You are currently browsing the stories about the “Yorkville” neighborhood.
The butterflies in my stomach had made their annual visit. It was the first day of school after a summer camping in New Jersey and the Bronx with my aunt and cousins. The oppression of a Catholic school education was always tough to return to after a summer spent outdoors. Like a Marine returning from extended leave, I would now [...]
When my mother and I returned to New York City in 1993 — following a short, confused stint in Dallas, Texas — we moved into an apartment on 83rd Street between York and East End avenues, in Yorkville. A few years earlier, at age seven, I had migrated to the city from Westchester County with my mother and her boyfriend, [...]
Early 1960s, Yorkville. My block, 81st street between 1st and York avenues. During my early years, I witnessed a predominantly working-class immigrant neighborhood of Irish, Germans, and Hungarians being replaced by new wealthier residents. The transition started with the construction of high-rise apartment buildings on the avenues. These characterless buildings were replacing the five-story walk-ups and their mom and pop [...]
Was I a fool to think this relationship could be saved by an upholstered storage bench? I spent weeks in deep contemplation on my go-to furniture websites, activating coupons and letting them expire, looking at measurements, colors, prices, patterns. Jonathan and I had already discussed it in couples’ therapy. The plan, sanctioned by our therapist, was to get rid of [...]
[caption id="attachment_10213" align="alignleft" width="612"] 83rd Street Gang[/caption] Summer 1965 in Yorkville, two street rides would begin to show up at night after dinner: the Bumper Cars and the Half Moon. Each ride sat on a flat-bed truck, whose driver doubled as the ride operator. He’d park at a hydrant opening. The admission for each ride was a dime. [...]
Dad and I did four things together: play sports, attend sports, watch TV, and go to the movies. I liked movies the best; it’s much harder telling a kid what to do in the dark. You would have loved taking me to the movies when I was 6 years old. I was a cheap date, one box of Pom Poms [...]
At 16, my dream job was working behind the deli counter at Daitch Shopwell. As a stock boy this would be a coup. Watching Milton or Marty cut thin slices of rare roast beef and Jarlsberg Swiss, I cried with pain. Pain that some son of a bitch was going to eat that tasty mound of meat and cheese and [...]
As a boy in the early 1960s, I'd go up my grandparents' second floor apartment on York Avenue several times a week. Their hallway was lit by one low watt exposed bulb. The dark hall frightened me. Sometimes my fear was compounded when I'd hear fuzzy radio sounds coming from the usually locked basement. I assumed it was a foreign [...]
Gabriella breezed into St. Stephen’s 6th grade as a new student, and left a battleship wake when she mysteriously disappeared after seventh grade. Gabriella was an adorable Hungarian immigrant with a low voice like Natasha on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Her hair was cut short and bobbed to show off her huge dark almond-shaped eyes and rich lips. Drove [...]
Thanksgiving morning, 1961, Mom woke me quietly and whispered, “Rory is sick. If you wake him up before you leave, you’re not going either.” I shook my head yes. I felt bad that my younger brother, Rory, wouldn’t see the parade, but I was happy to go with Dad alone. It was much easier having a good time with Dad [...]
Dad used to hunt. He didn't golf, so hunting was another made up reason to get out of the house. He never struck me as the hunting type, but once or twice a year, he'd be off upstate for a long weekend. It was a Yorkville man thing in the 1950s and 1960s. As he was walking out the door [...]
"Hey Dad, who were you just talking to down at the end of the bar?" "Oh, that's Al Dorow, the quarterback for the New York Titans." It was fall 1961, Dad and I were in Loftus Tavern after throwing the ball around outside on York Avenue. My two teams, the New York Giants, football, and the Yankees, baseball, were playing [...]
