King of the New York Streets

Book excerpt: KING OF THE NEW YORK STREETS is a gritty, utterly unrepentant memoir of growing up on the mean streets of New York City during the late '70s. Prowling the bars and clubs of Long Island and the Five Boroughs; hanging out on the streets of a mobbed-up zoo long before skyrocketing real estate and overpriced soy chai lattes transformed it into a hipster paradise. The girls, the drugs, the fights and the sheer kicks; the shell game known as the "American Dream" and the promise of upward mobility that vanished right before our eyes like the last slice of pizza at a Knights of Columbus mixer. The women who loved and left me and the one that ultimately got away - the true story of the evolution of a once toxic, alpha male in a rapidly changing culture.