One Difference Between the City & Everywhere Else

From CityWendy's "The Big Day":

"Hey, you know what the difference is between a 40th birthday party and a 30th birthday party? At the 40th, half your guests have to get home early to relieve the babysitter. That's ok; more Sangria for us!"

And that's because we live in New York City. Back in North Carolina, that's largely how the 25th birthday party works.

Hotpads' Rent vs Buy Heat Maps

Gotta love Thrillist New York for its colorful, politically-incorrect, slightly offensive yet always hilarious summaries of all things New York. In a simultaneous renter's and buyer's marketed created by Fannie and Freddie - if they didn't take you under with them, Thrillist New York has reviewed a handy tool:

New York's high-priced housing presents a conundrum: start mailing hefty mortgage payments to a bank, or resign yourself to abetting your Ukrainian landlord's enviable lifestyle of hookers and kasha. Pick your poison with Hotpads' Rent vs. Buy Heat Maps.

A new, financially dispiriting tool from an established rental site, HP's maps counsel whether you should rent or buy via color-coded hoods: from light blue for steal-worthy purchasing opps (Jersey City, Forest Hills), to green for market average (Murray Hill, UES), to red for rent-worthy digs, e.g., SoHo and West Village (Manhattan's gated clubdivision). The site's calcs are automatically done via esoteric math wizardry, i.e., avg cost of ownership / estimated annual rent -- a formula that's confounded many a couch-surfer's TI81. To further assist your hopeless quest for shelter, HP plots icons for thousands of current listings, each clickable for photos and details, which even include moving solutions and storage units (there's an affordable option for you).

HP also provides additional real estate heat maps, like Household Income, Foreclosures per Household, and Median Age, thus illuminating another conundrum: how to get into the low-priced hood beset by a cabal of rent-control beneficiaries who just. Won't. Die.

See your options unfurled at HotPads.com

Shameless Plug

I was at a TastingNYC event at Taj tonight with Natasha (M. - not to be confused with my roommate Natasha S.), chatting about her "real" life without the "Tough Love" cameras while our friend Stacey flirted with a handsome guy named Larry over $6-wine specials. Natasha is no longer working with the Sex and the City tour group since she began her own tour company ShopNYC Tours.

Natasha has created a series of comprehensive shopping tours catered to your retail needs and preferences with convenient door-to-door mobile transportation, eliminating the stresses associated with available parking, slaloming crowded sidewalks, or lugging bags through subway turnstiles. At an affordable price (especially relative to the costs of parking and taxicabs in New York), she really does create a memorable VIP shopping experience in some of Manhattan's best-kept retail secrets and hidden gems.

If you are ever in NYC, you should go shopping with her! Tell her I sent you.

ShopNYCTours.com (Use code TUFLUV for 10% off any shopping tour!)

A Year Ago Today: "Things I Love" Thursdays - Random Acts of New Yorker Kindness
Two Years Ago Today: Connecting in Chantilly & Beyond

Phone Photo Ops - Basement Cooking Class

Walking home from work last night, I noticed the most interesting little cooking class in a basement near my apartment.

A Year Ago Today: No post

Two Years Ago Today:

Anti-Valentine's Day ≠ Anti-Romance

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Phone Photo Ops - Snow Log

New York's Got You Covered

You Say Potato, He Said An Entire Life

A few months ago, I took a picture of Joe Ades on my camera phone and forgot to blog about the entertaining potato peel sales demonstration that Terrence and I watched one Saturday afternoon at the Farmer's Market in Union Square. You rarely witness people, who truly love what they do, in the middle of what they're doing.

I guess it's never to late to be remembered.

"His Stage, the Street; His Rapier, a Peeler"

James Barron, New York Times, Feb. 2, 2009

A Year Ago Today: No post

Two Years Ago Today:

Brunching in the City

A Reason to Love Soho

Madison Square Park at Sunset

Sew New York Runway Show

Over & Over Again

I keep running into the same guy all over New York.

