Jack is a Vietnam vet who had hit rock bottom. He's still got a long way to go, but now things are starting to look up — he's off the junk, has a room at the Rand Hotel and works temp most days. Best of all, his long-estranged blind father has come to visit. Jack wants to impress, so he decides to fluff up his situation by embellishing on what the old man can’t see. How can that fail?

It’s 1979 on Block E, the center of a woebegone Times Square-type district filled with characters of all stripes — hookers and the homeless, addicts and drug dealers. But the streets also belong to the hopeful, the many people wanting so much more. The Rand Hotel is one of the Tales of Block E, three stories of people in a place and a time long gone but not forgotten.