You are currently browsing the stories about the “Upper East Side” neighborhood.
In his long running quest to be a perpetual house guest, Sherban had developed a new strategy: balconies. Something about a balcony reassured apartment owners that one's presence was only temporary, enjoyable almost. And life on a balcony turned out to be refreshingly casual, al fresco. By contrast to a "spare room" or fold-out sofa, one could be proud of [...]
Having finished the Blue-plate Special And reached the coffee stage, Stirring her cup she sat, A somewhat shapeless figure Of indeterminate age In an undistinguished hat. When she lifted her eyes it was plain That our globular furore, Our international rout Of sin and apparatus And dying men galore, Was not being bothered about. Which of the seven heavens Was [...]
It was the day before the day before Christmas. Several puppies were carousing in the window of a pet store. The avenue was full of people. It was not the normal crowdedness, he felt. It was a less stressed out crowdedness, a crowd in the mood for lingering. He joined the crowd watching the puppies. They were separated into three [...]
K.Y. Grocery, near the corner of 83rd on the east side of York, is run by a Korean family who are friendly with the Japanese fish market that lies next door. If you are a regular, they will let you run small tabs if you’re short on cash, and they always round up or down to avoid pennies. Since it’s [...]
The Editors of Mr. Beller's Neighborhood and The Whitney Museum Invite you to a Party on Friday, November 7th. 945 Madison Avenue, at 75th Street. 6-9pm Admission to the party (and the whole museum!) is whatever you want, including free. There will be a reading featuring Phillip Lopate, Rachel Cline, and Thomas Beller. Snacks, Drinks, Doo-Dads, Door-Prizes, and an audio [...]
I’ve always been a bit obsessed by mastheads, and one of my favorite mastheads to peruse is that of The Paris Review. The print is very small, because there are so many names to fit on the page. The normal fluctuations of people arriving and vanishing from a magazine do not apply here; a name might get moved from one [...]
When I first moved to New York I worked at a large accounting firm in west Midtown and lived in Yorkville, at 90th and Second. One day in early October, about two months after I began my job, I decided to walk home from work. I determined that I could walk on Fifth Avenue until I reached 90th Street, at [...]
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 [...]
My brother was thirteen years older than me. We had different values, he having grown up in a repectable working class slum and me, from age seven to seventeen, in a fancy suburb west of Boston. I took a lot of things for granted. But he had bought the American Dream, maybe because our mother was an Armenian immigrant fleeing [...]
The woman sits. Pant legs are chewed. A blue parka soiled with what looks like oatmeal. It’s the Waiting Room. Institutional seat cushions, easily cleaned in case of vomit, spit, coffee, or feces. I pretend to read. The woman’s tongue stabs the air. She has no teeth. "It’s 11:30," she insists, speaking to the receptionist. "Where’s Dr. Forrester?" She’s told [...]
Thomas Beller: Is the book you're writing now like your first two? Fran Lebowitz: No, it's a novel. It's called Exterior Signs of Wealth. I don't have quirks about discussing it, but there isn't enough of it to discuss at length. TB: How about in brief? FL: It's set mostly in New York. It starts in 1970 and goes up [...]
We found the doll right there on 16th Street in Brooklyn, outside the Baptist church (now, don’t get too excited, they’re boring white Baptists--no big hats or electric guitars anywhere in sight). The doll was wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag. Only its feet were showing, chubby little feet in high-button boots. The church folk had been cleaning out [...]
Several summers ago, my central air conditioning let loose. A fast drip became a flood. My daughter discovered the problem during the eleven o’clock news, walking around in socks that became cold and wet. I called the doorman, requesting that the superintendent come immediately. Often surly, Ely intimidates many residents in the building, who naturally resent him. We live in [...]
He rushed into the Starbucks on 87th Street and Lexington Avenue, camera in one hand, laptop in the other, holding them up high, like they were platters of food. He wore an FDNY baseball cap on backwards, and a light green, somewhat military looking vest over a blue shirt. He moved among the tables very quickly with the spry agility [...]
My cousins grew up in New York. I met them once in California, where I lived until I was seven. But when we moved to a Oxen Hill, suburb of Washington, DC, we began regular visits. This was in the late sixties. Thanksgiving in Manhattan followed by Christmas in Oxen Hill, or vice versa. My aunt and uncle rented or [...]
Anton sells photographs on Fifth Avenue and 81st Street in front of the museum. He arrives at his spot at nine o'clock in the morning six days a week - the Metropolitan Museum of Art is closed on Mondays and so the sidewalks are just too empty for business. The photographs come from the eye, camera and studio of Alex [...]
I live in a medical ghetto. Within my zip code there are 12 hospitals, one famous medical school, one re-known cancer center, one biomedical research institution, 18 medical laboratories and 1,866 doctor‚s practices. Vamps, a shoe emporium two blocks away from my apartment, stocks Danish clogs popular with area nurses. The mission of the Roman Catholic parish around the corner [...]
It was bitter cold, about 2 pm on a Wednesday afternoon, and yet people were waiting in a helluva line: it wrapped from the entrance on Fifth Avenue around the corner onto 88th Street like a caterpillar stretching its limbs. The line was full and restless. Photo by Miles Aldridge, 2000, of woman's evening gown, fall/winter 1997-98 People bought hotdogs [...]
Since last April I've been living in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and managing a pet shop which is part of a five store chain. A lady and a gentleman came into my store the other day to buy dog food and it was obvious that they'd been arguing. They continued the argument while they shopped, with the lady getting louder and angrier [...]
There were police all around the fruit man. He stood there next to his fruit. His stand is on the North East corner of 87th and Lexington, across from Starbucks, and whenever I pass by I buy an apple for fifty cents. Or sometimes bannanes. He is a gracious guy, am immigrant, his softness of manner has made him many [...]
This story is part of the novel, The Sleep-Over Artist ** Arnold Gerstein often took friends to his father's club, the Harmonie, on 61st Street just off Fifth Avenue, where they could "use the facilities" (as Arnold's father put it) for free. They would shoot hoops on the small basketball court, whose wooden floor had taken on a yellow-orange patina [...]
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