More New York Stories : The Best of the City Section of The New York Times

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: Characters
	1 Mr. Maxwell and Me: It Was the Mid-60’s, and She Was the Dutiful Secretary of an Esteemed Editor at The New Yorker. In a Few Short Years the World Changed, and She Was the One in the Editor’s Chair
	2 Strumming toward Self-Awareness: For Years, She Had Seen the Fliers Promoting His Lessons. Then She Inherited a Guitar and Gave Him a Try. Once
	3 Her Private Serenade: His Cheerful Whistling Floated through the Window of Her West Village Apartment, and Captured Her Heart. If Only He Knew
	4 Tom’s World: Sometimes, We Know a Place through One Person. When He Dies, the Whole Neighborhood Goes Pale with the Loss
	5 In Noah’s Room: The Life and Death of a Gifted Young Man with an Unquiet Mind
	6 The Days and Nights of Maurice Cherry: Twice a Day, Every Day, He Traveled Back and Forth by Bus between Chinatown and the Casinos of Atlantic City, Not to Gamble but to Avoid a Life Lived Almost Entirely on the Street
	7 Werner Kleeman’s Private War: Though Today He Lives Quietly in Flushing, Queens, More than 60 Years Ago, as an American Soldier, This Holocaust Survivor Returned to His Native Germany to Arrest the Nazi Who Had Arrested Him
	8 The Chicken and Rice Man: Every Day of the Year, Jorge Muñoz Feeds the Mostly Homeless Men Who Congregate under the Roosevelt Avenue El in Jackson Heights, Queens. “He Got No Life,” His Sister Said of Him. “But He Got a Big Heart.”
	9 A Life, Interrupted: The Young Woman, Who Had Been Missing for Nearly Three Weeks, Was Floating Face Down off the Southern Tip of Manhattan. Miraculously, She Was Rescued. But the Explanation for What Had Happened Raised Questions That Would Take a Long Time to Answer
	10 When Johnny Comes Marching In: The Man in Camouflage Walked into the Literary Bar in the East Village, His Army Backpack Slung over His Shoulder. And No One Said a Word
Part Two: Places in the City’s Heart
	11 Razzle-Dazzle Me: Times Square Is Successful Because People Wait in Huge Hordes, in Numbers the Size of Entire Towns in North Dakota, for the Light to Change
	12 New York Was Our City on the Hill: The City Held Out Unlimited Promise. But the Reality Was a Struggle—for Money, Identity, and a Future
	13 Here Is New York, Right Where We Left It: Before Manolos and Green Apple Martinis There Were Homburgs and Short Beers, among Countless Evocative Remnants of an Earlier Era That Endure, Often Uneasily, in the Glitziest City on Earth
	14 Comfort Food: For a While, He Was a Regular at Frank’s Gourmet Deli on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens. But Some Connections, like Apartment Leases, Are Only Short-Term
	15 The Great Awakening: In the Last Quarter Century, from Riverdale to Tottenville, Waves of Change Have Washed over New York. In Brooklyn, the Transformation Seems Almost Tidal
	16 The Worst Ballpark in the World: With the Plan to Build a New Home for the Mets, Shea’s Days Were Numbered. Yes, the Stadium Sat on an Ash Heap and Was Pestered by Planes. Yet There Was No Denying Its Goofy Charms
	17 A Toast, with a Shot and a Beer: A Couple of Wise Guys, a Musician or Two, and a Jukebox Set on Julio, in a Crummy Little Bar of the Sort That Has All but Vanished from the Upper West Side
	18 The Secret Life of Hanover Square: By Day, the Downtown Neighborhood Was a Ho-Hum Business District. But as Windows Were Lighted and People with Grocery Bags Emerged, the Area Revealed Its Hidden Face
	19 New York’s Lighthouse: The Building Is the Distinctive Image of Mythic New York, the City of Film and Fiction, and Yet Irresistible
	20 Call It Booklyn: With More Marquee Authors than You Can Shake a Mont Blanc Pen at, Brooklyn May Be the City’s Grimmest Borough for the Up-and-Coming Writer
	21 Breathless, Buoyant: No One Knows a Park, Its Smells and Seasons, Its Contours and Crannies, like a Cross-Country Runner
	22 In the Courtyard of Miracles and Wonders: Ever since Arriving in the City, He Yearned to Visit the Cloistered Haven off West 11th Street. One Starlit Night He Got His Chance
	23 Stranger in a Strange Land: On a Sojourn in a SoHo Hotel after a Flood in His Brooklyn Heights Apartment, Much Looked Familiar. And Somehow Not
	24 Hard Times along Gasoline Alley: The Men Who Hang Out near the Service Stations on Atlantic Avenue Will Pump Your Gas, Fix Your Brakes and Maybe Tell You a Story
	25 A Game of Inches: With the Opening of a New Yankee Stadium, Would Stan’s Sports Bar Be Just a Little Too Far from the Action?
