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!
CHARISSE BALDORIA
I have lived in this breath. This space between tension and resolution, concocter of magic and desire. I have learned to hold an audience in the palm of my hand, to deny them, which means, to deny myself. On the verge of arrival, there’s always a promise of fulfillment, of final release. Of approval.
HANNAH JANSEN
At the laundromat the whir of machines, / whorled & busy, the pleasure & difficulty / of stillness Waiting, sockless, I aspire to be / the cross-legged woman reading a magazine, / settled into her corner of time I like her gray braid, / the way her skin sings.
SARAH DUNPHY-LELII
I visit with a friend as she works to empty her mother’s house, who died just days before Christmas, and each object holds a tiny piece of Susan. I come away with several treasures lovely (a hand knitted scarf, a clay donkey to hold my garlic) and practical.
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