He used to promote nightclubs - which is how we met - and now works in event marketing. We became "facebook friends" months ago, but recently we've been running into each other in real life in the most random places. Once at 135th and Broadway, on a weekend just before I moved out of Harlem, when I was taking old clothes and shoes to donate at a local threft store. Another time on my way to a spa appointment near Madison and 34th Street during a lunch break.

And then last week, instead of going straight to the office, I had an early doctor's appointment. As I was walking down Ninth Avenue from my apartment, I paused to check out the brunch menu at a restaurant called Orchid. I was lifting my sunglasses off my face to get a better look when I heard a voice, "That's it. I know you're following me."

I started to laugh before I even turned around.

And a few weeks ago, my roommate and I were out strolling around Hell's Kitchen one evening, exploring our new neighborhood and collecting take-out menus, when a voice from my college years in North Carolina called out, "Katie!"

My R.A. from my freshmen dorm was sitting at the first table inside of a tiny, attractive hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant. I had not seen him in over five years.

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: No post

Movie Magic

Watching movies on the lawn in Bryant Park on Monday nights in the summer is like going to a show on Broadway. The audience applauds when the opening credits begin to roll; they cheer when the main characters first appear; there is a standing ovation at the end. From Casablanca last summer to Superman last night, it's the same magical experience, sitting on blankets under the twinkling lights of sky scrapers and stars in one of the city's many green oases.

Armed with wine, food and games, my girlfriends and I enjoyed a lazy evening in Midtown. If a picture says a thousand words, here are 1001.

Moviegoers wait anxiously for the 5pm stampede onto the lawn to claim the space where they will eat, drink, read, play cards and board games, chat and laugh until sunset.


We were lucky enough to score a spot behind this.


It's no wonder so many New Yorkers report finding love in Bryant Park.


Waiting for dusk.


This guy really could not wait.


And then it began.


A Year Ago Today: Weekend in Long Beach
Two Years Ago Today: No post

In Daylights

There is no better way to start your day than with live music from "Rent."

COMPANY
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minute
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Moments So Dear
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
How Do You Measure - Measure A Year?

In Daylights - In Sunsets
In Midnights - In Cups Of Coffee
In Inches - In Miles
In Laughter - In Strife
In - Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
How Do You Measure A Year In The Life

How About Love?
How About Love?
How About Love?
Measure In Love

Seasons Of Love
Seasons Of Love

SOLOIST #1
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Journeys To Plan

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand
Six Hundred Minutes
How Do You Measure The Life
Of A Woman Or A Man?

SOLOIST #2
In Truths That She Learned
Or In Times That He Cried
In Bridges He Burned
Or The Way That She Died

ALL
It's Time Now - To Sing Out
Tho' The Story Never Ends
Let's Celebrate
Remember A Year In The Life Of Friends

Remember The Love
Remember The Love
Remember The Love
Measure In Love

SOLOIST #1
Measure, Measure Your Life In Love

Seasons Of Love...
Seasons Of Love

One Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today: T Minus 5, 4, 3...

"Things I Love" Thursdays - Weirdness

I walked by this guy yesterday morning on my way to work.

Disclaimer: I only brave the crowds of Times Square ("bowling for tourists," a friend calls it), which actually aren't too bad in the early morning, just to catch a quick glimpse of my celebrity crush: GMA News Anchor Chris Cuomo. In the evening, I reroute up Sixth Avenue and cross town at Radio City Music Hall.

You know you're a New Yorker if you can see something like this and barely break step. You don't see this on Broadway ... yet you just did.
"Things I Love" Thursdays are inspired by "I Love New York" (BNY, February 14, 2007).

A Year Ago Today: Good, Bad & Ugly First-Year Moments
Two Years Ago Today: Last Night in North Carolina

Signing a Midtown Apartment Lease = Kia Rio Paid-In-Full + $1500 in Gas Cards

While packing up my small Harlem studio, it occurred to me that - between the two of us - Natasha and I paid up front more than the entire value of a basic Kia Rio to move into our new apartment.

