New York, NY-   A resident friend and I were strolling through the West Village on a sweltering August evening last year. I was visiting from Chicago. She, the Upper East Side. We were in search of a place to cool off and relax after an evening at a crowded Bleecker Street club, and she is asking me why I don't live here. I didn't know how to answer her. My childhood was spent near the City (born LI, grew up in the Valley), and I had only been gone the past four years. This was my second, almost month long visit to New York in the span of 8 months. It was becoming an expensive habit.

Raised in a conservative home, New York was seen as the root of all evil and nerve center for licentiousness and frivolity. My mother and father, from Queens and Nassau Co., respectively, made constant, impassioned attempts to detract from my City longings. Mom would tell me that if I went there, i'd just get in to trouble, or when that didn't work she'd tell me horror stories of when she attended tech school in the wilds of Jamaica and how that was no place for anyone to live. I would bring home one of Ed Koch's breezy memoirs, only later, to find the book missing. "You shouldn't be reading that. It's nonsense," intoned the parents. At 13, I was a little confused -- I liked Koch! What's wrong with that! I found other ways to learn about New York life - I read Jonathan Kozol's Rachel and her Children, (a chilling account of the Martinique Hotel and other SRO's in the '80's), Father Bruce Ritter's Covenant House: Lifeline to the Streets and other books that chronicled the desperate existence that was reality for so many New Yorkers at that time. I would sneak week old Metro sections from the Times out of the recycling center of my father's office building and bring them home. Thankfully, I managed to elude the parents, and I devoured City news with a ferociousness. Once I began high school, the Times became a daily tradition. The Metropolitan Diary (then on Thursdays, I believe) was one of the highlights of my week, and I submitted my first story in 1994 at age 17, which was to my great joy, subsequently published. It was at that moment, that a glimmer of my future appeared. Who knew? Three years later, after being away from home for a sufficient amount of time to find my own voice as it were, the obligatory phone call I made to announce my plans to the well-meaning but in the past, non supportive parents went off without a hitch. For some reason, they'd forgotten their endless warnings and attempts to discourage me. They were excited.

MY BIG NEW YORK STORY: I arrived November 21st, 1998 with $800 in my bank account (i'm no good at saving money) and my grandparent's address. I had brought along a west coast friend to share the driving. I was so excited to show him the city I didn't even realize I was actually there for good until he left. We entered the city through the Lincoln Tunnel on a warmish Saturday night, and as we turned right on to 42nd Street and drove through Times Square, all the way to the UN and down the FDR Drive, I was on air - I was in New York! My friend was equally impressed, further validating my decision to live here. Yes - I had it easy - My Polish Pop and Irish Nana were waiting for me with open arms, and their support made my first 6 months in town possible to endure. What I did not figure on, however, was the fact that Suffolk County, is well, different from the City. I had a new goal - to get into Manhattan as soon as I could. You laughl, shaking your heads knowingly -- and well you should. Although within two weeks I had found what I my self termed "the ultimate scam," it soon became the "unparalleled nightmare." What i'm describing (a lthough words fail the hideous nature of the situation) was the $240/mo studio share at 73rd and Broadway, directly across the street from the Ansonia. Under normal conditions, you'd never let go of a deal like that, would you? Right - unless the roommate's mentally ill. Well, he was, and it didn't last long. By the time I moved out, I was low on cash and between temp assignments, so my only hope was (again, to the rescue!) Nana. I left with what I could carry (literally), hailed a cab on Broadway and headed for Penn Station. The dream deferred! Not a happy time. No job, no prospects, and if not for a few sympathetic friends that called me faithfully those few weeks on Long Island to make sure I was doing okay, i'd have cracked.

Fast forward past a whole handful of Blockbuster Nights and other painful suburban moments to a month later, when I got the call that changed my course much for the better. (It was a contact of my aforementioned friend, who had on that sticky August visit offered to set a plan in motion that would essentially change me forever.) I was being offered the opportunity to run copy in the newsroom of one of the major Manhattan daily papers. And while at the time it all seemed a little hazy, I wasn't about to say anything but yes, and there I am today, with no money and a boat load of aspirations. And that's often an exhilarating place to be, i've found. New York has become for me what it has been in the past for so many like me - a place of opportunity, of hope, of promise. And while it can be equal parts hell and heaven, each moment is always worth it - where else have I ever lived and continually been able to wake each day with excitement for the future, and not even that far - the day ahead is often too much to swallow at once! I have now begun to truly know what it means to live. It is out of this passion for New York (city and environs) that a column and this web site is born.

It happened one afternoon on the long A train ride home from The Cloisters. I had spent an afternoon on that windswept hill high above the Hudson River, occupied with a variety of activities: reading a good book, observing the early springtime foliage and equally beautiful people around me, and gazing at the Palisades and the George Washington Bridge, alternately. It is simple moments like this that characterize New York for me. We are all dutifully standing clear of the closing doors at 181st Street when it hits me, and by the time i'd reached a friend's on 40th Street, I had to tell them all about it. They mumbled something about a cool idea.

And here we are.
Join me - I'd love to hear from you, your comments, your stories - my hope is to be heavy on city stories in this space. If you or anyone you know is involved in something that really makes New York special, i'd be honored to talk about it in this column. So let me know! This is dedicated to each and every New Yorker, and to those who are passionate enough about our City to care, but unfortunately find themselves living elsewhere. I can identify! Really.

See you next week!

Email: dj@asan.com

Next Update: 9 August 1999

all contents ã1999