A Word from the Battlefield of Manhattan Real Estate

Once upon a time a person named Mary was born on a Monday morning on the fifth floor of Beth Israel Hospital in Gramercy Park, in the city of Manhattan, in the State of New York, USA, the World.

She was brought home to an apartment in Greenwich Village where her parents had been living. Years passed and she began to walk, lost her first tooth, learned to read, went to school, and before anyone knew it, she had a bachelor's degree. She lived in the city during the rough and tumble 1980s, when graffitti was all over everything, even the trees, and she still remembers the huge celebration for the Statue of Liberty's 100th birthday. She was a student in the public school system during the asbestos crisis of the 1990s and she was there when a man named Giuliani came to town and seemed to make all things better. The twenty first century cast a shadow over old New York, and she still aches for the lost towers of the World Trade Center.

Through it all, one thing was certain. The city was more than Mary's home, it was her birthright. And when she finally decided it was time to live in it on her own, well, it should have been a joyous situation.

You're still reading? Good. I'll stop writing about myself in the third person because I know it's irritating you. I write to you from a shelter in the bitter wasteland that is the War of Manhattan Real Estate. I have embarked on an intrepid task: to find a decent sized apartment that I love with a budget that is more than I EVER imagined I'd be saying I would pay. You'd think the sky would be the limit for me. My friends: this is not the case. I have been to the battlefield, and the sight...it is not pretty.

Apartment hunting is like dating. They say when you see the apartment you're supposed to live in, you just know. It's love at first sight. Well, I can sum up my experience thus far with this metaphor: I'm at the single's bar and I've got a lot going for myself and I'm all gussied up. So far all I have found are the toothless, jobless, 55 year old psychopaths with Attention Deficit Disorder. In other words, I've been in hallways that smell like everything from 'elderly person' to outright 'toilet.' I've ridden shoddy elevators, praying for my life, as they rumbled and jumbled up to 8 foot by 10 foot apartments. Yes. You read correctly. Eight-feet-by-ten-feet. You could fit a whole lot of nothin' into eight feet by ten feet. Actually, my parent's living room rug would be too BIG to cover the floor of this apartment. Lately, though, the hunt seems to be getting better. Today I saw an apartment that didn't completely suck, but the neighborhood made me a little lonely. It's like that guy that seems to be into you, and he's wide open and available and begging you to give him a shot, but at the end of the day the two of you somehow just don't fit.

The ironic thing about all this is that I've given up dating while on this search. I literally do not have time to put up with a guy right now. As was recently heard coming from my mouth: "The only guys I'm interested in at the present are guys with keys to apartments that don't remind me of my parent's coat closet." And I've been using my double X chromosome status to its full advantage. Don't tell anyone this, but if I know I'm going to go meet with a male broker I'll add an extra coat of lip gloss and dust off the push-up bra. This ploy has met with reasonable success thus far (although still no apartment). One broker magically produced free passes to the New York Health and Racquet Club after I flashed my pearly whites. Another broker kept telling me how nice I looked, asked what my sign was, and dragged me to lunch and Starbucks while we were on our fruitless journey. And it was a fruitless journey. I'm almost ready to break up with him, but he hasn't had the chance to show me Tudor City.

I haven't figured out a tactic for female brokers yet, but I suspect that going in armed with enormous bars of chocolate would be a wise strategy. The other thing, as you might have already noted, is that I'm cheating on all my brokers and they all think I only have eyes for them. But to extend the metaphor further (why not!), my friend Leah is credited with noting "If you can't get what you're looking for from one man..."

And so the war continues, battle by battle. Some people fight wars with guns, I fight them with dating paraphrenalia: lipstick, Godiva, curling irons, credentials, and wily charm. And as in dating, I usually end up back at home with Mom and Dad, curled into the fetal position and sucking my thumb.

Where Mary's Been: Il Fornaio/San Gennaro

IL FORNAIO/SAN GENNARO

Where: Il Fornaio: Mulberry Street just off Hester Street. San Gennaro: Mulberry Street stretching between Houston and Canal Streets.
What You'll Find:
Il Fornaio is an unpretentious, cute little restaurant in the heart of Little Italy with staff that is delighted that you have chosen their establishment. This was my second visit and I have decided that I adore the host...an older Italian gentlemen with a thick head of hair and a mustache. He treated us like family.

San Gennaro is this wonderful festival/carnival that takes place along the stretch of Mulberry Street every September. There are current debates among us as to whether San Gennaro takes place for merely a week or two, or the whole month. I am from the camp that thinks it's a month. We are still awaiting a definitive answer pending research. Anyway, what you'll find at San Gennaro is kitschy carnival games, like a dunking booth and water gun races. Opportunities to win giant stuffed animals that are composed mostly of foam also abound.
Wore: black turtleneck, bubblegum pink courdoroys, Reeboks. Channeling: my ex-roommate Jessica.
Need to visit an ATM on a scale from 1 to 10: 6, it's San Gennaro so you really should do it up. Afterall, it's kinda like Christmas: it only comes once a year.
You Should Have: Il Fornaio: the calamari (like Buttah!) and the creamy Spinach ravioli. San Gennaro: an alcoholic frozen drink in a HUGE and VERY TACKY plastic souvenir glass, and the chocolate marshmallows on a stick (shish kabob style). You'll diet tomorrow.
Rambling: Like the Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Parade, San Gennaro is a New York tradition (it's just that this one isn't broadcoast on NBC every year, although perhaps it should be, because it attracts characters). Every year I go thinking that I'm not going to get swallowed by the crowd, and every year I end up squashed between a six foot four bouncer with bling and a group of confused tourists from Missouri. But it's all in good fun. If you've done what I've told you to you won't care anyway because you'll be slightly buzzed from consuming a banana daiquiri in the 12 inch plastic glass that was shaped like a body-building man. San Gennaro is simply trashy fun. It remains the only place I know where I've ever seen a t-shirt for sale that says: "Take me Drunk, I'm Home."