But as I begin unpacking in Midtown, it feels good to be home in Hell's Kitchen.

Myths & the City

As I type, Tasha is attending the red carpet premiere of Sex and the City: The Movie at Radio City Music Hall. And while our clique is living vicariously through her "Stars and the City" night, we know that a Carrie-lifestyle on a Carrie-paycheck is a far cry from the fantasy that drives 20-somethings to New York in droves. Hell - I wouldn't be honest with myself if I didn't admit that the HBO series didn't add kindling to my blazing New York City fire when I was a college student living in North Carolina.

My friends and I shop at sample sales or hook each other up with the goodies and perks associated with our own careers. I have a box of cereal under my desk for lunch or I pack sandwiches during the week. We party in A- and B-list clubs only if we know the promoters hosting comped tables. Despite our decent upper-middle class incomes and jobs in the entertainment, fashion and publishing industries, even the cheapest bottle service is out of all of our budgets - if we plan to still make the rent. We pick brunch spots based on all-you-can-drink-for-under-$10 menus - not exactly the kind of places where you sip Veuve Cliquot mimosas next to ladies in floppy, widebrimed hats. And don't get me started on how we cram our lives into a modest amount of square footage at outrageous prices.

From amNY.com:
Cast members yesterday conceded that they were familiar with the critique that "Sex and the City" helped launch these changes by drawing out-of-towners hell bent on living the life at all cost. High-priced designer labels and extravagant lifestyles have been as much a part of the series as its four female stars -- Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon.

Nixon, for her part, is all too familiar with these bright-eyed girls. "When people come up to me on the street and say, 'I just got here from Iowa two weeks ago. Your show made me come. I'm like, 'Oh no,'" said Nixon, who plays reprising Miranda Hobbes. "People do come here looking for love, but what do they find?"

Quite possibly bad luck in love, cramped apartments, shopping trips that don't include Fifth Avenue and life in a borough other than Manhattan.

Even a recent article in The New York Times was a reminder that Sex and the City: The Movie is a movie:
Every year around this time, tens of thousands of postcollegiate people in their 20s flood the city despite its soaring expenses. They are high on ambition, meager of budget and endlessly creative when it comes to making ends meet.

Some tactics have long been chronicled: sharing tiny apartments with strangers. Sharing those apartments with eight strangers. Eating cheap lunches and skipping dinners — not just to save money, but so that drinks pack more of a punch and fewer need be consumed.

But there are smaller measures, no less ingenious, that round out the lifestyle. These young people sneak flasks of vodka into bars, flirt their way into clubs, sublet their walk-in closets, finagle their way into open-bar parties and put off haircuts until they visit their hometowns, even if those hometowns are thousands of miles away. Read more

But we keep on coming. Some leave, some barely get by, some make it. But I think few find that New York City will be something they would ever regret.

Summer Fridays

Right now, I'm sitting in my cubicle outside of my boss's glass office listening to Counting Crows performing live some 20-odd floors below. Arriving to work a bit early this morning, I noticed "Good Morning America" prepping for the first Summer Concert Series of 2008 in Bryant Park.

Upstairs, I went into my boss's office and opened her large window overlooking the park. The sounds of the concert below are currently drifting onto our floor and the other executive assistants are bobbing their heads in the row of cubicles alongside mine.

"We might work in the best building in New York," my coworkers and I agreed as we peered down into Bryant Park and enjoyed the light breeze through my boss's open window, "Michael Kors and Valentino sample sales and live concerts on Friday mornings."

"It's summer in New York ..." someone said as they walked back to their desk. Why did just those five words make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

My First Pair of Valentinos

The news of the rare, by-invitation-only sale in Valentino's corporate office in our building spread like wildfire. However, when I learned that the sale featured 50-80% discounts on items retailing from $600 to $85,000 - including the actual dress that Cameron Diaz wore to the 2007 Golden Globes, I decided to remain at my desk. As my coworkers raced for their wallets and the elevators, my boss pulled me aside, slipped me her credit card and told me to go pick something out for myself. I could not believe it. Finally, she said, "If you ask me a fourth time if I'm serious, I'm going to revoke my offer."

