The summer before I turned fifteen I often biked with my two best friends to Chicago’s River Park, thirty acres of grass, trees, paths, playgrounds, and a swimming pool. The park was a green haven in our gritty urban neighborhood that was packed with apartment buildings, stores, factories, gas stations, warehouses, restaurants, and everything else that made Chicago livable and tense. River Park was bisected by the North Branch of the Chicago River. It was an odd looking river because it had been lined with concrete in the 1930s. It looked and often smelled like … Continue reading Under the River Bridge by Paul C. Rosenblatt →
The city of my birth, as seen from above, is a ragged landscape of canyons. Highrises, lowrises, the steeple of an old brick church. Streams of yellow taxicabs where forests of hickory and chestnut once grew. To the north lies the green rectangle of Central Park, the woody heart of this metropolis. There, red-tailed hawks and peregrine falcons prey on pigeons and squirrels and sometimes an errant Chihuahua. To the west, across the Hudson River, the fair state of New Jersey. To the east the bridges that stitch the island of Manhattan to the boroughs … Continue reading The City of My Birth by Margaret Erhart →
***John Gredler is an Honorable Mention for Streetlight’s 2018 Essay/Memoir Contest*** I now had the second floor at 3 East Third to myself, a mattress on the floor, my radio cassette player and piles of books on either side. Not much else, not even a chair. Two tall windows faced the brick wall of the neighboring building with the faded letters spelling Provenzano Lanza Funeral Home painted on it. A small garden below allowed morning light to come in and the sounds of traffic to echo constantly day and night. The floor, old wide … Continue reading Three East Third by John Gredler →
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