Ask A New Yorker interviewed Joep de Koning, Chairman and President of The Tolerance Park Foundation, on the history of New York. He discussed the history of Dutch colonial life in New York. Ask a New Yorker: What’s the biggest myth about New York’s history? Joep: That is a real estate myth. The story about… Read more »
At the start of April, some of my aunts and uncles mentioned to my Grandmother, Mary Sheahan, that her birthday was coming up, reminding her that her birthday is April 10. “Oh,” she said as casually as if she were discussing the bus schedule. “I’m not going to make that.” She passed away less than… Read more »
New York is a city of many firsts. It was the first capital city of the United States; it had the first hot dog, first American public brewery, ATM, mobile phone call, and children’s museum. It also promises to be the first American city to institute congestion pricing on cars driving into its busiest areas…. Read more »
This week begins the Year of the Pig according to the Chinese zodiac calendar. All New York City public schools are closed for the celebration. There will be a big parade in downtown Flushing this weekend and there is no shortage of family-friendly events in the city to celebrate. We commonly called this Chinese New… Read more »
Fifteen years ago, it was a cold night in an apartment in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn where maybe two dozen people gathered for a Burns Night party. Burns Night is January 25 and celebrates the birthday of Robert Burns, the Scottish poet who lived in the late 1700s. Several of us had brought our volumes of… Read more »
My family puts up a traditional Christmas tree. Well, not that traditional. A truly traditional Christmas tree would be paraded through town and then set on fire. But Christmas is a festive time of year, a time when our shared pagan heritage is proudly on display, albeit via the yoke of Christianity. And, godless as… Read more »
New York is beautiful during the holidays. Despite the cold and the crowds our city’s holiday spirit is impressive to behold. It’s easy to get caught up in the zeitgeist of the yuletide season and commit to things that will bear more misery than joy, though. Here are some things you may want to avoid…. Read more »
The holidays, as we collectively call them, start in earnest while we are still recovering from Halloween and preparing for Thanksgiving. Once Thanksgiving is over, all bets are off and we are surrounded by the Christmas season until we crawl back to work on January 2nd to the grim realities of our winter lives. Holiday… Read more »
I got a call at work from a Maryland number. The company I work for has offices in Rockville, Maryland, not far from Washington D.C. I expected it to be one of the people I speak with regularly, simply calling from someone else’s desk phone. It was the finance head of the division. Our division’s… Read more »
When I moved to New York City to live as an adult more than 20 years ago now, one of the things I most looked forward to was being able to live without a car. The 10 years of being a car owner had been miserable. My first car broke down a lot and was… Read more »
