I love being a sidewalk gardener on Bethune Street. When I moved into Westbeth Artists Housing, I spotted the nine planter boxes lining the block from Washington to West Streets, each tended by a different gardener. This looked like fun, so I put my name on a waiting list. (Everything at Westbeth involves a waiting […]
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Last December I was sitting in an intimate space with great acoustics, listening to the John Eckert Quartet. The veteran trumpet player led a swinging group with a guest singer, Pete Caldera, who channeled Frank Sinatra. No, I wasn’t at Mezzrow. I was at the Westbeth community room attending a show in the First Fridays
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A few days after the January snowstorm, I started to get cabin fever. I couldn’t believe I was actually looking forward to having lunch at the senior center in my building. That’s how limited my life had become. It had been five years since we had a foot of snow in New York City, then
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“It was so romantic,” my best friend Jennifer said, “the way he’d walk you home after he made you dinner.” Yes, and after I put my key in the door of my beach bungalow, Ian would sweetly hug me and say, “I love you.” I’d tell him the same. I was so happy when
story and photos by Kate Walter As a new year begins and I celebrate another birthday this month, I’m grateful to be alive and well. I have kept a gratitude journal for many years. A former writing student, a yoga teacher, got me into this routine. She was a follower of Yogi Bhajan who said,
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I always had this fantasy about becoming an official tour guide in the Village. But I never got beyond taking friends on informal tours of Westbeth Artists Housing (my building) and leading them through the quaint cobblestone streets of the West Village. Instead, I’m an armchair guide who hangs out in the active Facebook group
On Oct. 11, National Coming Out Day, members of New York City’s LGBTQ community did just that—to show their support for mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Speaking to the crowd that had gathered at the AIDS Memorial in Greenwich Village, the founder of Gays for Zohran, Katia Portela, said, “Zohran has changed the game for trans
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During the early 1970s, I lived in a fun house on Lake Valhalla in New Jersey. A group of young people in their 20s, friends from college, had rented a big house on a small lake. We were the only residents on this road who were not a biological family; thus, we were not allowed
Scary Night in the Hippie House, by Kate Walter Read More »
As Shakespeare noted “summer’s lease has all too short a date.” But I also love autumn in New York when it’s still warm during the day. I used to lounge outside in the Westbeth courtyard, around our center garden, but since Westbeth is now a loud construction site, it’s no longer relaxing to hang out
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I was standing outside our family beach bungalow at the Jersey Shore, watering the garden, when a neighbor greeted me as he walked down the road. “Was your mother Agnes?” he asked. “Yes, I replied, “I’m Kate.” “Your mother was a gem,” he said, introducing himself. “I miss talking to her.” “We miss her too.” All
Carrying on the summer legacy, story and photos by Kate Walter Read More »
