The Hawthorne Circle
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The Hawthorne Circle

It took the thought of cold Michelob on tap, poured into iced pilsner glasses, to get our dads out of their aluminum folding chairs and into the sun-baked Olds. It was hot and humid in the Bronx that Memorial Day, 1961.

Over the two-inch speaker of a coral, Realtone transistor radio, our dads listened to the first game of the Yankees double-header. “C’mon down to the Stadium,” Mel Allen, the Voice of the New York Yankees, drawled in a lazy Birmingham way, “there’s plenny a good seats left. C’mon down and make the three-ring sahn…for Ballantine.”

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The Bursting Room
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The Bursting Room

It’s the time of year when teenagers start thinking of summer. Hopefully, summer jobs are already lined up.

Do you remember your high school or college summer job? I do. Back in the day, I was a Bronx-born kid at CUNY. That is, Lehman College, in the Bronx.

America’s tribes were dug in deep. Just like now. In one corner: “The Greatest Generation,” Nixon’s “Silent Majority.” And, in the other corner: Baby Boomers, the generation America’s loved to hate, since 1967.

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Cool Cats
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Cool Cats

As I write this, my smart phone tells me the weather ‘round the bend calls for sunny skies with temperatures in the low sixties.

Which Real New Yorkers know means that, after three days of lovely spring weather, “Soylent Green” tree pollen will crust our cars and the THI will spike to swampy – and stay there until September.

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Guns
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Guns

When I was a kid, me and all my friends had toy boxes full of toy guns. I had a toy M-1, a toy flintlock pistol, a toy .45 revolver, a toy snub-nosed .38, and a variety of water guns shaped like Lugers, Tommy guns, .22 automatics – even a “space” gun molded with Flash Gordon-like lightning bolts around its cherry-red plastic body.

When I was a kid, we played war with tiny toy soldiers. We had Civil War soldiers, World War I soldiers, and World War II soldiers, and all their field accessories: Jeeps, field artillery, tanks, and more. We played in the dirt across the street from our University Heights apartment house, or in the backyard, on top of the stone-and-concrete retaining wall that separated our building from our neighbors.

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Your Next Baseball Glove
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Your Next Baseball Glove

I need a new baseball glove like a hole-in-the-head (or “luch in kup” as my Yiddish-speaking Granny would say). But I’m going to buy a new mitt, and it’s a beaut, at Dick’s Sporting Goods. I wish I had a glove like this when I was a kid, playing sandlot ball at Harris Field.

(Maybe it sounds stupid, but I want to encourage that retailer, Dick’s, for doing good. See Dick’s Take a Principled Stand. Go, Dick’s, Go!)

I used to play first-, second- and third-base in the NYC agency softball leagues. One year, I was MVP of my team. That was many moons ago and I haven’t swung a bat in a good 10 years. BUT: I think I’m gonna buy this glove, even if I just wear it in my living room, loudly flinging a ball into the pocket, while I watch the Yankees.

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We Made It! The Newcomers Can Too!
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We Made It! The Newcomers Can Too!

Despite my Luddite tendencies, I will admit that The Interweb can be a help. I’ll go one step farther: The Interweb can be fascinating.

Recently I searched the digital landscape to see whatever became of some of my classmates and early workmates from The Bronx. I was very impressed, given our modest start. Most of us were first- or second-generation Americans. None were descended from passengers on the Mayflower – steamer steerage was our forebears’ mode of transport.

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Got Gentrification?
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Got Gentrification?

Recently, the Old Bronx Borough Courthouse, a stately South Bronx edifice empty for 37 years, was miraculously transformed into a pop-up gallery space by No Longer Empty (NLE), a New York non-profit. The show was called “When You Cut Into the Present the Future Leaks Out.” The show has been a magnet for local schoolchildren, parents, educators, community groups, residents of the Bronx and beyond.

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New York Music Man Says: ‘Never Let Go’
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New York Music Man Says: ‘Never Let Go’

“Real New Yorkers” is a term I use to describe those who have New York City in their hearts. One does not have to be born here, to be a Real New Yorker. You just have to have that “NYC” groove in your heart.

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What Makes a City Great?
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What Makes a City Great?

Fear of change keeps many New Yorkers on tenterhooks, as we slide into a Bill de Blasio mayoralty. After 12 years of Bloomberg, we’ve come to live in a very different New York City than the still-smoldering New York that Mayor Mike took over from Rudy Giuliani back in January of 2002.

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