New York belongs to the world. Living here requires avoiding crowds to keep your sanity. The people are part of the equation. If you want peacefulness then take a train in any direction. That’s why New Yorkers look for connections to a newsagent, a bartender, somebody at the bookstore, at Film Forum, at the greenmarket.
When I move apartments I don’t feel like I’m established until I can drop my clothes at the laundry without having to leave my name. I buy flowers from Leo, who works outside the bodega on Seventh Avenue, and knows what I like. You need these moments of intimacy.
I love the things that make New York feel small. On the rare days when it snows the white-covered rooftops at night make the city look like Scandinavia. I love the stacks of newspapers bound together in the lobbies of the great apartment buildings each morning waiting to be taken upstairs. And the strollers lined up outside fancy pre-schools, the nannies gossiping while they wait for their charges.
You think anything you do is extreme—staying out late, waking up early—and you’ll find people who do things later and earlier. When I take a cab to the airport at 5am there are people at the taco truck who’ve been out all night. But there are also people jogging toward the West Side Highway. Yes, New York contains multitudes.
When I go fishing in Jamaica Bay it’s amazing to see life on the water at sunrise. People commuting by ferry, slow-moving barges, boats of anglers, professional and very amateur. Hideous cruise ships, docks, helicopters. If you’re lucky you see a whale. It’s a completely different vantage point than on land. It’s easy to forget we live on an island.
The city evolves. We’ve definitely suffered casualties—it’s absurd that Barneys, Other Music, Great Jones and the Rusty Knot are no longer part of the equation. I’m sure there are a dozen other places I never knew about that closed before I even moved here in the year of our lord 1998.
Every person says, I remember when this street was empty and now there’s an Aesop. Every person remembers their low rent when they arrived—they thought it was a lot back then now it seems practically free. You remember concerts you saw in clubs, PJ Harvey, The Strokes, Yo La Tengo and, dear god, Death Cab for Cutie.
Before we had iPhones we actually made decisions about where to eat based on a tall thin burgundy book called Zagat, that had an incredible amount of power and was, it must be said, completely devoid of insight. They quoted actual diners who seemed to be primarily Danny Meyer cultists. Each NY Times restaurant reviewer seemed like the most powerful one we’ve had until the next one is enshrined.
There’s a sense of intimacy when you follow a place from the beginning. Prune didn’t have a liquor license when it opened, you walked around the corner and bought a bottle from a shady wine store through bulletproof glass and hurried back before your food arrived. Then Prune went on to success then larger success, then, sadly, it closed. That’s the way these things go.
There’s a sense of reinvention in other cities. You hear something wild like “It’s the South Greenpoint of East Copenhagen.” But European cities generally have a more historic center, so changes feel less pronounced. When we travel there’s a natural tension between reassuring classics and daring newness. Sometimes I want to visit a church with familiar frescoes. Other times I’m looking for something designed in a way I’ve never seen before.
We want a deeper connection where we live and where we travel. We want to feel part of the place. That means slowing down and sometimes doubling back. And of course that means returning to places that want you to come back. It’s special to arrive anywhere in the world and they appreciate that you’ve been there before. And it’s also why it’s good to know the names of the people who work in these places. Otherwise, how is this relationship going to evolve?
One frustration of modern travel, and modern life for that matter, is how social media changes how we interact with places. People go to a place because it’s on the list and you know the drill: They photograph, they post, they watch the likes roll in. They’re barely connected to what’s happening in the room itself. Do they meet the staff? Are they invested in the experience? Why would they return? They already checked it off the list.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Contender to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.