Metropolitan Diary
East 37th Street
Dear Diary:
Janet became my best friend in fall 1968. We met in fifth grade at the St. Vincent Ferrer school on East 65th Street. She was a transfer student from a school in Murray Hill that was closing because of low enrollment.
We were both only children. My mother worked outside the home. Janet’s mother did not. So we would take the bus to her home on East 37th Street after school.
It was a magical place for me: a first-floor garden apartment where we could play outside and in Janet’s beautiful bedroom. It felt like a real home.
As we grew up, Janet was on track to become an actress. I vividly recall the day her father took us to a shoot for “The Godfather,” in which Janet had a part.
Janet died of leukemia a few months later, and over the years her friends, including me, made a point of walking by East 37th Street whenever we were in the area.
Fast forward to 2022. I had lived in different parts of New York City over the years and most recently at my mother’s home in Connecticut. I sold the house after my mother died and was able to rent in the city once again
I looked at many apartments, until one day a certain East 37th Street address came up on my computer. I was shown an amazing, newly renovated, light-filled apartment on the fourth floor in the front of the building.
I had to interview with the apartment’s owner. He listened quietly as I explained my connection to the building. I expected to leave and hear his decision at a later date. That is not what happened.
“Welcome home,” he said immediately.
— Dayna Gerring
Forget Sardines
Dear Diary:
I was waiting for the Lexington Avenue express at Fulton Street on an extremely hot day. When it finally whooshed into the station, I was relieved to escape the broiling platform and squeeze onto a crowded train for my evening commute to Grand Central.
The air conditioning was on, but with riders packed together so tightly, it wasn’t doing much good.
The car was completely silent and felt pressure-cooker tense as the train made its way uptown. Then I heard a passenger call out to a friend.
“Is this how it feels to be a lasagna?” he said.
— Meredith Mundy
Unfazed
Dear Diary:
I was holding onto a pole on a crowded 1 train when it stopped abruptly between stations.
Caught by surprise, I completely lost my balance and landed on the lap of an older man who was wearing a three-piece suit and had an unlit cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth.
Embarrassed, I jumped up and apologized profusely.
The man was unfazed.
“That’s what I’m here for,” he said, and returned to reading his newspaper.
— Tara Greenway
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/13/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html
((A particularly good 'Diary,' eh???) 
= new reply since forum marked as read
