Sunny Days Ahead
☀️☀️☀️
I spent my weekend volunteering at Bagel Fest because I love bagels and I especially love free bagels. I got assigned to be a floater and help vendors with whatever they needed, so naturally I asked every vendor to tell me all about their bagels. I spent lots of time hyping up different bagel vendors and running bagels and drinks from one vendor to another so they could try everything. My favorites were Olmo (Best of the Fest winner), Starship Bagels (Best Bagel winner - they made a bagel grilled cheese that I can’t stop thinking about), Bagel Hound, Buddy’s, and Grizzly Bagels. Shoutout to the man at Grizzly bagels who spoke at length with me about how NYC gets water from the Catskills, you the real MVP. Anyways, this is my PSA once again that the best way to attend events for free is to volunteer at them!
This weekend I have my final wedding of the season to attend (finally 🥲) but I’m also planning to squeeze in one last quintessential fall activity before October ends 🌽 NYC is finally supposed to have a sunny (and warm!) weekend so whatever you do this weekend, try to do it outside and never take the sun for granted again.
1. Noshing 😋
Last weekend I managed to get a bunch of my friends to travel to Bushwick to eat at Nowon with me. None of my friends live in Bushwick and some live on goddam Long Island, so this was a feat (if you live in Bushwick and want to be my friend, plz slide into my DMs). Nowon first opened in the East Village in 2019, but this Bushwick location opened only a couple months ago and sits in the little hipster enclave of Bushwick near House of Yes, above Maria Hernandez Park. The Bushwick location has a special pizza section on their menu, while the East Village location serves wok fried noodles.
Because we were such a big group, we got the Classic Mixtape tasting menu and it was a pretty affordable $49pp. I feel like we got a really good amount of food and it seemed like everyone had different favorite items from the 7 courses we were served. The standouts for me were the gochujang fried chicken, chopped cheese rice cakes, and black sesame creme brulee. The fried chicken chunks were super crispy and coated in a sticky spicy sauce. Some folks thought the chicken was too spicy, but I feel like the best way to conquer them is just by eating more and waiting for your body to adapt. The honey butter tots hit the table right after the chicken and they did a solid job of cooling things down. The tots were good, but I found them to be a bit too sweet so I couldn’t eat too many.
I need to admit something to you all - I’ve never had a chopped cheese. It’s a quintessential NY meal and I don’t know how I haven’t even had one accidentally and I’m sorry. But the chopped cheese rice cakes tasted as meaty and gooey as I assume an actual chopped cheese tastes. This was probably my favorite dish, partially because as I was eating it I thought to myself “I can make this at home” and I will indeed be trying to recreate it so I can eat it again. By the time dessert arrived we were all very full, but that didn’t stop Danielle and I from absolutely demolishing the black sesame creme brulee. I fucking love black sesame and the flavor was super nutty and lightly sweet - the perfect dessert.
2. Watching 👀
After watching Nosferatu last week, Lorenzo told me about this other vampire movie he saw a while back - Shadow of the Vampire. What he didn’t know was that Shadow of the Vampire is actually a fictional account of the filming of Nosferatu! It stars none other than Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck/Count Orlok and is produced by Nic Cage’s production company, Saturn Films. Nic Cage, of course, famously modeled much of his acting style on German Expressionism and even played a vampire himself in Vampire’s Kiss. Trust me when I say you certainly don’t need to watch every Nic Cage film (I’ve done it and narrowly survived to tell the tale), but you should watch Vampire’s Kiss.
Anyways, Shadow of a Vampire! John Malvokich’s rendition of the director, FW Murnau, was much colder than the man was in real life, though Roger Ebert did note that the purpose of this change was likely to depict “the measures that a director will take to realize his vision". In fact, movie FW Murnau goes so far as to hire an actual vampire to play his Count Orlok! The crew is told that Count Orlok is simply a method actor and would thus always appear in makeup and at night, so as to not break character. That’s certainly not the worst behavior a method actor could exhibit, but unfortunately he begins attacking and killing crew members, so that’s not great. For Murnau though, the finished film is everything so he just keeps replacing writers and pushing forward.
