I'm in my hobbies era

You know, like nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills

Today marks this newsletter’s 4 month birthday and my 34 year birthday. If you have a Virgo in your life, may I suggest celebrating them by taking charge of planning an activity? They’ll know that they could have done a better job themselves, but they’ll appreciate the initiative nonetheless. This weekend Lorenzo took charge of gathering all of my friends for a birthday lunch at Zaab Zaab because when you’re in your thirties getting all of your friends together is an event.

Grace at

The Simple Things

posted a great Vogue article about being childless in your thirties (I am by choice) and the author stating that she’s in her “hobbies era” really resonated with me. In the last year I’ve had park picnics with new friends, climbed mountains, been to the top of the Empire State Building, and watched a plant of mine absolutely fucking thrive. There is so much more I want to do and I can’t wait to do it all. I’m in my hobbies era, bitch!

Anyways, I’ve been listening to Bethany Cosentino’s new album on repeat and it is the perfect “I was an insufferable indie kid and now I’m a weird adult" in my thirties” playlist. We are all dying.

1. Noshing 😋

Over the weekend I visited the Renegade Craft Fair in Greenpoint. I picked up an adorable egg dish that I’ll be using as a spoon rest and a little piggy bowl that is currently holding some matches near my candle table. I’m currently in the market for a matte black candle wick trimmer (why are they always gold/rose gold? matte black will hide the ash! someone pay me for my ideas). After my skin cooked in the sun at the fair for an hour, I was in need of shade and food.

I’ve been wanting to stop by Acre for ages now because their pork katsu looks amazing and fam, I was not disappointed. I’m a sucker for a bento box. Little compartments, each filled with different treats? Sign me the fuck up. In addition to the pork katsu, the bento came with purple rice, charred brussels (the best way to eat brussels), pickled radish, and salad with yuzu dressing. Every bit was delicious and the pork katsu fully lived up to my expectations. She was thicc, she was juicy, she was crispy, and the katsu sauce drizzled on top was the perfect lil savory sauce. Lorenzo got the karaage bento and let me try a bite - the chicken was mad crispy and had a nice light yuzu flavor to it.

What’s Lorenzo eating?

The front of Acre is a little shoppy shop in its own right - they sell tea towels, ceramics, and pantry staples. They also have a bunch of yummy baked items (I was eyeing the matcha loaf, love me a good loaf) and their matcha is from Kettl (we stopped there earlier for matcha pre-craft fair). There’s a good amount of street seats, but the indoor and backyard seating are also pretty big so there are plenty of tables. If you’re looking for a tasty bento (or sandwich, they have sandwiches!) I would definitely recommend Acre in Greenpoint. They’re conveniently located next to Davey’s Ice Cream in case you’re like me and have a separate ice cream stomach.

2. Watching 👀

Friendly reminder that the folks at SAG-AFTRA and the WGA are still on strike. This week, the AMPTP resumed negotiations with the WGA, but early reports of the outcomes of those talks aren’t very promising.

Somehow in the last week I watched all 3 seasons of Dead to Me and while part of my review is going to make it sound like I didn’t enjoy this, I assure you that I enjoyed this show a fuck ton. I seem to have a habit lately of watching tragi-comedies and I’ve really enjoyed exploring grief through humor. If you haven’t watched this but plan to, then I suggest skipping this and going in watching blind because I think you’ll enjoy it much more.

Each season sort of has its own murder-mystery backdrop, but at its core this series was about female friendship, which is a theme that I feel like is becoming more mainstream as studios realize that women exist and we have friends and feelings and thoughts more complicated than “shopping!” Linda Cardellini’s Judy and Christina Applegate’s Jen become the unlikeliest fucking friends but watching them communicate so honestly with one another was goddam refreshing. They expressed worries and fear and love and gratitude and sounded like actual human beings when they did it. No hate to the wordy Kevin Smiths and Quentin Tarantinos (actually, yes hate to QT because that guy sounds like a dick), but sometimes it’s nice to hear people on the screen speak exactly how I speak. Thoughts aren’t always fully formed and sometimes just yelling “fuck” gets the point across.

I want to be a Judy, but deep down I know I’m a Jen because this is my general internal monologue

I absolutely loved the first two seasons, but season three faltered a bit for me and felt like it was just rehashing the previous formulas that worked. Why does that always happen? By season 3 I had also begun feeling like Judy’s character fell into the manic pixie dream girl trope (I recently film-splained this trope to Lorenzo and now he notices it all the time and I fear I’ve ruined some of the magic for him). Despite literally dying in the third season, she consistently exuded so much (toxic) positivity and her purpose seemed to be to solely make Jen’s life easier, as blatantly evidenced by her folding 1,000 paper cranes while going through chemotherapy because Jen was bad at it. Throughout the first two seasons their friendship seemed much more symbiotic and I was disappointed to have this revelation because it kind of ruined the show for me. To be clear, I did still cry for the last 20 minutes of the finale, so it wasn’t completely ruined.

Anyways, as fun as some parts of season 3 were, I sort of wish it ended after season 2. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for more James Marsden, I fuckin love to hate that guy. If you haven’t watched him in Jury Duty, you need to do that immediately. And if any of you have watched Dead to Me, I’d love to hear your take on it!

3. Exploring 🛼

Last week Abigail of

This Needs Hot Sauce

posted a picture of a colorful building to her Instagram and I immediately recognized it! 246 E 4th St in the East Village has been dubbed the Most Colorful Apartment Building in NYC by the Village Voice and I was so happy to see a recent photo of it showing that it’s upheld that designation. The building is owned by Tony Echeverri and I think other building owners in NYC should take note because this is how it’s done.

