The March 29th, 1976, cover of The New Yorker magazine had this map of how a New Yorker sees the World. The cover was titled “View from 9th Ave.” No map could better define my perspective as a teenager growing up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Bay Ridge was everything and the only thing to me. I had a sense there was space between New York and LA, but only space. When the holidays came, and we had to travel to Long Island or Pennsylvania, it was the worst day of my life because we had to leave Brooklyn. As a child, I went to St. Ephrem’s Grammar School, then to Fort Hamilton High School. As a typical long-haired, rock-and-roll-loving teenager, my friends and I lived life to the fullest.
