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Foster Home at Five
by M. A. Istvan Jr. 02/21/2021Neighborhood: Poughkeepsie
I was only five, but I knew my mom and dad were in court that day fighting over custody rights. The rainy gray outside—plus the turmoil of yelling and crying, nighttime stirrings, and mornings waking up in different rooms or houses or cars, and not understanding what was going on or where exactly was home—had […]
Philadelphia Story: Four Seasons Total Landscaping
by Jacob Margolies 11/11/2020Neighborhood: Philadephia
It’s the morning after the election, and the results are unexpectedly close. It seems like vote counting will be going on for a few days. I speak with the Bureau Chief for the Japanese newspaper where I work. We decide to go to Philadelphia to report the counting there. I stick my computer in my […]
THE SUPREMES and Me
by Marissa Piesman 09/19/2020Neighborhood: Bronx, Brooklyn, Washington DC
Ordinarily, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the Supreme Court. I practiced law for forty years, reluctantly. But the news of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death tonight has me very agitated. Ruth was a tough old bird, a borough girl. Like her sisters on the Court, Sonia and Elena. All three are borough […]
Sick at Work at Amazon
by John Paul Carillo 06/21/2020Neighborhood: New Jersey, Robbinsville
I work at the Amazon warehouse in Robbinsville, New Jersey, about an hour south of New York City. The sickest I’ve ever been was my first winter there. I’d applied earlier that year, in the fall of 2018, because the four-day workweek was appealing, and the wage was better than the temp construction work I […]
Ryder at the Beach
by Debra O'Fee 05/03/2020Neighborhood: Long Island, Massapequa
My 10 year-old son, Ryder has autism. Ryder is the sweetest boy ever, but he still surprises me and catches me off guard with things, mischievous things. Ryder’s always been very physical and that helps him, and hurts me, when he’s carrying out the crazy and creative (in retrospect) and impulsive thoughts that come to […]
Roommates
by Don MacLaren 10/19/2019Neighborhood: Astoria, Corona, Crown Heights, Ground Zero, Harlem, Hell's Kitchen
I’ve spent time in over 20 countries and at least 40 US states. In my travels, many people have told me that though New York City might be a nice place to visit, it’s certainly not a place for a person to live. But thank God there is a New York. One of the best […]
A Sports Coat is Worth a Thousand Words
by JB McGeever 08/18/2019Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Jamaica, Long Island
My dad reached inside the closet for his new jacket, single breasted, two button, and straight off the rack. It was pencil gray with flecks of black in it and may have had those professorial looking patches on the sleeves, but I’m not sure. He didn’t care much about clothes and the jacket was nothing […]
From New York to New Orleans
by Brett Busang 07/21/2019Neighborhood: Manhattan, New Orleans
Wandering Two Cities, a Youthful Diary Edward Hopper once said that he identified all the places he’d known according to their architecture. I used to be the same way. I noticed people as backdrops to overblown dramas in light and shade. I looked past them toward ogee roof and filigreed transom; I marveled at […]
Happy Father’s Day
by Martin Kleinman 06/15/2019Neighborhood: Bronx, New Jersey
The phone call came on a steamy summer morning, while I was stuck in traffic on the Central Park transverse, the Met’s Temple of Dendur off to my right. A nurse from my father’s hospital equivocated her way through the call. He had been in failing health. “Where are you now?” she finally asked, with […]
The King of New York
by Jason Schwartzman 03/05/2017Neighborhood: Astoria, Queens
I. From a distance the crown almost looks like solid gold. But as I walk farther up 30th Avenue in Astoria, I can tell there is something not quite right about it. It is glinting, sure, but I realize the crown is made of curled paper. It’s from Burger King. I am now only a […]
Piano Piece
by Elizabeth Bales Frank 01/28/2015Neighborhood: Astoria
A vintage piano stood alone on a deserted city street. Moments earlier, the piano had been saved from oblivion by a man named Oscar, who had stepped out of his apartment just as the workers of the New York City Sanitation Department had been struggling to lift the piano into the whining maw of their […]
My Neighbor Cries a Chain Link Fence
by Abigail Frankfurt 12/31/2013Neighborhood: Astoria
To the young beautiful woman with tears in her eyes who lives above me: now I know why you run in the apartment for hours backandforth backandforth. I know why you don’t talk in the hallway. I know because the building is old and my ceiling is thin. I heard the furniture thunder last night […]