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!
SARA ELKAMEL
We pull the black of Rum over our eyes / like skin. God’s earth is vast, vast, vast—but by day / she wrapped her limbs around my limbs and drew / my air. I follow her into the dark, consider saying: Please, / I don’t know what you need—but all I see is red. / At the foot of the dunes I push her, soft as the sin
ABBIE KIEFER
Raw granite and brick, hip roof like a helmet. At its height, it hummed: seventeen trains daily, lumbering in along the river. I imagine E.A. here with his ticket and his trunk. With his back to the brick, listening for a whistle.
A. MAURICIO RUIZ
At eleven there was no one in sight. Only the cats watched me, curled up on top of the trash bins. Their heads turned as I walked past them.