You are currently browsing stories tagged with “Vanity.”
Yesterday was a quiet day on 47th Street. A winter snow was having its way with New York City. Snow piled up on the street. The porters had a hard time clearing the sidewalk and I was having difficulty looking busy. There was nothing to do. No one came into the store. No dealers, no gypsies, and no customers. “I [...]
The scruff on the back of my neck was getting long, so I decided it was time to head over to Supercuts on 10th and University and get a trim. There’s nothing special about this specific Supercuts; I’m sure the hundreds or thousands of other Supercuts around the country provide the same mediocre haircut for the same standard price. But [...]
A sinkhole is threatening to swallow up 79th Street in Bay Ridge. Police, fire, city workers are on the scene. Supposedly, the sewers had something to do with it.“The beginning of the end,” laments a longstanding neighborhood resident on local TV. He is wearing a trucker hat and gold chain and undershirt. Behind him, elders in lawn chairs spit husks [...]
We move the summer before ninth grade from our four-room apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, to a four-bedroom Colonial house with a two-car garage on the south shore of Long Island. A town where every street is a drive or a place or a court. A place where kids play softball in the street and basketball in their driveways and [...]
St. Patrick’s Day promised to be another disaster for the Retail Collection of the Plaza Hotel. Hordes of green-clad spectators streamed down the escalator into the basement. Their eyes averted the luxury goods on offer, as their destination was the hotel’s public bathroom. Within the first hour I had given directions to the toilet over a hundred times. Most said [...]
I was sitting on a bench on the Lower East Side, waiting for an appointment with my barber, when a homeless lady came shuffling by, dressed in black rags. These were particularly witchy rags, it seemed to me, like she’d bought them at a store as part of a Halloween costume. Like in addition to being homeless she was somehow [...]
I bumped into Tim Gunn again the other day. That Tim Gunn, Project Runway guru Tim Gunn. It is Wednesday afternoon, right before Thanksgiving, and I had two seconds to get to the ATM before my son Leo’s ride dropped him off. As I am crossing Broadway, talking on my cell to my mother, I see Tim. (“Tim” it is. [...]
My Uncle Carmine had a theory that the reason for the longevity of women was due to the fact that their sex makes men wait for them and every minute and hour of a man’s waiting is stored within the genetic code of a woman’s body. In America that advantage of life over death is more than five years and [...]
If my twenty-year-old sister Janet not been maid of honor, I would not even have been invited to my neighbor Nina Milano’s wedding. Nina was 18, one year younger than I, and her fiancé Larry was just 21 on their wedding day, not that unusual in 1969, when many young men, Larry included, were drafted into the Army. Anticipation and [...]
“I probably should have done this ten years ago.” This was the theme that ran through my mind when I replayed the decision to leave my profession and take up teaching at the age of 49. But then getting out of the garment business was no easy feat. I felt like The Godfather’s Michael Corleone trying to escape from the [...]
I’ve become obsessed by wrinkles. Particularly the ones surrounding my eyes and across the map of my forehead that extend like arid rivers across my skin’s terrain. About a year ago, I purchased my first wrinkle cream, Oil of Olay Anti-Aging Eye Gel ($12.99) from the local Duane Reade. This was followed by Olay’s Regenerist Microdermabrasion Treatment and Peel Activator [...]
The Ansonia Hotel was not your usual hotel. But we were not your usual family. By the time I was born in 1945, the Ansonia had suffered years of neglect. The live seals that once frolicked in the lobby fountain were long gone. So was the fountain when I lived there as a child with my mother and father. Many [...]
In the divorce papers filed by my ex-wife, the second one I mean, she said I never paid attention to her. While we were still living in the same house she also said, “You never listen to me.” “What?” I generally responded from the other room. For the record, I am, in fact, a great listener. But she was right, [...]
Luciana, my aesthetician, is administering my facial. I come to see her in this upscale New York city dermatologist’s office about every three months or when I just need a pick me up. As she is stroking my skin with a warm creamy make-up remover, we are sharing our usual catch up questions about kids, work, exercise and then the [...]
Pretty much every woman in New York City gets her nails done and why not? There are at least six or seven per two-block radius, give or take. It’s a cheap and standard luxury here, courtesy of lots of supply, lots of demand. For those who tote their bright all-smiles and pleasant politeness, it’s the respite, “Ahhh-I’ve-been-looking-forward-to-this-all-week”. For others and [...]
Blue never counts the raccoon coat in her estimate. By this time in 1984, t’s too old, even though from a distance it makes her look like a rich person. The coat, which falls to her ankles, is from the 1920s and was her grandfather's. The inside label even spells out his name in baroque cursive writing: David Stewart. She [...]
I’m thinking about breaking the law. Not the law of the city and state of New York. The law of the neighborhood. I live in a college town. The boundaries of this town are roughly between 110th Street and 125th Street on the west side of Manhattan, though the holdings and minor fiefdoms extend well beyond those borders. The college [...]
One of the first things a new visitor to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is likely to notice is how well dressed most of the men are. Monsoon rains may turn the streets into shallow lakes, the electricity may be erratic, but the men are fairly consistent in their outfit--a pair of slacks and a neat button down short sleeve shirt. The [...]
