New York City notes

I do not want to be finishing this post this evening because of the after-effects of a headache and anti-headache medicine, but the point of publishing every day is to have that feeling of pressure, and I’m glad to have it.

NYC trips in September 2021, November 2022 and September 2023. I must get back! I adore it.

1. I miss advertisements in the NYC subway and elsewhere. I’m happy to see them every time. They’re funny and creative, because the audience is funny and creative, and maybe because of the city’s ad agency talent pool. And I’ll say: you can see the high IQ of NYC in its ads. And what city has funnier and smarter ads?

   1. The same goes for local government and neighborhood signage. It’s actually interesting stuff, and to the point. Who does it better?

2. Parlor Jazz at Marjorie Eliot’s is awesome, go, it’s in an apartment in Harlem.

3. The trip and walk to the Met Cloisters is great, it doesn’t matter what’s in the museum. The subway stop’s default exit is an elevator, right into a park. And while you’re there, walk around Inwood (street numbers like 214th) — it feels like another city, like a 1990s suburb of a European capital.

4. Cafes that succeed at what they do: Black Cat LES, Do Not Feed Alligators, Poetica Coffee (Carroll Gardens), and I’ll add Ray’s Candy Store here, Ray was there at 10pm! But my travel cafe assessments are not as good; cafes open up to you over time, you need to go a bunch to understand what a cafe can do.

5. Went to David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s musical (!) about 20th century Philippine history (!) where you can be on the level of the stage and walk around as the stage moves. And a man suspiciously looking like David Byrne was in the crowd with us. And apparently it’s a NYC thing to spot David Byrne everywhere.

6. As NYC keeps growing and modernizing, Roosevelt Island feels odder and odder and more interesting. I don’t really know what I feel about it, but you should walk around for a couple of hours.

7. At the U.S. Open grounds in Queens (tennis), the most satisfying place to be is at the bleachers of court 11 or 12, because you get to watch both court 11 and 12, and next to you is the commotion from the rest of the small court area. And the most meditative place is the grandstand or court 17 in the daytime. It is hard to capture on video how nice it is to be there.

8. Went to a “secret female performers” show in a tiny Comedy Cellar room on a Tuesday afternoon, it was Amy Schumer and Rachel Feinstein. Fun.

9. How hard is it to run into someone you know in NYC? If you walk a lot every day maybe not so hard? In 10 days we saw a pair of popular influencer sisters three times, in very different spots.

10. Everyone’s favorite part of Central Park tells you a lot about them (I just decided so). I pick this spot, on the running track next to the lake, looking south:

What’s yours?

11. Pier 2 in Brooklyn, the new-ish recreation/sports park, is very well done. And I’m all in on evil evil Brooklyn Tower.

12. Advice from Tyler Cowen, I followed it:

Favorite free activity that even most New Yorkers don’t do: Browse the auction displays at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, especially before the major auctions in May and November.

13. The ultimate New York City month, the top-tier month, is December or January, right?

14. My three favorite NYC television shows: the 2003-2007 Queer Eye, Sex and the City (which I’ve only seen small bits of), and How To with John Wilson.

Thank you so much to Damien, Hannah, Jake and Peter for hosting me, and to Brion, Erin, Masha, Richard and Sophia for hanging out. And I thought I was going to see Djokovic win the first men’s Grand Slam since 1969 and he instead lost in straight sets to Medvedev, but I enjoyed that too.