9 quick thoughts on moving to NYC

+ more things to check out

Hello to all the new readers out there 👋

Coming to you from an air mattress in Manhattan and I do have a few thoughts…

1. Everyone pays a lot.

I’m in Manhattan near the Lower East Side. It used to be cheap here, now it’s expensive. I think my rent is high, I google for across the street and it’s even higher. This is definitely one of the most expensive places to live.

2. How do people afford this?

It’s a question I ask every time I walk into Target, the hardware store, the pizza place or the maintenance people who fixed something in our bathroom. I’m no economist, but it feels like the whole thing would fall apart without rent control or subsidies.

3. It’s smaller than you think (the apartment that is…and Manhattan for that matter).

Our apartment wasn’t different than advertised, it was just the shock of the lifestyle downgrade from a 3 BDR / 2.5 BA to a 2/1 with 2 kids in tow. Lots of single people in Nashville have a bigger place than this. The first day with an empty apartment and how much we were paying really hit me for the first time.

4. Everything is close.

I can walk to Target and Trader Joe’s (I live in a nice place!) and get in and out fast.

5. Nothing is close enough.

My wife bought a desk from a person 5 buildings over. Maybe a 1/4 of a mile. I didn’t have a dolly and the service place that have them were closed at the time. It was a long haul. In Nashville, I would grab my car pull up to their front door and throw it in. Easy. I went to Target 2x (almost 3x) the other day because I couldn’t carry everything we needed in one trip. I like density but cars aren’t all bad :) There has to be a city with a good medium, maybe this is it. I don’t know.

6. Writers love this place.

It’s not only the center of publishing, it’s also the center of people watching, of bumping into people, of people with diverse skin colors, of people with diverse accents, of people struggling and achieving big things. There’s a story around every corner.

7. Writers love each other.

Once you have #6 in place, the circle jerk starts. You promote one writer who promotes another and another, and then they mention you in a story, and a place in a story, and the self-referencing gets rewarded because the people in power reward the people they like. The ecosystem builds. As a writer and a bad-selling novelist this system used to drive me crazy. Now, as I’m older, I understand the value of networking, relationships, sceniuses. I’ve seen literary ambitions bloom elsewhere, and yes, the internet has flattened a lot of this, but there’s a competitiveness that gives it real juice. I haven’t experienced any of this (yet?!) but I’m keeping an eye out.

8. The pizza is good

My friend John in Nashville who is originally from Jersey and lived in NYC for a year or so said that the best pizza in Nashville was the floor here. I’ve gone to 2 semi-random places and the pizza was amazing. S/o to Rosemary’s and Saint Pizza.

9. No returns on air mattresses or camping chairs

Our moving truck hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t think we’re the only ones. Target said no returns on air mattresses. The hardware said no returns on camping chairs. Everyone buys these when they arrive and then tried to return them once their stuff arrived. That’s my theory at least. We didn’t do a great job on this part of the move. We did not save plates or silverware or too many glasses or our own camping chairs. C’est la vie.

Why?

This wasn’t random but we weren’t opposed. My wife works in Christian ministry and she received a job offer at a church in Manhattan. It’s a calling that we’re both a part of. We could make it work and we are making it work. We are grateful for this and without that calling and the grace of God we wouldn’t do this. It wouldn’t be worth it otherwise.

I have a stack of New Yorkers next to me (subscriber for like 3 years?) and I just threw away a copy of NY Mag (subscriber since soon after college?) and so you could say I’ve been interested for a while.

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More Things

1. I wrapped up Trust by Hernan Diaz and The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen. I’d recommend both and they both prepped me for NYC in their own ways. Trust is a meta-novel about a financer in the early 1900s and The Best Minds is a memoir/case study of two friends, one who has schizophrenia.

2. My wife already grabbed her New York Public Library card and requested The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe for me, which was recently re-released with a new foreword from Rachel Syme.

3. KB is one of my favorite rappers and he just released his new album, His Glory Alone 2. Speaking of, one of the next books I’m going to grab is his book, Dangerous Jesus.

4. Weird that I drove all the way through Virginia, including north of Richmond for the first time when *that* song hit it big. Also weird that I know a few songwriters in Nashville who would kill for exposure like that. Good take at The Atlantic.

5. My new obsession is HoopGrids. I shared this with my NBA group chat & the people went bananas. Big NBA fans only.

6. The Greatest Blog Rock Albums of All Time. I love me some Los Campesinos! At Uproxx.

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Last Things

“Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud.” — James Baldwin

Keep going,

-Josh Spilker