Farewell, Angelica

It's not a secret that New York is constantly changing. It is perhaps a vast understatement at best. Sometimes, the more I see it change, the more I worry about its future. Especially when it comes to places like Angelica Kitchen closing.

I first went to Angelica Kitchen, an East Village vegan/vegetarian restaurant, in 2013. And what's magical about it--or, what was, as today is the last day of service in the restaurant's 40 year history--is that every time I went back, the food was just as good as the first cold winter day I went in there. Right down to my last day there, this past Wednesday, when I walked in after a photography seminar to find the place whirring with people in a way I have never seen before. Normally it's so easy to walk in during the week and have the host seat just me at a petite table for two. I'd sit out, facing the restaurant and read the menu, always thinking I'd get something different...but I almost never did. The Dragon Bowl, a plate of steamed veggies and tofu served with dressing of your choice (I usually got the house-made vegan balsamic vinaigrette) and brown rice, was just perfect as it was and, as my mother often says, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'd sit and sip my cup of their Cranberte--a blend of teas and cranberry juice-- while I waited for the food to arrive, then delicately work my way around the plate of veggies with a pair of chopsticks until it was all gone.

Angelica Kitchen was, by all intents and purposes of the phrase, a neighborhood restaurant. Though the restaurant was absolutely fantastic, you'd never find it listed in anything like a top restaurant guide. It wasn't fancy, and the service wasn't always great, but it was delicious and reliable, the way your local diner might be. I'm curious about the number of restaurants in the entirety of New York City that have been open for four decades or more, places that have seen history come and go, that made history and made community themselves. Angelica served the community in the quirky East Village, but it also created a community around vegan and vegetarian food when it was still thought of as totally wacky 40 years ago. If you have read this blog before, you know that I'm not a vegan or a vegetarian--I simply love good food; better yet, good food that's consistent and affordable. I've also written before that finding a restaurant in New York that you want to regularly return to (and can afford to regularly return to) is no small feat. Restaurants close here probably literally every month, if not every day. In a city of so many options, you need something that makes people come back and Angelica Kitchen was one of the few places I regularly returned to.

But the restaurant had to close because of rising rents, rents that are rising because corporate chains are moving into the neighborhood. There's no limit to what rent they can pay, and landlords know that. So the independent businesses are bearing the weight of these decisions, and far too many of them--across the neighborhood and across the city--are closing. I have now seen several downtown performers like Tigger! and Penny Arcade accurately describe what's happening to our fair city: it's being infiltrated by the people we moved here to get away from. I'm scared that the closing of a beloved neighborhood staple like Angelica Kitchen will bring on many more and make the city into the suburban shopping mall I ran like hell to escape. Or, as The New Yorker headline so aptly put it this week: "The East Village Loses Another Place for the Young, Hungry, and Weird."

So here I am this Wednesday evening to say goodbye to this place that has kept me company so many nights when I wandered in alone after work or after shopping or just after a long day. I love macaroni and cheese dearly, but when you're in a rough mood and you need comfort food, sometimes the calorie count just doesn't pay. So I'd go to Angelica and treat myself to dinner, and suddenly so much would feel better. Miraculously, though I have almost always been a party of one here, I have never sat at the communal table to the left of the door. Tonight there's a rotating cast of dinner guests as so many other parties of one come in and out to say their goodbyes, too.

I am seated with a woman from Toronto, a man from Israel, and another man from Los Angeles. They have been coming here for five years, 25 years, and 17 years, respectively. We all share our Angelica stories this evening, each new person coming in and saying the same: "I'm so sad to see this place go." In between asking if you could please pass the pitcher of water or is this glass yours or mine? It's a place that has been a part of their lives: bringing new dates there, coming there after breakups, bringing family, friends, or getting take-out at Angelica To-Go next door. Later, a woman and her 20-something daughter come in and sit next to me: the daughter grew up going to music lessons across the street on the weekends, and they would come in to Angelica afterward for lunch. It may not have been the kind of place on a "Top Restaurants in New York" list, but it is definitely the kind of place that occupies a place in people's memories.

