Continuing from last night’s, here is the partner post of
things I miss about NYC, the Big Apple, The City. (If you grew up near NYC at
all it was simply The City.)
1. My friends and family. (Since I first wrote this post my dear Aunt Marilyn has passed away. So obviously this resonates with me more than it did before. I didn't rewrite the whole entry, because I don't think that would be a fair way to commemorate her. But know she is on my mind now.) Okay, an obvious one, but
still very real to me. You can move the boy from NYC, but you can’t move the
boy’s family and friends. I miss my mother very much, siblings, cousins and my
father. I miss being in a place where they, and I, all grew up. NYC is very
much home to me, it’s been a part of my life since before I can remember. I
miss seeing my nieces very much, and I think they might miss me too. My friends
are a given. I was so lucky as to have such great friends in New York.
Brilliant, urbane, witty, smarter than I was, a lot of the time at least, but
also sympathetic. Peers, my people. We still talk, and I still keep up with
their lives, and they mine, but a good friend is worth more than gems and
dollars. I miss them very much.
2. My professional network. Related to #1, but different.
This is the wide circle of friends, and friendly acquaintances I’d built up
over a decade. People I could hang with, talk shop, we’d let one another know
about professional opportunities, some were friends of friends. It was a whole
ecosystem of sources, mentors, contacts, people who knew people, people who
knew people who knew people. This was kind of a biggie for me. It felt like
uprooting an old oak tree, meaning me, and putting him in all new soil, then
ordering him to grow. So I did my best to grow.
3.
Chinese Food. Of course Louisville has Chinese
food, but it kind of sucks. I love Louisville’s almost insultingly old school
Oriental House, mostly because it looks like a set from “The Rockford Files,”
and there’s one other good place around here, but I miss my Chinese food.
Expensive, cheap, in those weird places that also sold Mexican food, I ate at
them all, and at least liked most of them. I really miss Chinatown, and,
forgive me rabbi, crab pork soup dumplings. Yes. Chinese Food.
4.
Improv Comedy. There is a team here, and they
are wonderful, funny and friendly people. But NYC is so ripe with great, cheap
improv it’s astonishing. And that was a big part of my world for about three
years, so I still feel at home in that world, even if you can’t quite ever go home
again. If you get what I’m saying. Suffice to say I had many of my biggest
laughs of all time watching great NYC improv. And I miss it.
5.
Jewish Food. Okay, the deli food here sucks too.
I miss the real delis. The first thing Randi, Stella and I did when we visited
last winter was hit the Second Avenue Deli. The half sour pickles alone pretty
much made me cry, and it only got better from there. The corned beef was to die
for, and if I had died right then it would have been with a smile on my face.
Then there’s the appetizing, the lox, the sable, the white fish, the matzo ball
soup, the everything, that is not too hard to find in my old hometown, but
impossible to find here. Deli=Jewish BBQ. (I don’t miss the pizza as much for
some reason.)
6.
The Downtown Art Scene. This means art, of
course, but also music, culture, that whole Lower East Side, Greenwich Village,
cool Brooklyn thing. Seeing John Zorn, and some other weirdos at the Knitting
Factory for $7. Catching Sonny Sharock at the same place for not much more.
Being in the center of the entire world of cool, and knowing it, and reveling
in it. Nothing can touch that vibration.
7.
The beach. When we lived in Brooklyn we went to
the beach as much as was feasible. Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Jones Beach.
I loved the beach, it was part of summer for me. We got to go to Kiawah Island,
which has a great beach this summer, but we had to go East to do it.
8.
The Publishing Industry. No way to get around
it, when you’re a journalist it’s not a bad idea to be near the center of the
publishing world. It’s changed a lot, and taken a lot of hits over the past
five years, but this is the still the happening place to be if you want to be
on staff at a publication of some sort.
9.
Those Magical Nights When the City Becomes Your
Lover, Confidant, and Best Friend. I don’t know how to explain it. NYC is a
total bitch most of the time, but sometimes, once in a while, there are those
times when it just surrenders to you. All the lights turn and stay green as you
cruise uptown in your cab. You see Spike Lee and his posse at an East Village
record shop. (Happened to me in high school.) You walk down St. Marks Street
and pass 80 Saint Marks, that little movie theater, that has since become a
live performance space, and they just let you in because the show’s halfway
over anyway. When you learn that your favorite hotdog place is also connected
to a speakeasy. Those times when the locus of energy is working for you, not
against you, and you get it, why you chose to spend your life force and time
here. Until it’s happened to you I can’t explain it any more. But once it
happens to you, you will understand. It’s a New York thing.
10.
Park Slope, Brooklyn. In my mind’s eye I cannot
imagine a more perfect combination of both urbanity and a friendly
neighborhood. Of all the places I’ve ever lived Park Slope was my favorite.
Walk out the door, and go one block up and you’re in the city, with its shops,
boutiques, bars, and street life. Walk two blocks the other way, and you’re
along the canal. Hit the subway and boom, Manhattan is 15 minutes away over the
bridge. If it didn’t cost so fucking much it would be damn near perfect!
So that’s my list. I’m sure I’ll think of more as the days
pass, but this is a pretty good list. Maybe in some ways it’s a love letter to
the city that I knew, rather than the city that is. That’s okay. It will do for
now.
Next up: Top 10 Things I Think Louisville Needs to Work On
(Don’t worry I’ll have a similar list for NYC too.)
*Okay, I have a few more things I miss a lot.
11. Bodegas. I loved having a convenient little store,
usually with a friendly cat inside, about every two blocks or so. We don’t have
that here, and I miss them a bunch. When I went back last time among the first
things I did was walk into a bodega, and order something. It’s a common hang
out place, a place for late night munchies, a place with dozens of different
kinds of beers, sometimes some pretty decent sandwiches, toilet paper, all in
the size of a very big walk in closet. Bodegas rule!
12. The Skyline. Okay, here I’m gonna sound pretty NYC
chauvinistic, but whatever. All other cities have buildings, including tall
buildings. Only New York truly has a skyline.
