Two Decades of Becoming (in New York City)

Friday Favorites #04: Favorite Places to Cry, Eat Falafel, and Live Out a Rom-Com Fantasy

From top left: my first visit to NYC with my family in 1997, 2004 when I moved to NYC for college, the skyline captured in July, and a couple pics from 2023 taken at Domino Park

This week, (I think exactly yesterday, based on the timestamps of a LiveJournal entry¹ I wrote,) marks 20-years since I first planted roots in New York City.  20-years is a really weird milestone for me. It means I’m old enough to have moved somewhere as an adult (legally an adult, spiritually an idiot), and been here for two entire decades – long enough to have spawned a whole other adult. I’m both the same person and also someone entirely different than I was in 2004. After all, it was the previous summer, when I was just 17 (legally and objectively a child), when I decided that I belonged to this city, and she, to me, while here for a pre-college program. I’m still not sure people should be pushed to make (allegedly) life altering decisions or be expected tohave any sense of clarity about their future when they’re still teenagers, but it’s a decision I stand firmly behind and know with certainty was correct. Without question, this city has shaped who I’ve become. What does it even mean to become yourself in a city that’s constantly reinventing itself? 

And what was it about this place that made me immediately feel like I was home? Was it the endless energy and the unapologetic pace? The simple fact that no one blinks an eye when you walk down the street in an outrageous outfit in the middle of the afternoon? The fact that I felt such familiarity, while knowing nothing and no one? That I immediately felt like a little less of an outsider, because this is a city that is a haven to and embraces and celebrates its outsiders? That this is a place that balances the feeling of utter anonymity and yet, somehow, makes you feel so seen and so known? How is it that I’m still romanticizing the city in spite of the crumbling infrastructure, increasingly dumbfounding cost of living, and the smell of hot garbage in August? And how the hell do I succinctly reflect on 20 years in NYC, an entire lifetime of nostalgia and lessons and heartbreak and love and surreal memories, in a single essay? I don’t think I can?? (I’m still going to try, but not today.)

Anyways, it is Friday. And I realized I’ve maybe been doing my “Friday Favorites” wrong. I know it’s only been a few weeks here on Substack and I’m sure things are going to shift and evolve, and I don’t think anyone has become attached to the format of these little weekly updates. So, this week’s Friday Favorites is all about my chosen home, New York City, and my favorite places for experiences that might be universal, but feel like they uniquely belong to these 5 boroughs. 

Favorite Places to Cry in Public
One of the most beautifully unifying things about New York City is that public spaces are home to a lot of Private Moments, for better or for worse. We’re often witnessing the worst or best moments of Other People's Lives out in the open, in these fleeting nanoseconds while we walk by someone getting the worst news imaginable over the phone or driving past a spontaneously jubilant elopement ceremony in a park. Sometimes they barely register in our memories. Sometimes they’re so heartbreaking or so infectiously joyful that they never leave us. If you’ve been here long enough, and experience a full range of emotions, you’ve probably cried in public; it’s like a silent confession shared with the city itself—a raw, unfiltered moment that everyone sees but few, if any, acknowledge. Anonymity is currency, here, and there's a strange comfort in knowing that in the city that never sleeps, you're never really crying alone. I’ve cried on the subway (many times, usually after a particularly bad day of work). I’ve cried in the steam room of a Soho Spa that no longer exists. I’ve cried on the upper deck of the NYC Ferry. I’ve cried while taking long walks. I’ve cried a lot in Washington Square Park. But my favorite place to cry is probably along Brooklyn’s waterfront, with the view of the Manhattan skyline staring back at me. There’s just something about being face to face with millions of humans living their own lives a short-distance across the river, but not being able to see you at all, you know? Bushwick Inlet Park is a particular favorite. So are the rocks by Jane’s Carousel in Dumbo.  It’s very freeing! 5 star experience! 