Part Three: Rituals, Rhythms, and Ruminations
	26 Please Get Me Out of Here Please: New Yorkers Knew All about the Three-Day Ordeal of the Chinese-Food Delivery Man Trapped in an Elevator in the Bronx. They Had Been There, If Only in Their Dreams
	27 The Starling Chronicles: The Baby Bird Was Small and Smelly, Unlikely to Live Long. But She Fell from Her Nest into a Cradle of Love, and Soon She Became a New Yorker, with Wings
	28 A Chance to Be Mourned: After the Death of One of Its Own, a Homeless Group Searches for Easier Ways to Grieve for New York’s Nameless and Unclaimed Dead
	29 Doodles à la Carte: Once a Week the Cartoonists of The New Yorker Assemble for Lunch in Midtown, There to Enjoy a Little Sketch, a Little Kvetch, and a Lot of One Liners
	30 Unstoppable: Riding a Bike without Brakes on the Streets of New York May Sound Insane. But to the Zealous Adherents of Fixed-Gear Bikes—Fixies for Short—They Are a Thing of Beauty and a Way of Life
	31 The Urban Ear: New Yorkers Swim in a Sea of Sounds, Most of Them Reassuringly Familiar. Then Once in a While Comes a Very Different Noise
	32 Children of Darkness: They Plumb Tunnels, Trestles and Other Abandoned Places, Often Illicitly, and in Those Shadow Cities Find the Pulsing Heart of New York
	33 Tunnel Vision: Ever since Childhood, She Had Fantasized about a Hidden World below the City Streets. In These Dreams, She Was Not Alone
	34 The Unthinkable, Right around the Corner: The Convoy of Police Cars Races down the City Streets, Sirens Blaring, Red Lights Flashing. They’re There to Protect. But They Also Terrify
	35 His City, Lost and Found: Raised in Manhattan, He Is Fascinated by the Changes to His Native Borough. Yet from His Garret across the River, He Does Not Mourn Its Transformation
	36 Any Given Monday: These Men Don’t Dunk. Yet Every Week for 33 Years, They Have Sought to Slow the Passage of Time on the Hardwood Court of a Gym on the Upper West Side
	37 Lemon Zest: The Scott’s Oriole, a Fluffy Yellow Visitor Never Before Sighted in New York, Had Come to Union Square, Where It Seemed Utterly at Home
	38 Tree Proud: The Mayor Pledged to Plant a Million Trees. Sometimes It Takes Just One to Steal Your Heart
	39 Faces in the Crowd: Circling the Jogging Loop in Prospect Park alongside Skinny Ginsberg, Big Tony, and Other Creatures Born of a Fertile Imagination
	40 Fertility Rites: As She Traveled about the City in Search of an Elusive Gift, a Remarkable Thing Happened
	41 His Kind of River: The Indians Called the Hudson “The River That Runs Both Ways,” and Its Majestically Freaky Nature Makes It Easy to Love
	42 Soul Train: When You’re Listening to the Music of the Subway, It’s Easy to Forget Where You Are and Where You’re Going. And You Don’t Even Care
Part Four: Excavating the Past
	43 A Mother Lost and Found: Had Some Real Estate God Decreed That the Daughter Would End Up in the Greenwich Village Town House Where Her Mother Had Lived 46 Years Earlier?
	44 Battle in Black and White: Half a Century Ago, the Author’s Grandparents Helped Wage a War to Integrate Stuyvesant Town. Even Today, Echoes of This Little-Remembered Struggle Linger
	45 Morrisania Melody: Long before Fires and Violence Thrust the South Bronx into the National Spotlight, One Small Patch of the Community Played a Critical Role in Forging Musical History
	46 BoHo, Back in the Day: In the 70’s, the Bums on the Bowery Were Gallant, and an Impressionable Young Woman Could Rent a Sun-Drenched Loft for a Song
	47 Was He the Eggman?: A Dashing Turn-of-the-Century Wall Streeter May Have Invented Eggs Benedict. Or Maybe Not
	48 When He Was Seventeen: You Could Almost Buy a Legal Drink. Parents Didn’t Hover So Much. And If You Were Not Really Tougher than Kids Today, You Certainly Felt like Your Own Man
	49 A Long Day’s Journey into Lip Gloss: How Sephora Ate Her Theater, and Why She Hates to See Blusher Displays Where Sam Shepard’s Losers Used to Slouch
	50 Always, the Crack of the Bat: Stadiums, in the End, Are Just Window Dressing. The Play’s the Thing
About the Contributors
About the Editor