You are currently browsing the stories about the Yorkville neighborhood

From New York to Dallas and Back Again

by 02/11/2023
Neighborhood: Yorkville

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 […]

Yorkville 1960s–A Neighborhood in Transition

by 06/06/2021
Neighborhood: Yorkville

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 […]

Home Decorating

by 01/12/2020
Neighborhood: Yorkville

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, […]

Yorkville Summer 1965

by 10/06/2019
Neighborhood: Yorkville

    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. My daily […]

Two Guys Talking on the Corner

by 01/06/2015
Neighborhood: Yorkville

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, […]

There Will Be Blood

by 04/23/2014
Neighborhood: Yorkville

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 […]

The Love Seat (A Ghost Story)

by 10/21/2012
Neighborhood: Yorkville

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 […]

Stuff in Stockings

by 03/20/2011
Neighborhood: Yorkville

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 […]

Thanksgiving 1961

by 11/24/2010
Neighborhood: Yorkville

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 […]

Dad Shot Thumper

by 06/19/2010
Neighborhood: Yorkville

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 […]

At the Polo Grounds

by 04/06/2010
Neighborhood: East Harlem, Yorkville

"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 […]