We eventually find out that Murnau promised Count Orlok his lead actress, Greta/Ellen Hutter, as payment for his appearance in the film. In the original Nosferatu, it was Count Orlok’s gluttonous feeding on Ellen that caused him to not realize daybreak was nearing and meant his ultimate demise. We almost see a recreation of this scene from the original, however this time around Count Orlok broke the chain that would open the window shade so the sunlight never entered the room.
When Murnau and the vampire are the only two left alive, something surprising happens. Murnau instructs Count Orlok to continue acting and the vampire complies; he continues draining Greta/Ellen of blood and the scene only ends when the crew pry the door open and the sunlight finally enters the room. This Murnau was so obsessed with creating the perfect film and the last line he utters, while half his crew lies dead around him, is “I think we have it”.
This was a really great meta film that had lots of nods to the original Nosferatu, both in story and in style. And it won awards, so people other than me liked it, too! Here’s hoping we get a Willem Dafoe/Nic Cage vampire crossover movie one day 🤞
3. Exploring 🛼
If I had mad money (or just a rich benefactor, DMs are open) I would love to own a board game cafe. It combines two of my favorite things - games and little snacks - and that is my dream. I’m not rich and no one is sponsoring my dreams, but I did have a really fun time at Hex & Company a couple weeks ago at a meetup organized by Wowza Hangouts! Hex & Co was created when the guy who started The Uncommons (another board game cafe) ran out of space. The first two locations were opened on the Upper West/East sides, but a spot just popped up in Union Square.
Their Union Square location is really big and has a couple semi-private rooms in the back that I figure are used for events or game competitions, though most of the space is open and filled with 2-4 person tables. They take both walk-ins ($10, no time limit) and reservations ($15pp, 3 hour limit) and have a pretty solid menu of drinks and snacks. Oh, and they have like 1,000 board games to choose from 😵💫
My Wowza group was 4 people, so I grabbed some familiar games to start with -Codenames + What do you Meme. This was actually only my second time playing each of those games (Bushwick needs a board game cafe ASAP) and I love that they’re both pretty chill and not overly strategic or competitive. Don’t get me wrong, I love a competitive game (Ashley and I competed in Brooklyn Brainery’s Board Game Olympics years ago and I still have flashbacks of losing in Jenga), but sometimes it’s nice to just vibe and make dank memes with your pals. We also ended up playing a game called Smart Mouth that was the exact kind of wordy thinking game I love. The tile dispenser spit out a first letter and a last letter and you had to think of a word that fit with those. Sometimes it was hard and then sometimes one of my group members came up with something nuts like Tarantula!
Hex & Company also sells board games, Magic cards, dice, and all sorts of other fun gaming supplies. If you or someone you know has lots of money and they don’t know what to do with it, I will send them a proposal for my board game cafe idea ASAP. Bushwick has enough music venues, we need board games.
4. Learning 🧠
Spooky season is coming to a close so I want to get one more haunted landmark out of my system - The House of Death…oOoOoOo SpOoKy! From the outside, 14 West 10th St looks like your standard Greek Revival home. It was built in the 1850s right near Washington Square Park (which by then was no longer being used as a potters’ field and was on its way to becoming an actual park) and was a single family home until it was converted into apartments in 1937. And supposedly it’s home to 22 spirits 👻
The home was initially inhabited by the Boorman family and the first recorded “incident” after they moved out is pretty tame. In 1897 cyclist Fred H. Andrew hit a child with his bicycle and broke the kid’s leg. Not exactly haunting material, but for some reason every article I read noted this as the “beginning” of negative activity at the house so who am I to argue?