The strange twinge that often comes when I leave work and head west on 56th Street is, oddly, much like the same thing that hit the center of my gut when, at 13, I rode a bike to a movie theater in South Jersey and, with my school buddies, went to see my first R-rated movie. It's as if, confronting [...]
The world of magazine publishing in New York is extremely competitive. No matter how talented one is an editor or a writer, one must have contacts in the industry to obtain that first, entry-level job. Mrs. Carpati, my landlady, happened to work at Cosmopolitan in ad sales, and she was glad to introduce me to Hearst Magazines. I got lucky [...]
At the beginning of February, the city was overrun by rabid sports fans. I went downtown about 9 days before the big foosball game. Streets were barricaded and blocked off. Downtown Detroit had a different type of buzz. Metro Detroiters were excited because so many people would be in town. Here in the Midwest, we suffer from big big city [...]
Alma Mater, the massive, laurel wreath-sporting statue-woman who sits at the heart of the Columbia campus in Morningside Heights, strikes an ambiguous pose: her forearms raised, her palms open to the sky, her face blank. This gesture can be interpreted in all kinds of ways, but, on days like Tuesday, it was a shrug. Many students I talked to shrugged [...]
For six years I worked as a trainer and gym floor manager at the Vertical Club. What Studio 54 was to 1970s New York, the Vertical Club (VC) was to 1980s New York. A warehouse-sized health club, complete with neon lights and blaring dance music, it was where the Big Apple's social elite came to sweat, strain, moan, groan, and [...]
I pull on my brand new Calvin Klein white cashmere coat, wrap a cozy hand-knitted scarf around my neck, and then pull the matching mittens over my hands. I glance outside into the snowy night and curse because my hair will frizz in the snow. I scurry out the door of my apartment building and gasp when the frigid blast [...]
On a cold icy Thursday in a duplex on the Upper East Side with high windows: well cared-for plants and a spiral staircase lead to a mirrored room. There stands an erect youthful female figure, reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn, with a dancer's sillhouette. Her name is Anita Koffler. She awaits her devoted exercise participants and fellow exercise pupils who have [...]
This essay appears in the just released book, "Lost and Found: Stories From New York." 1. Rage Reacclimation: Waiting in line for a press credential At the southwest corner of "The Big Tent" in Bryant Park, a snaking, huddled mass of photographers gathers in the cold, waiting for access to the warm, partitioned press cell within. Fashion Week has arrived [...]
If you are a female who loves shoes (or a male,come to think of it, more specifically of the queenly persuasion), you have not really lived until you’ve seen the Joseph LaRose shoe collection. The collection is showcased at Cherry, a vintage store in the West Village, known for its Fashion Meets Twilight Zone window displays that make Christmas at [...]
Check out Rachel Sherman's new book! ** No one who does Japanese hair straightening at Hair Village is Japanese. You can't have highlights if you want your hair straightened. You can't touch your hair - even put it behind your ears - for three days afterwards. You can't wash your hair for three days either. You should probably wear a [...]
We don't like them, and they don't like us. What follows are brief reports on encounters between civilians and Hummers (and their owners) in an urban environment. ANY urban environment. If you want to add your own, please go to the "Tell Mr. Beller A Story" button and send one in. (The most recent additions are at the top.) ** [...]
My devotion to fashion shows began with the designer Cynthia Rowley. About six years ago I inherited an invitation to her show when a fashion editor at the magazine where I worked couldn't attend. I still remember grabbing a cab at the last minute and scrambling in as the show was just beginning. Sly Stone's "If You Want Me to [...]
Last August, when the Russian woman who waxes my legs in Brooklyn went on vacation, I made an appointment at a spa in SoHo. I'd actually been meaning to switch for some time. It wasn't that I didn't like Vicki—I did. She was dirt cheap, and we shared an interest in politics. Even though her accent was kind of thick, [...]
Illustrations by Elisha Cooper Some people come to New York for the thrills. Some for romance. My desire starts lower down--well below the knee--in a hidden, private erogenous zone, where I get my kicks. This is the story of my socks life. I was travelling along Broadway in one of those reassuring black Town Cars. My agent was with me. [...]
We convoyed out to a house in Connecticut. The swimming pool was very warm. There were huge trees in the backyard and they swayed in the breeze, and beneath them, an expanse of lawn. We went shopping at the local Haymarket--which is sort of a Balducci's for Connecticans--and my friend left the key in the car while we were inside [...]
Photographs by Rachel Sherman Inside Miguel's Barbershop on 942 Amsterdam Avenue, Spanish speaking men sit in barber chairs facing the mirror. It is a sunny Friday in the early afternoon and the shop is busy. I ask a guy named Anthony, who is sitting in the back, about Miguel's. "This is a guy's place," he tells me. The barber working [...]
Several months ago I was stuck in a rut. You know, drinking at the same tired bars, hanging with all-too familiar friends, masturbating in the same routine sock. So in my grand tradition of superficial alterations-buying new shoes, switching from contacts to glasses, wearing headbands instead of hats-I buzzed my skull. And now, several months later, the result was scraggly [...]
Once a month, I take the downtown number 6 train to Astor Place for an $11 buzz cut. Near the corner of Broadway, a red and white awning urges me to Beware of Imitators as dozens of celebrity snapshots are exhibited in the storefront window — Judd Nelson, Susan Sarandon, Rosie O’Donnell, Yannick Noah . . . Inside, a man [...]
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