It Is Your Birthday.

False - it is my birthday

I send this gif to all of my family members on their birthdays and I’m convinced absolutely no one gets the joke

It’s a Big City, little birthday, bitches! 🥳 🥳 🥳

This is probably the longest that I’ve done something on purpose (aside from keeping my cats alive) and I’m honestly really proud of myself for writing weekly(ish) for a whole year! The last year of my life has seen so much personal growth; I got a new job that I like, I’m working a side gig that I also like, I actually went to the brain and body doctors to fix myself, I made new friends, I climbed both literal and figurative mountains. And this little newsletter has been chugging along the whole time providing me with a much needed outlet to channel my thoughts and interests into something positive. I love reading and learning and nothing makes me happier than telling someone else something I learned and having them respond “cool!” I asked Lorenzo what my mutant power would be and he said “telling people useless facts” and folks, he’s not wrong.

This week’s BCLF will be a look back at some of your favorite posts and some of my favorites that I want to highlight. Honestly you guys latched onto some good ones, but there are definitely some deep cuts that I loved writing about that for some reason didn’t get enough love. So sit back and relax because….

It’s a mothafuckin clip show!

1. Your Favorite Posts ⭐️

Turns out you hated Summit One Vanderbilt too, but you loved this post! I’m not sure if this was my top post because it featured an image from Saltburn (but not that image) or if you were genuinely curious to learn if SOV is a tourist trap (it is). It also happened to feature one of my favorite bits of history to learn about - The Swill Milk Scandal! And as a little birthday gift to you, I removed the paywall on this issue so you can read all about the scandal, as well as one of the best Filipino restaurants in Queens - Renee’s!

I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor, I'm good to go

This post followed my Cherry Blossom Guide (have you used it? was it helpful?) & actually performed pretty slowly for a while, so I’m surprised it made it to the top! Folks loved the piece on Karaoke at McCarren Parkhouse & paid subscribers liked my review of Madame Web. It’s honestly a shame that I saw that fucking movie, wrote about it, & hid it behind a paywall, so I’m releasing that one too! My favorite part of this post was the research I did on Emily Roebling. I already knew quite a lot about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, but I really enjoyed narrowing my focus on Emily!

P for pancakes

I don’t think it’s possible for a post featuring pancakes to not end up in the top, so I’m not surprised you guys liked this one. I actually can’t even pick a favorite section in this post; they were all a blast to write & experience. I was so pleasantly surprised with my visit to Mercer Labs - I expected a tourist trap & I genuinely enjoyed this place. I also really enjoyed all of the research I did for Black History Month - big shoutout to @landmarksofny for initially posting about Addisleigh Park (and lots of other historically Black neighborhoods), which was a neighborhood I’d never heard of. I also got to use perhaps the most niche gif of all time at the end that I knew only one person in the world would get (ok 2 people, but one of them never answered my email about interning with them - your move Eli Roth).

You Down with LPC?

This was my first post of 2024 & goddammit it was a good one! It’s probably my favorite title that people also got; you guys don’t always get my references & that’s ok, I know I exist on another planet sometimes. This post was also chock full o’ good stuff - pastries from Lysee (I’m taking Beef there this week for this month’s Beef Fancy Dinner), a visit to NYBG for the Train Show, my review of Poor Things (need to watch it again), & of course the history of the Landmarks Preservation Committee & the demise of Old Penn Station. Ashley also brought up a great point in the comments that Landmark status can actually be something that a building owner doesn’t want because of the complications that come with it, which led me down a whole other internet rabbit hole! Please send me additional information, I love it.

