Capital New York

Steven Boone commented on A reverse migration from post-crack New York, revealing that the sky in Warner Robins looks impossibly blue

Thanks, folks. I'm happy y'all got something out of this little micro-story. Hey, Tex, I notice some nice, thoughtful comments you've left at other stories of mine recently. Much appreciated. Personally, I'm over racism, and I suspect I speak for a lot of people when I say that. Racism is like a thunder storm or a tornado. You might track it or study it but never, ever go near it, if you can help it. Otherwise, it's fun and exciting to watch, so long as nobody gets hurt. Ay, there's the rub.

Posted on February 12th, 2012 7:39pm

Steven Boone commented on A reverse migration from post-crack New York, revealing that the sky in Warner Robins looks impossibly blue

Hey, thanks, Tony. Truthfully, I've experienced as much racism in big cities as I have out in the country. But in my experience, most folks keep their racism as private as their sex lives. (Danke!) I know how to deal with those that don't. Over half the population here is employed by the military, and that's a diverse bunch. The biggest civilian employers are in health and education, also diverse. Many East Indian and Chinese shopkeepers along the main strip. Native-born white folks are still the majority here, but there are juust enough folks of Asian, African, Caribbean and Latin-American descent to keep the Obama jokes and welfare gripes down to a mutter. (Oh, yes, I've heard them.) I'm more worried about the alligators in Macon. Atlanta is great. I hope to give an unusual take on that city for Capital in the near future.

Posted on February 3rd, 2012 11:22am

A reverse migration from post-crack New York, revealing that the sky in Warner Robins looks impossibly blue

WARNER ROBINS, Ga.—"This was just before Obama got elected. I was taking my youngest one to daycare one morning. We lived in Cartersville, Barstow County. It's predominantly white. This guy would every day hold the door for me. He was white. We'd have a conversation: 'How you doing,' 'Good morning,' the weather or something. And the day that Obama got elected, that next morning, we ran into each other again. He was coming in as I was coming in. He was in front of me. That man opened the door, made sure his son got in the door, and closed it. Right in my face. More

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By Steven Boone

on February 2nd, 2012 8:12am

'Arthur,' annotated: Some comedies are funnier when you watch them in Tompkins Square Park

I was leaving the Trinity Church soup kitchen last Wednesday afternoon when I heard a guy yelling across its courtyard, “…and they hand out free snacks!”

He was calling out to a woman on the sidewalk near the church gate. She was tapping her head and mouthing his words to herself, trying to fix them in memory as she crossed the street, heading into Tompkins Square Park.

“Tomorrow night!” he said. “And they’re showing Arthur this time!” More

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By Steven Boone

on August 4th, 2011 11:54am

Bleak house: The problem with some New York shelters is people have to sleep there

The guy ahead of me set a gray, molded plastic tub, the kind you might soak your feet in, down on the wide table. He took his jacket, wallet, loose change, lighter and other personal items from the basin and slid it toward me before moving on.

The first thing I noticed was the filth. More

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By Steven Boone

on July 22nd, 2011 3:30pm

New houses on Jerome Street left to rot, and other mysteries of East New York

Only minutes after stepping off the L train and walking up Livonia Avenue, I ran into Shah, one of my old housemates. He was standing near the corner of Pennsylvania and Livonia, as he had nearly every day in 2008. Same do-rag, same oversize jersey, same baggy pants, same habit of looking pained and cautious. I remembered that he used to have terrible stomach pains that he only talked about seeing a doctor for, something that a daily diet of $2 microwave burgers and Twix bars didn’t help. More

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By Steven Boone

on July 14th, 2011 2:25pm

A happy New York love story, other than the part about the money

That year we had little adventures all over the city. Coney Island, Fort Tryon Park, Harlem, Prospect Park, the Lower East Side; museums, parades, markets, performance spaces, comedy clubs, noodle restaurants. And nearly every arthouse movie theater in NYC. I'd roamed this city pretty widely on my own over the years, but never so much with any one companion. She had a genius for digging up new haunts and people-watching perches. I jokingly called her my one-woman Fresh Air Fund. Even apart, we traded thousands of laughs, heady, goofy, loving talks and emails, elaborate conspiracies of silliness. More

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By Steven Boone

on June 23rd, 2011 11:38am

Scouting poor-people locations for Mayor Bloomberg, not that he asked

This weekend I’m going back to the neighborhood I called home in 2008: East New York, Brooklyn. I lived there almost directly under the 3 train, in one of the illegal boarding houses that the city would send any homeless person to who was willing to abide by their rules. (Basically: don’t get drunk or high; apply for welfare to pay the rent or,if you have a job, pay $300 a month to bunk down with several strangers.) More

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By Steven Boone

on June 10th, 2011 10:09am

At a bodega in Alphabet City, the cost of enlightenment is three dollars

As she broke it down to me, I nodded my head sore; I let her know that my entire outfit cost under $20. I'd seen dress shirts like mine going for sixty bucks at department stores but got mine two for ten at Fat Albert's Warehouse near the Prospect Park subway. My Airwalk skate shoes had been marked down to $15 at Payless. The slacks were free, scored from the basement donation bin at St. Joseph House, the same place went to rack up on designer, slim-fit dress shirts in my exact collar size. These added up to the reason that, when I’d tell a guy asking me for spare change that, sorry, I was homeless and broke myself, he’d look me up and down and go, “Yeah, right, asshole.” More

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By Steven Boone

on June 2nd, 2011 12:03pm

Steven Boone commented on Out, but not up: Homelessness in the age of Bloomberg

Thanks for the support, folks. Glad you're getting something out of this. Smm, I notice that private shelters like yours are doing what the city shelter system should have always been all about. You restore the word "shelter" to its proper, positive meaning, As I mentioned in the piece, in the city system, "shelter" has become a threat, tantamount to a curse word.

Posted on May 27th, 2011 1:07pm