New York City Tip #1: Become a Regular Somewhere

The best time to experience the gentle side of Lower Manhattan is most certainly on a Monday afternoon.

While you walk east or west along the quiet streets of the Villages, you will notice a leisurely communal pace. On 7th Street, the hat shop owner is chatting with the barber on her front stoop. The usual European suspects hang outside of an Italian restaurant, smoking, laughing.  An old Ukrainian store, that’s only open till 4 p.m., is at its busiest hour: The matriarch of the business can barely stand up, but she knows each customer by name and greets them in her native tongue. They all buy mason jars of honey from upstate.

This is New York.

But observe these rituals closely because they are a privilege to witness. Students are at school, commuters have made it to their destinations, and the nine-to-five toil has commenced. Our streets are calm; take it in.

Weekdays out of the office often remind me of the year I spent in retail. Saturdays were slammed with patrons coming from or headed to brunch—everything revolves around brunch—and two consecutive days off was an out-of-the-question request. So I began to cherish my random afternoons, spent at a bagel place off the 30th Ave subway stop in Queens.

“How’s your mo-ther,” a man with an Italian accent asked me. I was paying for an everything bagel the size of my face, drenched in bacon n’ chive cream cheese. It was my third week living in New York, and every time I walked into this busy breakfast restaurant, Anthony asked me the same thing.

Why? Because my mother has a way with people.

During my second week living in New York, Toney and Bob decided to drive up from Virginia. Before their arrival, my room consisted of six garbage bags full of unfolded clothes and a sleeping bag that I'd slept on top of because it was so damn hot. But not anymore! The parents were here with my bed, an AC unit, and tons of questions.

“Is it safe?” Mom wanted to know.
“How far away is your school?”
“Do you like your neighborhood?”

What they were really asking was...
 “ARE YOU POSITIVE YOU WANT TO DO THIS?”

To reassure my excited/terrified parents, I took them to a “hand-rolled, water-boiled” bagel shop my roommate had suggested. Alas, we walked in and were immediately accosted by an unfamiliar world.

“Toasted, scooped, with lox!”
“Just a nosh. Mini bagel today, thanks.”
“Whole-grain everything with Nova!”
Whip, whoosh, crinkle.

The three of us silently took in the situation with wide, worrisome eyes. Workers behind the counter were barking out orders, moving golden disks of bread through a well-established assembly line of toasters and cream cheese.  

I decided to try my best.
“Uh, I’ll do an everything bagel, with sun dried tomato.
Er… uh, toasted?”
Whip, whoosh, crinkle. 

Embarrassingly enough, I realized my parents and I had all placed the exact same order in equally mystified tones.
Whip, whoosh, crinkle.

“Ah hello, miss. To stay or to go?” the manager asked my mother. He seemed to take his time with us, perhaps because we were three unfamiliar, slightly anxious faces.

I’m not entirely sure what happened next, but I do know my mother tends to talk incessantly when she’s nervous. Maybe it was because I was moving to New York, or perhaps she was stressed from the long, migraine-inducing car trip. Whatever the reason, this is what I heard from across the room:

“Ma BABY is moving to New Yaaark, Anthony!” The man starts laughing, and Mom motions for me to come back to the counter. “We’re from Virginia! But Astoria seems nice. Britney, come back over here!”

I roll my eyes, like an angsty 14-year-old. My mother could make friends with a parked car.

“She’s ma OLDEST,” Mom says leaning across the counter, Southern accent and all. The line has died down so there’s no one directly behind her. Meanwhile, an internal panic has caused my legs to awkwardly move toward the conversation, but paralyzed my face in a fretful expression. (I’m sure I looked something like this pug being pushed down a slide.)

“Now, you watch ova her,” Mom said, pointing a finger at Anthony.

And by golly, that Bagel Man watched over me until he was hired at a different franchise. He would ask about my mother, about school, and friends. One time, he even scolded me for wearing high heels. “What would you mo-ther say!? It attracts atten-tion.”

But some days Anthony was the only person I would talk to before 5 p.m. Like many who have uprooted to this city, I knew not a soul upon my quixotic arrival. And when you live in a sea of aspiring, ambitious go-getters, you must learn to enjoy those peaceful Monday afternoons—sometimes by yourself, with just the company of the city and its characters.

I’ll admit it. My mother was on to something.

Smile at neighbors
Know your Super.
Be “a regular” somewhere.
And revel in the quirks of our home.

It will make you feel human, especially when you’re alone. 

“Many among the regulars of a third place are like Emerson’s “commended stranger” who represents humanity anew, who offers a new mirror in which to view ourselves, and who thus breathes life into our conversation. ”
— Ray Oldenburg

10 Things I Wish I'd Know Before Moving to New York City

When I moved to New York City in the summer of 2010, there were a great many things I didn’t know about the world, like the expression “served up” or the benefits of renter’s insurance. I was fresh from college and a novice to anything remotely “adult,” ranging from high society social faux pas to basic financial awareness.

It was lucky—I suppose—that when my feet first touched this city’s bustling pavement, I landed in the safe arms of Astoria, Queens. This neighborhood held no pretention, full of old Mediterranean immigrants, middle-aged Latino families, and pockets of fresh-faced actors. Astoria was one of those places with a working blue-collar community that seemed satisfied belonging to the ever-shrinking middle class. It was custom to see the wives of firefighters shopping at the butcher’s, young nurses exiting the train, and plumbing trucks parked along the sidewalk.

My neighbor was an old Greek man who had lived in the same home since first arriving in New York. He would always ask about my roommate, Anna, or offer up grapes from his garden. Down the street from him was a loony clown with a terrifying, colorful van full of props and dead-eyed dolls. He had a yippy dog that followed him everywhere, and cameras posted outside of his apartment. (He was easily the most unsettling part of my four-year stay in Astoria.)

My landlords were an Italian couple, she a New York native and he an Italian immigrant who barely spoke English. Her northern accent was unbelievable to my delicate southern ears—she sounded like the caricature of a mobster’s wife—but Laura was kind and protective of our little home. Two of their grown children lived in my three-story walkup, a quiet building located about 15 minutes from the N train’s 30th Avenue stop.

You learn quickly when you are far from the comforts of normalcy. I would also argue that living in any large city considerably speeds up the process of finding your bearings.  You sink or you swim. You “make it”—or you don’t.

All of this to say, throughout the next several months I plan to write about the 10 things I wish I’d know before moving to the tiny universe that is New York City. 

I found this (ridiculous) video when I was cleaning out my computer, and it inspired this series. There are so many things I wish someone would have told me—but then again, maybe that would have ruined the story.