Category: NYC

CREATIVE WRITING, NYC

Constantly in motion: How New York City’s waters shape its identity and culture

by Sara F.1 Comment on Constantly in motion: How New York City’s waters shape its identity and culture
“Yonkers Esplanade, Municipal Pier, George Washington Bridge, Airborn Friends” by Peter, https://shorturl.at/hBWss. License at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

“Yonkers Esplanade, Municipal Pier, George Washington Bridge, Airborn Friends” by Peter, https://shorturl.at/hBWss. License at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

On foggy days clouds wrapped the bridge in a thick, wooly blanket, blocking the view except for scattered lights strong enough to punch through the fabric. But on clear days my eyes drifted toward the skyline to take in the tall buildings that stood proudly at the water’s edge.

As a child I loved peering out the window at the Hudson River as we crossed the George Washington Bridge on the way to my grandparents’ house on Long Island. Passing over the congested bridge always took longer than expected; I sometimes wondered if I’d get to the other side faster by swimming.

“It’s rougher than you think,” my mom would say. “Strong currents would sweep you out to sea.” I quickly became fearful of the river, seeing it as a threatening being, one we could pass over or under but never get close to. I imagined anyone who dared jump into the water would be immediately swept away and consumed by the great mouth of the Atlantic. 

Still, I always felt sorrow on the way home as I saw Manhattan’s lights twinkling in the water. I knew it could be months before we’d return and I’d get to see the river and the buildings in all their grandeur.

The island I’d cross through on childhood trips from New Jersey to Long Island is now my home. In my ten years of living in New York City, my relationship to the river has become less symbolic and more intimate. Whenever I need to make a decision, I’m drawn to the water—it provides a vantage point from which to gaze out beyond the nearest phone or traffic light or computer screen.

I believe the waters around New York City are the silent architects of our history, culture, and daily lives. Think about it: life along its shorelines started with indigenous tribes. The water around us has been a source of commerce and transportation for thousands of years. And our world-famous skyline wouldn’t be possible without the Hudson River, which stops us from endlessly widening this concrete ecosystem. We rarely pause to recognize the waters’ significance, but doing so can deepen our connection to nature and help us find serenity in our everyday routines.

The Lenape people who first inhabited Manhattan called the Hudson River Mahicantuck, which means “great waters in constant motion,” because of the way the tide shifts directions throughout the day. Each day the river continues this way, moving both upstream and downstream at the same time. I believe the waters connect our past and present, grounding us in who we are.  

My father grew up in the 1960s in Brighton Beach, a Brooklyn neighborhood named after the coast of England and situated in the shadows of Coney Island. Despite living one block from the ocean, my father and his family rarely spent time there. Each summer they escaped for two months up to the Catskills, trading sandy city beaches for the fresh mountain air.  

Still, the water was the backdrop of their lives. Until high-rise condominiums sprouted up and blocked the view, my father could see the ocean from nearly every window of his sixth-floor apartment. And at night, when the ocean blended into the sky, rendering the view imperceptible, he could still hear the far-off sound of the waves. It was comforting to listen to, especially after a rough day.

Living by the water, my father had more open space than the typical city child. He wasn’t wedged into a busy urban environment since his apartment building was the last one on the block before the beach. As a young adult, he’d run the boardwalk all the way to Coney Island and back the other way to Manhattan Beach. He remembers passing elderly people chatting on benches and lively characters dancing unabashedly to the loud music of their boom boxes.  

Life was freer there, by the ocean.

Like many New Yorkers of the early 20th century, my great-grandparents arrived in the U.S. by way of the Atlantic Ocean, from Ireland on my mother’s side and Eastern Europe on my father’s side. My father’s family came from Galicia, a historic region that spans what is now Southeastern Poland and Western Ukraine. Eastern European Jews like my great-grandparents eventually settled in Brighton Beach to escape the overcrowded conditions of the Lower East Side and breathe clean air by the water.1 In the 1940s, the area was also a haven for Holocaust survivors and refugees seeking a primarily Jewish neighborhood.

In the mid-1970s, the neighborhood saw a large influx of Ashkenazi Jews from Russia and Ukraine, eventually earning the nickname “Little Odessa” after the Ukrainian port city on the Black Sea.2 Even as immigration slowed in the following years, the Eastern European influence held strong, with shop signs in Cyrillic and the scents of Georgian flatbreads and Russian sweets making their way into the streets. In that small corner of beach on the other side of the world, my relatives and others like them created a sense of home.