1997, my first time visiting NYC with my family at 11 years old

Favorite Spots to Pretend You’re in a Rom-Com
Like most people who live and grow up outside of NYC, most of my understanding and cultural references to the city came from pop-culture – Eloise (see above) and Kevin McCallister’s lives at The Plaza, the Ghostbusters, and watching MTV’s TRL after school – but not Friends, because, 1.) I didn’t like it, 2.) I knew it was filmed on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank. My ideas of New York were fantastical and larger-than-life,  and books and movies and tv shows and my singular visit at age 11 in 1997, told me it was a place where you could fall in love just by walking into the right coffee shop at the right time, preferably on a rainy day, with a killer soundtrack playing in the background. When I finally moved here at 18, every corner of the city felt like a meet-cute waiting to happen. I’d stroll through the Union Square Farmers Market, the art supply store at 4th Ave and East 12th, or the meandering streets of the West Village (all of this in a .5-mile radius of my college dorm), half-expecting to bump into a brooding writer who would accidentally spill their coffee on me, leading to a whirlwind romance. Instead, I usually just spilled coffee on myself or accidentally stepped into dog poop. 

I blame both Nora Ephron and Candace Bushnell for much of my romanticisation of the city, especially in my early NYC years. I’ve definitely had my own real-life, Rom-Com moments, too – getting soaked by a cab driving through a puddle, leaning onto a freshly painted column on my way to work, seeing the same person on the subway each morning and creating an entire future with them in my head, based solely on our shared commute. Like any good rom-com, there isn’t just one place the story will play out, but many, each more emblematic and iconic to the city as the next. 

Some of the choice venues for my Rom-Com Scenes: Russ & Daughters, where I go to pick up the most thinly-sliced pastrami lox one can find on any side of the east river and hear a good dose of those classic, NYC accents that are at risk of extinction. Central Park, with a cameo of Bethesda Terrace, specifically, because it is a crucial element of any NYC montage. Hotel Delmano, which remains one of my favorite date-night spots, with its brass fixtures and patinaed walls, and where Nina and I had our first “real date” and later chose as the venue for our elopement. The little park at Carmine Street and 6th Ave, Father Demo Square, where I’ve spent many mornings sipping on coffee from Porto Rico and late nights with a slice from Joe’s (pre-celiacs diagnosis, obviously). The Met, which ranks high on many of my NYC Favorites list, and whose halls are the setting for many of my core memory scenes, (including my first engagement, lol.) Bemelman’s Bar, an absolute New York institution tucked inside The Carlyle, home to truly excellent wallpaper and some of the best people-watching and eavesdropping in all of NYC.

Honorable mentions for my Rom-Com locations that no longer exist: Dean & Deluca in Soho, the Virgin Records on 14th Street, Luke and Leroy’s (the birthplace of the Misshapes and site of many, many late nights in my 20s), Yaffa Cafe in the East Village; RIP to all – gone but not forgotten.

Favorite Place to Figure Out You’re Definitely Gay (When You’re 19 and Avoiding Being Carded)
First of all, this is probably not possible anymore, and the door policies across NYC have gotten stricter, as far as I can tell by still being carded as a Very Visibly Older Millennial. My very first gay bar experiences in NYC were mostly at gay male bars in Chelsea (like XL, which closed in 2005, that had a fish tank and famously made an appearance in Sex & The City – a visual cue that made me feel like I was really experiencing New York City authentically). It took a couple of years to figure out the Lesbian spots, but the first where I became a bonafide regular was Cubbyhole, under its ceiling of twinkling lights and rainbow streamers and paper lanterns.

It was small, a neighborhood dive, really, and the friendly gay guy at the door (who shall remain nameless) would just glance at our IDs and let us in, a quiet acknowledgment that letting us be in community and have a space to just be would probably do less harm than good. Almost every week, for years, I’d visit Cubbyhole, usually finding space in a back corner by the JukeBox, where I’d play Le Tigre and Bikini Kill and Siouxsie and the Banshees, even though Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone was definitely the crowd favorite; you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a kaleidoscope of queers belt that out with the fervor of a revival choir. I met girls there a couple of times, but going to Cubbyhole was mostly about being with my friends, and making new ones, and figuring out my identity as a queer person. And even though I’ve become much more claustrophobic as I’ve gotten older and don’t spend much time at bars at all, anymore, it’s still a place I love and pop into a couple times a year. Long live Cubbyhole. 

