Archive for the ‘Upper East Side’ Category
They come for the money
“Ma’am!” the voice came from a bullhorn on the roof of the 7-story building across the street. “Please close your window immediately!” I saw men with rifles. Our living room was on the 6th and top floor of a pre-war building, overlooking Madison Avenue. My mother’s reaction was to stare even more intently catty-corner to […]
Filed under: Manhattan, Upper East Side | 2 Comments
Fanfare for the common man
‘A warm…soft—warm, soft sound without any sawtuhf effuht. Sawtuhfa warm clarinet sound…’ Aaron Copland rehearses the London Symphony Orchestra—1969, his ‘Appalachian Spring.’ Twenty-five years earlier he had scored it for Martha Graham, and he still referred the musicians today to the passage work: ‘Remembah, she would be dancing here.’ Passages he didn’t want these musicians—some […]
Filed under: music, parenting, Upper East Side | 3 Comments
A tile from Spanish Harlem
After both my parents died, some of the most difficult things to get rid of were the kitchen utensils. Most were useless: old, grease-encrusted relics of the 60s and 70s that these two frugal people had bought or found along the way of their married life and had been deployed literally thousands of times while […]
Filed under: family, Manhattan, Nevski Prospekt, parenting, Upper East Side | 1 Comment
Mrs. Spaghetti
Susie Scott was my pre-school girlfriend. Except in the 1960s it was called “nursery school.” This is her real name, since there is nothing in this post but admiration for her and because there are many Susie Scotts out there: I Googled her, and – believe me – her anonymity is secure. Susie and I attended […]
Filed under: Buckley, Judaism, Park Avenue Christian, Trinity School, Upper East Side | Leave a Comment
“Urban Haute Bourgeoisie”
My colleague was telling another colleague about “Metropolitan,” Whit Stillman’s 1990 true film about the upper crust independent school scene in New York City, in which I grew up but in which I was the protagonist in real life, the proverbial red-headed boy in a sea of tow-headed trustafarians, the one whose modest background remained […]
Filed under: Christianity, faith, Jesus, Upper East Side | 1 Comment
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