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An Education on Avenue B
by Jacob Margolies 03/23/2014Neighborhood: East Village
In 1971, when I was 11 years old, my world was turned upside down when my parents decided to send me to a Jewish Day School on the Lower East Side. From grades 1 to 5, I’d gone to the Downtown Community School, or DCS as it was called, on East 11th Street. It […]
The Hedges
by Joseph Scalia 02/16/2014Neighborhood: Farmingdale
I don’t know when it happened exactly, but it happened. I have become a cranky old man, closed and rigid and fixed in my ways, despite the fact that in my youth I’d resolved never to grow up, never to become like all the grown ups who lived in my world when I was growing […]
That’s Mad Creepy, Bro
by Joseph Rauch 01/01/2014Neighborhood: 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. […]
On Avoiding the Clipboard
by Theresa Reed 06/06/2013Neighborhood: Greenwich Village, Uncategorized, West Village
It was my second time on the NYU campus (I will pause here, long enough for some self-important student to roll his eyes: “We don’t have a campus,” as if the word is a smarmy, sordid curse); it was my first time there alone, and I wore the trademark face of an awed tourist. Open-mouthed. […]
Scaffolding
by Thomas Beller 04/18/2013Neighborhood: Financial District
Once upon a time, when I was a teenager working as a bike messenger, I would stop midway across Central Park, somewhere along the North side of the Great Lawn, and take a break to regard the skyline along the park’s southern edge. I was always hoping to see signs of new construction. This would […]
School Spirits
by JB McGeever 03/20/2013Neighborhood: Jamaica
I’ve been teaching Writing and Literature in New York City’s public school system for almost nine years. This spring, my former building will graduate its final class just shy of reaching the century mark. The school’s phase-out process followed the usual script that no ‘education reformer’ cares to discuss: a decent school declared dangerous, unable […]
The Dirty Side Of A Car Wash
by eugene barron 03/15/2013Neighborhood: Bronx
I believe my father owned one of the first automatic car washes in New York City, located on Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx. It was around 1950 and I can still recall a TV blip of him driving into the car wash and the newscaster, John Cameron Swayze, making note of this distinct new type […]
At Home on the Church Steps
by Mindy Lewis 02/08/2013Neighborhood: Upper West Side
On a blustery December evening on my way to a friend’s dinner party, I stopped in front of a jumbo cardboard box on the steps of the church around the corner. “Jim?” I called out. A moment later a hand emerged and gave a little wave, followed by a head with tousled, graying hair. “Hi,” […]
Ellis Island
by Robert Viscusi 02/03/2013Neighborhood: Ellis Island
The following sonnets are excerpted from Robert Viscusi’s forthcoming book, Ellis Island, which will be published in March 2013 by Bordighera Press. Random arrangements of lines from the 624 sonnets that comprise this epic work can be discovered via the Random Sonnet Generator at ellisislandpoem.com. This is the first time these poems have appeared as written […]
Revo, like Revolution.
by Kenneth R. Rosen 01/30/2013Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant
I met a man at the corner bodega by my brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Friday. The conversation started like this. “Hey, man. What’s going on?” I said while heading to the beverage coolers. “Not much, how are you?” “Can’t complain. Just a lazy Friday. What do you think, Colt 45 or Olde English?” “Colt 45 […]
Starry Night
by Kevin Kinsella 12/04/2012Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn
“If stars are lit…” – V. V. Mayakovsky Had the receptionist been Dante Alighieri, he might have strung a banner along the wall of the windowless waiting room advising visitors to “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” But the person who pointed me in the direction of this circle of Hell was no Dante–nor […]
Bensonhurst Nicknames ca. 1966 – 1980, Annotated.
by Dave Mandl 11/12/2012Neighborhood: Bensonhurst
[This list contains all the nicknames of kids I can remember from my childhood (age 7 – 21, approx.) in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. See explanatory notes for each nickname below.] 1. Angelo Head 2. Rabbit 3. Ape 4. Frankie Airlines 5. Joey All-Star 6. Vinnie Barbarino 7. Turtle 8. Tortoise 9. Harry O. 10. Frank Asshole […]