Writing the Apocalypse is a weekly series featuring the poems, essays, and recollections of Puma Perl, with subject matter influenced by her experiences as a NYC resident during the COVID-19 pandemic. WE WON! | BY PUMA PERL Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009. Barack Obama, our 44th President. I wrote a short poem titled “A Day […]
BY DONATHAN SALKALN | New Yorkers have been lucky with the Yankees—a somewhat stable organization with seasons of mostly winning records and a history of retaining its stars. I’m very thankful to the Steinbrenner family and current general manager Brian Cashman for bringing my dad, during his twilight years, a new generation of players that […]
BY WINNIE McCROY | With its many shelters providing resources for at-risk individuals, Midtown Manhattan has long been welcoming to the unhoused. But when the NYC Department of Homeless Services (DHS) compensated for the COVID-19 complications of existing facilities by relocating hundreds of people under their care onto two blocks in the upper West 30s, […]
PHOTO ESSAY BY DANIEL KWAK | As a photojournalist, Daniel Kwak’s assignments have taken him from the densely packed streets of Manhattan to document early era Black Lives Matter marches to the shoulder-to-shoulder snugness of Times Square to capture the reaction of election night crowds, as bad news for Hillary Clinton unfolded on the jumbo screens. […]
BY ELIZABETH ZIMMER | Bill T. Jones collected a Bessie award in 1989, for choreographing D-Man in the Waters, his company’s first major work since the death of his life partner and co-director Arnie Zane. At a ceremony at the Joyce Theater, he told the assembled audience, “We are all going to die.” But his […]
Tues, Nov. 10, 4-6pm: Virtual Housing Clinic | On the second Tuesday of the month, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s office presents this Housing Clinic–which, like almost everything else, made the pivot to an all-virtual format upon the arrival of 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic. Appointments last about 20 minutes, during which time you’ll learn a lot, courtesy of a courteous […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | A compulsive workaholic, I’ve had jobs pretty nonstop since the 1970s. After graduating college, I had office gigs while freelancing on the side and eventually became a successful full-time writer. In 1984, I landed a column in the Village Voice, which lasted 28 and a half years. And that was hardly […]
BY ELIZABETH ZIMMER | With live performance shut down all over the city, those of us who survive by ogling beautiful movers and making sense of their art are starved for stimulation. Thus it was that the mere promise of living, breathing dancers floating barefoot or in pointe shoes, and accompanied by actual musicians sharing […]
Writing the Apocalypse is a weekly series featuring the poems, essays, and recollections of Puma Perl, with subject matter influenced by her experiences as a NYC resident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Window Panes | BY PUMA PERL We took lots of acid, placed bets on whether the sun would rise in the morning. […]
BY GERALD BUSBY | It wasn’t quite Halloween when I moved into the Chelsea Hotel, late September 1977, but ghostly fun—which is what I’d call my early days at 222 West 23rd Street—started in right away. I had just returned from working with Robert Altman on the movie A Wedding, shot in and near Chicago, and […]