‘I Was a Young Suburbanite and Scared of Big Cities at the Time’

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Where To?

Dear Diary:

In 1974, I was working for a company in Boston that was bought by a company in New York City, and I was asked to relocate. I was a young suburbanite and scared of big cities at the time, so I said no.

A year later, the Boston office closed and I was again asked to move to New York, and again I said no.

But I agreed to go there as a temporary assignment, with the company paying for my hotel, flights home on the weekends and other expenses. When I said I was afraid to walk the city’s streets, they agreed to pay for taxis to and from the office.

I stayed at the Bedford Hotel, on 40th Street between Park and Lexington. On the first day, I left work and got into a cab.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“Foughtieth and Pahk,” I said in my thick Boston accent. He didn’t understand me.

Second day, same problem.

On the third day, I asked a colleague from the Bronx to coach me on how to say it with a New York accent.

“Say fortieth and pork,” he said. “Fortieth and pork.”

I tried it that day.

“Where to?” the driver asked when I got into his cab.

“Fortieth and pork,” I replied.

“Where?” the driver said.

“Fortieth and pork,” I repeated.

“Where?”

Finally, I gave up.

“Thirty-ninth and Lex,” I said.

Fifty years later, I’m still in New York.

— Jan Firstenberg

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Sugar, Sugar

Dear Diary:

Many mornings, I would stop at a coffee cart on the corner of East 149th Street and Courtlandt Avenue in the Bronx on the way to my job teaching English as a second language.

Seeing me at the back of the line, the vendor would begin preparing my usual order: a small coffee with half-and-half, no sugar. Then he would beckon me to the front, dip a teaspoon into the sugar and dangle it over my cup with a grin.

Playing along, I would wave my hands.

“No sugar, no sugar,” I would say.

He would drop the spoon, put the cover on the cup, we’d both laugh and I would head to work.

— Mary Anne McTiernan

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Turtle Pond

Dear Diary:

Every spring, I go to Turtle Pond in Central Park hoping to see a white egret.

The first time I saw one there, it was gliding along the shallows beneath fresh green leaves. I asked a woman taking pictures what kind of bird it was, and she told me about egrets.

In the colder months, they fly south, maybe all the way to the tropics. Then one morning in May, one will pop up at Turtle Pond, sometimes hiding in the brush, sometimes standing on one leg among the ducks.

Once, after watching an egret through a long stretch of stillness, I saw it strike and come up with a fish.

Another time, I saw one standing in the water, still and watchful, and then lifting off and flying just above the water near to where I stood.

For a second, I wondered if the egret knew it was me. I can’t tell if it’s the same one returning in the spring, but I hope so.

— Julie Zhu

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Jammed

Dear Diary:

My wife and I were taking the B57 bus from Bushwick to Downtown Brooklyn with a backpack of clothes for our son and his girlfriend to change into after running the New York City Marathon the next day.

About halfway there, the driver stopped after swerving around a bus that had broken down. To the left were a pickup truck, a van and a truck towing a trailer.

We were blocked in, and so were they. The driver of the pickup got out to survey the situation. Our driver got out and then returned. Car horns were blaring.

I decided to take action. I got off and, at the direction of a woman who was passing by, moved two orange construction barrels to create a space for our bus to sneak through.

I guided the driver gingerly as he pulled forward until he was in the clear with a green light ahead of him.

Before he hit the gas, I asked: “Can you let me back on the bus?”

I boarded, and the other passengers clapped. I considered taking a bow, but the driver was ready to go.

— David Hoff

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Nice Coat

Dear Diary:

It was freezing out, and I needed groceries. I grabbed the warmest thing in the closet, my boyfriend’s camel-hair coat.

I rode the elevator down in the Lower East Side building with another woman.

“I like your coat,” she said.

I thanked her and said that it belonged to my boyfriend.

“If you don’t keep the boyfriend,” she replied, “keep the coat.”

— Colleen Flynn

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Illustrations by Agnes Lee