Soon my Cranberte arrives and the hot, sweet, tangy drink warms my tongue after a semi-chilly, almost-spring day.  It's followed by my Dragon Bowl, with its chickpeas, tofu, brown rice, greens, seaweed, and squash. I treat myself also to a maple tofu whip--I only rarely got dessert at the place, but I didn't want to leave just yet. A small swirl of the dessert arrives, topped with cinnamon and I take my time making my way to the bottom of its bowl, looking around at the iron chandeliers, the patterned wallpaper, the peach paint on the walls above it. There are still people waiting in line to get in, even though the restaurant closes soon. The man next to me orders a blueberry kanten parfait, a kind of jam trifle in a short glass, and shares with me. It's delicious, I think to myself, as I always did about any of the food there. And not too long after, the host spins the "Yes, We're Open" sign around and it's time to go. I look back, and the words "Sorry, We're Closed" in the window make my heart ache.

Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with Myq Kaplan

“Celebrity comedian Myq Kaplan washes dishes!” I joke, standing in Myq’s apartment, clicking my camera’s shutter while he cleans a glass in his sink. 

“Celebrities, they’re just like us!” he laughs.

In the nearly 15 years Myq has been doing standup comedy, he has been a finalist on Last Comic Standing; appeared on television as a standup guest with James Corden, Conan O’Brien, David Letterman, and Comedy Central Presents; and released a Netflix special called Short, Dork, and Handsome. He has also recorded three comedy albums—Vegan Mind Meld, Meat Robot and, most recently, No Kidding—and has a podcast called “Hang Out with Me” on the Keith and the Girl network. Myq travels all around the country for work, sometimes to several cities in a week, at least one show every night. 

Tonight there’s two, one at the “I Don’t Get It” comedy show at The Hi-Fi Lounge in the East Village, and another at the “Bitches’ Brew” comedy show at Halyard’s, a bar in Gowanus. First, though, it’s time for tea from a mug with a big K on it, an episode of New Girl, and some conversation. 

I have known Myq for a few years, and one of my favorite things about him is how you can see his brain working while he’s talking, plucking portions of words or ideas from the edges of stories to initiate new ones. To the point where it was almost unsurprising to learn he had a Master's degree in Linguistics, another field where it is a requirement to think about the placement of words for a living. 

My other favorite thing about Myq is the level of depth and thoughtfulness he offers to any question that’s asked of him. When we sit in his apartment, I ask how he is feeling. The room goes quiet and he picks up his guitar, a bright light beaming next to him. He strums, filling the space between chords with his answers, carefully constructing a response. The state of being creative in times of political crises can be difficult, he’ll say later, leaning in his doorway. Sometimes it’s important to offer an escape, and if that escape can bring people happiness, then all the better. 

We don our winter gear and head into the night. Early to the first show, Myq paces around the block talking on the phone to his best friend Zach, another comedian who is based on the West Coast and is a regular part of his day. 

The back room at at the Hi-Fi is small but has an enthusiastic audience. He’s a great first act for the night with his clever, intertwined jokes that double as studies of language, and soon the room is bubbling with laughter. After his set, we depart for Halyard’s, to a room so packed the host has to guide us in once we arrive. Myq sips a glass of wine and waits for the previous comedian to finish. He adjusts the microphone, clears his throat, and begins. 

Follow Myq on Twitter and Instagram.

Things We Do In The Back of Taxis

At 11:15pm I am in the back of a taxicab and I am thinking about all the things I have done in the back of a taxicab. I have argued with people and I have yelled on the phone, I have kissed men, I have gossiped, I have eaten granola bars, I have fallen asleep, I have texted and sent emails though I can’t really do that too much because reading or typing in a car makes me feel nauseous. I have also cried.

It’s a strange thing to do all of these things in the presence of another person you don’t know, but somehow we feel in New York like the, yes, transparent glass is enough to separate us, to create a barrier between ourselves and the person driving. They’re not looking, we think to ourselves. They can’t see. 

