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Nothing is Certain: Death and Bagels

by 08/09/2020
Neighborhood: Upper West Side

My very first marriage proposal came from the guy behind the counter at H&H Bagels on 80th and Broadway. I was around twelve and realize now he was most likely just looking for a tip or playing with the shy girl who was only recently allowed to go out from her school to buy her […]

A Song of Love

by 07/26/2020
Neighborhood: Bensonhurst

  (for ELG) My dad, who served as an MP in Okinawa just after the war, had strong views on inter-racial dating, because of all the mixed-race babies he saw there, half-breed bastards, he called them, rejected by the Okinawans, and ignored by the American GIs who’d fathered them. As his teenaged son in the […]

Lost in Coney Island

by 03/01/2020
Neighborhood: Coney Island, East New York

  Each summer it was a requirement that my brothers and I attend summer school. We could not be idle. We must all do something to further our education. My mother, Dot, laid down the law. She was formidable—not standing more than 5’4”, she wielded the power in our household. My father, though technically present, […]

My View of Sunset Park

by 10/14/2018
Neighborhood: Papua New Guinea, Sunset Park

Fifth Avenue entrance to Sunset Park My five-year-old daughter Claudia loves to go up and down the hills of Sunset Park on her scooter. We put her little crash helmet on and push her up the park hills, but she loves to go down them herself, having become an expert braker and master of turns. […]

Good Eye

by 02/20/2015
Neighborhood: 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 Ancient Swirl of Time that is Always Present Over Coney Island

by 10/20/2014
Neighborhood: Coney Island

It’s a bone chilling day in winter as I park my car on a side street next to the Cyclone roller coaster. My head is spinning with all these old Brooklyn memories, and I’ve come back here now looking for signs of them, looking for pieces left behind from the sad sweep of time. Sometimes, […]