Saying Goodbye to the New York I Once Knew
Many of the places most pivotal to my life in New York have permanently closed during the pandemic.
I picked up my first “Reasons to Love New York'' issue of New York Magazine when I was a college student. I scanned its pages like a homework assignment and made a list of all the things I could actually afford to do. If it meant waiting in line for the “it” street cart vendor or using my student ID to score a discount ticket for an off-Broadway show, I’d do it — anything to feel like I was getting “the real New York experience.” Somehow, the magazine made the massive and bewildering city feel less like a labyrinth and more like a treasure map. You never knew what magic was hiding around every street corner.
In December of 2020, the “Reasons to Love New York” issue was published for the 16th time. Instead of an exciting list of places to go and things to do, the issue featured a heartbreaking and sentimental farewell to 500 businesses, restaurants, corner stores, and other establishments that were forced to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a fitting tribute to the imperfect New York that was, even as it raised so many questions about the New York that will be.
Last summer, I mourned my own experience in New York when my partner’s job moved us (and our two cats) across the country to Manhattan Beach, California. We had a brief honeymoon phase with Los Angeles — a decent-sized home, a five-minute walk to a beautiful beach, and a constant flow of impervious sunshine. But after summer ended (and COVID-19 threatened its resurgence), the honeymoon was over. We spent nights reminiscing about the bar where we met, the Peruvian take-out joint in Murray Hill that we’d order from and divide into a week’s worth of leftovers, and that time the water stopped working for 10 days in my roach-infested NoLita two-bedroom. We had so much nostalgia for New York, and couldn’t wait to at least visit again. This time, we’d take the city by storm, take nothing for granted, see all of our friends. Maybe even (finally!) get married.
We were fools to think that New York would remain the same after we left. In his iconic essay, “Here in New York,” E.B. White famously wrote: “to a New Yorker, the city is both changeless and changing.” While we were romanticizing the city that brought us together, she was transforming drastically. As I skimmed the pages of New York, I saw closures of the places that fed me, sheltered me, and haunted me. Whenever I passed by these places on a walk or a cab ride, it felt like entering a time machine to specific memories and inflection points in my life. So, here’s my unofficial ode to my most memorable places — seven of the very reasons I will always love New York.
Yoga to the People
This pay-as-you-will yoga studio smack in the middle of St. Mark’s Place may as well have been an extracurricular course at NYU. Practically my entire residence hall would walk to class together, feeling very cosmopolitan. Back then, the aspiration of every boy in my friend group was to make enough money to score a coveted monthly membership to (the now defunct) David Barton Gym, where the muscle daddies and fashion queens went to see and be seen. A couple of us even went to take a tour, inquiring after the membership fee and flinching at the thought of paying $300 a month to lift weights while cruising.
For better or worse, Yoga to the People was all we could afford, and it was pretty much the polar opposite: a bunch of people crammed mat-by-mat into a long, tall room, with a 20-something instructor urging us to block out the melée on the streets below in order to find our centers. This is where I took my first yoga class and actually learned to love it — once my friends and I stopped making stupid jokes about being in “downward dog.” One day in class, I found myself directly behind legendary performance artist Amanda Lepore, and attempted to match my Warrior One to hers. I caught her eye and smiled, and she smiled in return. It was no David Barton, honey, but it was a lesson that in New York, you can find glamour just about anywhere.
Century 21
After scoring an internship at Teen Vogue during my first semester at NYU, I was convinced I needed to overhaul my entire wardrobe. I promised myself I was not going to be Ugly Betty. (Looking back, I am saddened to say that I was absolutely Ugly Betty.) In a spell of good timing, my parents decided to visit the city just before Christmas to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, a Broadway show, and my dorm room. After we toured the 9/11 Museum (before the Freedom Tower was erected), I carefully steered my reluctant father into the discount department store Century 21, knowing I’d be able to convince him to buy me a great first-day-at-my-internship outfit. I came across a gigantic cashmere Missoni cardigan in the brand’s signature zig-zag pattern, all rendered in sumptuous neutral tones like beige and camel. I wrapped it around myself, saying out loud that I needed this more than anything in the world. (I have problems.) My dad plucked it from my hands and took it downstairs to the cash register, griping about how I’d never be able to make enough money to afford the life I wanted. (He was and is correct.)
In the cab ride afterward, endorphins still surging from the post-purchase high, I realized my wallet was nowhere to be found. “Oh boy, Phillip. You live in New York now, you can’t be doing this shit! When are you going to learn?” my mom hissed. Little did she know, I was a New Yorker now. I told my parents I’d meet them at their hotel and ordered the cab to pull over, hopped out, crossed the street, hailed another taxi in an instant, and zipped down Broadway back to Century 21. Retracing my steps, I went to the exact area where I’d found my beloved cardigan. I pushed piles of sweaters and t-shirts aside, then got down on my hands and knees, praying for mercy. There, in the middle of the sales rack, was my wallet, untouched. When I finally got to the hotel, my mom was relieved and amazed. “You have some luck, kid,” she said. And I really believed that to be the truth.