But they do see. It’s part of their job to look in the rearview mirror to see what’s going on in traffic behind them, and in the process they will the passenger in the backseat. The one who is sitting quietly next to the right side of the car, orange light streaming onto her hands and face, illuminating the droplets that have been continually trickling out of her eyes for the last 10 minutes. 

“How is your night, miss?” the cab driver asks me. 

“Not great,” I say, my voice with the slight tremble of a person whose day was not as good as “not great.”

“What did you do tonight?” the cabbie asks me again. 

“I drank tea,” I say, with a slight shortness this time, with less of a tremble. I don’t feel like talking and I hope I can make it known without being rude. I appreciate his effort to relieve me of the weight on my brain, but sometimes the weight can only be moved by oneself and tonight is one of those times. 

There’s something cathartic about being in a taxicab by yourself, like it’s a space you can release all of your negative emotions into that will just disappear when you’re done. In the history of your life as a New Yorker, you may never see that cab, that driver again. You can take a moment to be your worst self, to be ugly and too sensitive and too emotional and just too…too in ways that most people never see you. Because soon the one person who has seen it will ride off into the night and perhaps pick up someone else just like you, or a drunk girl who forgets her heels on the curb and makes them go back for the shoes only for her to then throw up in their car, and they’ll forget all about you. As transient as we may feel our lives are as New Yorkers, it’s possibly even more transient (no pun intended) for taxi drivers, the way they see the breadth and depth of human experience from the front seat while we only experience our own lives in the back.

Lights of Park Avenue whiz past as we head to my home, getting periodically caught in traffic on the way, because it’s New York and of course that happens and has now happened more times than I can count. At this point, it more amuses me than annoys me (though it does definitely annoy me), because how wonderful is it that even when the rest of the country is going to bed our little island is so busy there’s actually traffic? That’s something I find healing this evening, yet another evening where I feel the city understands and complements me, complements all of us, in ways we need it to when we need it to. 

I notice the cab driver periodically looking back at me and I don’t care. I continue to weep openly yet quietly in the back, my face convulsing in sadness. I am definitely what is known as an “ugly crier.” Not like the time I had food poisoning and was yelping and crying in pain, so much that the cab driver asked if he should take me to the emergency room. Not like the time I yelled through tears on the phone, stressed out about being stuck in traffic and not being able to get work done on time. I cry with sadness and fear. And as sad as I am, it feels good to release the energy into the cab. 

We pull up to my apartment building. 

“Life is sometimes good and life is sometimes bad,” the cab driver says to me. “But it is life. Everything will turn out for the best, you will see.”

“I hope so,” I say, sniffling and full of doubt but wishing to believe. 

Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with Sunny Facer

“Just got here :)” Sunny Facer texts me. I’ve just entered the Guggenheim but, amidst the herds of people in black coats, I don’t see her right away. Then, as if in a movie, the crowds part and there she is, a long, furry taupe coat over a patched denim jacket and jeans, luxurious, long black hair cascading down her back. She hugs me, hands patterned with ink, and smiles. 

A photographer and videographer, Sunny is originally from Seattle and came to New York to develop her career—which she has done, working with places and people like Milk, OAK, Jason Rodgers and Bruce Weber, all while doing her own work. She is currently developing a stylishly shot video series called Hidden Kingdom as part of creative duo Sacred Pact. 

When she's free, she visits museums and galleries, ideating for future projects. So today we're at the Guggenheim. Preferring to walk around unencumbered, Sunny checks her coat and bag, removing from it a white leather notebook and a black pen. We head into Frank Lloyd Wright's swirling museum space. 

Interested in artist processes, Sunny prefers to look at work before reading anything to develop her own opinion. How does an artist successfully go from intention to result? She asks them as if asking herself. 

