An impromptu aria in Inwood, sassy poses at Brighton Beach and more reader tales of New York City in this week’s Metropolitan Diary.
The Super Sings
Dear Diary:
I often play Latin music when I’m at home in my apartment in Inwood. Once, after he heard La India coming from my stereo while he was at my place fixing a light, my super, Fernando, who mostly speaks Spanish, asked whether I spoke it too.
“Solamente un poco,” I said.
He nodded.
A short time later, Fernando was back for another task. This time, my piano tuner was there and started to play “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème.
Fernando began to sing along. In Italian.
— Tom Beckett
Sassy Poses
Dear Diary:
On a sunny day in 1994, my friend Rachel and I had a half day of school, and she suggested that we go to Brighton Beach.
As a Queens girl, I was used to going to Far Rockaway, but I was game to try something new. Rachel, our friend Crystal and I made the long trek on a slow-moving F.
Once we got there, we laid out our towels and set up our boom box, switching between Hot 97, Kiss FM and WBLS. We struck sassy poses in our bathing suits, taking overexposed pictures to be developed at Fotomat in an era long before selfies and social media posts.
The beach was nearly empty, except for one man. He was lying in a prone position with his pants down. In a flash of teenage boldness, I told him his rear end was exposed.
“I have rash!” he said in heavily accented English. Apparently, the sun was a curative and he was not going to pull up his pants. Needless to say, we avoided looking his way for the rest of the afternoon.
Nearly 30 years later, as summer approaches, I have not forgotten that man or his rash. And that is my Brighton Beach memoir!
— Alyson Myers
Rock-Paper-Scissors
Dear Diary:
It is 2 a.m. I dash up the subway stairs to catch the F back to Manhattan.
Just as I get to the platform, the train doors close and the train begins to pull away. The digital message board says the next one will arrive in 20 minutes.
I wander over to a bench and sit. As I wait for the train, a boy runs merrily up the stairs onto the platform. He has a huge smile on his face while he stares across the tracks at the other platform.
A girl there beams back at him. They start to play rock-paper-scissors. They don’t say a word. They play about six rounds, laughing and giggling at the end of each one.
The train on the opposite track whooshes into the station, cutting the boy and girl off from each other. Seconds later, she appears in the train window, smiling again and waving goodbye.
The boy waves back as he watches her train pull away.
— Pamela Ingebrigtson
Neighborhood Sounds
Dear Diary:
I had moved into my new apartment in Brooklyn and was living alone for the first time as summer began. I worried about being lonely, but I told myself it was an important step, that I was finally a real adult.
My first night there, I realized I lived across from a basketball court where people gathered to play music and talk. How nice! I thought. I’ll get to know the community.
Every night during the summer, the gatherings continued. I opened my windows and let the sound into my studio, the noise of the neighborhood comforting me against the solitude imposed by being home alone.
As the weeks passed, the music gradually got louder. Sometimes, I would lean my head out the window and wave, asking if the people playing it could please turn it down, just a little.
Often, this worked, but sometimes it didn’t. The music seemed to be loudest on weeknights. This is becoming a little less pleasant, I thought to myself one night in October.
Then, one Tuesday night after midnight, the music across the street was so loud that my windows rattled. I decided I had to call in a noise complaint. Feeling sheepish, I dialed 311. A man named Ron picked up.
I spoke quietly and apologized profusely for what I was about to say. I didn’t want the party to be shut down, but perhaps the people could turn it down a tad?
Ron asked for my address. When I gave it to him, he gasped.
“I know exactly what you’re talking about,” he said. “I live right next door to you.”
I laughed, stunned by the coincidence, and excited to be finally meeting a neighbor.
“And don’t worry about calling,” he added. “I get complaints about these guys every night.”
— Camille Jacobson
Impulse Purchase
Dear Diary:
I walked into a drugstore on Amsterdam Avenue to buy a seltzer. Somehow, I ended up at the register with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food that was frozen rock solid.
I planned to eat my impulse purchase while sitting on a stoop around the corner, so I asked the cashier for a plastic spoon.
“Sorry,” he said. “We don’t have any.”
The security guard disagreed.
“We sure do!” she said, pointing to a jar of spoons. “Take two,” she added, “in case one of them breaks.”
Good call.
— Daniel Simon
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