Month: September 2021

There is a kitten in the window. Wait – there are two kittens in the window. Which is a curious thing given that the pet-supply shop is called The Regal Beagle. The feisty snowshoe Siamese, who is called Conchita, is climbing up a potted palm, and the torpid tuxedo, who was named Jameson for the whiskey, is lazily lounging in the bed after a raucous romp, petite paws pointing into the air. When the shop bell rings and Daisy, the first customer of the day, pulls her owner in to buy a treat,…

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To understand why Tenzing Ghama can’t wait to get up at 4 in the morning to start cooking, you have to believe in dreams. She’s always wanted to open a restaurant, but she’s never had the money or the opportunity to do so. But time is something she does have a little bit of. So six months ago, she joined the Shef app to see what would happen. Since then, she’s been preparing Tibetan, Indian and Nepalese-influenced meals three days a week, sometimes making 30 to 40 dishes at…

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It has been weeks since Stefano Poliseno has been to his Astoria Sports Complex.   Stefano outside the closed Astoria Sports Complex. He parks his car – a white Maserati detailed with a green and red stripe in homage to his and its Italian heritage – and goes to the front door of the building, which remains forever closed to him. Seeing it again is hard. “How do I feel? Sad and happy,” he says. “I’m passionate about the children who came here; I miss them, but now I’ll…

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It was more like a clatter than a crash. When the big bang occurred, I sprang from my swivel chair and flew to the window to see what could be the matter. There, sprawled on my lower-level flat roof, sparkling in the sunlight like a diamond, was a silver ladder. I’ve lived in my house for more than 16 years, and I’ve borne witness to all manner of strange happenings. But most of them occurred on the ground. Attached townhouses, I discovered too late to move, rarely make good (or…

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