It’s right on the corner of Ave B and E 4th St!

Tony came to NY from Colombia in the 1970s and worked a variety of odd jobs, even learning “how to make five breakfasts in a single minute” while working at a diner in Queens. After saving up for two decades, he happened upon this building for sale in 1992. It had hundreds of building violations and was close to being condemned, but Tony fixed it up along with a small team. He rented the first one bedroom he restored for $700/month. But Tony didn’t just restore the building, he made it a home.

“Every mind is its own world. I like to see things that are different from my everyday surroundings. I don’t like plain brick,” he told the Voice. “Now it’s a palace. It’s a paradise.”

Tony mixes all of the vibrant paint colors himself and repaints the building every 5 years so that it stays colorful. The interiors of the building are painted in the same bright colors as the exteriors and even the boiler room is colorful (the boiler room in my last apartment building could be described as “constantly flooded”). In addition to the flashy paint job, the building is also adorned with multiple sculptures of birds, fish, and flowers. Tony mixes the cement and makes molds out of bowls, planters, or whatever he can find.

This building is truly so rare in NYC where rents are skyrocketing right now and landlords are notoriously a bunch of dick bags who could care less if their buildings are in disrepair as long as they’re paid rent. It’s so lovely to hear how warmly Tony speaks of his building in the Village Voice article and it just shows that it is possible for a building owner to give a shit. If you’re in Alphabet City, I hope you’ll take a detour to take a peek at this building in person!

4. Learning 🧠

Let’s talk about Zoning Laws - specifically the 1916 Zoning Resolution! I promise this is something that sounds boring but it has such a huge impact on what NYC looks like that you’ll start seeing the ramifications of this law everywhere. And it all starts with the Equitable Building.

The early 1900s really saw the boom of the skyscraper in NYC; every new building had to be bigger than the last and I’m sure had absolutely nothing to do with male ego. In 1913, the Equitable Life Insurance Company sought to build a new headquarters after their previous one burned down. The new building would sit at 120 Broadway and because businessmen gonna business, the designers wanted to create the absolute biggest building that could fit on the lot, leaving no room from building to sidewalk. The resulting building rose straight up from the lot line with no setbacks and had 1,200,000 square feet of office space, surely the most economical choice and therefore the most correct one. Except, not.

Because the building was so tall and massive, it created a literal shadow over the Financial District. “The Equitable's noon shadow, someone complained, enveloped six times its own area.”

If you’ve ever walked around FiDi, you may have noticed that the streets are pretty curvy and narrow - this is because they were created before the Commissioners’s Plan of 1811 that created NY’s street grid pattern. The shadow of the Equitable Building compounded existing issues that the area was already facing and neighboring building owners complained that this new building had decreased their property values by cutting off ample light and air supply. I used to work across the street from the Equitable Building and the shadow that it would cast would envelop multiple streets in the area into darkness in the middle of the day - trust me, it’s noticeable.

You can see how the building just goes straight the fuck up and the streets on the sides are dark AF

And so because rich people complained, a new zoning law was enacted - The 1916 Zoning Resolution. It stated that once reaching a certain height, building had to incorporate setbacks. You can see this in the design of the Empire State Building (completed in 1931) - it starts out wider at the bottom and gets skinnier at the top to let more light reach the streets around it. Later, the 1961 Zoning Resolution was passed that allowed for buildings to create public plazas in order to build higher, creating a natural setback on the ground level. You can see an example of this in the building at 138 Broadway - it’s exactly as tall as it’s now non-compliant neighbor The Equitable Building, but because of the ground level setback it’s much more pedestrian friendly.

The ESB with setbacks and 138 Broadway with a ground level pedestrian plaza

So now as you walk around NYC (or other cities), take notice of how tall buildings are, if they have setbacks, or if they have pedestrian plazas. None of these things exist by accident; they’re all the result of laws to hopefully make the city a bit more pleasant for its inhabitants!

5. What’s Good 😎

• Dragon Fest returns this weekend on 8/26 and 8/27. This is like Smorgasburg, but filled with delicious Chinese food! There will also be activities, performances, and cool stuff to buy from Chinese vendors.

• This Oat Mylk workshop on 9/9 looks super fun, but I’m hesitant to spend $60 to make my own oat milk. If that’s something you’re into, I love that for you. Please tell me how it is.

• Flying Fox Tavern in Ridgewood is hosting a Halloween Party on 8/31! I am counting the fuckin days til fall and spooky season and I fully support celebrating early.

• Fellow movie-goers, I have some deals for ya! I’m an Alamo girl (they finally relaunched their rewards program and I am ecstatic) and they’re offering two cool discounts coming up: $4 tickets this Sunday 8/27 and free movies for teachers & NYC workers on 8/29. The free movies are only available at their Staten Island location, so do with that what you will.

• One of my favorite restaurants in Bushwick, La Cantine, is hosting a market this Sunday 8/27! Expect jewelry, empanadas, glassware, clothing, banana pudding(!), art, objects, hot sauce, readings, candles, books, and a percentage of proceeds will go to Bushwick Ayuda Mutua.

• The NYC Parks social team has been popping off lately. They just had a retirement party for 6 playground animal sculptures and I guess my invitation got lost in the mail. If you love NYC Parks as much as I do, I recommend giving their official account a follow and also following Mieummedia on tiktok - he’s visiting every park and I am living for the journey!

• If your birthday is coming up, check out this list of birthday freebies you can grab around the city!

I officially declare Virgo season open!