Series
Public Streets
In Public Streets, our urban observation series, writers reflect on spaces and places.
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Making Migrant Spaces: 34th Avenue, Queens
Thirty-Fourth Avenue is a reminder that displacement from one location, perhaps at a far remove, can instantiate emplacement elsewhere.
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The Corner Office
This is a new installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. At the corner of 60th and Madison, high-end retail logos create an upscale fantasia: DKNY, Calvin Klein, and Bally. Byron Breeze, Jr., also known as “Soulja,” has made this corner the “office” where he does most of his…
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Abney Park Cemetery
This is a new installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. Salvation Army officers don’t die; they are “promoted to glory.” In Abney Park Cemetery there have been many such promotions, as most of the founding generation of the Salvos, including William Booth and his family, are buried here. Abney Park,…
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How to Buy a Guitar in Chicago
This is a new installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. In its still relatively new location on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago’s Northcenter neighborhood, the Chicago Music Exchange immediately dazzles visitors with row upon row of guitars mounted on the walls. Chandeliers drip from the high ceilings, lending a tone of…
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On Christopher Street Pier
This is the inaugural installment of Public Streets, a series of observations on urban life curated by the novelist Ellis Avery. I’ve seen that child before, a boy of 10 or 12 in suspenders and a newsboy cap. He plays the cello. He rides a unicycle. Once I saw him in a sycamore in Abingdon…
