There are girls wearing oversized blazers in Williamsburg and Michael Cera bought a brownstone in Bed Stuy

Thoughts about a changing New York as a New Yorker who spent about a decade away from the city and is now back, most likely for good. (A New Yorker writing about New York - how original!!)

I wrote the bulk of this post back in June and never hit ‘publish’, so when I reference things like ‘the other night’ and ‘last week’, I’m actually talking about June. Instead of changing this, I’m just adding this disclaimer and letting my intelligent readers figure out the rest.

The other night, I was in Williamsburg for a friend’s birthday. As I was walking to the bar, a group of very trendy gals walked by my husband and me. One of them was wearing a lime green oversized blazer (one had leather pants, all had perfectly dyed hair, the third was in a tweed skirt, I think). They look cute, I thought. Williamsburg really is something else now, was the thought that followed. This obviously isn’t new news — Williamsburg has had a Whole Foods for over a decade, after all. And the truth is, I am a little too young to remember a pre-gentrified (or gentrifying) Williamsburg. I was in high school in the late ‘00s, when it was becoming a cool and affordable place to live. Rent was still affordable, but transplants and others had been settling for a few years. By the time I graduated high school in 2009, Astoria, the next neighborhood over from where I lived in Woodside, was starting to see an influx of people moving in who couldn’t afford Williamsburg (but still wanted to be near a bridge, I guess).

A few days later, I was on the bus and passed the new Shake Shack in Bed Stuy. I still can’t believe there is a fucking Shake Shack in Bed Stuy, I thought. (A really very important aside, I love Shake Shack. This isn’t a dig, but it is commentary. Williamsburg also has a Shake Shack, after all). Yesterday, my friend mentioned that she ran into Michael Cera in Bed Stuy, and then sent an article confirming: Michael Cera bought a brownstone in Bed Stuy. Celebrities are moving to Bed Stuy. When did that happen?

I was born at New York Hospital (now Weill Cornell) on the Upper East Side in May of 1991. Growing up, I lived in Queens (on the border of Forrest Hills and Rego Park until 2006), in the Bronx for about a year, and then back to Queens (this time on the border of Woodside & Astoria). In the 4th grade, my mom started working at, and I started attending, a school in the Greenwich Village so I started the daily commute into Manhattan for school for the rest of my non-collegiate education.

When it came time to go to college, a small liberal arts college outside of Baltimore, MD gave me enough financial aid that it was cheaper for me to go there than to go to the state school in Westchester I thought I would end up at. So, I left New York, for what I thought would be for the four years that it would take me to graduate (and during the spring semester of my first year, for a split second, I considered transferring to CUNY Hunter and never leaving New York behind, as I really believed Towson, MD was the worst place in the world. I actually subtitled a paper ‘Towson, MD is the worst place in the world’ for an American Studies class, where I looked at the then-current state of suburban America). But I stayed, I graduated, and after a few more years in Baltimore and a cross-country move to San Francisco, I didn’t find myself living back in the city until 2019, a full decade after moving away for college. I never expected to leave for so long, it just happened.

me, out and about, 2006-2023. I will not be discussing any of the hair, makeup, or fashion choices pre-2015.

And in my time away, New York continued to grow and change and shift, as it does. When people would ask why I would leave (this mostly happened in Baltimore), I would respond “New York will always be there, and I’ll be back”. I truly took for granted the fact that New York, as I knew it, would always exist. That places like Yellow Rat Bastard and Pearl Paint must’ve had 100-year leases they would never get out of, that my bagel place would always be my bagel place (RIP The Bagelry on Hudson and Christopher), that a Metrocard would never cost more than $2.

And while the historic blocks have remained the same, the restaurants and bars that occupy those ground-level storefronts have changed. Places I thought would always be there have been replaced by CityMDs and dollar pizza places (which now are apparently $1.50 pizza places. Make it make sense). A falafel and can of soda at Mamoun’s, which in 2007 was $3, is now $7.50. One time, I walked to a coffee place I’d loved from memory and couldn’t believe it when I was confronted with a Wells Fargo instead. Now I always look up these places before I go, especially in this post-COVID world. Things look the same but they are also so different.

A walk I used to take often in my old neighborhood shows a lot of the development happening along the Gowanus. A neighborhood I can no longer afford.

Inflation is obviously at an all-time high, and that probably makes this all so much more obvious (as the list of neighborhoods we can even pretend to be able to afford to buy a co-op in dwindles). Changing New York neighborhoods and landscapes is also a tale as old as time—when I was a teenager, I remember my mom not wanting me to stay in Coney Island too late because of the Coney Island she remembered in the 80s. I remember touring a high school on the Lower East Side and her not being thrilled that it was all the way past Avenue D. The apartment my grandmother grew up in didn’t have a toilet—she used one in the hallway in her Hell’s Kitchen tenement. Now, buildings in Hell’s Kitchen have Amazon lockers in the lobby. I’ve heard stories about how beautiful old Penn Station was before it was demolished for the ‘70s hell hole it is today, and am pleased with the full circle moment we have seen since the construction of Monyhan Hall, which attempts to recreate some of that beauty. So while the details are new, the shell is much the same. I’m just old enough to really see it.

The history/NYC landmark nerd in me loves how the airiness, arches, and even the hanging clock of Moynihan Hall is a nice nod to the old Penn Station (a place I’ve never known but have coveted from afar).

I’m curious about the New York my kid will grow up in and wonder what his experiences will be. Barnes & Nobles are dying quickly—where will he spend a Friday afternoon with his friends when it’s too cold to be outside and no one wants to spend the money to sit in a pizzeria? Will he ever swipe a physical Metrocard, or will he only know the world of contactless payment via OMNY? What old New York tropes will I hold on to that he will roll his eyes at when he’s in high school? How many times will he let me talk about the uncomfy seats at Shea Stadium before he cracks?? (One thing I hope has changed—I hope it’s much harder for a 15-year-old to purchase alcohol. Mom, not speaking from experience thought…just from what I’ve heard…)

I think all of the above is what makes New York—and growing up here, specifically—a bit bittersweet. There’s always something new and exciting to explore, but that also means you’ll try to walk to a cafe from memory and end up at a Wells Fargo or CityMD.

I'm closing with these two incredibly juxtaposing photos. On the left, we have me at 14, barefoot (?????) at the then-brand new Hudson River Park in the West Village (the fact that I am barefoot is so appauling and disgusting, but I guess this is what they mean when they say teenagers engage in risk-taking behavior!!!) On the right, me at 32 as a mother! Truly two very different eras, separated by almost 20 years.