Without another word, I quietly accepted her credit card and followed the pilgrimage of women to Valentino. Of course, I looked for the cheapest thing I could find. Though I am sure I could have chosen a slightly more expensive clutch or a gorgeous jacket that caught my eye at 80% off of $2200, I just could not bring myself to do it. In the end, I selected a pair of shoes with a retail price of $645 and triumphantly carried them in their red canvas box to the register.

When I returned to the office, I gave my boss the receipt and asked, "Is this ok?"

She looked at it and laughed.

"Yes," she replied, "That is fine."

As I sat at my desk admiring my new shoes and wondering if I'll ever actually have the courage to wear them outdoors, I overheard my coworkers discussing their own purchases and the other shoppers they had noticed. Apparently there had been more going on upstairs than I had been aware, but being overwhelmed by sticker shock, I had not noticed the debutantes and ladies who lunch strolling among the items in the Valentino display room. And - having been lost in my own little world as I carefully considered the dozens of exclusive options that were suddenly available to me at the swipe of my boss's credit card - I had missed the hissed whispers of "That's [so-and-so]'s daughter" or "That's the wife of [so-and-so]."

Even though I enjoy an above average share of "exclusive" New York City nightlife - thanks solely to my gorgeous girlfriends who know all the right people and a few friends who are investment bankers - I often forget that there is this whole other world of elite Manhattanites coexisting around me, who actually purchase the $20,000 crocodile handbag - whether or not it's on sale. Even the dramatized insights into this mysterious realm provided by The Real Housewives of New York City and Gossip Girl carry with them a suspension of disbelief in which I rarely pause to consider that there are regular people (i.e. not celebrities), who actually get to live like this every day.

Now I have my own pair of shoes equal in value to half my month's rent, and I can put them on and feel like Carrie Bradshaw floating over the cobblestone streets in the West Village. But it's strange to remember that my friends and I will always likely be the girls that the true Manhattan socialites grumble about when they say, "It seems like they'll let anyone in here now."

Phone Photo Ops - Valentino

Entering Valentino for the by-invitation-only sale


My first [and only] pair of Valentinos


The dress hanging among $2,000-$38,000 dresses

Yes, I typed the zeros correctly ... $38,000

I have never seen an $85,000 price tag in my entire life

What Do Guacamole, Brisé volé, and Hookah Have in Common?

My first time experiencing the New York City Ballet at a sneak preview for their Spring Gala program - following dinner at Picante and preceded by a girlfriend's birthday party at Kush Lounge - can be summed up with one of my cliché moments last Saturday night.

In the front seat of a cab racing down Madison Avenue, I turned around and said to my three friends in the back, "Aren't our lives fabulous? Where else can you have a night out with your girlfriends that includes awesome Mexican food, a performance by the New York City Ballet, and a private party at a Hookah bar?"

Chicken Little

You never know what random array of miscellaneous-ness might be strewn throughout the hallways of my apartment building. A used diaper. A broken 40-ounce inside a soaked paper bag. A condom wrapper.

Phone Photo Op - This morning, there was a chicken leg.


Yes, $1200 a month for a 350-square foot apartment. Drumsticks gnawed to the bone included at no extra charge.

"In Washington, the first thing people tell you is what their job is. In Los Angeles you learn their star sign. In Houston you're told how rich they are. And in New York they tell you what their rent is."- Simon Hoggart

Look to the Cookie, Elaine

In our team's weekly meeting today, my boss reported that there were a lot of intoxicated Irish and Irish-for-a-day types wandering the cross streets of midtown by noon: "One woman was so drunk she could barely cross 42nd and Madison."

There may be few cities in the United States that take St. Patrick's Day as seriously as New York does (or like White people do). It feels as prevalent in the streets as Christmas. Ok. Maybe not Christmas. It's like the spring version of Thanksgiving and beer is the turkey.

