#homelessnewyorkcity

[athingirl]

The Kid In The Doorway

 Sensitivity can hold you prisoner, my heart that can never look away weeping more and more.   I’ve written about this boy, barely 20 if that, who’s clearly mentally ill. Quite often he sleeps in a doorway not far from where I live beneath an old tarpaulin like they throw over Yankee Stadium, crumpled in a ball like a giant potato chip.   He has four dilapidated bags he places around himself like…

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#bipolarsyndrome #homelessnewyorkcity #randomactsofkindness #therebutforthegraceofgodgoi

[athingirl]

Deck The F--king Halls

  This has been the addendum added to some of my Christmas cards.   Sure hope Hallmark doesn’t sue.   It’s my incessant stubborn streak to, as 12 Step calls it, act as if  we’re having a jolly old time.   I’ve never been a fan of gun-to-your-head giving. My doormen for instance, circle you like smiling sharks beginning right after Thanksgiving, hauling out their charm like Xmas lights.  Who said…

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#Christmas2023 #giftgiving #givingfromtheheart #homelessnewyorkcity

[athingirl]

The Quintessential Dad

 What I just witnessed may never leave me.  6:50 A.M.  A young girl I’ve often seen asking for money…pretty in a beat-up, undernourished way…20 if she’s a day, in the entrance of the 86th Street subway while a man shot her up with heroin.  I froze where I stood.  Her obvious dealer screamed at me to mind my own f–king business. I managed despite my shock to say to this creep…she’s only a…

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#heroinaddicts #homelessnewyorkcity #lovingparents #nycpolicedept #teenaddicts

[athingirl]

Best Story Of The Week...August 24

   I’m walking home stepping over the muttering homeless since 86th Street has turned into an outdoors insane asylum.    If I sound cold, I’m truly not. What I’ve learned though is to not give out of guilt, but only when my heart opens. I heard a priest once say, that’s when God is saying it’s good to go.   As I near home there’s a kid clearly down on his luck sitting on a bench reminding me of…

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#birthdaycupcakes #homelessnewyorkcity #randomactsofkindness #receivingisinthegiving

[athingirl]

Best Story Of The Week...July 13...Lemonade, 85 Sents A Cup

  Take out your hankies. I’m about to tell you about a 9 year-old girl with Down Syndrome selling lemonade to raise money for the homeless.   I’ll call her Mary who from the looks of it, was not doing too well.   All her ice melted in the heat, and she didn’t want to leave her sign (85 Sents a Cup…For The Homless) and wobbly card table with matches under each leg, to go get more.   I asked her,…

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#catholicpriests #downsyndrome #homelessnewyorkcity #kidswithchallenges #randomactsofkindness

[athingirl]

Life On The Train

  A man is panhandling through the car shaking a Tupperware container you’d put fruit in.  “Please, lost everything in a fire…so anything would help. Pennies welcome.” He then repeats himself in Spanish. The guy next to me covered in Jesus tattoos says to him…  “Hey, bro…whys don’t you goes to da UN….ya know…get a job, translatin’.”  Out comes my notebook.  When the train hits Grand Central,…

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#homelessnewyorkcity #Ilovelucy #ridingtheNewYorksubway #subwaymusicians

[athingirl]

Can't We Do Just A Little Better?

Can’t We Do Just A Little Better?

   I wonder in 1969 when Kurt Vonnegut first penned, and so it goes, in his iconic novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, have any idea how often it would be repeated. I say it at least once a day when there seems no other explanation for what is.   I believe we were designed to adjust to things, even if it’s wrong, like the homeless explosion to give an example.   It was a cold day when I walked to the…

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#homelessnewyorkcity #mayorericadamsnyc #papayakinglastdays #Parisreignofterror1783 #slaughterhouse-fivekurtvonnegut