The beaches of Little Odessa face the south and get sun throughout most of the day. That orientation led the Lenape who lived in the region to refer to it as Narrioch, or “land without shadows.” I like to think the people from all over the world who’ve settled in that area of Brooklyn share a few things: a desire to turn toward the light and a sense of belonging from living beside the water.

I like to think the people from all over the world who’ve settled in that area of Brooklyn share a few things: a desire to turn toward the light and a sense of belonging from living beside the water.

The Lenape people had a reverence for water that we’ve largely lost in modern society. This is reflected in their vast and varied language, which has at least 35 different ways of describing water, including sukëlàntpi,or “rainwater”; mushpèkàt, or “clear water”; shawpèkunk, “place at the edge of the water”; and hikahële, “a creek or river that has run dry.”3

Before Dutch settlements, the Lenape who lived in villages along the Hudson River shifted locations with the seasons to take advantage of the available natural resources. Some sources say there were between six and twelve thousand people living in small groups on the lower estuary, connected by and surviving off the river.4

What did we lose when water became a source of power and commerce, not just a source of life? While our legal system today focuses on individual rights and structured political processes, the Lenape Laws were more of a guide on how to exist communally in the world, with one of the laws stating, “We are all relatives. Respect all relations.”

“This Lenape value stresses the interconnectivity of all things,” said Joe Baker, co-founder and executive director of the Lenape Center and an enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, in a talk at the Brooklyn Public Library. “Indeed, the land, the sky, and all life exist as an interdependent, interconnected web where no single element or being was void of its own place and embodied spirit.”5

Of course, our survival is no longer tied to the river. But we should all learn from the idea of interconnectedness that Baker spoke of. Today, individuality governs our actions and puts up artificial barriers between us and the nature surrounding us. And with the erasure of that connection came the erasure of Lenape history and their access to home.

The arrival of European settlers upheaved the Lenape way of life. Although history books cite Dutch merchant’s Peter Minuit’s purchase of the island for goods valued at 60 guilders (then about $24), the “purchase” of Manhattan is mythical, more of a forced displacement than a true exchange. After all, the Lenape did not understand or abide by the concept of land ownership. Over time, many of the Lenape people were forced to move out to reservations in Oklahoma, and their ancestors today ache for a homeland they may never have set foot on.6

The idea of owning an element of earth was completely foreign. As Baker and his co-authors wrote in Lenapehoking: An Anthology, “How could the entirety of the vast Earth, ocean and sky, clouds, streams, rain and wind be reduced to a sheet of paper? It would not have been any different than someone today laying claim of ownership to the sun.”7

Recently I learned that the Hudson River’s journey is 315 miles long.8 It starts at Lake Tear of The Clouds in the Adirondacks as fresh water, rushes over rapids and waterfalls, and then flows past small towns and cities, mixing with salt water before it comes to an end in New York City.

Through all the changes on land, the river still flows in both directions, just like it did thousands of years ago. It’s a strip of the natural world in New York City that seems relatively untouched, save for ferries and boats and bridges that interact with the water but can’t contain it.

The Hudson River, the Atlantic Ocean, the East River, and all the bays, streams, coves, reservoirs, and straits define us as much as the streets and buildings do. They are active participants in urban life—or rather, we are active participants in their ongoing cyclical journeys. Perhaps city life isn’t as individualized as it seems. We just need to think beyond ourselves, appreciate our place in the natural world and properly understand the history of those who came before us. We must recognize that before this city was a city, it was “Man-hatta,” a “hilly island” rich with natural resources, a homeland.

There’s a promenade where I can watch the tides move north and south as seagulls take flight from the river railing. Looking across the water to New Jersey, I’m reminded that nothing is still; nothing is permanent, and everything is connected.  

Nature is here, all around me. These Great Waters Constantly in Motion.

References:

[1] “Brighton Beach.” Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative, https://brooklynjewish.org/neighborhoods/brighton-beach/. Accessed 23 Jun. 2024.

[2] “Neighborhoods.” Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative, https://brooklynjewish.org/neighborhoods/. Accessed 23 Jun. 2024.

