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Subway CPR

by 04/26/2016
Neighborhood: Times Square

I was a drunk. A 29 year-old out degenerate by night, a hung over school teacher by day, at a prestigious upper west side school, no less. I’d had another all-nighter and wound up on my friend Doug’s veranda in the East Village at six o’clock in the morning with derelicts like myself. Sunk into […]

Underground Analysis

by 02/08/2016
Neighborhood: All Over

On the subway Thursday morning, a man sat beside me, with his wife or girlfriend (no ring) standing over him. He was about 35, with long wavy hair pulled into pony tail, and a scraggly beard — kind of a 21st-century beatnik look. She was done up like a character from My Cousin Vinny — […]

My Damn Love Affair

by 01/18/2016
Neighborhood: All Over, Uncategorized, Upper West Side

The New York of the 80’s was not a town that met you halfway. It stopped well short of that, just looking right through you. It really didn’t give a damn what happened to you, daring you to ride the subway late at night and then picking your pocket and laughing about it afterwards. It […]

Spa Day

by 09/06/2014
Neighborhood: Coney Island

The massage was about three-quarters of the way through when Galina stopped what she was doing and disappeared, leaving me face down and naked on the table, without a word of explanation. Galina? Bafflement gave way to blessed relief that her thumbs had, for a moment, ceased bullying me into a state of relaxation. I […]

On the Train in Winter

by 02/08/2014
Neighborhood: Across the River, All Over, Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens, Downtown Brooklyn, Gowanus, Greenwich Village

I have always lived near subway stations that are above ground, meaning that many of my days have begun by standing in the cold for a few minutes waiting for the train to roll in – the 1 at 125th Street, then the F at Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street in Brooklyn. During the winter […]

That’s Mad Creepy, Bro

by 01/01/2014
Neighborhood: Greenwich Village

I’m on the E train and a child who isn’t mine is leaning her head on my left shoulder. She is sleeping and I don’t quite know what to do yet. Her mother is to her left daydreaming, completely unaware that her daughter’s head has shifted onto a stranger. I decide to let her rest. […]

Respect for the Dead

by 04/08/2013
Neighborhood: Upper West Side

I was on the 2 Express uptown on my way home after work. It was about 6:30 pm. We straphangers who were standing were packed in like sardines. As the train pulled into the 79th Street station, there was a sound, a whooshing of air, a release. It felt as though the power had been […]

Found in Transit

by 02/09/2013
Neighborhood: All Over, Grand Central Station, Union Square

A woman once offered me her seat on a rush hour 3 train. New Yorkers only donate seats to the elderly, the injured, and the pregnant, so it was obvious what she thought. “Not pregnant – just fat,” I told her, matter-of-factly, compelled to set precedent before this woman’s so-called generosity spawned an outbreak of […]

From Ditmars Blvd. (the Last Stop)

by 02/03/2013
Neighborhood: Astoria

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 […]

I Know The Way To Brooklyn

by 01/15/2013
Neighborhood: Prospect Heights

I went to the Bob Dylan concert at the Barclay’s Center around Thanksgiving. We are contemporaries. I love his recent work and I thought it was about time I went to one of his live performances. I got a ticket, took the subway from the Upper West Side to the newly-christened Atlantic Ave.-Barclays Center stop. […]

After the Storm

by 12/28/2012
Neighborhood: All Over

In the immediate wake of the storm nothing worked. Neither power nor light, neither running water nor heat, neither internet nor ATM, the fundamentals of middle class life, without which we don’t believe we can live happily nowadays. Fish and flesh rotted in the refrigerator. Dirty dishes piled up in the sink. Even your own […]

In The Living Room Of The Beggar

by 04/13/2012
Neighborhood: Brighton Beach

He sat sprawled on the furthest side of the Q train, nose plumped with alcohol and ears flushed a chili-pepper red — laughing so hard his breath left two giant spheres of fog on the window. The rest of us were bunched on the other side, in an attempt to escape the stench of human […]