Scrapple from The Apple

As G rand Central Terminal celebrates its 100th birthday this y ear , i ts ma gni fic ence is more meaning ful w hen measur ed against its cross-t own competi tor, Penn Station. As someone who has at one time commuted daily for a span of two years in and out of each station, I’m in a good position to compare the two. The New York Times said it well from the architectural side in February 2012. “To pass through Grand Central Terminal, one of New York’s exalted public spaces, is an ennobling experience, a gift. To commute via the bowels of Penn Station, just a few blocks away, is a humiliation.” I never appreciated Grand Central until a two-year purgatory in Penn Station reminded me that you don’t miss your water until your well runs dry. New York is a different city viewed through the grandeur of Grand Central. The two stations carry commuters to the contrasts of the New York metro area. From Grand Central, Metro North serves Connecticut, Westchester County, and the Hudso...

Summer’s come and gone and with it outdoor concerts in the city. Summerstage in Central Park and Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park are the season’s marquee events. Less well known is the Martin Luther King Concert Series, held on Monday nights every summer for the last 30 years at Wingate Field in Brooklyn, near the end of the 2 train in Flatbush. Though these concerts are the product of the same city government, they take place in almost an alternate reality. I heard about them in an unlikely way. Before budget cuts, the New York Philharmonic performed one night every July in Prospect Park. Like any event in Brooklyn with more than 50 people in attendance, Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz appeared on stage, sounding off one-liners in his Sheepshead Bay accent. “Last night’s concert in Central Park was a warm up for tonight’s show in Brooklyn.” Markowitz went on to mention the various musical events taking place throughout the borough. The Celebrate Brookly...

The A train to Queens. The car I’m riding consists of tourists headed to JFK, surfers with their boards enclosed in carrying cases headed to Rockaway Beach to catch the swells from the latest tropical storm, and black folks headed to areas of Brooklyn left blank on the tourist’s guide book maps. This trip is an epilogue. After four generations of New Yorkers, I am the last of my clan living in the City. The house I’m headed to in South Ozone Park was once the home of my grandmother, grandfather, great aunt, and great uncle. One by one, they have all moved to the hereafter. And now the family is selling the house. Before it’s market-ready, we have to clean it out, paint the walls, and sand the floors. Erasing history so a new one can be made. If you’ve been to New York, you’ve been to South Ozone Park, Quee ns. The neighborhood’s most defining feature is the planes flying overhead to JFK located next door. These are the rows of non-descript houses ...

This story was written in the Fall of 2005 in response to Hurricane Katrina. Five years on, I'm posting it here as a tribute to the city and the fri ends I made there. Darrell Breen was born and raised in the same New Orleans neighborhood where I lived in the spring of 2000. When Darrell grew up there, the neighborhood was known as the Irish Channel. He summed up his life to me with a memory of sitting on his grandfather’s lap as a boy of five. “Half Irish,” his grandfather says looking at him. He bounces Darrell to the other knee. “Half Italian,” he says shaking his head at Darrell. “Lad, yer fucked.” Italians and Irish have been marrying for generations in America, the Italian women assuming the easy Irish surnames and keeping their Catholic faith. In the neighborhoods of New Orleans in the 1960’s it was not so easy for the offspring of these marriages. When I met Darrell (spelling deliberately changed) in New Orleans, he was 43 years old. He looked and spoke like ...