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 »
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 »
You know you’re old when you remember being stuck inside a discarded locked refrigerator. In 1963, the thrown-out fridge with an intact door and functional handle was on the sidewalk in front of the Sullivan McNamara house on 83rd Street. We wanted to see how many kids could get in there and still lock it…. Read more »
Imagine you are a life-long upper east side, Yorkville resident born in 1949 and you’ve spent 39 years in Mary Manning Walsh nursing home on York Avenue due to a life-altering brain injury suffered when you were mugged in John Jay Park walking your dog in 1976. You were twenty-seven when you became trapped to the… Read more »
This harsh New York winter is ignoring the calendar. It’s the thing that wouldn’t leave. But we had pretty snowfalls. During each storm, and thereafter, I visited Prospect Park, Central Park, Carl Schurz Park and rambled through my Yorkville neighborhood. Here are a few photos of NYC in snow and four links to photograph albums for… Read more »
Last night, I got off the #6 train at Bleecker Street early for a Jonatha Brooke show at Subculture and walked around. Down to LaSalle Academy’s old building next to NYC Marble Cemetery on 2nd Street east of Second Avenue, along Bond Street and The Bowery and back up to Bleecker Street towards Lafayette. The one… Read more »
I strolled the neighborhood with Dad all the time. Whenever I could I tried to direct our walk past Rappaport’s Toy Bazaar on the east side of Third Avenue between 78th and 79th Streets. They had gorgeous model sailboats in the display window perfect for cruising Central Park’s sailboat lake, south of the Alice in… Read more »
Do you know New York City has an extraordinary and diverse storytelling community? It’s all over the five boroughs, every night. And many of the events are free. All you need to do is check out newspapers and magazines and online sites like Time Out New York and NYC Storytelling. I’ve been part of this… Read more »
Hello, I’ve been away from AANY for a awhile. My memoir, “I Hate the Dallas Cowboys tales of a scrappy New York boyhood” was released by YBK Publishers last month and I’ve been doing my best to get the word out. The book covers my first 18 years in the working class neighborhood of Yorkville… Read more »
On October 4, 1965, the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Stephen of Hungary’s student body marched up to Third Avenue to wave to Pope Paul VI driving by on his way to Yankee Stadium in his limousine. This was important to me on a few levels: We were getting out of sixth… Read more »
