A Year In New York

Today I’ve been running last-minute errands and pondering what it all means, spending a year in New York City. I’ve worn through a lot of shoe leather in this crazy town and learned some hard lessons,  and now it’s time for me to pass those lessons on to you.
Here goes:

1. The World Won’t End If [...]

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At 6:30 this morning, a small family of raccoons crawled from the shrubs in Central Park. Mom flattened herself under a green wire fence while two little ones scrambled over. They had just collected themselves for the journey across East Drive when they looked up to see a giant! Their mouths almost formed into little [...]

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Last week I paid a visit to a friend from high school, the actress Tina Stafford, who lives on the 40th floor of an apartment building on Tenth Avenue. The apartment has a porch, a roomy one, with a sweeping view of Hell’s Kitchen, the Hudson and the northern half of Midtown. Tina spends a [...]

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When the economy imploded last fall, one of the first victims was the Circuit City on Union Square. It was the first I saw to post “Going out of Business” signs and invite the hordes to vulture up its merchandise. (Thanks for the new home phone, guys.)

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The battle for New York City’s green future arrived in my mailbox last week. It took the form of a fundraising appeal from MillionTreesNYC, a campaign to plant 100,000 trees every year for a decade, and bore the signature of that eminent environmentalist, Bette Midler.
Which immediately brought questions to mind. Who made the star of [...]

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In winter the New York streets are a gray asphalt tundra. Then one day in April…Daffodils! They nod at you on the sidewalk, bright as sunlight, gentle as Easter. Surrounding them is a tiny, valiant iron fence.
I saw a woman on 65th Street reach past the fence with one hand – the other held a [...]

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Early this morning a congregation of about 150 Jews stood by the United Nations building and did something that seemed almost pagan: They blessed the rising sun.

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This morning I pulled the shade to see if the forecast foot of snow had arrived. Not quite. But six inches lay on the ground with more pouring from the sky, and I felt the pull of the wild.
In response, I pulled on my fleece jacket and Gore-Tex shell and the snow boots I’d bought [...]

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As I type this post, my body vividly remembers yesterday’s maiden snowboarding trip to New Jersey, in the form of a stiff shoulder and a chest that is so bruised it hurts to exhale. Other memories are less painful.
For example, driving up Route 23 into the Kittatinny Mountains, Joo and her friend Bobbi snoozing in [...]

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February is a tough month to be a New Yorker. Holiday cheer is far behind, spring is well ahead, temperatures clamp down in the 20s and the earmuffs aren’t fun anymore. But I am new enough to the East Coast thing to get blissed out when snow falls from the sky.
It toyed with us yesterday [...]

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