Small Animals

I thought Sardi’s was a tourist trap. And I thought I could not afford it. My way of going to see Broadway shows has always been to eat a slice of pizza beforehand, because after paying for a ticket that is all that seems prudent. I happened to be meeting a friend in Times Square, […]

What It Cost

My favorite thing at the Brooklyn Historical Society was the tile floor. The same people who put in the floor worked on the Capitol. The building also has huge terra cotta busts on the outside, Columbus, Shakespeare, Ben Franklin. The Brooklyn Historical Society is, itself, a National Historic Landmark. For whatever sense that makes. The […]

Merchant’s House

I turned the hottest corner in the world and almost walked past the 1832 home of only one family, ever: the Tredwells. I would like to put in, here, that it is the oldest something or other, but that isn’t really the point of the place. It is very old for a surviving building in […]

Unfinished

The monument is like a ship, a big black marble ship you walk in, can look up to see the buildings that scar the sky, and forward, to see the semicircle of marble where there are symbols. Symbols of various good ideas, from various African cultures, and a crescent moon, and a cross. I […]