I confess; I am a pack rat. Let those who would point a bony finger or raise a censorious eyebrow take comfort. I suffer from this. I know that I shouldn’t be living in a secondhand bookstore, still less on a rubbish tip. And I promise to reform. The gift of 50 trash bags, 30-gallon size, from

Theodore Roosevelt High School stretches for nearly a block along Fordham Road in New York City’s borough of the Bronx. It was built in the late 1920’s for a student population of 2,500 to 3,000. Most of these were the children of Italian-American, Irish-American and Jewish families. &nb

Walking down a dark street in the Bronx is not something most Manhattanites do without a good reason, but I had one. I was on my way to visit POTS—the acronym stands for Part of the Solution. In embryo form, POTS began some three decades ago to serve low-income residents in that section of New

Summer is the perfect time to catch up on reading those books you’ve set aside for that eschatological someday. With that in mind, I offer a short list of summer reading suggestions. The four books can be characterized as follows: new and fun, sort of new and very interesting, old and wonderfu

My grandmother lived with us as I was growing up—a source of consolation who often shared her breakfast with me and who read to me when I was sick. Grandmothers not only play a supportive role in the lives of many children—in some cases they stand out as the single source of love amid ho

For some years my mother has lamentedand this is not too strong a wordthe fact that I never studied Latin. Whenever she spies a phrase in Latin inscribed on a church facade, or comes across a quote in a book or article, or hears an unfamiliar Latin hymn during a Mass, and I am unable to translate it