I know I left New York years ago, but still I found myself surprised by a couple of stories reporting people going “up” or “down” numbered streets. To my 5th generation native Manhattanite ear these were off-kilter: one goes across numbered streets since they run east/west; up and down is how you travel on north/south running avenues.
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I could not find this in the print edition on Monday, at least not where it usually appears. Has the location changed? I am glad to see it has not been discontinued.
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Metropolitan Diary is the highlight of our Monday. We read it aloud to each other every time. Why oh why would you deprive us of the slice of Only-In-New-York life? I was born and raised in Los Angeles but yearn for the encounters described in the Diaries, which basically cannot/do not happen here - because of the people and because of the cars. Please bring it back!!!
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@Julie Connella To be clear, I'm referring to the National print edition!
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Help this best coast reader to see New York City as a heartwarming, aspiring place by printing Metropolitan Diary. The fate of bringing people together though these short human interest reader’s stories is just as important as the front page headlines. Please reconsider!
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I deeply miss Metropolitan Diary in the printed national editions. Gave reason to look forward to Monday.
Echoing the previous comment: what can we do to get it back?
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We love the Metropolitan Diary but can no longer find it in the prinet version of the NYTimes on the West Coast? Are we missing something? What can we do to get it back?
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The subway story is what NYers have to deal with on a daily basis, and not much fun. It's what the MTA has become, horrible.
Crowded trains at all hours, higher fares, incompetent service.
Welcome to NY! Go to any European city to see what public transportation should be. NY is downright 3rd world in comparison.
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@Bocheball Since the Reagan administration, the tilt has been toward the limousine crowd and away from public service. Move to France where the transport system and infrastructure is well maintained and the public will actually protest if they don't get what they want.
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What a delight to read these snapshots of New York. Thank you for sharing these moments; as always this put a smile on my day.
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Can’t wait for the book. What a wonderful vicarious way to experience New York City!
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Dear Abbey,
As one who grew up in Inwood at the northern tip of Manhattan and who still loves my old neighborhood, I was delighted to read that you and your aunt-in-law caught No. 1 train heading uptown at 103rd. I have been trying to imagine where uptown you went together. I like to think you got off at 168th where you caught an A train to 190th, took the elevator up to Fort Washington Avenue, and then walked through Fort Tryon Park to The Cloisters, where you had a wonderful time taking in all of the medieval treasures that live there. If you didn’t then that is something I hope you will get to enjoy on a future occasion.
Be well and happy,
Allen
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For many years, I treasured the Monday NYTimes Metropolitan Diary - however, now that I am only able to get the Sunday Times - I miss the comments from local New Yorkers that give would often give me pause and help me harken back to 50 years ago when my parents live in Murray Hill and I worked on Madison Avenue one summer at one of the big advertising agencies.
I believe I was labeled a “runner” and delivered the mail and various envelopes and packages all around the city. What a grand time in my life. I do wish the Metropolitan Diary was part of my on line subscription benefit. There is no town like the Big Apple!
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Great stories again this week!!! Keep them coming!!!!
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Re: Bench By the Plaza - Good for the little old lady for speaking up. I'm on a personal campaign to get men (mostly) to offer seats on the subway and elsewhere to elderly men and women and to women and men carrying small children. This past week, I went on a tirade on an uptown "C" train out of Brooklyn because I requested, but never got, a seat for a young woman holding a toddler and the toddler's stroller. No one got up for this woman carrying a child who had to be heavy because the child was bigger than an infant. Why won't men understand that women's lib does not mean women can stand and men are allowed to sit. Sometimes women need a seat.
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@Odehyah Sometimes a person needs a seat; man, woman or child. And as a woman, why oh why do we refer to anyone as a "little old".
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@Odehyah, there was plenty of space available on the bench. The point of the story was that the writer was sitting on the end of an empty bench, and the older woman particularly wanted to sit at that corner. So he humored her. Which is amusing, and not a commentary on social mores.
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@TomMaybe something is wrong with me, but I would have said that it was a public bench, that there was plenty of room at the other end and I was not moving. Totally different story is there was no place else for her to sit, then I would have stood up so she could sit down. Perhaps I feel this way because I was once in the shower at a public pool and an older woman pulled o pen the curtain and ordered me out of "her" stall. I refused and told her to go bully someone else. Just because you are old does not mean you get a pass on ordinary civility.
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Abbey’s subway story is so New York!
No place like it!
Thank you!!
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The Diary about the drive going the wrong way down Madison Ave...reminds me of when maybe 2 years ago I was driving home through the Lincoln Tunnel, in the center tube that was 2-ways. And although there was not a lot of traffic at the time, the car in front of me was going really really slowly. I thought maybe it was a car problem. But then he started pulling out into the oncoming lane, and I was starting to get nervous, not knowing what was going on. Lo and behold he pulled a u-turn!! Never seen that before in the tunnel! And that reminded me of the old I Love Lucy episode where Ricky is teaching Lucy to drive, and he comes home holding his head and muttering in Spanish, as Lucy starts to cry, "How was I supposed to know you're not allowed to make a u-turn in the Holland Tunnel?" Wahh.....
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The Diary made Pat Kiernan's "In the Papers" on NY1 this morning, which highlights stories from the various print editions of the papers in NYC. It was Abbey Foote's story that he specifically talked about. I watch NY1 for a while pretty much every day, and I'd never seen a Diary item among all the print news highlights before.
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I saw it too!
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The piece about Osner Business Machines put such a smile on my face. I grew up around the corner on west 79th street. I remember it well! My mother would occasionally drag her typewriter in for repairs.
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Michael Brown, I know that woman who claimed her spot on a bench across from the Plaza Hotel...She is Sheldon Cooper's Meemaw, of course… :)
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Anne, What memories. I remember the shop and your parents, back when the upper west side was a small town.
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These stories describe the sometimes incredible, and often ordinary things people do to define their place in the world, or just hold onto it before they slip below life’s waterline as life strips everything from you. Like when, at four in the morning, I stand on my apartment balcony and gaze into the impenetrable sky and wish that she would love me again. A wish to be connected, to be made whole, to feel a warm human embrace. By her, or anyone really. It is always an unanswered prayer.
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@D Priest
Oh D Priest! Yours is the most moving of all. I don't know if by "she" you mean the sky or a lost love. Either way, I hope you can reconnect with the joy of being part of the living world. Our stay here is by invitation only and you are a unique guest. Most of our problems are caused by experiences with other humans. Maybe your gaze upward can remind you of things far greater.
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@June M, yes, a lovely image from D Priest.
PS. There actually is a famous "misheard lyric" that hears "You See This Guy, This Guy's in Love with You" (the Bacharach and David song recorded by Herb Alpert) as "You See the Sky, The Sky's in Love with You".
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@JuneM - The sky, the land and features of the earth are indifferent to us. “She” is a woman, and her indifference is guided by intent. Oh, did I mention that she’s a lawyer? Shakespeare was right.
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