Favorite Place to Fulfill a Late Night Cravings
Oh, Mamoun’s. It’s a beacon of sustenance and simplicity. For most New Yorkers it’s probably the requisite, greasy New York slice that tops their lists, but for me? There was just nothing like a crispy, hot ball of chickpeas drizzled with tahini. Mamoun’s Saint Marks location was just a few blocks from my east village dorm, and a couple years later, I lived around the corner from it’s original MacDougal Street location, in a 5th floor walk-up on Bleecker Street. It opened its doors in 1971 in Greenwich village, as the first falafel restaurant in New York City. When I first moved here, I could get a falafel sandwich for $2.50, or a side of 4 falafel balls for just $1 – making it one of the best budget-friendly meals I could get as a college student (and vegetarian). If I was feeling fancy, I could add a side of hummus or babaghanoush for just a couple bucks more. It wasn’t just that it was cheap and convenient, it also tasted like childhood, with the familiar flavors of the downtown LA middle eastern cafes I would go to with my mom. Whether I was looking for a quick, inexpensive meal on my way back to my apartment after class, or for a place to indulge after a night out in the East Village, Mamoun's was a go-to. The Macdougal Street location is a true hole-in-the-wall, filled with stories that were both real and imaginary for me. No matter what time of day or how crowded it's counter was, I could rely on the same hospitality and warmth, and the same wobbly dining tables offering a few moments of reprieve. It was never just a meal; it was an initiation and a rite of passage for anyone learning to navigate the city’s labyrinth of quirks and delights, steps away from Cafe Wha and the Comedy Cellar and the espresso-drinkers lingering along the sidewalk tables at Caffe Reggio. 

Favorite Place to Run Into An Ex
NYC is both a big city and a very small town, especially when you’re queer. I truly believe the universe delights in crafting serendipitous encounters just to keep things interesting and remind us to always be prepared. You could be minding your own business, walking your dog by the piers on North 6th street, when suddenly—there they are, the person you actually, genuinely pretend you never dated, or that one time hook-up who still has you on their Instagram close friends even though you haven’t talked or seen each other in years. The city’s vastness collapses in on itself, and the five boroughs shrink to the size of The Woods on a Wednesday (no, not the actual, forest kind of woods, but The Woods, a bar on South 4th Street). You can very much anticipate the run-ins that will happen at any Farmers Market or Brooklyn Liberation March or PAT at Union Pool, but nowhere feels quite as small-town and full of inevitability as Riis Beach. 

Riis Beach – aka the “queer beach” – is a stretch of The Rockaways in Queens that, for decades, has been a safe place for topless beach goers and cruising for people of all genders and identities and body types. It’s where the city’s queer community gathers to bask in the sun, flaunt their best beachwear (which is sometimes simply a barely-there thong and winged liner), and enjoy the sense of freedom that comes with being among your own. Riis was originally developed as a public beach in the 1930s; it was an accessible beach intended for working-class NYC residents – part of Robert Moses’ more insidious city planning efforts to keep those same residents out of Long Island’s beaches. By the 1950s and 60s, Riis began to attract a diverse crowd, particularly LGBTQ people, at the most western end of the beach – Bay 1. 

It has become a cultural hub, one where you can buy a nutcracker from a vendor strolling the sand (who now accept Venmo payments) and take a swim in the Atlantic. On a summer day, its shore is packed with blankets that touch corner-to-corner like a massive, gay quilt. The colorful array of towels, beach umbrellas, and bodies creates a tapestry of queerness that is as beautiful as it is chaotic.The energy at Riis is palpable—equal parts relaxed and vibrant, with an undercurrent of mischief. It’s a place where the boundaries of personal space blur, where conversations flow as freely (and sometimes viciously) as the ocean waves, and where you’re just as likely to get into a deep discussion about queer theory as you are to join a dance party. It holds a lot of memories of fat femme beach days and seaside makeouts and of visions of friends who have since died (Taueret, Bryn) floating like ethereal angels in the ocean. 

And, you’re basically guaranteed to run into an ex. I have never, not once, been to Riis and not run into an ex. And even though I know it’ll happen, I still find myself feeling caught off guard, Every. Single. Time. It’s okay. They’re little, gentle reminders that in this city, your past is never too far behind, and that’s just part of its charm.

Cheers to 20 years. I love you, New York, and feel forever indebted to you for being part of my story.

1.  A succinct post, published on August 22, 2004, at 7:35PM:
“change of location = hello new york city. hello new life.”