Here at The Common, we’re all about place, so we’ve been experimenting with more ways for readers to experience the locations of our pieces. Using this map, you can explore all the dispatches we’ve published set in New York City. Get to know Eli the Seltzer Man, the nighthawks on the Upper West Side, and more!
NANDINI BATTACHARYA
The descending Boeing 707’s engine can pretend to be the lullaby once in my mother’s veins singing my unborn heart to life if I close my eyes and pretend, but it misses. Instead, the stewardess’ practiced saga of arrival sings the dogged return of a stranger to a strange Ithaca—to Sisterland.
EDWARD SAMBRANO III
I will die in Portland on an overcast day, / The Willamette River mirroring clouds’ / Bleak forecast and strangers not forgetting— / Not this time—designer raincoats in their closets. / They will leave for work barely in time / To catch their railcars. It will happen / On a day like today.
COURTNEY BUDER
I thought it was wonderful. I remember standing in the middle of the street, the wind tearing straight through me. I watched my red hat get sucked up and away into the grey, watched trees flail, calm as a clam, as a strange and lonely little girl transfixed, like watching a snow globe from the inside.
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