Beef & Burgers & Bone Marrow

This post got a big boost from a mention in

VARSITY READER

(love Julia’s newsletter) and a repost on Dirtbag Arthaus’ Instagram & I’m always so grateful when someone else thinks my work is worth sharing on their platform 🥺 Writing about Minetta Tavern is always a joy because it’s a place I’ve been going to for years & I can confidently recommend their burger to everyone as one of those things that’s absolutely worth the splurge. I was also super happy to write about my experience at Dirtbag Arthaus. A ton more ceramic studios have popped up in my neighborhood & even though some are closer to me, I had such a great experience at DA that I can’t imagine going anywhere else. I can’t wait to go back over the summer & make some cool pieces! I removed the paywall here too so you can read my full piece on DA, as well as the history of the Sugar Hill neighborhood.

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2. What’s Good 😎

• The 12th Annual Black Comic Book Festival returns to NYC on April 26 & 27. This event features panel discussions, workshops, cosplay showcases, and is a place for animators, Blerds, bloggers, cosplay lovers, fans, families, illustrators, independent publishers, and writers to celebrate Black comic books and graphic novels. Oh and it’s FREE to attend with registration!

• April 22 marked the 60th anniversary of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair and Queens is about to go so hard with events from now til freakin October with their Theaterama programming to celebrate this. This article has lots more info on the schedule and prices. And if you want to read about the 1939 World’s Fair….well there’s a BCLF about that 😉

• Here’s a very cool thing that I just heard about and love: Jane’s Walk returns to NYC next month from May 3-5 and it features 190 walking tours in all five boroughs led by New Yorkers. Apparently this event began in NYC in 2011 as a celebration of urbanist Jane Jacobs. I’m devastated to learn that the “Smelling Bushwick” tour is at capacity, so be better than me and grab your spots for these FREE tours now!

• In less awesome news…Greenpoint is about to get a shiny new apartment building…but it’s on top of one of Brooklyn’s most polluted sites. And you thought having an apartment with a bathtub in your kitchen was as bad as it could get! They’re building on the site of the former NuHart Plastic Manufacturing Co on Dupont Street, which produced, stored, and shipped plastic and vinyl products for more than 50 years. Now I know I’m knee deep in planning my company’s Trash Lunch & Learn, but I think anyone would agree that that sounds like a bad idea. They cherry on top, though, is that they’re naming the new apartment building NuHart West, so they’re not even pretending like they don’t know the site is polluted AF 🥲

• Also hey, this is a random thing, but are you a person who has a period? Saalt sent my company a coupon code to use since we’re B Corp buddies and I would love to share it with you - use code ED324Tomorrow to get 30% off Saalt’s cups & discs for the month of April.

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3. My Favorite Posts ⭐️

Listen, I can’t tell you what to like, but I am disappointed that more folks didn’t have their minds blown with my pinball post! Maybe that’s my fault for putting the pinball content all the way at the end, but this one little section had so many layers to it that I thought it was worth scrolling all the way down for. Anyways, I hope you read about the bonkers history of the pinball ban in NYC & also my very strange & very personal connection to the trial that made pinball legal again! Also, I mention wanting to visit Sunshine Laundromat to play pinball there - I have since visited & it was a disappointment. Don’t meet your heroes.

Double egg cream!

Ok this post actually did pretty well, but I must impress upon you that once again, you need to read until the end! The story behind the Macy’s Million Dollar Corner is so silly & spiteful & I absolutely love exiting the subway across the street from it every week & nodding because I know its secrets. You guys did love the Seltzer Museum piece in this post & I’m so happy to see that that little museum has been blowing up; it’s definitely worth a trip on the J line!

Art, omurice, and teen angst?

The one mind blowing thing I want to mention from this post that I still cannot wrap my head around: the art you see in the subways is not installed by the actual artist & is also not initially composed in tile/mosaic at all! An entirely separate company takes an artist’s work (whether it’s a sculpture, painting, crochet, etc) & fucking translates it into mosaic. Why is no one else talking about this (edit: the NYT is talking about it but is anyone listening?)

