‘The Train Was So Packed That It Was Difficult for Me to Do What I Always Did’

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html

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Dear Diary:

We sat close together, trying not to slide too close to the people sitting next to us, the one sitting to her left and the one sitting to my right.

It was summer. The rattling sound of the train car moving through the tunnel from Hunts Point to Whitlock Avenue lowered as we emerged onto the tracks taking us above ground.

My sister and I had taken this ride time and time again. On this particular day, we were coming from Midtown Manhattan. I don’t think we were allowed to explore the city below 34th Street and Herald Square at that point.

The sun was setting, and the train was so packed it was difficult for me to do what I always did: scan the trees along the Bronx River before looking into the sky to replay the conversations that had consumed us. The talk was often about our future successes and about getting out of the neighborhood.

As we approached Elder Avenue, two guys who were standing in front of us began to talk a little louder.

“I never understood why people get money and stay here,” one of them said, laughing and shaking his head.

My antennas were up.

“Yo, that’s so dumb,” the other one said. “Why would I work to stay in the ’hood? I work to get out.”

As we walked down the steps at Morrison Avenue-Soundview, I turned to my sister.

“Did you hear those guys?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she said.

I vowed to never forget, to never fully disconnect.

— Ngozi Onike

Dear Diary:

It was July 1980. I was 24, and my husband and I were moving out of our apartment on 56th Street and Ninth Avenue. We were headed to Virginia, where he would attend graduate school.

The apartment was hot. The movers were hot. I remember that one of them was named Kermit.

As they were sealing my clothes in a wardrobe box, I realized I needed my full-length raccoon coat: My mother in Pittsburgh wanted to put it into cold storage.

“Wait!” I said to Kermit. “I’ve got to open that box. I need my fur coat!”

He looked at me for a moment.

“Lady,” he said. “We’re not taking you to Virginia. We’re taking you straight to Bellevue.”

— Meg Taylor

Dear Diary:

It was summer 2001, and my mother and I were having lunch at the Cupping Room in SoHo.

“That guy over at that table is the one who wouldn’t pitch on Yom Kippur,” my mother said out of nowhere.

What would Sandy Koufax be doing here? I replied.

A few minutes later, the man she was referring to got up from his table and walked past the one where we were sitting.

“Are your initials S.K.?” my mother said without hesitating.

“Yes,” he said before continuing on his way.

I don’t know what amazed me more: seeing Sandy Koufax or my mother recognizing him.

— Sandra Feldman

Dear Diary:

There is a lonely ginkgo tree on Fifth Avenue between 38th and 39th Streets. Its branches catch the sun on the east side of the street facing Lord & Taylor’s well-worn facade.

Set at the edge of the hard-packed soil at the base of the tree is a golden plaque honoring Dorothy Shaver, the first female president of a major American department store. As a native New Yorker, I have a strong sentimental attachment to that store, and to that plaque.

Lord & Taylor was the eastern anchor of what was once a thriving garment center. The blossoming of its gracious windows every Wednesday was treated like a Broadway opening.

It was also the first store to pluck American designers from obscurity. I know this because I was one of those designers.

Over the years Lord & Taylor has lost much of its well-earned luster. But for me, it has remained a comforting friend. I walk past it every day on my way to my office, watching as it slips slowly into obscurity.

Now, that great institution is closing its doors. Those glorious windows will be shuttered and that lonely ginkgo tree will face the challenge of a new era.

Most of all, the shiny plaque honoring that forgotten woman will be on its own. Not totally though. As long as I am around, it will be pampered and polished.

— Stan Herman

Dear Diary:

I was outside one of the entrances to the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall subway station in Lower Manhattan. An older man approached me and asked where he could find a token booth.

I told him he would have to cross the street and walk two blocks south.

He looked dejected.

“If you’d like,” I said, “I’d be happy to swipe you in here.”

Relieved, he promised to reimburse me. After we had both gone through the turnstile, he reached into his pocket and then stopped to show me the identification card hanging on a lanyard around his neck.

“I’m a senior citizen,” he said, “I get half off.”

— Michelle Cardella

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Illustrations by Agnes Lee