6 posts tagged “nyc”

Yesterday and early this morning, while talking about our impending move to a new apartment a few blocks away in a much bigger building (and no longer on the ground floor), Alaina and I talked about how being in a larger complex essentially acts as a fairly effective form of security through obscurity. Unfortunately, as always seems to be the case, the conversation was prescient.

As the most insufferable of his actions while we were contemporaries in high school, the kid who was president of my senior class interrupted his speech during our graduation at regular intervals to serenade us, a capella, with portions of the theme song of Cheers. Yes, the TV show.

I have to confess, I hadn't thought of this in years until today, when it came back to me what that otherwise unmemorable song is about: Being a regular. One of the great civic, and particularly urban, traditions of our culture is the idea of being a regular at the establishments that form part of the routine of living in a true neighborhood.

I realize it again because the past few days, as I've been home after a particularly long and arduous time on the road, and have been suffering through something of a lingering cold, I've gotten the chance to encounter time and again the fact that I'm a regular in my neighborhood. And that the sense of belonging, the sense of place, that this inspires is why the East Village, for me, feels like home.

From Saturday, I visited my neighborhood barber for haircut. The establishment's sign out front says, in big letters, "Neighborhood Barber". That's probably all the context you need for setting the scene. I trundled in with unkempt hair and a happy new year greeting, and got an affectionate, "Hey, happy new year! The usual?" in return. Now, I am not celebrating a new year, of course, but despite our neighborhood being predominantly hispanic, I'm probably the only person who frequents this barbershop who's not jewish or muslim, so it just seemed appropriate. And more importantly, I didn't even have to say "Number two razor, keep the sides and back natural" and my hair ended up as it should. If I hadn't have shaved the day before, he would have done that, too. Very dignified. There are some non-Muslim, non-Jewish regulars at the barbershop, too, mostly really skinny almost-famous hipsters who bring with them magazines or CD artwork showing the photo shoots where they try (unsuccessfully) to get Neighborhood Barbers a styling credit for their part in the burgeoning star's fabulousness. The guys at the barbershop always nod politely and then get back to cutting hair.

From yesterday morning, while heading out to a meeting, I walked by the guy who runs the tea shop at the end of the block. (It's like a coffee shop, only they serve a gentleman's drink.) Nothing more than a nod, but he was acknowledging me as somebody who makes his business go, and I was acknowledging him as the most talented enabled of my caffeine addiction. Fair exchange.

Yesterday evening, rushing back from being at a conference all day, I got into the corner laundry just as they closed. Well, technically, after they closed. The mother and daughter who run the place held the door open, and even retrieved my bag of washed-and-folded without me providing my name, phone number, address, or any other ID. "You almost missed us!" was half-teasing, half-scolding, in true Asian mother fashion. But I still got my clothes back, no problem.

Then today, at lunch. I went to eat at Ssam Bar, a block and a half from where we live. It's a much-praised restaurant, with a not-quite-celebrity chef, sure. But it's also a neighborhood joint where they know us as regulars, and take care of us accordingly. I wanted to try out the bento box, which I've never had, and while i was there (the place was almost empty!) a woman came in, asking basic questions about the place and clearly only there on a recommendation. I asked if it was her first time there, and told her "That's David Chang, he started this place." as he walked by, in the midst of me explaining how the pork bun was the place to start at lunch if you wanted to really begin to understand the menu at Ssam. Some more pleasantries were exchanged, and she made the (correct) decision to have her first visit be at dinner. The skeleton staff that watches over the place brought me a Diet Dr. Pepper, no need for me to order, and when I left and started to bus my little tray of food, they shook their heads. "Don't worry about it."

For all the (over-)explaining I've done about why I love New York City, it's probably never been more complicated than the simple fact that in the East Villlage, in the places I live my life, the people here know me, and I know them. We have a shared context, of being multiethnic and vaguely Asian and obsessed with food and in so many ways, really old-fashioned. New York is the biggest of big cities, of course, but my experience is actually a lot more personal and personable than when I lived in a small town. And it's a place where I feel like a regular. Where, you know, everybody knows your name.

A lot of you who are friends and family already know this, but I thought I'd post it for those whom I haven't told -- we're moving back to NYC!

