My friend Brad

Although I grew up in Manhattan, the city always felt just outside the sanctuary of my relatively quiet neighborhood in Peter Cooper Village, a housing project on First Avenue between 20th and 23rd Streets.  It bellowed and fumed over my shoulder, an infernal machine full of divine promise. It’s no surprise the atom was first split in the U.S. in a laboratory on the corner of Broadway and West 120th Street, releasing its titanic energy. New York is a kind of breeder reactor of human possibility, where incalculable volts have been produced over the years, for better and for worse. Read more