Of Many Things

A cork-lined room—that was Marcel Proust’s way of coping with the street noises of early 20th century Paris while he was writing his classic, Remembrance of Things Past. But what about present-day New York City? The City Council issued a report late last year warning that subways are so

In the spring of 2002, thinking it would be fun, I offered to take over a sixth grade C.C.D. class in the Bronx for another Jesuit who had an unexpected conflict. Maybe it was a case of bright-eyed suburban boy meets already world-wearied urban sixth graders. Or maybe it was simply the fact that the

Critics have often asked, “When has the just-war theory ever led to the condemnation of a war?” Seldom, if ever, it would seem. As the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir has written, the Just War Theory provides reason “to pause analytically” before going to war, but an outright condemnatio

A hundred years ago, on the afternoon of Thursday, October 27, 1904, New Yorkers walked into various entrance kiosks of the city’s new Interborough Rapid Transit Company, headed down a flight or two of stairs, and took their very first rides under the sidewalks of New York, the transportation

I have poor circulation, and that makes my ankles swell,” said the woman in front of me, speaking in the soft accents of “the islands.” A heavy-set person in her 50’s, she explained this as we sat on our bags early one morning at the Port Authority bus terminal in New York Ci

Everyone recognizes that the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church was not caused only by the sinful failures of individual priests; it was also caused by the failure of a number of bishops to deal appropriately with these priests. There were not just personal failures; there were also personne

When I was a boy, my favorite day of the year was a toss-up between Christmas and the first day of school. In high school and college, it was definitely the last day of school. While toiling in the business world, it was the first day of vacation. Since becoming a Jesuit, I have a new favorite day:

Cancer cut short the life of my friend Regina. Barely into her 50’s, she had been working on behalf of immigrants in New York City. A lump on her breast turned out to be a malignant tumor. She told me about it on a Sunday autumn afternoon as we sat on a bench in New York’s Bryant Park. T

"They call me the Manhole Cover Lady,” says Diana Stuart, author of Designs Under Foot: The Art of Manhole Covers in New York City (Design Books, 2003). After attending her lecture on what might seem a curious topic, I spoke to her about her book and how she came to write it.Like most New

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. "It is a beautiful honor to die for one’s country.” In this famous line, the Roman poet Horace gave lasting expression to an ideal of republican virtue inherited from an age when citizen soldiers defended their homeland against its enemies. Even