[3] Delaware Tribe of Indians. Lenape Names for Other Terms for Water. Delaware Tribe of Indians, 2024, https://delawaretribe.org/wp-content/uploads/Lenape-Names-for-other-terms-for-water.pdf.

[4] “The First People of the River.” Riverkeeper, Riverkeeper, Inc., www.riverkeeper.org/hudson-river/hudson-river-journey/the-first-people-of-the-river/. Accessed 9 Mar. 2024.

[5] “The Land We’re on: Living Lenapehoking | Live from NYPL.” YouTube, New York Public Library, 7 Mar. 2023, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycGoioaKpxQ.

[6] “True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland.” Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, 15 Aug. 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-native-new-yorkers-can-never-truly-reclaim-their-homeland-180970472/.

[7] Baker, Joe, Hadrien Coumans, and J. Whitney, editors. Lenapehoking: An Anthology. Brooklyn Public Library, 2022. Brooklyn Public Library, https://discover.bklynlibrary.org/item?b=12581674.

[8] Madelone, Jake. “Can You Swim in the Hudson River?” Waterfront Alliance, 29 June 2023, https://waterfrontalliance.org/2023/06/29/can-you-swim-in-the-hudson-river/.

NYC, POEMS

Where did she go?

by Sara F.Leave a Comment on Where did she go?

Sometimes, the stress and chaos of everyday life results in a chasm of creativity. And even if these chasms are short-lived, they can have a powerful effect on happiness. This prose poem explores the feeling of losing access to inner peace and an important sense of knowing yourself, but remembering how it felt when your identity was whole and creativity abundant.

The image below is a photograph of the Lisbon mural ”The Language of Flowers” by Jacqueline de Montaigne, a work of street art I always found beautiful in its silent , self-reflective melancholy.

—–

Where did she go?

I need to feel more. Feel deeply. The kind of feeling that brings tears to your face so quickly you’re not sure if they’re happy or sad, or something even more elemental.

All the focus and the attention directed outward leaves the inside bare. Staring at Zoom screens, Google Maps, New York Times alerts, FaceTime calls; collecting and storing passwords the way people used to guard their jewels. It’s like the edges of me have blurred into the speeding subways, the rush of emails, the blazing billboards, pieces falling into those sad construction zones that sit idle for years. Where does the city start and I begin? 

I wasn’t built this way, to blur around the edges. I was built to turn inwards, toward the core myself, turning ideas over in my mind like shells brushing against the sea floor – until they’re smooth, polished, ready to land on shore, having journeyed long out of sight before their arrival.  

I’m furious in my dreams lately, cramming creativity into sleep where it doesn’t show up while I’m awake. Turning pages of imaginary books with the backs of my eyes and traveling to jagged, Picasso-like places until I wake up and get ready, trying to match the outline of myself with who I really am. 

I get lonely quickly but still need to be alone. Crave it. That sense of losing and finding myself again in the words of a good book, a meal carefully prepared over hours, a journal filled with scribbled handwriting I’ll one day make sense of. It’s a vital energy source – looking inward, imagining.

I was built to wear my ideas proudly like a colorful patchwork coat. I’ve always done that; I used to that. And yet I show up every day in gray.

I need me.

Where did she go?

NYC, POEMS

When You Came Here

by Sara F.6 Comments on When You Came Here

New York is strange that way
shedding shops and
birthing new buildings,
all while you’re
waiting to cross a street or
watching a parade roll by.

In the years since you’ve been here
violent waves of gentrification
have washed over the land
you once knew.

It seems to some like
a shot to the concrete heart
but is a death much slower
change strangling livelihoods
so you’re left to mourn
your favorite places
McLoughlin’s and Boyle’s Bar,
Benny’s Burritos,
the deli around the corner
with the nice man from Pakistan,
as the paint dries
and the sun winks
knowingly
at the streets.

New Yorkers are strange that way
missing the ways things were
forgetting the ways
they’ve changed shape
to find a place
in this endless puzzle
of nine million people.

But under the layers of soot and grime
in the rare moments of quiet
between sirens and shouts
in the early hours of morning
when the buses sleep in Jersey
and the Hudson flows in silence
you can find exactly who you were
when you came here.

