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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My colleague Rebecca and I stepped onto the Pelham-bound train with our eyes darting suspiciously this way and that. Just moments before we had left our seats at the Union Square movie theater, where we saw “The Taking of Pelham 123.” Taking the subway after seeing that movie is akin to watching “Deliverance” right before [...]

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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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As someone who regularly commutes on a bicycle, I eagerly awaited May 24, the day cars would be banished from Times Square. No more dodging around panicked rental-car tourists or taxis that swerve across three lanes for a fare; now the street would belong to me, the cyclist. At least I thought so until I [...]

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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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It still hurts to take a deep breath after the snowboarding injury I got a few weeks ago. Joo thinks I bruised or even broke a rib. No treatment is available but rest, so I resort to only exercise that doesn’t hurt. I walk to work.
I’ve experimented with different routes and today I walked down [...]

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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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The outward sign of hardship here in Manhattan is the empty storefronts. One walks along a bright, continuous smile of retail establishments, and suddenly there’s a gap where a shop used to be.

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