I have always loved bookstores - a great wave of comfort comes over me when I enter one - all those books with the wisdom of the ages just waiting to be tapped.When traveling, I have found a city...

Frequent users of Washington Square Park have been eagerly awaiting its reopening. It has been closed for one and one half years - since November 2007. The renovations were a contentious battle...

If you want to do something controversial, it's easy. Just create a series of themed sculptures and place dozens of them around the city. The last one that I recall was the Cow Parade.Everyone seems to have strong feelings about such displays. Being ...

A few of years ago, while crossing the intersection at west 4th Street and Washington Square East, I was hit with a glancing blow to my side by a car, swept completely off my feet, bounced off the hood, landed feet first and continued walking without...

I love small buildings and small mysteries. Here, at 82 7th Avenue and 301 Bleecker Street in the West Village, there is a remarkable tiny, two-story building occupied only Zena and her daughter sylvia, who practice their trade as psychic readers. The...

I felt a little embarrassed when I opened a Christmas gift from my late sister and found a travel guide to Finland with a note which said "go for it."This gift and note were fueled by my obsession at that time with something I had read - an article...

Preparations for the Annual Village Halloween Parade start at 2 PM, five hours in advance of the parade itself. For more information about the parade and previous years photos see the links below. This year, with the parade on a Saturday, I decided to...

My first big family trip was to Luray Caverns and the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia. For wide eyed children, the trip met all of our expectations with the unexpected perk of Southern hospitality which we all found so disarmingly wonderful, the...