Dedicated to Papa, my favorite New Yorker

JOURNALISM, LIFE, NOTRE DAME, NYC

Home in the heartland

by Sara F.4 Comments on Home in the heartland

This essay was awarded honorable mention in Notre Dame Magazine’s 2017 Young Alumni Essay Contest. It was originally published at magazine.nd.edu

My final night in Toledo, Ohio, I climbed up to the roof of my apartment building to watch the sunset. Brilliant orange hues silhouetted everything below the horizon a dark, velvety black, and only the banks poked above the skyline. The colors were bright and bold, beckoning me to stay.

Straight in front of me on North Superior Street, I could see the old newspaper building where I’d spent long hours that summer covering everything from robberies to school board meetings to controversial city investments. From above, the streets looked clean and still and silent, but I knew that was far from true. Up on the rooftop, I couldn’t see trash rolling through the roads or crooked “for sale” signs hanging in dusty windows. I couldn’t see the crime, deterioration and poverty, all hidden in plain sight.

I lived that summer in a building that once housed the famous LaSalle & Koch Department Store, and until 1984, one of the largest Macy’s stores outside of New York City. It had since been converted into massive loft apartments, but you could still see the Macy’s sign painted on one side, like a faded tattoo. As I watched the sunset that night on the roof while a couple on the far side clinked Coronas, I thought about my three months in Toledo. I’d been intensely lonely and completely out of my comfort zone, but reporting stories throughout Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan solidified a longer relationship I’d been building with the Midwest as a region, a fascination with the place and its history.

I knew I’d come back. After all, there were more stories to tell.

The first time I connected with the Midwest was through the words of Nebraskan poet Ted Kooser, when I was 16. I picked up one of his collections at a book festival near my home in New Jersey and couldn’t stop reading — the poems were nothing like what I’d read in school. His words were simple, beautiful and timeless. I did not find out until later that Kooser was in fact Poet Laureate of the United States at the time, the first selected from the Great Plains.

Kooser’s poems, with titles like “Dishwater” and “Creamed Corn,” find beauty in the mundane. Kooser takes basic daily occurrences and shows that just beneath the surface of everything and everyone is something extraordinary. He changed my perspective on what constitutes great writing. Now, I believe great writing is found not necessarily in complex plots or exotic settings but in people — their histories, struggles and challenges. And no region in America exemplifies this kind of writing better than the Midwest. Think Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, a classic depiction of small-town America, or Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. The Midwest, of course, is vast and varied, but a common theme fueling its literature is a strong sense of place and a focus on the people who live there.

Another aspect of the Midwest that makes it ripe for great writing is its relationship with the past. While New York City, my current home, paints over the past as quickly as it can build new skyscrapers, the past seems to linger in the Midwest. When I lived in Toledo, everywhere I went I could see remnants of a time long gone — beautiful Victorian houses slowly decaying, an old theater that sat empty most nights, even hot dog joints that opened in the 1920s and haven’t changed much since. Toledo’s past hovers over every street, over every building that was once grand and isn’t anymore. In Rust Belt cities like Toledo, the past is so present, it’s almost a character in its own right.

I spent my formative years in the Midwest, and only after five years of living in New York City do I understand how much that impacted me — as a writer and as a person. Both sides of my family are from Brooklyn, New York — I have no roots in America’s heartland. But after four years at college at Notre Dame in South Bend, a few weeks in Iowa City in high school and, of course, my summer in Toledo, the Midwest now feels like home.

The region is a crossroads of cultural influences, but I believe it shares some common characteristics. For one, the land is mainly flat, surrounded by the Rockies on the West and Appalachians on the East, giving the region its distinguishing wide-open feel. While the small agricultural towns of the Great Plains differ immensely from the Rust Belt cities of the Great Lakes, I’ve found Midwesterners to be politer and more community-oriented than their counterparts on the East Coast. And while, in New York, most people come from somewhere else to achieve and transform, Midwesterners have a strong sense of identity and pride in their roots.

So which region better reflects me as an individual? The self-assured, quieter Midwest, or the more rushed, aggressive Northeast? Right now, I don’t long to live in the Midwest — I’m happy where I am, in a city that simultaneously excites and exhausts me. But every time I arrive back to Ohio or Indiana or Iowa, a part of me feels at peace. I love the predictability of main streets, the kindness of the people, and the brilliant summer sunsets that soar on for miles into the distance because the topography offers so few disruptions. Being in the Midwest reminds me there’s so much more to America than I know.

