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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 life decisions I made was [...]
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 few paces behind the man [...]
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 garbage truck. With the woodwindy [...]
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 and I heard him - [...]
N train I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. N train, two dollars and twenty-five cents. N train; go fuck yourself with your Sunday Schedule. N train you are making me lose my mind. You will never be angelic N train, 40 minutes to Queensboro Plaza! N train you are full of excuses. We passengers don’t have many demands. [...]
There is something unsettling about having a therapy session at the home of your therapist. It is on par with a Halloween night of childhood trick or treating and having to step through the threshold of a nameless neighbor’s doorway for handful of candy corn or tootsie rolls. Your seven-year-old nose inhales a waft of scents that aren’t those of [...]
In the glory days of Steinway Street, there was an establishment called Record Spectacular. A combination record store/head shop, it was located between 30th and 31st Avenues, on the west side of the street…and was a meeting place of sorts for music aficionados, potheads, and other 1970s misfits. I still remember walking wide-eyed into Record Spectacular as a pre-teen with [...]
When you live in an apartment building, you never know who the hell is gonna move in next door. I remember being in my late teens when a Greek family moved out two doors down and an older couple took the apartment. The guy's name was Dom and he fixed televisions for a living. A congenial guy with white hair, [...]
I slept on my fire escape one night last week but it wasn't due to martial strife or a daredevil spirit. Rather, the sight of yours truly three flights up sporting boxer shorts and a death grip on the bars came courtesy of Con Edison (with a nod to Mayor Bloomberg). The lights first dimmed on Monday, July 17—smack dab [...]
On the way to the laundromat I passed a message chalked out on the sidewalk. In large, neat block letters on a square of pavement it read: “The best part about the night was taking the train home with you.” The note seemed to be directed at the building across the street, but looking up it was impossible to tell [...]
Basketball has always been my favorite sport to play. I guess that came from living in an urban environment and not always having money. If you had anywhere from 2 to 10 guys, all you needed was one ball and at least one basket. It was a little more complicated in the winter. Fortunately, a local junior high, 204, had [...]
Wanting to see the new exhibits at Socrates Sculpture Park, I walked down Broadway from my Astoria apartment. I passed beneath the elevated subway station as an N or W train thundered through. Down past grungy supermarkets and massive discount stores, with their outdoor displays of toilet paper, sandals, fake Persian rugs, and baskets of brooms. The last time I [...]
Whenever I took my second grade special education class to the playground, they'd make a mad dash for the swings. Though, the winners would seldom swing. They would spin in circles by twisting the chains. I'd warn them about becoming dizzy, but dizziness gave them an excuse after their turn was over to stumble into each other and see how [...]
Before I met my husband my one true love was Brooklyn. I’d been living in Carroll Gardens for almost ten years and had watched it turn from a neighborhood I didn’t want to live in (un-cool) to a neighborhood I adored (pretty cool) to a neighborhood I sort of didn’t want to live in (so cool it was at risk [...]
Even though I've trained myself in hand-to-hand combat, I've never been eager to fight and I always surprise myself if I do something brave in that area. One of my proudest moments came when I was about 18. My friend Angelo was dating a girl Gina who had been seeing this other guy from another neighborhood. We'd regularly hang out [...]
I was sitting in the front seat of Frank's Cadillac Seville when he pulled out of a parking space and whipped into a u-turn without looking. We both saw the approaching headlights too late...and yeah, we got hit. In those pre-seat belt law days, my left hand reached out to the glove compartment to brace myself and I hurt my [...]
"Let’s see. A sexual assault … in the third degree," Officer D. of the 114th Precinct in Queens said as he looked down at the paper in front of him, searched for, found and marked the two correct boxes. "Sorry this is taking so long," he said, glancing up at me with a friendly smile. "These damn complaint forms are [...]
It was a big mistake inviting her, a big mistake. She wasn't worth all the fuss I'd made. I hadn't seen her in a year and time is rarely kind; she was only twenty- eight but it seemed she'd already been launched into her prime and was now backsliding into the uncomfortable stages of bad skin and poor posture (all [...]
Today, I walk the stairs up to the elevated platform, ready to join 3.5 million of my closest friends on the subway. Just a few days before a possible transit workers strike was to have happened. Being unable to get into Manhattan would have hurt my wallet but, I remind myself, there are bigger issues at stake. The N train [...]
I was born in Brooklyn and to my understanding it was a fait accompli that I would be a Mets fan. I was taught that all Brooklyn residents had been Dodgers fans and four years after the Dodgers sold their souls and moved to Los Angeles we became New York Mets fans. As a child raised in a non-denominational home, [...]
Some people around here watched the towers collapse from their rooftops. I didn't even think to go up to the roof. Like baseball, I preferred it on TV. Hell, I'm an American. When the second tower I fell I took a walk outside with my friend. We both live in Astoria and we both work at home (well, he's a [...]
