THE DAY A GIRL FLEW UNDER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE AND OTHER NEW YORK STORIES

"The world begins and ends here", said my father as we drove over the Brooklyn Bridge and peered into the heart of the city.

For him, New York was everything.

It was America.

He believed one fell off the edge of the earth once they left the city.

There was no place like New York.

It was the American Dream.

Anything was possible in New York City.

More photos, films, stories, and books have been written about it than nearly any other city. Why? It is unique in the breadth and depth of its culture, diversity, wealth, poverty, conflict, and endless variety of change that comes in waves from one generation to another.

It is my town where I went to school, found a job, was married and where my children were born.

It prepared me for excitement, disappointment, and success.

"If I could make it there, I could make it anywhere."

The tales in these pages are about souls.

These are our stories about those who yearn for "The City That Never Sleeps" or as O. Henry called it "Baghdad on the Hudson," a population of poets, bandits, workers, risk takers, gamblers, lovers, politicians, and benefactors.

If you adore New York City and love good stories, you will love this book. They will make you cry and laugh and think and want to chase your dreams.

This is New York and what follows are accounts from the heart of another era when the city was defined not by its wealth but by those who loved it and lived it.