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!
BEN TAMBURRI
The beaches of Baileys Harbor are for birds, too pebbly and coarse to relax on. The water is cold, and the waves break at your ankles.
ELI RODRIGUEZ FIELDER
The gods must have been giant children squeezing drip sandcastles from their palms, back when this land was at the edge of a sea. This used to be a mouth, I say. It feels impossible that this peculiar landscape should suddenly emerge among farms and Dairy Queens.
AYA LABANIEH
You raised me, tayteh, rocking me in your lap, spooning Quranic verses into my little ears, scrubbing the living daylights out of me in the bathtub. Slapping your thighs, “Ta’a, ta’a, ta’a,” you’d say to the lovebirds we raised, “Come, come, come,” and they’d fly, all three of them, out their cages in a flurry and land on your breasts, climb your gold chains, nestle against your cheeks.
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