Metropolitan Diary
Magic Purse
Dear Diary:
Some years ago, I stayed at a friend’s loft on Bleecker Street off Bowery while in a peripatetic phase of apartment sitting.
On a particularly sweltering night after a movie date on the Upper West Side that, except for the air conditioning, was utterly futile, I decided to walk back to the loft.
Sweaty, broke, discouraged and still not even halfway there, I sat down on a stone bench near the Plaza Hotel, the Pulitzer Fountain and, to my left, the Paris Theater.
Slumped over, I spotted something striped beneath the bench: a black-and-white change purse.
I picked it up and opened it. Inside were two peppermint candies, no ID and what was to me a financial windfall: a $5 bill and some change.
Silently, I thanked the figure whose statue sits atop the fountain. As I later learned, she is Pomona, goddess of abundance. Feeling new strength, I picked myself up and resumed my walk downtown.
The five dollars was soon gone, but the magic of that striped change purse has stayed with me.
— Tilden Russell
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html