This Father’s Day my quest is to be as lazy as possible without appearing to be ungrateful or a bad father. If I could move my couch and laptop to the nearest White Castle and camp out for a day feasting on delicious burgers and watching hunting shows. There were days before I had children… Read more »
The secret to a good bar has nothing to do with what beers are on tap or what its décor looks like. The only valid measure of a bar is its character, it supersedes all other measures. I’ve been in bars that reeked of piss and fruit flies that were a thousand times better than… Read more »
As someone who was rejected by all four major branches of the military in one form or another, I don’t have much authority to preach on about the sacrifices made by our armed services. I have family and friends who have and continue to serve in the military, and I am very grateful for the… Read more »
Local Law 11 is the ordnance in New York City that requires all air conditioners be installed with proper reinforcement on multi-dwelling buildings. It’s good that this law exists because too many people are doing what I did and installing their air conditioners with a jerry rigged effort involving a 2×4, cardboard and tape. People… Read more »
August 1961, Rory is 5, I’m 7 and it’s 96 degrees. We have shorts, tee-shirts and sneakers on. Mom couldn’t take the heat in our airless apartment and dragged the three of us over to Central Park. We start racing ahead down the path to the Alice in Wonderland statute after my father yells, “Who’s… Read more »
Civic duty is much nobler in speech than it is in action. Jury duty is an honorable civic duty that most citizens do everything in their power to avoid. I received a jury duty summons in the mail to serve in my home borough of Queens. But rather than get a definite day to report,… Read more »
Weekends during the spring and summer are crowded in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. You can tell how bad the crowds are when you pull off the highway and every inch of available parking and then some is taken up on 111th Street. Keep in mind that a minority of people arrive by car too. When you… Read more »
The Bronx Zoo is not on everyone’s to-do list but should be. No year in New York City is complete without at least one long visit to this great zoo, which insists on calling itself the Wildlife Conservation Society. The Wildlife Conservation Society has a Run for the Wild 5K run/walk every year to help… Read more »
There is a good argument that theater provides us with more insight into our social reality than what we can recognize through our own lives. In our lives, our perspective is dominated in the pursuit of our own interests and the fulfillment of our own obligations. Yet society does not move in the direction of… Read more »
I have a strong interest in the history of New York City orphanages. My grandfather, Thomas E. Pryor, spent seven years in Father Drumgoole’s Staten Island orphanage, Mount Loretto. Father Drumgoole first orphanage at 53 Warren Street two blocks from City Hall was for homeless newsboys. Prior to building the Staten Island complex through farm purchases,… Read more »