Bedlam
There are two pitfalls to being a college kid in New York. One: If you’re under 21, much of the city’s nightlife is off limits to you (unless, of course, you had a fake ID). Two: Drinks are expensive. If you try to keep every meal you eat under $10, how could you justify a $14 vodka soda? Well, my college pals and I really thought we’d gamed the system. Each of us found our way into procuring a fake ID by second semester freshman year, and most of the bouncers at gay bars in the city would glance at them, laugh, and let us in anyway. And since none of us could afford to buy drinks at the bar, we’d all pregame at somebody’s fifth-floor walk-up, get absolutely hammered on shots of Svedka, then walk together in a gigantic, frenzied troupe to the club. Most weekends, that club was Bedlam, a hot spot for young gays that was owned by Anderson Cooper’s boyfriend. We all dressed in varying shades of basic — the tightest possible extra-small t-shirts you could imagine paired with the tightest possible jeans you could imagine, all drenched in Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue cologne.
Once inside, we’d head straight for the dance floor (usually overseen by The Misshapes) to thrash around like maniacs. We’d stomp around, always missing the beat, screaming lyrics at each other like the club was our own private karaoke room. In retrospect, we had the best soundtrack imaginable for being young, gay, and stupid: Robyn’s Body Talk, Kelly Rowland’s musical phase with David Guetta, the advent of Ke$ha, Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. Unfortunately, the bathrooms at Bedlam were located right next to the dance floor, so our dramatic performances of “Call Your Girlfriend” were occasionally interrupted by wafting smells of piss and shit. (Who poops in the club?!) We always wondered why the guys at Bedlam never wanted to make out with us, but looking back, it makes perfect sense — we were annoying, ill-behaved twinks who thought we owned the place. Defeated and devastatingly single, we’d wander the streets at 4AM searching for a 99-cent slice of pizza. We may have complained that we were going to be “forever single,” without ever acknowledging what a blessing it was that, for the first time in our gay little lives, we didn’t feel so alone.
“To a New Yorker, the city is both changeless and changing.”
—E.B. White
BaoHaus
As an assistant at Condé Nast in 2013, I could barely figure out how to make rent on time each month, let alone have disposable income for “dining out.” I was terrified of credit card debt, so for the first few years of my career, I paid cash for everything. As a result, my life was a constant dance of avoiding overdraft fees. Luckily, I consulted New York Magazine’s other quintessential issue, Cheap Eats, like it was my Bible. If the critics agreed that it was good and inexpensive, I’d add it to my list.
Chef Eddie Huang, I read, created an affordable take-out establishment called Baohaus, serving steamed Taiwanese buns stuffed with pork or fried chicken. And luckily for me, it was located right off the 14th Street subway stop I frequented on the way to my then-boyfriend’s Stuyvesant Town apartment. For $10, I had a whole, delicious dinner, which I’d usually finish before I even arrived at his door. He couldn’t understand my obsession with the place (and about ten thousand other things about me). When we separated after 10 months together, I was pretty devastated — not because I missed him. I missed those damn pork buns.
Porsena
After two years of “paying my dues,” I was appointed digital editorial director of Teen Vogue, and my entire life seemed to fall together like a storybook. I met my real-life Prince Charming, and we moved in together after one year, shacking up in a one-bedroom near Bellevue Hospital to minimize his work commute. I initially planned for Teen Vogue to just dabble in politics, but it quickly became the biggest source of our audience growth, so we attacked the presidential election of 2016 from all angles. Suddenly, I was exposed to all sorts of people, causes, and information that my career as a Beauty Editor had never shown me before. These were formative years in my life, precisely because I was growing up as my very consciousness was being raised and challenged on a daily basis. When I looked back on the past few years of my life, I could barely recognize myself.
This development also spurred the growth of the divide between me and my family. My eldest brother was well known for making homophobic jokes and other politically incorrect jabs either at me or around me, designed to instigate or humiliate me. As a kid, I either ignored or laughed along with his jokes, considering it all in good fun. But suddenly, as an adult man with a growing sense of his place in the world, this kind of behavior was no longer something I felt comfortable accommodating. When I tried to set my boundaries, he only got meaner and more vicious. So I swore him off. I ignored his text messages, his phone calls, and even started to avoid my frequent trips to Boston for family functions. I could tell he was hurt, but that made it all the more frustrating that he refused to change his behavior and still expected me to get over it.
Somewhere in the midst of all this tension, my brother came to New York on a trip with his new girlfriend, and he asked if we could do dinner at a place of my choosing. I reluctantly agreed (after being harassed by my mother) and selected Porsena, Chef Sara Jenkins’ critically acclaimed pasta spot. We may have been in New York, but the food made us nostalgic for our Boston upbringing. Elevated riffs on the food from our childhood filled the table — homemade pastas, pork ragú, vegetables roasted and dusted with fine Parmesan Reggiano. Eventually, the awkward tension between us gave way, and we focused the conversation on the food and all its merits.
