Morena’s father was the deputy chief of the Queens County Board of Elections, and his mother was a poll worker. “This is how I was brought up—voting is important,” he said. He had been a cook on an Army base and then on the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. He now works full time for the Board of Elections, testing and repairing machines during the off-season. He owns his childhood home, in Astoria, and he recently bought the house next door as well. “It’s a great block,” he says. “We got Greeks, Chinese, Italians, Brazilians, Czechs. And also the skinny people—that’s what I call them. You know the ones. When you ask where they’re from, they say, ‘Brooklyn,’ but they’re not from Brooklyn.” Morena laughed amiably. “At least I’m not the only one riding a bicycle anymore.”- Andrew Marantz. How can you not always be in love with the writing in the New Yorker