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!
AIDAN CAHILL
It would seem the Earth is always in flux, whether it be the monthly succumbings of the cabbage white butterflies or the water with its winter sleep, yet for the longest time I had challenged this. In the wake of blurring seasons and rotations of the sun, I had come back here, ages 15, 16, 17, now 19, always to the same place
ERNESTO PÉREZ ZUÑIGA
I often see it hovering against the wind. Motionless in an impossible point in space until the kestrel insists on tracing its outline. Its own will against the void. A will that dances in a barely perceptible vibration. This is the vertigo of stillness. While its gaze sweeps the ground in search of mice or lizards.
MARVIN GARBEH DAVIS SR.
A sudden hum, a soft pulse through the walls, and the bulbs bloom again: white, merciful, blinding, as if mercy itself has switched on the lights. You can hear the city rejoice. Someone shouts, “Current don come!” Radios click on. Pots clatter. Even the roosters seem to crow out of turn. The sound of the generator fades, its duties relieved.
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