The Park Bench

Hobbies. Pastimes. Religious Beliefs. Fixations. New Yorkers are known to take them to a new level. On this week's Park Bench, go behind the scenes with our contributors and subjects, and share your own fascinations.

Photo by Luke Rafferty

Every Friday, we discuss, debate and dissect the week’s theme and stories here, on The Park Bench. It’s a place where we take you behind the scenes with our journalists and subjects; where we curate the comments that you post on the site, as well as your longer reflections that you send to us via email. If a story hits home, or you have a fresh perspective you’d like to add, drop us a line here, or get in touch via Twitter and Facebook using the hashtag #ParkBench.

Dearly Devoted to Sneakers

This week of Narratively stories focuses on people with particularly strong devotions to everything from candy to clocks. Tara Clancy wrote in because “no discussion of New York fixations is complete without–sneakers!”

Air Max. Dunks. Jordans. Air Force Ones. Growing up in Queens in the ’80s and ’90s, no matter how different our actual ethnic backgrounds, Sneakerese was the one language all of us kids spoke fluently.

I got my start at seven years old, on Liberty Avenue in Richmon…