Alaina's been super busy launching Serious Eats (more on that later), and finding us an apartment, and I've been running around travelling for work, but somehow in the midst of all that, we've found ourselves on our way back to Manhattan. Here's the deets:

• I'm still doing exactly the same work for Six Apart, just from NYC. (I'm on the road much of the time, anyway, so that's not a big change.)
• We're going to be living in the East Village, right near where we lived before we moved out to SF.
• I'll still be in SF regularly, and in the 6A offices all the time.
• Hell, yeah, I'm excited!

I'll probably write a big, long, boring post like I did when we moved out to SF, but for now I wanted to just make sure everybody in my Vox neighborhood knew. Let's see if we can get the scoop on Valleywag now. :)

Vox wants me to account for where I've been:

How many places have you lived in your life?

I guess I'm supposed to do this as a bulleted list, but maybe it's more fun as a narrative. I was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but my parents were living at the time in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, a suburb that was right across the Susquehanna River. As if spelling "Susquehanna" weren't difficult enough, our neighborhood was nestled in a bend of the Conodoguinet Creek. Try spelling that as a 6-year-old.

I'm one of the few people I know who lived their entire childhood in a single house without ever moving, but I am really glad it turned out that way. I came home from the hospital after being born, entered grade school, went straight through middle school and high school, and then started my own company, all under that roof.

Right before I turned 19, I moved to College Park, Maryland, for an ill-fated and mercifully brief jaunt at the University of Maryland. Though I didn't enjoy school, this was a really fun time for me because I lived with my sister. We had a pretty nice apartment and her friends were cool, so that made it somewhat bearable. I dropped out of school pretty quickly, though, and ended up back at my parents' house in Camp Hill. My recollection of the time is that I barely lived at home, though, always being on the road or crashing at other poeple's places. Work had me away from home a good bit, too, as I had clients in D.C. and then New Jersey and later in Maryland as well. Eventually I got some clients in New York, particularly in Long Island. That was fortuitous.

In the summer of 1997, I moved to Manhattan. I've probably mentioned it a half-dozen times on my other blog, but I really had no idea what I was getting into, and it's a good thing, or else I probably wouldn't have had the guts to do it. I finagled a place on 10th street and 3rd Avenue (right by Stuyvesant) and that's when my love affair with NYC began. A few months later, I got an illegal sublet on a really nice one bedroom at 92nd and First and stayed there for almost a year until the superintendant balked. I got booted back to my folks' house for a few months (let me tell you -- there's no greater ignominy than ending up living with your parents after making a big show of having settled in NYC) and then bounced around from PA to Carmel, NY (the horrendous commute from there gave me time to start my blog) and eventually back to Manhattan. There was lots of drama involved in all that, but I ended up being at 94th and First, which is where the most annoying parts of the Upper East Side start to give way to a (to me, at least) much more pleasant vibe in Spanish Harlem. That's where I was living during the attacks.

In November 2001, I moved to 21st St, near 2nd Ave, to a oddly-laid out but very pleasant apartment near Gramercy Park. In retrospect, that apartment always seemed kind of temporary, maybe because everything was in flux back then. Strange to see that place as so transient, since that's where I lived for huge things like meeting Alaina and joining 6A. Eventually, Alaina moved up, and then at the end of 2003 we moved to 14th St at First Ave. That's probably the first place I ever lived that really felt like I had my own home.

I spent the first 6 months of 2004 trying to live in both our place in the East Village and in a motel in San Mateo, commuting for work. That was... suboptimal, and so it was time to head for California. In July of 2004 we moved to San Francisco, (I love that post because my dad commented on it with some of his own moving stories.) Our first apartment in SF was a bit yuppiesh, but pleasant enough.

About a year ago, we moved two blocks away from our first place in SF, after the first place converted to condos. The loft we're in now is probably the nicest place I've ever lived as an adult, and I can't complain about the one-block walk to work. I'm hoping there's no more condo conversions -- this place is the perfect home for where I'm at in my life.

Anyway, at this point I'm just rambling, and I haven't even covered the shorter-term living arrangements, like the 3 months I spent living in India when I was a kid. But it's late enough, and I'm tired of looking at the American Apparel guy's underpants, so now it's off to bed.

I like the menu here.