One summer morning in New York, I was on a subway train so packed that I couldn’t even put my left foot down — all of the floor space was taken up. After about 10 minutes of this discomfort, a woman in front of me got off the train, revealing one of my favorite poems by Kooser, “A Winter Morning,” on a billboard where advertisements usually go on the subway walls:

A farmhouse window far back from the highway

speaks to the darkness in a sure, small voice.

Against this stillness, only a kettle’s whisper,

and against this starry cold, one small blue ring of flame.

That poem greeted me like the familiar smile of someone you haven’t seen in a long time, and for a moment, the oppressive heat and crush of people vanished. Kooser’s words were a small but comforting reminder of my connection to somewhere else.

I know I’ll travel the long, flat roads back to America’s heartland again, before the future finally steamrolls its lingering past. I want to drive around the region, listen to the stories to be told there, learn more about these cities and where they’re headed. Maybe those wide roads will take me out to the rolling cornfields of Nebraska, or back to my former homes in Toledo or South Bend. But for now, I’ll find my Midwest haven in the worlds of Kooser and Robinson and Anderson, and escape, through their stories, to the places that have become a part of me, while the sirens of New York City wail incessantly outside.

NYC, POEMS

After Stella

by Sara F.14 Comments on After Stella

Seen along the East River pathway near Carl Schurz Park, after Winter Storm Stella.

walking the winding
east river path
just after snowfall
a few people
scattered here and there
weak, distant lights
straining to be seen

right where the path turns
i see a ballerina
dancing alone,
seizing solitude,
her arms fighting
the pull of the wind

though she has no audience
empty benches
line up to watch her
and the river reflects
her every move

as i approach her stage
she catches my eye
stopping, for a moment
then completing her pirouette

twirl, bend, twirl, bend, twirl
moving gracefully into the night

no music
just the silence of the city
and the crunch of the snow
beneath her feet

LIFE, NYC, QUOTES

The Uber Positive Uber Driver

by Sara F.2 Comments on The Uber Positive Uber Driver

It was about 5pm one of the first sunny Saturdays of spring. I stood outside Brooklyn Bridge Park waiting for an Uber over to a party in Williamsburg after a long, mimosa-filled picnic brunch.

“Miss Sara! Hello! How are you? It’s such a beautiful day, isn’t it?” Shamraiz, my driver, exclaimed as I slid into the back seat. “Days like this, everyone’s mood changes, everyone walks with their heads held high!”

In just a few minutes I learned Shamraiz has five kids, one named Sara like me but she spells it with an “h”.  He loves his wife more than anything – she’s the reason he left Pakistan for America. I learned he’d driven a yellow cab for 14 years and switched over to Uber last year. He likes the newfound flexibility.

“If you work hard, and stay positive, good things will come to you,” Shamraiz said as we snaked our way through Brooklyn. “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”

“Absolutely,” I agreed. “You should really write a book with all these sayings.”

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing,” he promptly spouted, proud of himself for recalling such a relevant quote. “That one’s Benjamin Franklin.”

I laughed. I realized in New York, I don’t blink an eye at extreme negativity. But extreme positivity is intriguing, makes me question whether the person has a motive or simply looks at the world in a different way. With Shamraiz, it was clearly the latter. But why in New York is positivity suspicious, while negativity’s the norm?

“Well, here you are,” Shamraiz said when we reached my destination. I thanked him and got out, but moments later he rolled down the window.

“Learn from the past, live for today, dream for tomorrow!” he shouted over the bar music, before speeding away.

LIFE, NYC

15 Things I Learned My First Year In New York

by Sara F.5 Comments on 15 Things I Learned My First Year In New York

January 31 marks my one-year anniversary of moving to New York. This time last year I wrote about the thrill of signing my first New York City lease, of smiling as I walked up 9th Avenue knowing I’d soon have my own pocket of space in the big city. I was about to leave behind the daily monotony of commuting, the packed buses and frantic dash through Times Square. Signing that lease was a pure, fleeting moment of truly making it.

Growing up 20 miles from Midtown Manhattan I’ve always identified with the city but knew you’re not a true New Yorker until you’ve lived here. At college in the Midwest I envied friends’ ability to say, “I’m from Chicago” despite living hours from the actual downtown. The same just doesn’t apply to the New York metro area – my proximity to the city and love for its fast-paced nature didn’t translate to being a New Yorker, as much as I wished it did.

