Magic Purse
Dear Diary:
Some years ago, I stayed at a friend’s loft on Bleecker Street off Bowery while in a peripatetic phase of apartment sitting.
On a particularly sweltering night after a movie date on the Upper West Side that, except for the air conditioning, was utterly futile, I decided to walk back to the loft.
Sweaty, broke, discouraged and still not even halfway there, I sat down on a stone bench near the Plaza Hotel, the Pulitzer Fountain and, to my left, the Paris Theater.
Slumped over, I spotted something striped beneath the bench: a black-and-white change purse.
I picked it up and opened it. Inside were two peppermint candies, no ID and what was to me a financial windfall: a $5 bill and some change.
Silently, I thanked the figure whose statue sits atop the fountain. As I later learned, she is Pomona, goddess of abundance. Feeling new strength, I picked myself up and resumed my walk downtown.
The five dollars was soon gone, but the magic of that striped change purse has stayed with me.
— Tilden Russell
Surveyor Says
Dear Diary:
It was a workday morning, and I was standing with the normal New York City mosaic of people at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. The skies were threatening, but it was not quite raining yet.
Near me was a tall man in a safety jacket. He had a long staff that was more than twice his height. He was holding it like a flagpole with no flag.
I looked across the avenue and saw another man in a safety jacket who was peering into a surveyor’s tool.
“Good,” I heard over the walkie-talkie the man with the staff had. He moved a few feet and stood still again.
I looked back across the avenue. The surveyor had disappeared. All I saw now was a young woman with a wide black umbrella that was open on her shoulder. She was twirling it and blocking the surveyor while taking a selfie.
I turned back to the man with the staff.
“The lady with the umbrella …,” I said, grimacing.
“Life in New York,” he said, “you have to be patient, philosophical.”
I looked back toward the surveyor and saw the woman with the umbrella twirling her way across Fifth Avenue.
— Tom Hurwitz
Good Review
Dear Diary:
I was on the M104 bus when a man and woman got on together, took seats, sat quietly for several stops and then rose to get off.
Just before exiting, the man paused.
“Very good job,” he said to the driver.
The woman, somewhat apologetically, interjected.
“He rates everyone,” she said.
— Rachel J. Fremmer
Alterations
Dear Diary:
I have a trusty tailor who is tucked away near Grand Central. He is reliable, affordable and only mildly judgmental. Over the years, I have brought him pants to hem, jackets to nip, shirts to taper.
Then came the pandemic. I lost a lot of weight and, feeling quite triumphant, bought a wardrobe two sizes smaller.
My sleek new suits needed some minor alterations, so I brought them to my tailor.
He nodded approvingly.
“Looking good,” he said, and then added, almost offhandedly: “I’ll leave a little room … for when you gain it back.”
I laughed, but inside, I was slightly annoyed. This was the new me! This was forever!
Three years, countless carbs and a few existential crises later, I walked back into his shop sheepishly with some of my clothes and my now rounder figure.
I braced for an “I told you so.”
The tailor said nothing. He just smiled, pulled out his measuring tape and got to work — leaving, perhaps, just a little extra room again.
— Eugene Dayanghirang
Gardening At Night
Dear Diary:
My first solo apartment in Manhattan was a tiny place on Avenue A. I used a hot plate because there was no kitchen. The bathtub was in the living room, and my sofa pressed up against a huge, 1920s-style sink.
A tank near the ceiling had a dangling chain that was pulled to flush the toilet. The bathroom had no door. The floor was slanted. But the rent, in 1990, was $358.
When my parents came to help me settle in, there was an unsightly plastic bag snagged on a tree branch outside the window. My father repeatedly threw rocks at it from the fire escape, and we cheered when he finally got it down.
My mother planted a patch of impatiens to brighten the drab dirt lot a few flights below. I picked up trash from the hard, weed-filled ground. A few weeks later, on a lark, I bought some seeds and sowed rows of nicotiana and radishes.
One night, I saw a man from another building drenching my plants with a hose.
“Hey,” I yelled down. “Don’t water my plants! Getting watered in the dark is bad for them!”
He looked up.
“What do you think happens when it rains at night?” he bellowed.
— Margaret Bowen
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee
The post ‘Slumped Over, I Spotted Something Striped Beneath the Bench’ appeared first on New York Times.
