From Kerouac’s Richmond Hill journals (the area I grew up in Queens): MONDAY AUG. 23 – Told my mother today she ought to go live down South with the family instead of spending all her time slaving in shoe factories in order to earn just enough money to spend on the system of expenses that [...]
Tag Archives: Richmond Hill
Jack Kerouac, Man Who Got It.
07-Aug-12In Queens.
31-Jul-12Walking down the block in the early afternoon on my natal street, and the wind brings to me the smell of the ocean – the summer onshore breeze that sets in on summer afternoons. So beautiful, and so laced with so many memories – of the small town in the city where I grew up, [...]
Queens NY.
31-Dec-11Jamaica Avenue, old siding under the El.
New York City.
21-Feb-11Forest Park, Queens. February 2011.
Punjab Love Festival.
14-Jun-10Greetings from Richmond Hill, Queens, home of the 2010 Punjab Love Festival. This poster in a shopfront on Jamaica Avenue caught my eye, but the festival – which offered “free food, free game, unconditional love and more” – had already passed.
Kerouac, the unideal husband.
11-Jun-10Kerouac’s first marriage: he married a girl and moved out to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and worked at his father-in-law’s ball-bearings factory. It lasted two months: At home Edie and her mother, anxious to see Jack as a competent husband, were alarmed that he spent most of his free time in the bathroom, reading Shakespeare and [...]
The J Train.
20-Dec-09A few friends got some real experience with the J train last night – in a blizzard no less – coming out to decorate the Christmas tree with me and sing a few old songs. It reminded me of the following story: A friend called me up after flying out of New York, very excited. [...]
Viral Fish.
06-Oct-09I heard from a friend that the story I penned for Gothamist about the Great Fish of Richmond Hill still had some legs and was getting traffic, and since I doubted this traffic was coming solely from Gothamist, I decided to fish around the internet and see where the story had gone. Sure enough, if [...]
The Great Old Fish Of Richmond Hill.
24-Sep-09I’m glad I got this opportunity to honor a Richmond Hill landmark. And the stories – the Holocaust survivor, the Vet coming back from Nam – it was just too good. I’ve been visiting that fish for more than 25 years. http://gothamist.com/2009/09/24/same_fish_in_queens_petshop_for_41.php And Louie’s tricolon abundans – “That fish! That effin’ fish! Is that effin’ [...]
On the treadmill.
28-Jan-11“MONDAY AUG. 23 – Told my mother today she ought to go live down South with the family instead of spending all her time slaving in shoe factories in order to earn just enough money to spend on the system of expenses that is our society. In Russia they slave for the state, here they [...]