I recently learned that the NYC Department of Records had put their tax photos from 1940 online.

I thought I’d look up some of my family’s old pre-war residences and see what we could find. I found the site of my great-great-great grandmother’s shop in Williamsburg(h) and the house my grandfather dwelt in in 1940.

As is our custom, we took a mid-October travel break this year. Thanks to the pandemic this, as has been everything this year, was a little bit different. Due to New England’s strict quarantine regime (good for them), we decided to stay in the Empire state so that we could honor the best health practices.

On the other hand, we really wanted to see some pretty foliage. I found the leaf peeper map on and realized that the upper-right corner of the state near Lake Placid was most ideal, and so we made reservations in Lake Placid.

Complicating all this was that a week ago my viking of a wife underwent surgery and had spent a week resting and recuperating on bed. At the prospect of canceling, she wasn’t having any of it and she insisted we go on. We both had the suspicion fresh air, movement, and nature were an important part of her healing, and we were right.

Yesterday we gave notice to our landlords of intention to vacate. While it’s hard to believe, New York is the longest city Lauren and I have lived in and this apartment is the most enduring apartment we’ve been in.

• We moved here two jobs ago for me, one for her
• We decorated and even hung wallpaper
• We bought blinds and storage
• We had a one-year old dog, he’ll be seven tomorrow
• We were unmarried when we moved in, we got engaged and married in the time we were here
• We survived a year of a pandemic here
• We survived the misrule of a prevaricating, orange would-be strongman

For all the flaws of dealing with NYC landlords, it’s been a good decent Manhattan apartment and I’ll miss the giant picture frame window in the bedroom that looks out across West End Avenue and Riverside Drive into the Hudson. That view has seen fog and snow and rain and sunshine and the Hudson’s watery systole and diastole has made me feel rooted in this island.

Introduction

We’d been inside the house on the ongoing, COVID-occasioned, try not to mingle too much light quarantine since October, so these same four walls, same routines, and same behaviors are really wearing us down. On top of that we had successfully navigated the straits of the darkest and coldest parts of the year, so we were really feeling the need to get back out.

Unfortunately, the New England states’ guidelines all indicate that New Yorkers were not wanted (not without non-light quarantine, at any rate). As such, we decided to try to get some natural exposure within New York state. As we pondered where to go, we concluded that we wanted to go back to the Finger Lakes, where we visited this Summer, again.

We thought it’d be nice to do our previous trip two seasons later so that we could see what that upstate life looks like outside of its most idyllic season — that is in depth of winter. Afterward, we decided we’d do a bit of a “staycation” and enjoy NYC for a few days.

I’m glad to see that the vaccine roll-out has finally touched our lives here. Owing to my age and asthmatic status, I was able to get in right before the general 30+ free-for-all and got my first “Fauci Ouchie” today.

The first two nights of this past weekend were rainy in Manhattan. Here’s a bit of the experience of taking an intestinally unwell (🤢) dog out in the middle of the night in the middle of a downpour.

“The Automat” is a joyous film that recalls the arrival and departure of the automatic restaurant, the automat, Horn and Hardart in Philadelphia and New York. Guided by and framed with interviews with H&H aficionado Mel Brooks, the story of a scrappy restaurant that believed in good food for the people, all people, in a beautiful environment was nostalgic, tender, and sad. As Brooks recounts: you could never make it today, it makes no sense to accounting that something so naive and good and cheap could ever be conjured again.

As we shuffled out my seat neighbor leaned over and confided: “They didn’t mention it, but the mashed potatoes were pretty darn good, too.”

Cover Image Credit: Lauren Roth

We arrived at JFK on the evening of November 15^th, 2014, and have been living in New York ever since. We arrived late in the evening, spent the night at a hotel near JFK, and then moved into our apartment in Park Slope on the 16^th. So much has changed over this decade, but we’re still, to our mutual surprise, here.

I’d like to reflect on the major moves of my life:

• Austin → South Bay Area
• South Bay Area → Austin
• Austin → San Francisco
• San Francisco → New York City

And how, upon reaching New York, I couldn’t find anything else to opt for and how it felt better to opt against everything else. And so I/we’ve stayed.