NY is smoky AF so stay inside & read this newsletter

This post performed pretty well too because, well, people were stuck inside due to literal toxic air. I wrote about my visit to The Color Factory, which like Mercer Labs, pleasantly surprised me! Admission is also on the pricier side at $48, but this is another place that I thought was a tourist trap & it turned out to be really fun. There were cool activities & snacks sprinkled throughout, which it turns out is all I really need to be entertained.

Get busy living or get busy dying

This was a really fun one to write! Not only did I have an amazing time at Happy Medium’s Figure Drawing class, but I also checked a movie off my watch list that had been lingering for a while - Joe Versus the Volcano. Spoilers if you haven’t read this post yet, but I fucking loved it! I interpreted it as a take on A Christmas Carol & can’t recommend it enough. It’s perfect if you want to watch a rom com, but with Fritz Lang’s Metropolis vibes 🤖🕴️

Nosferatu? I hardly know you

Honestly, this was another stellar title & I want to pat myself on the back for it. Honorable mention to my piece on the Reese’s Stuff Your Cup experience at the Hershey’s Store. I have literally influenced so many people to stuff their cup that Hershey’s should be paying me commission. I do, however, regret to inform you that they’ve raised the price to $25, no doubt because of the huge influx of business they’re trying to capitalize on thanks to my post. It’s still worth it.

Happy first birthday to me

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Hope you’ve enjoyed a whole year of Big City, Little Friend! I’ve had lots of fun researching and writing everything, but if I could ask for one thing it would be that I would honestly love for folks to comment on shit more. Like I don’t need your validation, but even if you just send me a deranged string of emojis, that would be simply wonderful. If you can’t comment on the post because of the paywall, you can still reply to me via email or send me silly gifs in Instagram!

We’ll be back to our regular programming next week and as always, please feel free to send interesting stuff my way! Did you see a weird building and you want to know more about it? Just ask! Wanna know if some restaurant is a tourist trap or if their food is actually good? I’ll put my stomach and wallet on the line! I try my best to read a ton, but I don’t know everything that exists in the world, how could I?

And speaking of reading a ton, if you made it all the way down here I’d love to shoutout some of my favorite writers. A lot of them write about the same things as me and honestly, they probably do it much better. I always recommend reading a bunch of different viewpoints because variety is the spice of life (unless you’re David Chang, in which case chili crisp is the spice of life but no one else is allowed to have any).

This Needs Hot Sauce

is the first newsletter I truly fell in love with and Abigail’s words about living and working in NYC are always a delight.

I’m a new subscriber to

CAFÉ ANNE

and I don’t know how I made it this long not knowing it existed! Anne is a great example of someone doing what I’m doing, but better. I love her Senior/Teen Roulette series and her deep dives into niche NYC culture.

I learned about

The Neighborhoods

through Anne’s newsletter and I am IN LOVE. Rob visits and writes about every neighborhood in NYC and it is perfect.

Tara’s writing in

xoxo Gossip Giancaspro

is so fucking sharp and funny, I nearly die laughing every time. If you like girls with big hair and a great sense of humor (and ahem, if you’re reading BCLF then you like exactly that) then you’ll like Tara’s newsletter.

Grace’s

The Simple Things

is another newsletter that is so witty and delightful to read. Grace shares links to interesting articles, weird stuff to buy (or simply dream about buying), and just generally enjoyable things. It’s like a little hug!

Reading

Better Strangers

is like reading a publication that was written directly for me somehow. Matt’s recent explorations of nihilism and mutual aid have been some of the best things I’ve ever read - period. I have 3 free (1) month subscriptions of this to give away - holler at me if you want one!

Finally, I simply must highlight

Soupletter

. In addition to being a stellar haircutter and the best free marketing a cat sitter can ask for, Markee is a total soup queen. She shares soup recipes from her cookbooks, but I especially love it when she goes off-script and details her “this is what I had in my pantry so this is what I used” additions because honestly, who just has specific beans and herbs on hand all the time?

Thanks for tuning in!