New York

Happy New Year! I spent New Year's in NYC and it was one of those fantastic trips full of good food, visiting some of my favorite places, amazing coffee, and wonderful times with old & new friends. I had one of those perfect New York moments that makes me miss living there; late one night I was taking a cab home from Brooklyn, it was snowing, and as we went over the Williamsburg Bridge and up First Ave through the East Village the Jay-Z/Alicia Keys song "Empire State of Mind" came on the cab's radio.

Yeah, yeah more excuses and more posts about leaving New York. I've been trying to think of a post the last few days, and honestly, my life has just not been that exciting since I left New York. Or, at least exciting enough to write an interesting post about...there are lots of things I'm excited about (we finished unpacking the apartment; I found a fantastic sandwich shop around the corner from my office; my bangs have finally reached my eyebrows; I set up my drum kit and the cats are obsessed with it)....they just aren't really worth an entire post.

But this morning as I was walking into work, I realized that my new office and my old office perfectly encapsulate the differences between living in New York and living in Boston.

My old office was right on West 125th St, just down the street from the Apollo Theater. It was noisy and always crowded and full of crazy traffic and tour buses and a million things going on. I worked in one of the ugliest buildings (a new-ish concrete monstrosity), surrounded by a combination of decrepit old buildings, restored old buildings, amazing cultural landmarks, and new construction. There were a ton of places to eat soul food or fast food, but it was almost impossible to find a salad for lunch. We shared the building with a range of other organizations and companies, meaning there were always lots of people of all ages and types in the lobby. We were forced to take the elevators up to the third floor as the staircase doors were locked from the outside; sometimes you'd have a nice chat with someone else in the elevator, but I never hated this more than the morning the small child going to the health clinic on the second floor vomited all over the elevator just before the doors opened. I would see tourists in the neighborhood and they usually seemed excited to be there, rather than catatonic as they usually look in midtown or Times Sq.
My office had a long wall of windows overlooking 125th St, facing south, and every time I wandered out of my little cave to look outside, I would see a panorama: just below me, the hustle and bustle of 125th; further away, the skyline of Manhattan. You could see the weather coming in across the city, and the sunset at the right time of year, and hear sirens and car alarms and yelling all the time. My personal office lacked windows, and in fact there was a large conference room and a couple of offices between me and those windows, so I only saw daylight when I left my little office; in the winter that might mean 10 minutes of daylight total, all day. But my office was comfortable enough, and in fact was larger than the bedroom in my Brooklyn apartment. Every major train line and several major bus lines were within walking distance of the office, making it easy to get anywhere in the city; and my coworkers lived everywhere from Washington Heights to Astoria to Cobble Hill to Westchester County. I worked in a number of neighborhoods while I was in New York, and Harlem was the one I liked the best (of my work locations). It felt the most like New York City, full of life and excitement, but it also felt like a neighborhood--I would see the same people on the street every day, there were lots of small businesses (although less and less as time went on), there was a strong sense of history and community.

My new office is in the clock tower of a historic building (not the one pictured above, but similar). It's surrounded by a number of other 200-year old buildings, all built facing a small plaza with trees and benches. It's a gorgeous old brick building surrounded by trees. It's sort of out of the way in relation to public transportation. There is not much traffic and according to my coworkers, it is possible to find free street parking if one gets there early enough. I take a curving staircase up to the third floor, and then ascend to a loft space that's actually in the clock tower, which I share with two other people. (I had to re-arrange my desk to make the hatch to the clock accessible.) My desk faces two large windows, through which I see trees and rooftops, and the weather coming in. It shakes and creaks when it's windy out, and you can actually feel the air coming in when it's stormy. I imagine it will be rather chilly in the winter. At this time of year, we get so much sunlight we have to close a shade in the late afternoon in order to be able to see our computers. Occasionally I hear a siren, but other than that it's just the wind or the building creaking. The best sandwich shop ever is right around the corner, but other than that, there's not much--pretty much every place you can walk to just has sandwiches, salads, and soup; maybe pizza if you're lucky. We share the building with a very fancy design studio, meaning the people I see in the morning are very well dressed and not that friendly, but at least they aren't vomiting in the elevator. (Obviously I have high standards now.) Once in awhile I miss all the buzz and energy. But I realized this morning that at this point in my life, seeing trees every day and being able to look out a window is even better.

Yes, it's true. I'm leaving New York.

I've been offered a very exciting new job in Cambridge, MA, and since that guy I kind of like also lives up there, I'm relocating. It's very exciting; I've been wanting to leave New York for awhile now, and this new job is pretty much exactly what I would be doing if I had sat down and written my dream job description. On the other hand, now that my move to Somerville is just a month away (exactly), I'm realizing all the things I will miss here, not the least of which is my wonderful friends and the community we've created over the last six years. Of course, over time that community has scattered to Germany and Thailand and Scotland and San Francisco and North Carolina and Washington, DC, so really all I'm doing is pushing it north a bit. And there's email, and skype, and cell phones with free long distance, so as much as I will miss hanging out in person all the time, I'm confident we'll remain in touch. And now I have (even more) reasons to travel.

I have lots to say on the topic of leaving New York, and will undoubtably post on it, but I'm also pretty sure new content on this site will be limited for the next month as I try to cram in finishing up at my current job, seeing all my friends as many times as I can manage, doing a few last only-in-New York things, packing up everything I own, selling a few things, and finding a sublettor, all in the next 30 days!