Of Many Things

Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow—a tiny figure in tight jeans and a short, snug-fitting jacket—was talking about her art. She stood out in marked contrast to her surroundings, the cavernous 19th-century Great Hall of the Cooper Union in Lower Manhattan, where Abraham Lincoln once spok

Here’s an old chestnut I first heard as a novice: "He’s as confused as a Jesuit during Holy Week!" Ha ha. We Jesuits were supposed to be so addled about liturgical practices that the elaborate rituals of Holy Week were for us a mystery – and not the good kind of mystery.There i

On the day after Thanksgiving, I attended the 25th reunion of my high school class and experienced something quite unexpected. Actually, I almost didn’t go. Though I am in touch with most of my good friends from high school, many have moved away and were not planning to attend. Another friend

On the afternoon of May 22, 1856, Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina barged into the Senate chamber and used his walking stick to beat into insensibility Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Two days earlier, Sumner had given a fiery antislavery speech that Brooks claimed had libele

Rockefeller Center—there it is, only six blocks south of America House. I often pass through it just to savor the plaza’s open space, carved out oasis-like from the surrounding tall buildings in congested New York City. The sunken section of the plaza is transformed into a skating rink a

One of publishing’s most remarkable success stories in recent times centers on an old man, a young man and life’s greatest lesson. It is the book, later an Off-Broadway play, called Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom. The hardcover edition, published by Doubleday in 1997, nested comfor

Yet another Nativity-model middle school? Yes, this unique educational effort aimed at children from low-income families continues to grow, with new schools sprouting up annually across the country. A former teacher myself at the original Nativity School in Lower Manhattan, I attended the opening Ma

Those of us of a certain generation remember vividly where we were when we first heard that the president, John F. Kennedy, had been shot. We did not understand what we had heard at first, but after we found a radio, we listened to Walter Cronkite telling us that our president was dead, slain by an

It’s called Washington Heights. What heights, and why Washington? The Washington part refers to our first president, and heights to a section of Manhattan’s Upper West Side that indeed deserves the name because of its high elevation. Boarding the No. 1 Broadway Local subway, I took a rid

An illustrated, 70-page advertising supplement lies inside my New York Times most Thursdays when I check my mailbox at America House. Called HOMES, it carries the subtitle “The Finest Luxury Properties in Manhattan and Around the World.” I live, however, not at America House on West 56th