Sunny is drawn to Picasso’s 1931 work “Woman with Yellow Hair,” a painting in which a woman is painted in lavender and black curves and swirls, yellow hair falling across her shoulder. It is, the museum says, “less a portrait than an homage” to former lover and muse of Picasso’s, Marie-Thérèse Walter. “I like this,” she says, a soft smile crossing her face before moving on. 

We pause for coffee in the museum’s cafe, sipping and discussing film. Sunny is learning more about film as she expands her video work, and will sit for hours watching classic films. Most recently she saw Amadeus, she tells me, but is always looking for recommendations, especially in terms of storytelling. 

Next we amble through the “Tales of Our Time” exhibition, which features new works commissioned from Chinese artists. We pause for several video works, but stand totally still at “Can’t Help Myself,” an installation by artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu in which a massive machine desperately tries to keep red liquid from flowing past a certain point. Sunny watches, transfixed. When the liquid moves in several places at once, the machine has a fit, twisting its body in all directions. It’s deeply unsettling and powerful, this possible metaphor for authoritarian absurdity. 

Needing a bit of lightness, we head to the gift shop. Sunny runs her red fingernails over Maurizio Cattelan books, unusual keychains and mirrors. Time has ticked by, and she has to leave to edit a video. We walk outside, and there’s smoke billowing from a hot dog cart. “Do you want me to walk in it for a picture?” she says. “It might look good.” She walks. It does. A natural storyteller herself, she knew it would.

Follow Sunny on Instagram. 

Miss Manhattan in Paris

I found out I was going to Paris nine days before I got on the plane. It was for work, to write about different aspects of the trip (more on this after the articles come out!), but I also ended up having a nice amount of time to myself to wander the city aimlessly, which is usually my favorite thing about traveling.


My first day there, we landed at about 9:30am, and my free time began shortly after that. I set my sights on a touristy option first, a visit to Shakespeare and Company on the Left Bank, and then resolved to amble about in hopes of not looking like an annoying American after that. Visiting the English language bookstore,  named similarly but not actually related to the one in New York, would cross another literary establishment off my list, right behind City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.

I resolved to take the Metro there, as it was a shorter trip than it would be from my house to Union Square, and huddled in front of the ticket vending machine, hoping I did not look like a tourist. But the line I used, Line 1, was very easy to understand, and I shoved my tiny Metro tickets into the entryway like a non-tourist (I hoped, anyway). Shakespeare and Company was a lovely space, with a practically ancient staircase, twisty, turny bookshelves, a piano, a designated bookstore cat, and spaces for their legendary Tumbleweeds to sleep.

I had asked HanOre if she wanted me to bring her back anything from Paris (she lived there for a semester while in college), and she had only one request: "I would like you to leisurely eat a fresh baguette, preferably in some garden or park, and have the time of your life." So, after Shakespeare and Co., I discovered by way of the website Paris By Mouth (recommended to me by another gal on the trip), that the baguette voted the best in the city in 2016 was a mere seven-minute walk away at a bakery called La Parisienne. I walked in and waited in line for one of their baguettes, asked in French for un baguette, s'il vous plait, and was answered in English. Well, I tried, at least. I got a traditional white baguette for about 1.2 euro, and wandered out of the store. It was a Monday when lots of things are closed, so unfortunately the nearby fromagerie was not available. I bit into the baguette and it crunched under my teeth in a way that no attempt at a baguette in America ever had. Its insides were fluffy but chewy and just a little bit eggy in flavor. It was nice to know what a baguette was really supposed to taste like.

I made my way past Notre Dame, crunching along as I went. It's funny, but at the time I forgot that the French actually sit and eat their meals in places like humans, not like Americans who want everything on the go. So I perhaps looked my most American as I crunched over the bridge past the famous cathedral and through Ile St. Louis. To my credit, there was a gentleman walking out of La Parisienne crunching on a baguette as he walked down the street when I got there...but hindsight is 20/20 and he may have been American, too. Le sigh.

