photographed in Central Park, Manhattan on September 19, 2011

But if you really want to shock a few Manhattanites, just tell them you’re going fishing in the park. At first, they invariably think you’re full of it and, after you finally convince them, they’re horrified. When the discuss it, the look they give you conveys several layers of reservation: It’s illegal. Well, if it’s not illegal, it should be.  There’s no fish there, anyway. Even if it’s not illegal, why would you want to? …

Yes, you can fish in Central Park. You just need a New York State fishing license and a taste for weirdness. There are largemouth bass, some specimens of which are rumored to approach double-digit poundages. There park is certainly a fertile place in many observable – if not always appetizing – ways, and I don’t doubt that there are some real hogs cruising its eight tiny bodies of water.

Excerpted from ‘Manhattan Odyssey’ by Paul Guernsey. Appearing in City Fishing, edited by Judith Schnell. Published by Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 2002.

photographed in West Point, New York on October 18, 2011

Ticket scalping in connection to the Army-Navy football contest has been one of the features of the annual game which officers of both institutions have been trying to prevent for years. In spite of all precautions, however, the ticket scalper has always been on the ground at the annual contest with seats which he held until the great demand made it possible for him to sell at exorbitant prices.

This year special precautions were taken to trace the tickets. A record of every ticket presented to officers was kept, and efforts have been made to buy tickets from scalpers by officers from the Annapolis and West Point institutions. The tickets which Lieut. Commander Lenning now has in his possession, it is said, are the first that have been obtained from scalpers which were originally given to a cadet. A probe will be begun as soon as the cadets return to their academies, to ascertain what disposition of the youthful soldiers and sailors made of these tickets.

Excerpted from ‘PROBE TICKET SCALPING.; Naval Officers Will investigate Sale of Football Tickets.’ Published in The New York Times, Wireless Cable and Sporting Section, November 27, 1910.

photographed outside New Orleans, Louisiana on October 2, 2008

Quite possibly, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast will never completely recover from the catastrophic impacts of Hurricane Katrina (see the postscript in this volume). A major indicator of Katrina’s destruction to the built environment is that in Louisiana alone, insurance companies paid $14.5 billion in claims during the first year after the storm, and many claims have yet to be processed. … Specifically for the New Orleans metropolitan area, all sectors of non-form employment have experienced significant decline, and the return of manufacturing, especially smaller manufacturers (food processors), had not occurred in the year since Katrina. … Even more serious, construction employment in the New Orleans metropolitan area has not rebounded, as in other metropolitan areas along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, reflecting an anomalous pattern following a natural disaster.

Excerpted from ‘Katrina as Paradigm Shift: Reflections on Disaster Research in the Twenty-First Century’ by J. Steven Picou and Brent K. Marshall, appearing in The Sociology of Katrina: Perspectives on a Modern Catastrophe, edited by David L. Brunsma, David Overfelt and J. Steven Picou. Published by Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Massachusetts, 2007.

photographed in Groton, Connecticut on August 19, 2011

From the earliest historical data we find the territory adjacent to Norwich, mentioned by the Mohegan Indians – as well as the early English settlers – as exceptionally good fishing territory. The conditions existing in the early days are recognized to-day.

The larger streams are known as the Yantic, Shetucket and Quinebaug Rivers, and they, uniting at Norwich, form the romantic Thames, the head of navigation, fourteen miles from Long Island Sound. One of the first proofs we have of the fishing customs of the Indians is to-day to be seen just above the fording place in the Quinebaug. Here the Indians built weirs of stones running in a V-shape down stream from either shore and at the lower point a small opening was left where a noble Mohegan would be stationed with a spear or club or such other means as the Red Man had, and thus secure a bountiful supply of shad, bass, eels, trout, or perch for their immediate needs, when the fish were driven down by the members of the tribe, who stationed side by side, waded and beat the waters for a mile or more above.

Excerpted from ‘A New England Angling Eden’ by Herbert R. Branche, originally appearing in The American Angler, September 1918. Published by The American Angler Inc., New York.

photographed in Manhattan, New York on April 22, 2011

Each morning when I went to the Librería de Cristal to browse I would see him sitting on a bench in the Alameda. The bookshop, as its name suggests, was glass-fronted, and whenever I looked up, there he was, sitting motionless among the trees, staring into nothingness.

I guess we got used to each other’s presence. I would arrive at eight thirty in the morning, and he would already be there, sitting on a bench, doing nothing except smoking and keeping his eyes open. I never saw him with a newspaper or a sandwich, a beer or a book. I never saw him speak to anyone. Once, noticing him there as I glanced up from the French literature shelves, I thought he must sleep in the Alameda, on a bench, or in a doorway of one of the neighboring streets, but then I realized he was too clean and tidy to be sleeping in the street and must have a room in some boardinghouse nearby. He was, I noticed, a creature of habit, like myself.

Excerpted from ‘The Grub’ by Roberto Bolaño, appearing in Last Evenings on Earth, translated by Chris Andrews. Published by New Directions, New York, 2006.