HOWEVER! This THURSDAY, June 12th, 8pm, please join us for the Neighborhood Reading Series, at Happy Ending.

This month, neighborhood writers Julie Metz and Patrick Gallagher will read from their work. Come enjoy a cool beverage with us at Happy Ending, 302 Broome St., on the Lower East Side, between Forsyth and Eldridge. (212) 334-9676.

On FRIDAY, June 13th, 6:30pm:

Please join us in kicking off the 2008 season with an Open City-Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood extravaganza at the southern end of Washington Square Park, opposite Laguardia Place.

This summer will be the fourth season of Park-Lit, the revolving reading series featuring a variety of New York’s literary magazines and organizations, in pocket parks around the city. <> Featured readers are:

When I decided to move to the United States for college, I traded my relatively calm and peaceful life in a decidedly “dangerous” country for a different, perhaps more potent danger that haunted me day and night: being a target because of the color of my skin.

Despite my eagerness to come to New York, I was disillusioned my first few months living there. I spent more time in my room than out on the streets I had so romanticized, and which always seemed to disappoint with their dirty pavements. But I’m growing to love New York for what it is rather than for my fantasized idea of it.