The East Village is easily New York’s most colorful neighborhood. There’s no contest really, have you seen the lamp posts in this part of town?
This “Mosaic Trail” started as a guerilla art project by a struggling Vietnam vet. Jim Power is now a New York legend. He’s the man behind all the vibrant mosaics in Astor Place, along St. Marks Place, and in other streets in the village.
Central Park is beloved by tourists and locals alike. Now that the season of spending-as-much-time-outside-as-possible is upon us, here’s a list of the many, many activities to do in Central Park. Most of them are free (my favorite)!
On a sunny day Sheep Meadow (by the 65th Street west side entrance) is packed with sunbathers and picnickers. But any grass from 59th to 110th is fair game! Gather a group of friends, a date, or go solo with a book!
Originally posted in May 2015. Love to my Mommy & happy Mother’s Day all!
I was the epitome of a Mama’s Girl. As an only child, I’d often choose to play with my mom than other kids. If you met me when I was four, you’d remember me embodying a very different cliché than today. A small, flaxen-haired girl, clutching Mama’s skirt, hiding behind her slim, smiling frame. I was painfully shy, in stark contrast to the center of my world. My mother has always sparkled with charisma and openness.
I don’t remember the first time my mother embarrassed me. I wonder if she does. Not long after I left skirt-clutching cliché behind, I entered the angsty-teenager cliché. My mom shifted from the center of my idolatry to the center of my mortification. And there she stayed for more years than I’d like to admit.
Living 3,000 miles away from my mom has helped me come to truly appreciate how amazing my mom is. I don’t remember the first time I realized it, but my mom is pretty much the coolest. (Maybe it was while walking through Brooklyn where hipsters basically emulate my mom’s lifestyle.) The coolest people are the ones who realize as long as they’re good people, it doesn’t matter what other anyone else thinks of them.
I love above ground trains in the springtime. The 7 train barely runs in Manhattan and when it gets out to Queens it goes above ground, high on elevated tracks. It’s much less gloomy and trapped feeling than the average train ride. There are even some pretty sweet Manhattan views, if you spend the whole ride staring out the window like I do.
I was started staring out the window the minute it went above ground after Hunters Point stop. As it crossed over LIRR tracks, I noticed a dead-end alley way full of street art. Fun to watch out the east side of the train, I figured it would be even better close up. So I got off at Court Square and walked into the kind of alley street smarts warn against…
There were warehouses on either side and no one was around. But it was a well-lit afternoon and busy Franklin Avenue was foot steps away, so I ventured down this sketchy street art alley under the 7 train tracks. Read More
Every Friday I feature some fleeting moments from my week that made me stop and think, “I’m so lucky to live in NYC!” And maybe some that made me think, “Bahaha this city is ridiculous and I love it.” Here we go for this week in the merry (Mary) month of May…
Sunday was the Kentucky Derby, so seeing some fabulous hats over the weekend was expected. I saw these lovely ladies lunching outside the Plaza Hotel on Saturday, so their attire was much more unexpected. Don’t they look great? Also love the tiny Mets fan to their left who appears to be making mischief with a selfie stick. They’re all in the Pulitzer Fountain on 5th Avenue and 59th. When they turn the water, people use it for seating. Read More
I left work at 9:30pm tonight and walked out onto the rainy streets of NYC. It was the most romantic kind of precipitation, warm and only lightly falling. The kind of rain that’s not worth raising an umbrella to, that’s easy to bike in. As I walked towards the rack of Citibikes on 22nd Street, a man rode up to the other end of the dock. He got off this bike and I realized this was my chance to avoid a soggy bottom. Even the lightest rain collects on a bike seat if it’s exposed to the elements while sitting in a bike dock. But the one this dude had just been sitting on would be perfectly dry!
I started running towards him. “Oh! I want your dry seat!” I exclaimed. He looked at me like I was a nut job. I didn’t blame him. It absolutely sounded like I was ineptly catcalling him. Eh, I wasn’t going to explain myself. I could easily just jump on his bike, ride away, and never see him again. He’d have a fun story to tell his friends, “I swear, she said, ‘Dry seat’! Wtf!” Read More
For a long time I couldn’t say, “I don’t want to be an actor any more,” without crying. Voicing those words felt like I was taking a cherished part of my identity, shoving it into an airlock without a spacesuit, and then shooting it out into The Void.
Now? Now I can say “I don’t want to be an actor” in all sorts of ways, with all sorts of emotional reactions. Confidently in job interviews! Flippantly towards concerned relatives! Knowingly to actors who still want to be actors, with every fiber of their being. Read More
