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The Boys of Crown Heights
by Norbert Weissberg 08/08/2021Neighborhood: Crown Heights
Dr. Schpahl looked like a Nazi out of central casting. A thin mensur crawled down his right cheek, across his pock-marked face, to below his mouth. He spoke in clipped, accented barks, most of which were expressions of severe disappointment. That he was a Hebrew teacher and not a camp commandant may have been a […]
The Flaneuse’s Return
by Felicia Rose 04/25/2021Neighborhood: Kensington
Every now and again I find myself contemplating a suitable place for a desk. This may sound mundane, except that the home in these musings is not where I live. Even in reverie, this desk-placing endeavor is no easy feat. For while the contemplation serves as a daydream, the home—an apartment in Kensington, Brooklyn—actually exists. […]
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 […]
Not Sisters
by Aviva Goldstein 02/09/2020Neighborhood: Park Slope
Bobbi and Gerri first introduced themselves as sisters when we moved into an apartment one floor below them. But the headline above their picture in the Park Slope Patch nine years later reads, “Park Slope Couple First Same-Sex Couple to Wed in Brooklyn.” The picture caption reads, “After 48 years of coupledom, on Sunday morning […]
Absolutely True Minutes from a Co-op Meeting
by Thomas Rayfiel 08/04/2018Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Park Slope
The evening kicked off with a lively discussion of garbage. Now that Harriet and Karl have settled into Apartment 1, they were encouraged to proceed in beautifying what has become, even by the building’s lax standards, the eyesore outside their front windows. Mary says she knows of a woman who has made concealing trash a […]
Rodney Street
by Miko Jeffries 02/26/2017Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Williamsburg
Lola is whining. I open the door to the dark hallway so she’ll stop, so she’ll know I’m here. The sunlight reveals a brown present she’s left already, its odor mixing in with the faint smell of cigarettes. It’s hardening. I’m not going to clean it up. She’s not my puppy. The open bedroom door […]
Good Eye
by Neil Stein 02/20/2015Neighborhood: Uncategorized
It’s the middle of the season and my son won’t swing at the ball. Jesse is seven and this is his third year playing league baseball. For the entire season he hasn’t swung the bat. Since the pitchers on the other teams have little or no control, he is almost always assured of getting a […]
The Last Winter Dance Party of America
by Pat Fenton 12/15/2014Neighborhood: Uncategorized
It’s 1957, and the three of us, Jacky,Vinnie from 19th Street, and me, are doing this Brooklyn strut sort of a walk down Eastern Parkway. Vinnie is a thief. He will steal anything he can get his hands on, doesn’t matter who owns it. That’s just the way he is. But there’s something cool and […]
An Evening With the Nichiren Shoshu of America, 1980
by Mary O'Connell 12/07/2008Neighborhood: Across the River, Brooklyn
I remember now that we took the R train from Court Street to 75th Street in Bay Ridge. I thought how ironic it was to be returning to Bay Ridge, from which I had fled for my life, to seek enlightenment. But my sponsor, Ellen, assured me that I could chant for anything, ANYTHING, fulfill […]
Ashes
by Phillip Lopate 10/30/2001Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens
My first inkling of an attack on the Twin Towers came from the Fed Ex man delivering a packet. He rang the doorbell around 9:15, and when I started to sign for it, he said, shaken: “Did you hear what happened? A plane crashed into the World Trade Center. You can see the black smoke […]