Last month, Ephemeral New York ran a post featuring some never-before-seen downtown street photos taken in the summer of 1979.

They were taken by a Dutch sailor whose ship was docked in New York Bay.

Whenever he could take a day off and visit Manhattan, he brought along his camera, capturing the energy and excitement of a city he had no idea was at its supposed nadir, facing bankruptcy and with residents fleeing fast.

These photos are from the same collection. Rather than random street shots revealing glimpses of the magic and beauty of day-to-day life downtown, they focus on stores—the kind of small, local businesses that are becoming an endangered species in today’s Manhattan.

Some of these businesses still exist, like Rocco’s, still the best pastry shop on Bleecker Street.

Ottomanelli’s meat market also remains on Bleecker; you can see part of the old-school sign in the photo below…

SWEET AND SASSY
The Best Kind of Romance

Genre: Sweet Romance

Do you sigh when you see young lovers embrace? Does your heart sing to know that romance is in the air? Whether it’s love at first sight, affairs of the heart, or a second chance to get it right – our wonderful collection, featuring 9 uplifting love stories, is the perfect place for you to find that springtime magic.

It’s all the sweeter when the Magic Makers are NY Times & USA Today best-selling authors who have chosen these sweet and sassy stories to help you enjoy your happy-ever-after.

BIG GIRLS DON’T CRY, Mimi Barbour, NYT and USA Today bestselling author: Big girls don’t cry because no one is listening.

HEAL MY HEART, Mona Risk, NYT and USA Today bestselling author: With the help of a baby girl and…

Greek islands and donkeys go hand-in-hand, and the small but sturdy beasts have charmed me since I first set foot on Sifnos. I love the clip clop of their hooves against stone as they walk through the alleys of Apollonia in early morning. I love to meet them on the trails far from town. I love to pass them in my car on the road and if the owner is Konstantinos, a farmer whose acquaintance I’ve made, to stop for the short conversation we can manage between us.

It was when I met Lindaki mou, though, that I saw how little about donkeys I really know. She’s the Canadian woman I’ve written about before, who as an adventurous backpacking teenager in the 1970s, found her way to Sifnos and lived there for six months. She’d left home with little money and wherever she went on her two year trek through…

Title: Pam of Babylon

Series: Pam of Babylon: Book 1

Author: Suzanne Jenkins

Publisher: Self-Published

Cover Artist: CreateSpace Cover Services

Release Date: July 11, 2011

Romance Genre(s): Contemporary

Pages: 296

View on Goodreads

About the Book

Blurb

If you like romance series with twists and turns, then you’ll love Pam of Babylon.

When Jack has a heart attack on the train from Manhattan, Pam and Jack’s two lovers discover secrets and lies, and each other in this contemporary romance with a touch of noir.

Excerpt

Jack Smith was thinking, I am the luckiest man alive. Sitting at a white-linen-covered table on the sidewalk outside of his favorite restaurant, he gazed at the perfect face of his mistress of nine months. This place was their place. They’d spent a rare night together, and in the early morning they were having a leisurely breakfast, enjoying the perfect weather of late May in…