The truth is, when you’re here – day to night to day – you start to notice things about the pulse of the city and the people who live here that didn’t present themselves before.

Here are 15 things I’ve learned after one year in New York:

1. The city never sleeps but it sometimes rests

NYC

When I was commuting, the New York I knew was the rush of Midtown between Port Authority and Rockefeller Center, and the Lower East Side swarming with people late at night. I never experienced those rare New York quiet moments when the city settles down and seems to belong to you alone. The last time it happened was Thanksgiving morning as I left to head home to New Jersey. Stepping out of my apartment around 8 a.m., 9th Avenue was quiet save for the hum of empty cabs, and I didn’t see another soul for 10 blocks in either direction. I don’t pine for these moments but love when they appear.

2. Strangers will brighten your day

quietmoment

Last year I wrote about Geoff, the newspaper hawker who told me to “have a great day, young lady!” every day for a year when I passed him on 42nd street. Geoff’s smile was contagious and it brightened my day each morning. While they’re not all as visible or vocal as Geoff, I’ve found other strangers are willing to help out when the subway turnstile blinks “insufficient fare” or you stumble on an unsalted sidewalk. The “cold, hardened New Yorker” stereotype is true, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t good at heart.

3. But…sometimes they’ll totally irritate you

STRANGERS

The woman who doesn’t thank you for holding the door open as she saunters out of the store. The biker who disregards rules of the road. The people who walk in a horizontal line on the sidewalk. The occasional “manslamming” (yes, it happens). You try not to take it personally – they’re strangers, after all.

4. Family history comes to life

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My family history on both sides is rooted in New York City. My mother’s father (Papa) grew up in an Irish tenement in Brooklyn, my father’s father in a Jewish neighborhood of the Lower East Side. This past summer I visited Katz’s Deli with my grandfather, right around the corner from the luncheonette his family owned. He described the Lower East Side he knew, filled with shoppers and street peddlers, not people heading to bars or brunch. And for years I’ve traveled in with Papa, spending days in parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, but find it’s different now that I call the city home. It’s an amazing experience exploring the city with my grandparents, seeing the streets transform through their memories and realizing how much has changed.

5. You’ll spend more time online looking for restaurants than you spend actually in them

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Birthday? Where’s a restaurant that’s centrally located, accommodates groups, has a cool atmosphere and isn’t too pricey? First date? How about a not-too-casual, not-too-upscale spot with good food if you get hungry but also lets you just have wine? Family coming in? Where’s a Theater District eatery with an array of vegetarian options that takes reservations so you can get to the show at exactly 7:30?

I’ve spent hours on Yelp and NYMag.com looking for restaurants that fit very specific criteria. Because New York has so many great options, there’s more pressure to find a place ideally suited to a particular night – and not return to somewhere you’ve already tried.

6. Most things are really expensive but certain things are forever fixed in price

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When I go home to New Jersey – or really anywhere – I’m amazed at how much cheaper food items are. Pricey food is pretty much a given in New York. But certain things here, like 99-cent pizza, shock my friends from other cities. They wonder how the same city that charges $15 or more for cocktails serves pizza for less than a dollar. It’s a New York thing, I guess.

7. The subway is your best friend and your worst enemy

subway

I’m simultaneously fascinated, terrified, grossed out by, and extremely thankful for the New York subway system. For a fixed price you can go almost anywhere in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn or the Bronx. I love that on a Saturday or Sunday with nothing to do, I can take off on a train and explore a new neighborhood. That being said, the subway can be an unreliable friend who cancels at the last moment, leaving you stranded with no plans. I’ve learned to tack on an extra 15-30 minutes to trips to account for subway delays.

8. You won’t get through the summer without an AC
Tried that. Won’t ever try it again.

9. Stories are everywhere

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No wonder so many writers are based in New York – not only is it a cultural center, it’s a breeding ground for stories. The city is full of interesting, diverse people and lively conversation is happening around you at all times. I keep a running document of quirky phrases and bits of conversation I overhear on the streets – it’s all fodder for fiction.

10. Port Authority will always be the worst

PORTAUTHORITY

If there’s one place in New York I’d be happy never to set foot in again, it’s that dreadful bus terminal. In fact, all of 8th Avenue between 34th and 50th Street for me is tainted by memories of pushing through Midtown crowds to make the 6pm bus. And the building itself, the busiest bus terminal in the world, badly needs a renovation. I don’t have nostalgia for my commuting days and never will.

