monster crossed the threshold into the small space in front of the counter. The other customers shrank away as the monster ordered his food. He was overconfident, full of bluster, and trying desperately to project toughness and hardness. Even though it was a laughable display it was [...]
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