I’m a rabbit who’s never left his warren. My family has lived on York Avenue in Manhattan since 1896. I own the horseshoe that hung over the front door of my great-grandparents’ apartment at #1403. I already have 1500 old photographs of Yorkville, but nothing pumped me up like my recent discovery of the Walker… Read more »
I saw this 1967 Chevelle on 81st Street last night and was taken back to a moment at the John Jay pool, late summer, right before 8th grade. It was an after-dinner swim and there was a sweet evening breeze. Freddy Muller and I were playing that stupid game popular with 13-year-old boys: taking as much… Read more »
New York comes to my rescue every day. I have a tendency to get sad without warning, and my fail-safe method for battling the blues is to meander along city streets on my bicycle. I find beauty everywhere I turn. My family has taken 2000 photos of the city since the year 1906, and I… Read more »
Fifty-one years ago this week, I was lowered into the 1961 Yankee bullpen and shook hands with future Hall of Famers. This event blew my seven-year-old mind. In 2008, the New York Times published the story. What follows is the full version of the events of that day… The Boy in the Bullpen I barehanded… Read more »
Before air conditioning, I spent entire Yorkville summers with the lights out in our 517 East 83rd Street apartment. Mom could page through a calendar in the winter and start sweating when June, July, August flipped by, but Dad loved the heat. He slept under a pipe in the Navy. Made for nice conversation. One afternoon… Read more »
By the light the silvery moon, New York in June. Zero Mostel sang it best in the 1968 film The Producers. This past week, I experienced Manhattan in June. Pictured here is a cloud-swirled full moon over Washington Square; Gramercy Park balconies & ivy; Sheep Meadow squirrels; East River clouds, boats, lighthouses and bridges; the… Read more »
Yesterday, a hawk soared over Central Park’s Sailboat Lake (aka the Conservatory) for twenty minutes without a landing. The British were at the Band Shell celebrating the Olympics, charity, rugby, and the Queen’s 60th year on the throne. They also brought along a beautiful classic car just because. Near the statue of the Union soldier… Read more »
In the fall of 1997, on Long Beach Island in Jersey, my friends John, Jerome, and Freddy cautiously agreed to let me help them build a porch on Second Street in Beach Heaven. John knew I was mechanically challenged and still years away from memorizing and applying “lefty loosey, righty tighty” when turning a screw. Early in the affair,… Read more »
I lost both my hips. Their decline was due to poor genetic lotto and a thousand games played on concrete and asphalt. One stood out: Johnny on the Pony, a game of immense endurance and stupidity. The game’s strategy involved one team (“The Pony”) forming a long bent-over row like a Chinese New Year’s dragon, while the other… Read more »
“The royal ass has been wiped!” Mom would make this announcement from the bathroom as Rory and I drank Tang and ate burnt toast in the kitchen. We’d hear Dad moaning to himself in his bedroom. After Dad went to the bathroom each morning, Mom would examine how much toilet paper remained on the roll. Dad was… Read more »
