4 Train Twins
Dear Diary:
I was grabbing onto the overhead bar on a downtown 4 train on a Monday morning, which is not easy for me to to do since I am barely 5-foot-2.
I was wearing a blue, knee-length work dress. A woman sitting directly in front of me was wearing an almost identical dress. I chuckled to myself. She didn’t notice.
At the next stop, a seat opened up next to her, so I sat down. She still didn’t notice.
Another woman in the car reached over, tapped her on the knee and pointed to me. It wasn’t just the dresses. We both had on white sneakers, and chain-link necklaces, and we both had brown, shoulder-length hair.
I thought about asking for a selfie but decided that would have been weird, even in New York City. All three of us laughed, and when the train pulled into the station, we all got off.
— Melissa Pollack
Grandpa’s Place
Dear Diary:
It was October 1988. I was 24 and had just started working in the corporate-relocation industry in Chicago. My boss and her boss invited me, as a perk of the job, to travel to New York for a client visit.
This was a big deal, and I felt honored to be asked. I was not a savvy traveler, so I was a bit nervous as well.
We had tickets to see Les Misérables on Broadway. Before the show, we had dinner at Grampa’s Bella Gente, an Italian restaurant on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. The food was fantastic.
Grampa, it turned out, was Al Lewis, who had played Grandpa on “The Munsters.”
The restaurant had a little counter with memorabilia, and I decided to get a T-shirt. Suddenly, Grandpa Munster was standing next to me.
He introduced himself, shook my hand and signed my T-shirt.
I was definitely star-struck. I think that’s what they call a New York moment.
— Patty Eggen
Strawberry Fields
Dear Diary:
The buskers took turns Playing Beatles classics At the Strawberry Fields memorial On the west side of Central Park Next to me sat a mother and son They wore identical feather earrings They wore identical smiles When the busker played “Come Together” The audience roared While the boy with the feather earrings Pointed out to me John Lennon was the greatest songwriter Ever … When I mentioned Paul was better The boy with feather earrings replied Then maybe this isn’t the place for you I didn’t disagree
— Danny Klecko
His Golden Horn
Dear Diary:
I was born and raised in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. I always wanted to play the trumpet and dreamed that someday I would play like Harry James.
When I turned 13, my parents rented me a trumpet from a music store on Manhattan Avenue. Group lessons followed at Boys High School in Bed-Stuy.
In 1962, when I was 16, my family moved to New Jersey, where I continued to play in the high school band.
I got a job as a busboy and saved enough cash to buy a new horn. Taking my $200, I rode the bus into the Port Authority terminal. My destination was Manny’s Music on West 48th Street, also known as Music Row.
After making my purchase, I returned to Port Authority to catch the bus back home. I felt like a million dollars. I boarded the bus and took a seat in the back, with my new horn tucked safely in its case.
Five or six construction workers were sitting nearby. They were on their way home from work. They wanted to know what was in the case.
I told them proudly that I had bought a new trumpet.
Well, they said, play us something.
And off we went down the road to the tune of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
— Douglas Felden
Modern Art
Dear Diary:
I was 17, fresh out of high school in Paris and on my first trip to New York. The Museum of Modern Art was high on my list of sights to see.
I wandered through the galleries, encountering one mysterious installation after another. I didn’t understand much at first, but gradually I began to feel more confident in my appreciation of what I was looking at. My eye was adjusting. I was getting it.
On a stairway between floors, I noticed a striking object mounted on a white wall. Bright red. Cylindrical. Industrial, but elegant. I stopped to look.
After a moment, a man coming down the stairs stopped beside me. We stood there silently, contemplating the object together.
“Pretty good,” I said.
The man glanced at the object, and then at me.
“Very,” he said, continuing down the stairs. “Especially in a fire.”
I took a closer look. I had been admiring a fire extinguisher.
— Thibaut Kazemi
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee
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