There are several great Christmas traditions that I refuse to surrender despite being a jaded, cynical atheist. I still give gifts to family and friends, I still buy a real Christmas tree and decorate it, and still I watch Bad Santa every year. If you have not seen it, do so; you won’t be sorry…. Read more »
In a move that would make the late Estee Lauder proud, her son Leonard Lauder 80, is donating a collection of Cubist art to the Metropolitan Museum with an estimated value of One Billion Dollars. Now that’s gift giving. The treasure’s include 33 Picassos, 17 Braques, 14 Legers, and 1 work by Gris. Met director… Read more »
“I used to ride in my father’s rumble seat,” Dad told me once while we sat at the bar in Loftus Tavern. As Dad drank a short beer and I sipped a coke, I wondered, What’s a rumble seat? I asked. He said, “It was a seat that hinged out of the back of the car. It felt like… Read more »
Last week, I almost threw in the towel. Between seeing my ex in my neighborhood 32 times, the St. Paddy’s Day Parade, and a mouse infestation, I thought I was done with New York. New York City? New York Shitty! This Big City Siren was ready to pack her bags and get the hell out…. Read more »
Just past noon, Buddy McMahon and I jumped into the parade at 61st Street joining our classmates and teachers from LaSalle Academy marching up Fifth Avenue. This was non-regulation—starting the parade late and dressed as clowns (we paid the piper with a “knuck off the head” from Brother Brendan the next day at school). We broke off at the Met Museum to run east to… Read more »
I remember the Friday after Thanksgiving when I was in kindergarten in 1959. My mother dropped Rory off at my grandparents’ place on 85th Street right after breakfast and took me with her on the 86th Street crosstown bus. She got a transfer for Fifth Avenue. I didn’t need one. I was still “little enough to ride for free, little enough to… Read more »
Early mornings along New York’s busiest avenues always fascinate me. The city may never sleep, but it does rest, and these pre-sunrise moments offer a glimpse of the city before she’s camera-ready. A diva in repose, if you will. Then the sun rises across the East River, and west-facing windows along Manhattan fracture the beams of… Read more »