I decided I was finished crunching my baguette as I found myself in front of the The Hôtel de Ville, which is not a hotel, but the Parisian city hall. If only New York's city hall could be such a feat of architecture, people might actually want to go. I was on my way to Kilo Shop, another recommendation by HanOre, where consigned and vintage clothes are sold by the pound. Miracle of miracles, I ended up with an '80s hot pink leather jacket for 16 a mere euro, a feat which would never, could never happen in New York.

Time before my evening engagement was winding down, I had a baguette in my purse, and a plastic bag filled with a leather jacket, so I made my way back from whence I came. Not before sitting and enjoying a latte as the French do...though if I'm honest, I was jonesing for a hot take-away beverage all day. They don't do those in France, silly American, unless you go to Starbucks, and j'ai patently refusé. Coming all the way across the Atlantic just to have Starbucks, can you imagine? My soul was crushed simply thinking about it.

*

The next time I had a moment to myself, I went to Jeu de Paume. Though 'jeu de paume' actually was a ball and court game that was a precursor to tennis, Jeu de Paume is a museum that's set up in a former 'jeu de paume' court outside of the Tuileries gardens. It's dedicated to modern and post-modern photography, video, and cinema work. While I was there, I was able to see the work of surrealist and documentarian Eli Lotar and video artist Peter Campus.

As I left the museum as the sun was setting, the Eiffel Tower and Roue de Paris in the distance. I stared and whipped out my camera, not worried for once about my tourist tendencies. I watched the blue sky fade to orange, then hopped back on the Metro.

Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with Véronique Hyland

Véronique Hyland’s pants are splattered with paint when she walks into the lobby of New York Magazine’s building at 1 Hudson Square. They’re a relic from high school she tells me, and she ingeniously wears them with with a coordinating cadet blue furry coat, brightly colored sneakers, and a black t-shirt. It’s a fitting look for a fashion editor, especially in the middle of Fashion Week.

Véronique has been the Fashion News Editor at New York Magazine’s The Cut since 2014, having previously worked at both ELLE and Harper’s Bazaar. Her writing, into which she has sprinkled her sassy, dry wit, has also appeared in The New Yorker, W, and The New York Times. During New York Fashion Week she bounces from show to show in between meetings and more writing and emails and lunch and more shows.

When the day begins, Véronique is at her desk, surrounded by a drawing of John Cheever, a standing cut-out of Barbie as Karl Lagerfeld, a button that says “Taste is Bondage,” and a Last Supper image designed by a friend starring Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, and Taylor Swift. She is working on an article she’s especially excited about for the site, about the brand Chromat using models of all sizes, backgrounds, and genders at their show that day.

After a few updates, it’s time to head meet with designers of a new brand called Vaquera. Vaquera, which means “Cowgirl” in Spanish, is based out of Brooklyn and blends traditional work uniforms with high-fashion influences and a sense of humor. This means in their latest collection there are baggy, army green work pants with an attached corset and a Jean Paul Gaultier for Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour -style bustier. Véronique understands them and likes that they have a sense of who they are and something to say about the place of their designs not just in fashion but in culture.

Then we’re off to a presentation of Water Clothing in a suite at the Greenwich Hotel in Tribeca, braving the February ice and slush on our way there. Upon our arrival, the excitable co-designer of the collection talks about the pieces in the line, casual, loose fitting cotton and velour pieces meant to “make a Parisian wear a pair of sweatpants.” Véronique takes his excitement in stride, calmly asking questions and nodding to his responses. Toward the end of the meeting, we’re given hand screen-printed bandannas, and we head out into the cold, back to the office.

Véronique will have two more shows that day, the aforementioned Chromat and later, after a light snack at the nearby Ear Inn, Jeremy Scott. On the way to Skylight Clarkson Square, home of many Fashion Week shows, she tells a story about being starstruck when meeting Tom Ford, all the while expertly maneuvering throes of people trying to take and be photographed for street style photos in  front of the venue. She brushes her hair out of her face and pulls her sunglasses over her eyes, unfazed.

Follow Veronique on Twitter and Instagram.