Once the meal concluded, we stood on the street and sized each other up before saying goodbye. The next morning, he boarded the train to Boston, back to everything he always knew. And I woke up in New York, to the life I was still getting to know. That night, the meal on the table made it seem possible — just for a moment — for our worlds to peacefully collide.
Lucky Strike
2019 was among the most chaotic years of my life. It was the year I jumped ship from nearly a decade at Condé Nast to take the editor-in-chief role at Out, which effectively blew up in my face. For all the sleepless nights and anxiety of that year, though, it was also incredibly clarifying. There were countless people who simply disappeared as soon as the going got tough, including close friends and mentors. Even colleagues who I’d helped with job placements or promotions carefully avoided my company now that I was no longer part of their crowd. I felt painfully, horribly alone.
Luckily, this moment was incredibly clarifying. Rather than focus on what I’d lost, I gained perspective on the things that really mattered. I got engaged, for one, and also found a new and smaller group of friends who brought me into their circles and held me close. The person who looked out for me above all was Kimberly Drew, a figure I’d mostly known (and feared) on social media. Kimberly was a person I’d featured multiple times in my work at Teen Vogue, them, and even Out, so we got to know each other very slowly and cautiously. But when things got bad, she yanked me out of my apartment (where I’d cloistered myself) and exposed me to her world. We’d walk through galleries and museum exhibits together in total silence, and then she’d ask me for my opinion as though I had any right to have one. Then I’d listen to her talk about her perspective, dazzled by her knowledge and clarity. After one journey, we ended up in traffic on the FDR, and she told me point blank that she really cared about me. That she made time for our friendship because she really liked and valued our bond. I was touched, but I also saw that moment for what it was: We were making a commitment to one another. We were friends, and this was real.
When it became obvious that I needed to leave Out, it was Kimberly who coached me through many of the pitfalls and pleasures of going freelance. In the process, she helped me realize something about myself. “I just want to see you happy,” she said, early on in our friendship. “And for this whole time I’ve known you, you have not truly been happy.”
According to Kimberly, 2020 was supposed to be my Year of Independence. This was the year I’d get what I wanted — speaking engagements! Travel! Book deal! Free time! Neither of us knew what was heading our way in just a couple months’ time. But back in January of that year, she helped me feel free and excited. After a long day together, we ended up at Lucky Strike, eating their perfect burgers, drinking martinis, and plotting our futures.
One martini turned into four, and the conversation became a slightly drunken confessional. I looked across the table at this beautiful, intelligent, fiercely compassionate person and felt so genuinely lucky to be there with her. I felt so loved, and not in a way that was typical for me. I knew how to be a career person, or a boyfriend — but I hadn’t yet navigated how to be a good friend. And then, Kimberly modeled exactly that for me. She saw that I needed a friend, and then she changed my life. We were planning to go to Spain together in 2020 to celebrate her 30th birthday, and I was already planning all the ways in which I’d get to tell her she was important to me. But since none of our big gorgeous plans for 2020 actually happened, I’m glad we got to laugh, cry, and love on each other at Lucky Strike. Whatever was in those martinis sure as hell sealed our friendship.
Speedy Romeo
The last time I had dinner in a New York restaurant was at Speedy Romeo. In early February, back when COVID-19 still felt like a distant threat, my partner Darien performed a stand-up comedy set (please, don’t ask!) at a small nightclub called Caveat, and a bunch of friends came to show their support. After the show, everyone was ravenous, and it fell to me to find a place to eat. Speedy Romeo, a pizza joint, was the perfect solution for a six-top without a long wait.
Sandwiched between our friends was Darien’s mother, Sheila, who held court the entire meal, asking probing questions of everyone and cracking jokes. By the end of the dinner, our stomachs hurt — whether from laughing too much or from one too many slices of pizza, we’ll never know.
At the time, that dinner felt practically routine. It was so common to have a mix of friends, family, colleagues, and sometimes even strangers around the table; it was comforting to know that everyone was just a subway ride away from home, and that we’d congregate again shortly. One of our guests that night was my friend Munroe, who brought her suitcase along with her so she could catch her flight back to London right after dinner. It was nice to see her, but I hugged her goodbye casually, wishing her safe travels and knowing with such certainty that I’d see her again in a month.
Of course, I’d see none of the people at dinner that night for quite some time. We are approaching one year since that evening, and I remember that casual pizza meal like it’s a relic of a bygone era. Sure, the food was good, but it wasn’t spectacular — it was more a conduit for conversation than anything else. Maybe in another timeline, I would’ve completely forgotten about this evening and Speedy Romeo altogether. But precisely because it was the last supper where I sat around a table, surrounded by the blended family I’d made for myself in this great, fucked up city, I can’t think of any place I’d rather be.
This made me laugh and cry. You have a wonderful way with words, and telling a story in a way that hits me with all the emotions. Thank you for sharing :)