Dave Kim
DAVE KIM is a writer based in Williamsburg.
WALKING THE ROCKAWAYS
By Dave KimIt’s 9:30 a.m. on March 27, 2010. Matt Green of Bay Ridge straddles the shoreline of Rockaway Beach, shivering.
Learning From White Castle
By Dave KimFrom August 13 to 16, 2010, I ate at White Castle #100034 on 781 Metropolitan Avenue in East Williamsburg 11 times. I live around the corner from the restaurant and use it to guide friends to my apartment all the time (“pass the White Castle, make a right”), but have never actually eaten there prior to this undertaking.
A Two-Borough Taco Tour
By Dave KimThe New York City Department of Health lists 461 restaurants in the five boroughs that identify their cuisine as “Mexican,” and while this seems like a gross underestimate for a city of eight million, it’s still a daunting number for someone looking for the best vegetarian tacos in town.
Aboard the Big Red Bus
By Dave KimDeep down I wanted to re-experience the feeling of being a newcomer, to suspend what I’d learned as a resident and see New York like I had my first time, when everything had the sheen and sparkle of novelty.
TAKING (DOWN) the HIGH ROAD
By Dave KimThere isn’t much to look at under the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge. A tangle of loop ramps and interchanges hide the original masonry arches, and any bit of ground space that doesn’t have cars on it is fenced off for construction.
Home Is Where the Brew Is
By Dave KimServed at President Obama’s Super Bowl party this year was the White House’s own honey ale, which an unnamed White House chef had homebrewed especially for the occasion.
In Conversation
CHANG-RAE LEE With DAVE KIM
By Dave KimAt 29, Chang-Rae Lee won the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award for his debut novel, Native Speaker. A Graham Greene-esque story of subterfuge and alienation set in the immigrant communities of Queens, Native Speaker is now required reading in many ethnic studies classes for its thorough examination of self-ambivalence and cross-cultural tensions.
FICTION: CROSSING PATHS
By Dave KimThere are a few reasons you should read Brando Skyhorse’s The Madonnas of Echo Park this year. Timeliness is one of them—Madonnas is partly about Mexican immigrants and illegal workers trying to make it in Los Angeles.
