Good morning. Every week in this newsletter, one of our most popular links is Metropolitan Diary, a column of reader-submitted snapshots of quintessential New York moments. The Times has been publishing these for 50 years. To celebrate the milestone, we took a look back and asked celebrities to share their own Diaries.
Dear Diary
Lovers’ quarrels on the sidewalk, random acts of kindness on the subway, running into celebrities like Bill Murray while buying cat food at the deli. These only-in-New-York moments have, for half a century, been chronicled by readers of The New York Times and filed under the moniker Metropolitan Diary. To mark the milestone, I immersed myself in the archives, devouring volumes of these reader-submitted snippets of urban poetry. What I found was wondrous. If one day New York turns to rubble and dust, these dispatches will collectively tell a soulful story of what day-to-day life was like in our fair city. The column was introduced in 1976 by Arthur Gelb, a fabled Times editor and critic. He invited city dwellers to submit their serendipitous encounters and lyrical observations about the five boroughs. We paired the items, most a scant few hundred words, with whimsical illustrations. Over the decades, Metropolitan Diary has published one-act plays, poems, kvetches, confessions, rants, light verse, spiels and plenty of juicy gossip overheard on Bloomingdale’s escalators. There was a short story by Delia Ephron, poetry by Eve Merriam and a reminiscence by Julia Child. But the bulk of Diary entries came from the anonymous throng of New Yorkers, capturing the tender moments that transpire amid the city’s tumult. SingalongConsider a subway scene from 1996, where a woman berated her guide dog for trying to exit at the wrong stop. In 2004, when a man sees Yoko Ono at a soba restaurant — and again a couple nights later at an antiques show — Ono recognizes him. A few years later, a red-tailed hawk sits on a light pole in Union Square, and nobody but our diarist notices. The Diary itself is something of a time capsule. Early entries mention phone books and subway tokens and feature characters named Gertrude, Morris and Thelma. By the 1990s, it’s MetroCards and squeegees and Starbucks. Throughout, there have been laments over the closing of this beloved bar or that iconic restaurant. And celebrity sightings: Patti Smith stumbled into a lap on the morning commute to Midtown, Lou Reed wandered into a typewriter repair shop on the Upper West Side. For this anniversary, we’ve asked some celebrities to share Diary entries of their own. We’re publishing batches weekly over the coming months. Here’s Sloane Crosley, author of the memoir “Grief Is for People”: I was walking past a woman in her 20s who was dressed neatly if blandly in grays and blacks. She was headed into an office building on 53rd Street, at 9 a.m., and screaming into her phone: “And I said I don’t know what that thing is, but it’s not going in my body unless you unplug it!” I think about it all the time. The actor Tony Danza wrote about a jazz band that plays outside a restaurant on Columbus Avenue on Sundays and invites people to sing. Danza had the mic one day and noticed a very interested girl of about 5 named Riley: I said don’t be afraid and asked what her favorite song was. “The Wheels on the Bus,” she said. “Hey!” I yelled to the band. “You guys play ‘Wheels on the Bus?’” “Yeah, we play that,” they yelled back. I held out the mic. The girl took it and began to sing. She was doing really well, but then started to falter and search for the words. On cue, everyone in the crowd started to sing along with her. It seemed as if everybody on Columbus Avenue knew “The Wheels on the Bus.” You can read my full essay here. As regularly happens with Metropolitan Diary, it provoked scores of comments. Here are a few:
Your turn: Think you have a Met Diary item to share? Check out our challenge, with pro tips about how to find the right moment to chronicle.
Venezuela Earthquakes
Politics
Around the World
Europe has been sweltering through yet another record heat wave, driven by climate change. Is the solution for the continent to embrace air-conditioning? Yes. Air-conditioning is highly effective, and, thanks to climate-conscious government policy, its environmental impacts are relatively small. “The impressive build-out of renewable energy in Europe’s hottest places means that judiciously dialing down the temperature will not do much to melt the glaciers,” writes The Economist. No. Installing air-conditioning is a fine fix for the wealthy and healthy, but its high cost keeps it out of reach for the poor and disabled people who need it most. “It’s the British class system with a climate-crisis spin: the more someone requires air-conditioning to survive heat waves, the less likely they are to be able to afford it,” writes The Guardian’s Frances Ryan.
Jamelle Bouie, Michelle Cottle and David French discuss the Reflecting Pool, the SAVE America Act and what to feel patriotic about before July 4. Click the video above to watch their conversation. The economy isn’t working for most Americans, Lael Brainard and Rohit Chopra found. They crunched the numbers to figure out why. Subscribers always win. Here’s why. You can now save 75% on your first year of a New York Times Games subscription. Discover all of our word and logic games (and play past puzzles), earn badges for your achievements, plus more. Time is running out though, so subscribe today.
Waste not, want not: In need of a prom dress, a hedge trimmer or a ghost-hunting kit? You can borrow them from a public library. Believing: Christian nationalists are setting their sights on a bigger target — a Christian civilization. A big swing: Trump wants to turn a run-down but beloved Washington golf course into a championship green. Locals are skeptical.
Lionel Messi became the first player to score in seven consecutive World Cup games when he drilled a free kick during Argentina’s 3-1 win over Jordan. Portugal’s scoreless draw with Colombia means that Portugal (and Cristiano Ronaldo) will not face Messi and Argentina in the quarterfinals. Algeria and Austria both qualified for the knockout rounds after a thrilling match that ended in a 3-3 draw. The result meant the end of Iran’s World Cup journey. The round of 32 is now set.
Elle Kennedy’s “Off-Campus” Series: “The Deal,” the first installment in Kennedy’s five-book, best-selling romance juggernaut begins simply enough: Hannah, a brainy college student, agrees to tutor an arrogant hockey player so she can catch the eye of her crush. Things get complicated (and very steamy) from there. Now adapted into an Amazon Prime show — and not to be confused with Rachel Reid’s hockey-centric “Heated Rivalry” series — Kennedy’s novels are breezy, sexy fare, ideal for beach days and long nights. And there are plenty to choose from: Each of the “Off-Campus” books, which, along with two spinoff series, have sold more than 25 million copies, features a different hockey star. For more
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