On September 11th, 2001, I was in Sydney, Australia, working as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of New South Wales. I spent most of the day in my office, composing a long email to my girlfriend back in New York City, my former home for seven years, suggesting we break up. Our long-distance relationshipContinue reading “The 9/11 Attacks: A Terrifying Spectacle, Viewed from Afar”
Tag Archives: new york city
Hudson Crossings
Yesterday, at the World Trade Center transit station, as I took the escalator down to the PATH train, heading for an afternoon spent with a cousin living in Exchange Place, New Jersey, I made note of a little datum: I’ve been crossing the Hudson–in both directions–for over twenty-five years. One such crossing, back in 1993,Continue reading “Hudson Crossings”
Memories of Hot Summers Elsewhere
Talking about the weather is supposedly a concession, an admission that a conversation has run aground, spun off into irrelevancies; nothing, it seems, quite shows the lack of an agenda for an exchange of words like a discussion about the heat, the cold, the rain. Well, I admit defeat; I admit I’m tongue-tied and incoherent.Continue reading “Memories of Hot Summers Elsewhere”
I’ve Got Your Brooklynite Hayseed Right Here
George Plunkitt, of Tammany Hall fame, once said: [A] Brooklynite is a natural-born hayseed, and can never become a real New Yorker. He can’t be trained into it. Consolidation didn’t make him a New Yorker, and nothin’ on earth can. A man born in Germany can settle down and become a good New Yorker. So canContinue reading “I’ve Got Your Brooklynite Hayseed Right Here”
The Subway: Let the Love-Hate Clichés Roll
When I first moved to New York City, I lived on 95th Street in Manhattan and rode down to 42nd Street for my graduate seminars. My first commute on the subways was blindingly quick: I took the 2 or 3 downtown express at 96th and Broadway and one stop later (at 72nd Street) I disembarkedContinue reading “The Subway: Let the Love-Hate Clichés Roll”
Walking the City: Random Walks Through Manhattan Streets
In Street Life: Becoming Part of the City, Joseph Mitchell wrote: What I really like to do is wander aimlessly in the city. I like the walk the streets by day and by night. It is more than a liking, a simple liking–it is an aberration. Every so often, for example, around nine in theContinue reading “Walking the City: Random Walks Through Manhattan Streets”
Walking, Head Down, on a Damp and Grey Day: How Virtuous It Is
On days like this, many residents of the US eastern seaboard are apt to question their decision to ever inhabit these spaces. The temperature is in the thirties (that’s just a couple of degrees above freezing point for all the folks living in Celsius-land); a steady, persistent drizzle is falling; and the most familiar colorContinue reading “Walking, Head Down, on a Damp and Grey Day: How Virtuous It Is”
The Sidewalk Book Disposal Scheme
New York has lots of books: in stores, libraries, shelves in private collections, sidewalk sales, and sometimes, in boxes on sidewalks, being given away, with or without a sign that says ‘help yourself.’ These books have been abandoned; their former owners do not have the space (or time) for them any more. Perhaps a moveContinue reading “The Sidewalk Book Disposal Scheme”
The Oft-Missed Pleasures of Running
Late into the night of my 28th birthday, I was doing a passable impression of a dancing fool. It was almost four in the morning, I had consumed enough alcohol to administer local anesthetic to a small platoon of foot soldiers, and I was blithely unaware of impending danger. But there it was, in the shape ofContinue reading “The Oft-Missed Pleasures of Running”
Readin’ and Ridin’: The Subway Car as Reading Room
Like many New Yorkers, I do a lot of reading on the subway, standing or sitting. (It is a depressing fact, of course, that too many of us now seem fixated by smartphones, playing video games, or texting endlessly.) Sometimes I walk into a car with a book already open, sometimes I seat myself, openContinue reading “Readin’ and Ridin’: The Subway Car as Reading Room”
Samir Chopra 