Tag Archives: 47th street

Chinese Iron Rooster BET ON CRAZY

January 10, 2024 – 11:24 am

My teenage nephew stopped by 47th Street yesterday evening. It was closing time for our exchange. Zeb goes to a mid-town high school. Public. His father works over at Rockefeller Center. He does something with TV. “You going home?” Zeb and I lived in Fort Greene. His father worked late. The long-haired student liked my […]

By Peter | Posted in Asia, Bet On Crazy, NEW YORK, semi-fiction, Travel | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

GUILT VERSUS SHAME by Peter Nolan Smith

December 24, 2023 – 2:29 am

Back in the last century I left work on 47th Street early on December 24. Manny complained that I was deserting my post selling diamonds, but I had been working every day since Thanksgiving. “I should pay you a half-day.” Manny was a grinch of the first-order. “Do what you want. I’m heading home.” Boston […]

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TORAH TORAH TORAH by Peter Nolan Smith

December 7, 2023 – 1:12 am

TORA TORA TORA was one of my mother’s favorite films. The infamy of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor burned bright in her memory. Her friends from Jamaica Plain enlisted in the Marines, Army, and Navy by the scores. Many of them failed to return to Boston. Their bodies rest on islands across the Pacific. […]

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BET ON CRAZY 1 by Peter Nolan Smith

December 7, 2023 – 1:06 am

In the 1970s I knew very little about diamonds as a child other than Superman could squeeze coal with his steel-hard hands to create diamonds and my father had bought a diamond ring for my mother. It was a hundredth of the size of the diamonds Superman never gave to Lois Lane, but my mother […]

By Peter | Posted in 90s, Bet On Crazy, NEW YORK, semi-fiction | Also tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

KOSHER PIG by Peter Nolan Smith

September 25, 2023 – 1:58 am

Ten years ago business in the Diamond District was almost non-existent during the high holidays of Rosh Shananah and Yom Kippur. The Hassidim disappeared to the various shetls scattered around New York and tourists entered our diamond exchange to gawk at the diamonds and jewelry. At least twice a day out-of-towners asked in complete seriousness, […]

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