The author returns home to find that everything, and nothing, has changed.

A remembrance of that awful night—and a brief, powerful friendship.

Once there was another city here, and now it is gone. There are almost no traces of it anymore, but millions of us know it existed, because we lived in it: the Lost City of New York.

The news arrived like fragment of some forgotten ritual. Yes: Somebody had murdered John Lennon.

From an old Brooklyn street, the spires of Manhattan are like a vision of "some strange, exotic city across the river."

There has always been a racial and ethnic undertone to boxing, and for a guy like Jerry Quarry, a white heavyweight with an Irish background, to come to New York now is a fight promoter's dream.

"... It is imperative that New York politicians begin to deal with the growing alienation and paranoia of these people. They can't wait much longer; it's almost the point of no return ..."