11. Good luck finding that perfect coffee shop

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Finding the perfect coffee shop in New York is like finding the perfect apartment. You’ll never get everything you’re looking for (space, location, price) but you might get two of the three. I’ve found coffee shops with working wifi and good coffee but no space, and shops with good coffee and space but no wifi. For now I’ve decided to sacrifice coffee quality for wifi and space, but I’m not giving up. One day I WILL find the perfect coffee shop – and it won’t mean going to Brooklyn.

12. You’ll be more aware of what you’re wearing

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You can wear almost anything you want in New York City without attracting much attention. But if you’re not looking to stand out, and just looking to look good, there’s pressure to have a personal style here. There’s pressure to be unique, put together, or purposely not put together. The above billboard says it all.

13. Friends will become family

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Most New Yorkers are fiercely independent, but in a large and daunting city, we all need to strip that façade from time to time. Whether it’s help moving furniture, someone to check in on you when you’re sick, or someone to share Sunday night dinner with, friends play the role of family and I’m incredibly grateful for them.

14. The city is constantly changing and you’ll be nostalgic for “how things used to be”

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When I first moved to New York I told friends and family “don’t worry about the address, we’re the apartment above the Coldstone.” Six months in, the apartment-identifying Coldstone closed. Other restaurants in Hell’s Kitchen have closed down, replaced by new hotspots just slightly more upscale than their predecessors. My gym, which held a 25-year tenure in Midtown, closed only a week after notifying customers through a paper sign taped to the entrance.

When these places shut down it feels personal, like a breakup. Yeah, I know rents went up, but can’t you make it work? For me?

15. You’ll start building your own version of the city

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You’ll deal with small apartments, soaring prices and smelly summers because “there is no place in the world like New York.” And it’s true. There is no place like this city. But within New York itself are millions of smaller New Yorks, and you’ll start building your own to add to the mix. The invigorating potential to make what you want of yourself and your surroundings is what draws people here. As Colson Whitehead wrote, “the New York City you live in is not my New York City, how could it be?”

LIFE, MISCELLANEOUS, NYC

Pigeon At My Window

by Sara F.Leave a Comment on Pigeon At My Window

I captured this photo late last summer in Hell’s Kitchen. The pigeons looked so peaceful silhouetted in the afternoon light, high above the Theater District rush.

I was noticing pigeons everywhere that summer. One in particular, the largest I’d ever seen, had made its home on the ledge outside my kitchen window. I’d turn on the stove for coffee Saturday mornings and it would greet me by fluttering its wings – revealing a streak of silver that each time I’d mistake for a flash of light. Each time I was surprised a bird could emit such radiance.

It occurred to me a few weeks ago I haven’t seen that pigeon in months. Where did he go? He hasn’t traveled south. Unlike other birds, pigeons don’t migrate – once they find a nesting place they will stay year round. Pigeons will always return to the location imprinted on their brains upon birth.

Maybe he’s been there all along but his feathers are dulled by the city dust. Or maybe he flutters his wings but there’s no light in the sky for his silver streaks to reflect, nothing to make me turn.

FOOD & DRINK, NEWS, NYC

Bye-Bye Benny’s

by Sara F.3 Comments on Bye-Bye Benny’s

Benny’s Burritos is closing tomorrow at the age of 26.

My heart sank when I heard this news. For someone who’d only had a margarita here once, late at night with a few friends, my sadness may seem exaggerated. But only recently I’d passed the Avenue A and East 6th Street corner where Benny’s stands, thinking, “That was a great place – I should go back sometime.” The problem is, Benny’s isn’t so much a place you go to but a place you stumble upon. And I never stumbled there again.

I’d only been to Benny’s once but knew it had history. The East Village gem opened its doors to the late ‘80s downtown scene where artist-types roamed the streets looking for a post-club bite. With its bright-colored walls and 1960s artifacts, Benny’s was always a bit kitschy, but that was part of its appeal. As New York Magazine wrote in 1990, “Benny’s Burritos is a rare find: a scene with no attitude.”

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Photo by circlealine

These days Chipotles pop up all over Manhattan, but just 25 years ago the burrito wasn’t a fast food go-to. In fact, its rise has been fairly recent. Burritos existed at chili parlors, the burrito joint’s predecessor, but were slender, manageable tubes of rice and meat rather than the monstrous creations we know today. Benny’s was a big-burrito pioneer back when “Mexicali food was as rare as an East Village stockbroker,” according to New York Magazine.

