“Efficiency” at the end of the line
Sometime in the mid 1980s I was working for an acoustical ceiling subcontractor in the World Trade Center. We were [...]
The cat, Charles Dickens, and Chairman Mao
We have a dear, sweet cat that we love with all our hearts in spite of her propensity to sit [...]
Solidarity from up close
Every beginning is difficult... • Ancient Jewish proverb I joined the carpenters’ union as a first-year apprentice in 1971. My [...]
Call him June
I knew him from the 1970s, the days in which I belonged to the Anti-Revisionist Communist Movement. Or whatever you [...]
End of days
A few months ago, I was in the Sudtirol region of Italy, hiking through the Dolomites with a group of [...]
(E)scaping it
A few decades ago, I decided to grow a ponytail. The genesis of my decision was relatively uncomplicated, and it [...]
Finding Bob
Columnist Joe Scott's memories of his father were few and harsh, until a box of letters brought pieces of a dark past into better focus.
Coming of age: a 1960s story
A trip down memory lane with columnist Joe Scott includes taking stock of "planetaty gents" and much ado about "Paris Match" and pistons.
Doomed from within
Not many people now remember how roundly loathed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center once were. Only when [...]
The anthem sprinters
American author Ray Bradbury's “The Anthem Sprinters” is a short story published in 1963. It is not science fiction, his [...]
The resistance of Maxim Andreevich
A few years after I moved into the building at 78 Clinton Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the landlord [...]