Shortly after, writer Mark Twain moved in and despite only living there for a year (and not even dying in the house) his spirit seems to have stuck around. Twain lived there while he was battling both bankruptcy and depression, so he certainly wasn’t in the best of moods. He actually reported experiencing some possible paranormal activity - a piece of wood floated in the air before him so, naturally, he grabbed his gun and shot it. Blood was found on the floor afterwards, so he rationalized that it must have been a rat, since, as we all know, rats bleed and ghosts have ectoplasm. Years later, a new resident of the building reported seeing a specter clad in a while suit who whispered “My name is Clemens, and I has a problem here I gotta settle” - Mark Twain’s real name was Samuel Clemens 👻
Actress Jan Bartell moved into an apartment in 1957 and immediately began feeling weird shit. She noted feeling the presence of large shadows looming over here and even had a spirit reach out and touch her once, which she described as feeling like “substance without substance. Chilly, damp. Diaphanous as marsh mist or a cloud of ether.” Bartell knew that this wasn’t a rat (and also folks were less gun-happy in the 50s), so she had a medium come and check the place out. The medium said that she sensed lots of dead things under the floorboards, including a young girl, an aborted child, and a small gray cat. I think this is where we get the “22 spirits” number from, but I haven’t been able to find an account of all 22 spirits folks have encountered. In any case, Bartell said “fuck this”, moved out, and profited from her trauma by publishing a book about her time in the house. 👻💰
The most recent account of death in the home is really sad and involves a dickbag lawyer killing his partner’s young child in 1987. I’m not going to write about it because it’s fucked up, but you can read more in the article I linked earlier. If anyone deserves to be haunted, it’s that fuckin guy.
Some folks say that the bad vibes of 14 West 10th have spilled over to neighboring homes, causing flickering lights and ghostly apparitions. Not sure if this is true or just an excuse for New Yorkers to avoid their neighbors…Honestly, I’d totally live in this haunted building, but not for the $5,000+/mo rent they’re currently charging - at least give me a deal for having to put up with an extra 22 roommates.
5. What’s Good 😎
One of my favorite accounts, UncoverMore, just relaunched their newsletter! If you want even more NYC recs, you should definitely follow them on Instagram and subscribe. Arianna finds the coolest stuff and on my way home from Bagel Fest I happened to stumble upon a gallery that she shared.
Welcome to Chinatown is hosting a Fall Fest this weekend that’ll take “traditional apple-cider-sippin', pumpkin-carvin' autumn festivities and inject a burst of Asian American flair. Get ready for small biz vendors, sips + treats, and another Meet Chinatown Scavenger Hunt 👀”
The Bryant Park Holiday Market and Rockefeller Ice Skating Rink open…checks notes…this weekend?! That seems alarmingly soon but I also need to replace the cat clock I got at the market a few years ago that’s stopped working, so I’m not mad. I’ve never ice skated at the Rockefeller Rink because it always looks crowded and also ice skating is uncomfortable. However, I can’t stress enough how great the Rockefeller Center Art Tour is - add on the trip to Top of the Rock and have yourself a day!
Popup Bagels, last year’s Bagel Fest Winner, is offering a special fruity pebbles butter until Oct 28. I have a tough time getting behind their “grip, rip, dip” philosophy but the staff there is so nice that I don’t have it in me to argue with them. Pro tip - order ahead for pickup, don’t wait on a line like a chump.
The final Smorgasburg of the year is this weekend and it’s a special Spookysburg! Keep an eye out for Halloween stickers on your food order to win prizes.
Nasim Lahbichi 🤝 Farm to People are hosting a popup on Nov 2 and 3. There will be a fun menu and the cutest flash tattoos of seasonal produce available.
I don’t have the new Spider-Man game, but apparently there’s a mini recreation of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in it that you can swing around in! I love it when games or movies insert details like this.
I'm still flying high on the compliments we received that board game night. Will be brainstorming punny names for your game café!!!