Blackened

 
This apartment with thin, wooden floors is haunted by a spirit of pessimism. The place is painted in a shade of gloom. In winter, cold air in the basement offers a frozen pond ambiance in the livingroom. The exposed brink walls were painted red at one time. Be careful. Do not lean against them. A [...]

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Housing Works Thrift Shop

My new spring wardrobe is complete. For under $50, I have stocked my closet with blue, yellow and green pastels from Banana Republic. One does not have to be wealthy to dress fashionable in New York City. The possibilities are endless at places like the Housing Works Thrift shop.
Keith Kyler and Charles King came up [...]

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Bag Lady of Bed-Stuy

A Dominican lady from Bravo Supermarket helped me with my laundry cart this evening. The chick who packs my bags when I’m checking out with dinner groceries noticed me heading inside with my bag lady-like white cart. Up I was heaving five cement stairs, when suddenly she dropped everything to give the old queen a [...]

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Moonshine Girls

 
Esther Staub had a green thumb and hair tinted red like the skin on a tomato. The annual seeds that she planted in her garden came back like perennials in the Spring. The heads of her zinnia flowers were larger than a child’s face. Her marigolds towered above the sunflowers. She gave the thumbs-up to [...]

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Obama Mamma

My white laundry cart was jammed packed with three weeks of dirty clothing last Sunday. Fortunately for me, the kids were spending the weekend with B. and me and they fought over whose turn it was to push the cart down Bedford Avenue to Metrosuds Laundromat.
“Can we help, Chals,” is what they always ask, whether [...]

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Discover the Real Noah’s Ark

The Discovery Channel is worth the $9.99 premium surcharge that I pay each month as part of my Direct TV package. I upgraded to gold status because I wanted the VH-1 Classics channel. I find myself more in tune with Discovery Channel documentaries and have very little time left to watch reruns of Duran Duran’s [...]

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JP Morgan Chase, Bear Stearns and other Money Grubbing Whores

The Federal Government has no business bailing out banks during times of trouble. Our tax dollars should not be used to supplement the merger of JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns. Who will take on the problems of Lehman Brothers? Bank of America?
The concept of free markets is ruined when the super rich remain snug [...]

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Hotlanta

 
We departed Brooklyn from JFK International Airport on April 18th. It was Shawn’s birthday. Due to severe thunderstorms, we missed a connecting flight in Atlanta and spent the night in the land of cotton. Delta Airlines offered complimentary hotel rooms for those not wishing to waste hours in the sprawling airport, waiting for the next [...]

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Risk-Free Man Whores

 
Stella’s is more than a pool hall. It’s a place of worship– a hustler bar where beautiful men in New York City can go when Con Edison is threatening to cut off the electricity.
The owners keep the lights on into the early hours of the morning for the convenience of the hundreds of young protestant [...]

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