You are currently browsing the stories about the Multiple neighborhood

Winter Wonderland

by 01/08/2011
Neighborhood: Midtown, Multiple, Uncategorized

The snow is beautiful and magical as it begins to come down in light flakes in the early morning hours of late February. The roads and sidewalks are still manageable, the seagulls playfully carving the air a few blocks away from the Hudson, children throwing snowballs, people out walking their dogs. As the hours pass […]

How I Got All of New York to Cheer For Me On My Morning Run

by 05/08/2009
Neighborhood: All Over, From The Archives, Multiple

This past 2nd of November, I walked two blocks from my apartment to 4th Ave in Brooklyn to watch the 38th running of the New York City Marathon. However, rather than being inspired, I immediately felt jealous. The cheering crowd shouting the runner’s names and shared nationalities as they ran by giving a quick nod […]

Sex, Craigslist, and Murder

by 05/02/2009
Neighborhood: All Over, Multiple

The Craigslist murder of Julissa Brisman has left me wondering about my own choices as well as those close to me. Brisman’s murder by alleged killer Philip Markoff is a scary fact of what can happen when using the Internet for dating or other activities. I’ve been an avid fan of online dating for years […]

The Decalogue: Ten Short Stories about Ten Short…Long Years

by 03/23/2009
Neighborhood: All Over, Multiple

March 2009 will mark the ten-year anniversary of returning to New York City. The first year I lived here, in 1993-94 was a blur: an apartment in the Bronx, working with kids at a neighborhood center, $10 all-you-could-drink Saturday nights at Rockridge on Bleecker, 6 a.m. 4-train rides home, and smoking blunts with the janitor […]

Bittersweet Victory

by 08/19/2008
Neighborhood: All Over, Multiple

About a hundred of them went. They left their wives, children, friends and girlfriends. Some left school, others their jobs, to fly halfway across the world to fight in a war for, they say, their people, their identity and their independence. The independence, gained almost a decade later, came at a cost. For Florim Lajqi […]

Once More Over the Bridge: May 24, 2008

by 07/01/2008
Neighborhood: Multiple, On the Waterfront

I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge on my last day of classes. It was a beautiful day in May. I had walked over the bridge many mornings this year, dropping my daughter at her school in Brooklyn Heights and continuing to work. I teach the essay to first-year college students and it is a good […]

My Newman Farewell

by 01/27/2008
Neighborhood: Across the River, Multiple

I spent a good nine months of my life dedicated to Paul Newman. I wasn’t training to eat eggs, or living a strict Newman’s Own diet. I was developing and writing a screenplay that had roles for not only Paul, but his wife, Joanne Woodward, and long-time cohort, Robert Redford. It was a far-fetched idea […]

The Subway Game

by 01/04/2007
Neighborhood: All Over, Multiple

My subway epiphany came when I moved back to New York after a seven-year absence in the early 1990s. In the time I had been away, the subways had been vastly improved, and were no longer a place of thoroughgoing menace. The interior surfaces of the well-ventilated car I rode in were gleaming and graffiti-free […]

Heteroflexibility

by 12/31/2006
Neighborhood: Chelsea, Multiple

I troll craigslist searching for traces of my ex. He dates trannies and the dregs of society. I had lunch with him the other day and I said, “Hey Luke, did you put this ad up?” “Oh my god! How the hell did you know!” I wanted to say, it’s really not that difficult when […]

Loaded Hallways

by 10/17/2006
Neighborhood: All Over, Multiple

The campus of my public school building in New York City is a fortress these days. Gazing through the mesh caging of any stairway window, I can spot faculty deans, campus security (a branch of the NYPD with arresting powers), as well as regular NYPD uniformed officers patrolling the grounds like medieval sentries. As I […]

Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood’s Greatest Hits: A Truncated Retrospective

by The Editors 06/09/2006
Neighborhood: Multiple, SoHo

Hello. The 6th Anniversary of Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood is here, and the time has come to pay tribute to the site’s past. So many pieces are coming in all the time, piling up on the surface of the site, that it’s easy to forget how much terrific work has accumulated in the deeper layers of […]

The Sea-Green Incorruptible

by 08/22/2005
Neighborhood: All Over, Multiple

[Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood is proud to share the following, a chapter of a new book from Soft Skull Press called “America’s Mayor: The Hidden History of Rudy Giuliani’s New York” edited by Robert Polner and with a preface by Jimmy Breslin. The book is an anthology that includes reminiscences and critical dissections of the Giuliani […]