Ralph Gardner Jr.

United States

Freelance Writer at Freelance

Commentator and Writer at WAMC, Northeast Public Radio

Lifetime NYC writer and resident. Former WSJ "Urban Gardner" columnist

Featured in: Favicon

wamc.org

wsj.com

nydailynews.com Favicon

nymag.com

observer.com Favicon

substack.com Favicon

berkshireeagle.com Favicon

benningtonbanner.com Favicon

bulawayo24.com Favicon

ourcommunitynow.com + 1 more

Articles

Donald Trump and I agree: Good water pressure is an inalienable right

5 days ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

Finally, something that Donald Trump and I agree on. An executive order the President signed April 9th — propitiously titled “Maintaining Acceptable Water Pressure in Showerheads” — reverses a Biden era regulation that conserved water by restricting the number of gallons per minute that can flow from showerheads and other appliances.
I bought a window seat and got a wall instead

1 week ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

Air travel these days, economy class air travel in particular, is an exercise in ritual humiliation. The seats are so cramped that after being immobilized on a transatlantic flight for seven or more hours you almost need to be assisted to stand upright — the ways those astronauts recently were whose return to Earth had been delayed for months. I realize that I bear some responsibility for my predicament.
Discovering my Romanian past

2 weeks ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

My mother Nellie often spoke about the Bucharest apartment where she lived until her family immigrated to the United States in 1939. “Actually,” she mused less than a year before she died in 2019, “by any standards including probably today in the United States it was a fabulous place.”She described a duplex art deco apartment with wraparound terraces and a staircase that wouldn’t have provoked surprise were Norma Desmond to swan down its steps in Sunset Boulevard.
Wine and liquor tariffs couldn't come at a worse time

1 month ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

Prior to the pandemic I used to visit WAMC’s studios every week to record my commentary. Then the lockdown hit and I started recording from home on my phone. I’ve done so ever since because nobody objected. I suspect that has less to do with the quality of the sound than because if somebody is going to complain it’s going to be about the substance of the work and the twists and turns of my damaged soul. By the way, I’m recording this column at WAMC.
I take Trump's fake news claims personally

1 month ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

I worked for the Wall Street Journal for almost seven years in the 2010’s, producing more than 1,300 columns at a rate of four or five a week. The name of the column was Urban Gardner. It wasn’t a gardening column, even though first-time readers would occasionally ask my advice on growing tomatoes.
Bears are attacking my bird feeders

2 months ago | berkshireeagle.com | Ralph Gardner Jr.

It takes all my self-discipline to adhere to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s admonition to hang my bird feeders only from Dec. 1 through March 31 to reduce conflict with bears. Frankly, I don’t follow their advice. After losing several pricy feeders to bears, I have cheaper feeders that don’t cause heartbreak if they happen to get destroyed before and after the dates that the DEC says is safe to hang them.
A grand European style cafe and chocolatier opens in Hudson, NY

2 months ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

Among the entertaining elements of Hudson’s holiday season Winter Walk were tableaux performed in storefronts. Children ballerinas executing pirouettes in one window, Santa getting his locks shorn in another. But perhaps the best show in town was invisible from the street. And for good reason. It was happening behind the imposing walls of a bank. Or should I say Banque.
Are throw pillows a scourge against humanity?

2 months ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

My son-in-law Henry has a way of posing profound philosophical questions masquerading under the guise of the everyday, the commonplace. Or maybe they’re just profound to me. Recently, he solicited my opinion about the correct number of pillows that a bed should have. Little did I know it at the time that he was in the throes of a dispute with his wife, my daughter Gracie, about the appearance and comfort of their bedroom. Apparently, their bed boasted eight pillows which Henry thought four too many.
I'm going skiing

2 months ago | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

I haven’t done any estate planning lately and my itinerary for the week feels like fate is encouraging me to do so. Every year my friend Bruce posts photos on Facebook of him and several mutual friends skiing fresh powder on their annual pilgrimage to Alta, sparking envy. I haven't joined them there since sometime during the Clinton administration. There was no cataclysmic event that prompted me to rethink my relationship to risk.
Why I'm not watching the inauguration

Jan 18, 2025 | wamc.org | Ralph Gardner Jr.

I will not be planted in front of the TV on Inauguration Day as I usually am, marinating in the pomp and circumstance, all those arriving dignitaries — Democrats and Republicans alike, Supreme Court justices, former presidents, and finally the President and the President-Elect and their spouses. The event is traditionally portrayed as the peaceful transfer of power, proof that the United States remains a model of democracy for all the world to admire and emulate.