Owner Mark Merker told EV Grieve “the world has changed” since he first opened Benny’s in 1988. Business has been good, but costs keep rising and competition from franchises like Chipotle doesn’t help.

OK, it’s not quite true that Benny’s is closing – it’s downsizing. Benny’s is shuttering its restaurant space and keeping just the takeout counter. (Its sister restaurant, Harry’s Burritos on the Upper West Side, will also close.) But for me this may as well mean the end of Benny’s – it was all about atmosphere. With a proliferation of other food options in the East Village, from fancy fries to authentic tacos, I don’t envision stopping at the takeout counter for a just-OK burrito.

orderbennysburritos.com
orderbennysburritos.com

The Twitterverse agrees, one customer lamenting, “it was never about the burritos (average) but the great sidewalk scene.” Reading other reactions on Twitter, it’s clear the burrito joint played a role in many New Yorkers’ formative years:

Benny’s will always be the taste of being 19, broke and spending my last $20 on a margarita and burrito

Mass foreclosure on my early NYC memories continues. Ate many a meal at Benny’s in late ’80s/’90s

Heard last night that Benny’s Burritos on Ave A is closing. End of an era in NYC

This one hurts.

I can’t claim the same disappointment as customers who frequented Benny’s during “Rent” years. But I’m sad for what it represents – continued rent hikes forcing a generation of beloved restaurants to downsize or shut down completely. Casual gathering spots like Benny’s, where the people and not the food take center stage, make New York what it is.

Benny’s had character and building character takes time.

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The reality is that the city changes and we want it all – the new and the old. It’s sort of a paradox, isn’t it? New Yorkers are totally obsessed with newness – clothes, food, music – but gripe when change occurs to our New York. We feel protective over our visions of the city and the places within them that feel like home. For many people that cheap Mexican spot on Avenue A was one of those places, so despite more than 20,000 other New York restaurants and countless other burrito joints, it’s impossible not to feel loss.

Bye-bye, Benny’s. Your margaritas were strong and your guac not particularly memorable. But you’ll live on in my idea of New York, the one I’ll hold dear when I’m older and reminiscing about the city “back then.” I’ll remember the tequila bliss and late night chatter, the contagious laughter of a few good friends sitting on worn vinyl bar stools. I’ll remember it was you, Benny’s, even though it could have been anywhere. 

FOOD & DRINK, LIFE, NYC

An Unlikely Moment At Trader Joe’s

by Sara F.3 Comments on An Unlikely Moment At Trader Joe’s

Anyone who’s shopped at a New York City Trader Joe’s knows the checkout line can be a nightmare.

Such was the case last Sunday around 2 p.m. I had gathered up my usual TJ items and took my place among the long line of groaning New Yorkers waiting to get on with their days.

A cheery sign assured us: “Thinking twice about waiting in this line? Well with 29 registers…You’ll be in front of them in no time!” But “no time” seems like hours when a sunny Sunday waits just beyond the doors.

Then I saw a little old lady move up through the line. She was led by a Trader Joe’s associate who looked like a college student—there had to be 70 years between them but they talked like good friends.

“April 21st, 1922 I was born,” the lady said proudly as she walked past me, her voice much stronger than her body.

This statement caught the attention of some other people on the line. What’s happening? Where is she going? Curiosity got the better of us and we craned our heads to see what was going on. We watched as the associate led the lady around the snaking line and brought her right up to the first open cash register.

Then something happened that I rarely see on checkout lines: people smiled. Not just to their friends and spouses but to strangers, too. We admired the good deed and the lady’s vitality, sharing a moment before returning to the pressing needs of our iPhones.

I wondered why the old lady shops here as opposed to the less crowded stores of the Upper West Side. She appeared to only be buying for one, after all. But then I imagined her, in her younger days, rushing around a market or going from butcher shop to dairy shop in a crowded neighborhood of Brooklyn. I could see her haggling, yelling her order, pushing through crowds.

Maybe, to her, the chaos is home.

Ninety-two and still kickin’. I wanted to know this woman’s story, to find out her name, but alas she was on her way up the escalators with a bag in each hand as I stood there surrounded by produce, stuck in time.