I don’t remember where I first heard that one must live here for ten years before they can call themselves a true New Yorker, but I do remember that it felt like a challenge. I watched friends and acquaintances leave and felt proud of myself for sticking it out, like it made me tougher or more resilient. I don’t think that’s true anymore—leaving a place requires as much courage, if not more, than staying—but I am grateful that I’ve found a way to make this place my home for this long.
On January 19, I started off my ten year anniversary of living in NYC by revisiting the first neighborhood (and those surrounding it) that I called home.
I took the train to Union Square. The weather was cold but I was properly bundled, unlike when I first got here and didn’t own a coat that went past my waist. I went to the dog park across from my first dorm, Stuyvesant, and was instantly unsettled by the absence of first years chain smoking outside. I felt a jolt of panic as I realized that the building was closed. A quick google revealed that Stuy is under renovation and will reopen later this year.
Pulling up there ten years ago was a shock. The first place my parents and I landed had been the newly erected University Center, and a waterline had erupted, leaving it blocked off. My parents had been gently dubious about the college. No one they knew had ever heard of “The New School.” It sounded incredibly fake. The moment we arrived to that coned off building, my stepdad expressed his disbelief: “Did we give these people our money for a school that isn’t real?” I insisted that we were at the wrong destination, and we finally arrived at the the proper dorm on East 15th Street.
My parents helped me get settled, said a teary goodbye, and I was alone.
My next stop was The Strand, the first NYC bookstore that I fell in love with—specifically, their basement which holds a massive selection of used books. Though their prices have (understandably) risen, it was nice to see that the layout remained the same. The secondhand literary nonfiction section is exactly where it was a decade ago. I took my time exploring. One of the first books I bought there was Jonathan Franzen’s How to Be Alone. I picked it purely for the title—I was very into romanticizing my own loneliness. This time, I laughed when I saw a stack of the book. Some things really do stay the same. I left with an armful of books and headed to the park.
Before I moved here, Washington Square Park felt like a bigger symbol of the City than the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty. I became obsessed with it after I saw the arch in August Rush back in middle school. I got lost walking there from my dorm using HopStop (IYKYK) and wandered there unintentionally when I got lost on my first day of class. It was the place I agreed to meet my first Tinder date in person—my own engineering of a rom com moment. I walked through the park on Valentine’s Day a few weeks after arriving and was handed a free carnation with the message “You are enough.”
In honor of all the moments where I sat journaling on those benches between classes, I found a single spot that had been cleared of snow and did some scribbling by streetlight until my gloved fingers were numb.
My next stop was a place that was new to me—The Hole, a contemporary art gallery. I was completely captivated by their two exhibitions: Winter Flowers and Horripilation, on view until March 3 at their Bowery location. I was most struck by the incredible level of detail in both shows—layers of paint on layers of paint. I could have stared at the work for hours had I not had a reading to get to.
I constantly went to readings and writer talks when I first moved here. It felt unreal that I could hear published writers perform their work basically any night of the week. The first bar reading I went to was one of New School MFA students and alumni at KGB Bar. I’d never felt more grown up in my life than while I was sipping glasses of wine and watching graduate students perform their work. It was kismet that the program would have a reading at KGB Bar on the night of my anniversary.
It felt like the clearest marker of how much time has passed since the first grad student reading I’d attended. Then, I was newly 21 and felt like I was getting away with something by being there. I’d sat at a table alone willing conversation away from me, terrified of embarrassing myself and revealing my undergraduate status. This time, on the other side of the MFA, I knew what to expect. I didn’t feel terror at the thought of someone speaking to me, but I was content to sit alone. I knew the rhythms of when to clap or laugh, what to expect from hosts and readers.
How do I feel about the girl who landed in this city a decade ago? I pity her. I envy her. Of course I wish I could go back and tell her everything I know now. I’m surprised by how much I’ve learned about this city and myself. It’s the place where I became an adult, the place where I got lost and found my way over and over again and where I learned to trust myself, where I made and lost friends, wanted to give up so many times but never did. I’m grateful for this place that’s shaped me and instilled in me the confidence that I can handle anything that pops up along my journey because wherever I go, I’m a New Yorker.