Where Mary's Been: The FIRST Review

So as most of you know: I'm a New Yorker, born and bred. And I am finally getting to enjoy New York City as it was meant to be lived: from the stance of an unmarried twenty-something whose only responsibility is to appear at work five out of seven times per week.

So it goes without saying that I spend a lot of time out-and-about in this crazy city. Often there are stories to be had, and I leave with a new experience of a new place that I would either strongly recommend, or urge my friends to avoid like a plague. In the interest of creating a log of this current time period of my life (in addition to letting you all know my "verdict" on a particular venue, something I know you've all been breathless with anticipation for), I will be attempting to review "where I've been." And we are going to be starting with...

BRANCH
54th Street Btw 2nd and 3rd Avenue
What You'll Find There: A peninsula bar, a dance floor lined with candlelit tables, a steam machine, a disco ball, and a DJ who knows what he's doing.
Wore: Off-the-shoulder sparkly gold top, black pants, pink crocodile heels (channeling: Samantha Jones)
You Should Drink: A dirty martini (excellent)
Need to Visit an ATM (scale from 1 to 10): 4, depending on how many dirty martinis you want.
Rambling: This was the setting for my recent birthday celebration, and I am pleased to say that Branch delivered exactly what I wanted for my birthday: a night of (nearly) drama-free dancing with my nearest and dearest. It was the first time I brought together various Friend Families and BRANCHes of friend-families, and this place really had something for everyone. The cover was ridiculously cheap, and Branch provided an OPEN BAR between 10 and 11, making everyone instantly happier than they'd ever imagined they could be in the middle of Midtown East on Saturday night (I am sadly not a fan of Midtown East as a whole, although it and I are slowly trying to work out our differences). In fact, I think they must put some type of happiness elixir in the steam machine at Branch, because it made friends of mine dance that I never, EVER, thought I would see attempt to move rhythmically. And they looked GOOD, too!

A Word on Theme Parties

As my friends and I are entering our mid-twenties (how scary is THAT?!) I have to say that I've noticed a trend in the way we choose to get together and socialize. The theme party provides us with a purpose to boogie down, and while it takes quite a bit of preparation, a successful theme party with willing participants is always inevitably something that will be talked about for years to come.

Past theme parties that I've attended include Johnny Dice's infamous eighties party, which is the last time I wore my hair in a side ponytail and purposefully cut a t-shirt to be off-the-shoulder. There was the now historical West 108th Street Pimps 'n' Hos party a mere ten months later, at which I met people who are now some of my good friends...only they were carrying big canes, had on purple feathered fedoras, and were sporting a nearly inappropriate amount of bling. Then there was Matt's Oscar Party for which I made Oscar cupcakes. (Oscar cupcakes: chocolate cupcakes in gold foil wrappers, yellow icing, and little flags with the names of the nominees sunken into them...."Kevin Spacey, delicious!")

Well, early this morning at an informal "summit" with my friends Dice, Katie, and Liz at a diner on 56th and 2nd, we came up with an idea for another theme party. This theme party is unique in that it requires no costumes, baking, or bling. It's the "Drama Party."

The Drama Party would involve inviting your friends....and then also inviting people who you know have beef with your friends. The latter group might also be your friends, too (I get headaches trying to figure out who amongst my friends have a dramatic history with each other). But you are certainly not exempt as well. Your friends are all instructed to bring at least one person that they know has issues with another invitee. Past hookups and bad breakups are also good. People who can find a friend's one-night-stand-that-they-never-thought-they'd-see-again get a free door prize. Exes are also excellent, but you get extra credit if you can get the ex to arrive with his or her new girlfriend/boyfriend.

Once you've gathered this rogue group it's really quite simple: you also gather as much alcohol as you can, hide sharp objects, perhaps put out a box of tissues, and sit back and estimate how long it will take before the police will be arriving. The Drama Party, yes, that's one they'd be talking about for years to come!

The First Entry...an Era Hopefully Begins.

So for nearly two years now I have had a tradition on my AIM profile called "Cheers and Boos." Something that not everyone might know is that the idea for Cheers and Boos was actually taken from my dear old college newspaper, The Fairfield Mirror. The idea behind it was that it was a formal/informal place for the students of Fairfield U to commemorate (cheer) or vent about (boo) the week that had passed. During my time at Fairfield...I think I only sent any "official" C and Bs to The Mirror once.

Instead I decided to do my own weekly Cheers and Boos using the 1029 precious characters that I get in my AIM profile. Over the years it has caught on. The tradition has been shared with friends, and I feel that I am never truly out of touch with the people I care about, because they are usually reading C and B. The thing is this...1029 characters is just not long enough!! I have more to say, and I need a sounding board! I will still be continuing the C and B tradition on my AIM profile because it just doesn't feel right not to. However, I know that my little academians out there, as well as fellow-internet addicts, will appreciate having another site to check instead of writing that paper/studying for that midterm/paying those bills/getting sleep so we'll be rested for the morning when we have to go to the places we are paid to go to. I am fully aware of how well these sites work at propagating procrastination. So procrastinate away, people! In closing, Dice, this is for YOU!!