Blissville: A memoir by Rebecca Cooney, Installment 1 of a 12 part series

Manhattan is a backdrop to my small neighborhood of Queens, officially named Blissville. It’s an isolated corner of the borough, bounded by an industrial creek, a cemetery big enough to cover three neighborhoods, and an expressway that stretches all the way out to the end of Long Island. It was built a century ago to house factory workers. Outside the bedroom window where the highways meet on the other side of the cemetery, I hear the hum of cars, their steady rhythms like bodies breathing. Every so often a truck will cough, or a car will screech. Inside the apartment, only the clocks tick, each with a different note and a different time. And next to me, in a rhythm of their own, Tito’s ronquitos, his soft little snores.

Also Rebecca Cooney’s Blog
Pictures and musings from a Neighborhood in Queens, proving it’s not just a state of mind.