Last year, I was Irish twice. Once in Hoboken in early March and a second time in Manhattan on the 17th. The bars of the surrounding boroughs can't compete with Manhattan's alcohol establishments on the nationally-recognized St. Patrick's Day so the only solution is to have multiple St. Patrick's Days within a 25-mile radius of the city. It's quite nice.

Today everyone and everything was Irish, even the classic Black and White Cookie. "The cookie that says 'New York'" was saying, "Eat me. I'm Irish" today.


Phone Photo Op - The Green and White Cookie in the window of The Breadstix Cafe on 8th Avenue at 23rd Street. On a day when 99.9% of New York City was looking to the beer, Breadstix reminded us that we can still - we can always - look to the cookie. Because "if we can't look to the cookie, where can we look?"

"The thing about eating the Black and White cookie, Elaine, is you want to get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate. And yet somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie all our problems would be solved."
- Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld episode no. 74, "The Dinner Party"

M-I-C-K-E-Y ... M-O-NYC

On my way to meet City Wendy, DrunkBrunch and Misguided Misadventures in NYC for an uptown dinner at China de Puebla last night - for which I was running late, of course - I suddenly realized that I didn't know exactly where I was going - other than somewhere in my neighborhood. I texted DrunkBrunch: "Where am I going again?"

That's the life of an executive assistant, working late and so busy managing someone else's life, I can't keep track of my own. That's why all of my bills are on auto-pay, including (or perhaps especially) my rent.

I wish I could share some of the hilarious conversation from last night, but I will reserve it with my private memories out of respect for blogger anonymity. I will, however, disclose that the evening ended with multiple sightings of an unexpected and bold four-legged guest.

From MMNYC's morning-after email:
"I was shrieking at the waiter, like he could do something (Amanda, you are kind to use the nicer word, assertive, but really I am just bossy as hell), Wendy was keeping her screams contained [and then let them out on Broadway], Katie was pleading with the waiter not to kill our furry friend [at least not in front of us] ... ridiculous! I CANNOT believe that happened!!! ... But OTHER THAN THAT, I'm glad we got together, uptown-mouse style!! Let's do it again soon."

DrunkBrunch wrote a charming haiku to summarize our evening.

A very tasty meal, an adorable restaurant, fabulous women, great conversation. And a mouse. So New York.

La China de Puebla presents a unique menu and celebrates a beautiful Asian-Mexican legend. In an effort to redeem the restaurant in light of the mouse-sighting, here is a phone photo op of my delicious dessert:


From the restaurant's website and as featured on their cocktail menu:

NYC has Small-World Syndrome

So, I walked into H&M to look for a cocktail dress to wear to tonight's party at Kevin's apartment. I didn't find one there (that's what I get for waiting until the last minute), but I did come across an old acquaintance from Cullowhee, North Carolina.

As I browsed the racks with Iris, Angie and Natasha, a guy approached me and said, "Is your name Katie?"

I didn't recognize his face immediately, but quickly realized that he is a current Western Carolina student that I had helped get into college during my post-graduation, 3-year admissions counselor stint. A native New Yorker, he is back in the city for the Winter Break. We chatted for a few minutes about mutual friends and the dramatically changing landscape of Western Carolina's campus (the university has been undergoing a multimillion dollar facelift for a few years now).

As we parted ways after musing over our chance encounter, I said to him, "Don't you love this about New York?"

Later, after finally finding a dress at BCBG with about five hours to spare, I was was walking along West 40th Street to Seventh Avenue to catch an uptown train to Harlem. I looked up Broadway at the barricades and crowds gathering in Times Square and couldn't believe a year had passed since Terrence and I had waited there for the ball to drop into 2007.

Just before descending into the subway at 34th Street, I texted Iris, who was already en route to her own apartment to get ready for the 2008 countdown, "Girl. There is no better feeling than walking in the streets of new york carrying a bag containing a gorgeous dress! :)"