I haven't seen her in weeks. Every day on Lexington Avenue, a block from my office, she'd sit on one of those padded walker-chairs beside a pay phone. I always tried not to stare. She had a short halo of blonde curls in the back, while the hair across her forehead lay perfectly flat, as if pressed there by hand. Sometimes she'd look up and smile. I always smiled back. It crossed my mind more than once to take her picture, but if she caught me, I'd feel as though I'd violated

I celebrated my second anniversary in New York City by discovering I had a father. I was riding the packed 4 train downtown. Howard and Robin were laughing in one ear. And a woman's crotch-level pointy purse making me wish I'd worn a cup from the other direction. “You’re my son. You’re my son. You’re my son.” I couldn’t quite hear him at first, but you know that feeling you get when someone is staring right at you? I looked up into a gaze of hate, his mouth moving, his stage

Being a doorman in Manhattan is a position of prestige and pride, the front line of defense and friendship for the residents who pass by them every day, part of their duties is to make life a bit easier in a very difficult city. They are unionized. Being jostled through a subway commute, maybe even a nasty weather walk from your stop, then seeing a smartly uniformed man open the door with a smile while saying your name made a very tall building seem like home. I was lucky in

I looked at eight apartments on my househunting trip to NYC when I was about to relocate there in the earliest part of 2015. Liberty View was the last one I saw and the moment I walked into the corner unit and realized the entire city would be in my view, I locked it in. Man, I miss that place.