There’s a beautiful little story in today’s New York Times by Jonathan Safran Foer called The Sixth Borough:
Once upon a time, New York City had a Sixth Borough. You won’t read about it in any of the history books, because there’s nothing – save for the circumstantial evidence in Central Park – to prove that it was there at all…
The Sixth Borough was an island, separated from Manhattan by a thin body of water, whose narrowest crossing happened to equal the world’s long jump record, such that exactly one person on earth could go from Manhattan to the Sixth Borough without getting wet. A huge party was made of the yearly leap. Bagels were strung from island to island on special spaghetti, samosas were bowled at baguettes, Greek salads were thrown like confetti. The children of New York captured fireflies in glass jars, which they floated between the boroughs…