How Can You Not be Romantic About NYC?

God Bless Jalen Brunson

PSA: My first book, Young Money: A Field Guide to Wealth and Purpose in Your Twenties, is coming out on August 4th. It’s my culmination of five years of thoughts on making the most of the opportunity costs of your youth, before the current stage of life passes you by. Pre-order your copy below:

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When you’re attending a “watch party” for a sporting event, it’s typically a good move to bring your own drinks, particularly when you’re a group of four dudes who vaguely-but-don’t-really know the hosts. Leeching off others’ drinks is a bit uncouth, particularly when you’re blowing up the gender ratio of said event.

Anyway, I attended a watch party for Game 5 of the NBA finals Saturday night on the rooftop of a friend of a sort-of-friend’s place on the corner of Perry Street and 7th Avenue, and, as a good guest should do, I grabbed a few crates of bottled aperol spritzes to contribute to the cause. Not that it was necessary; upon arrival I was greeted by a full bar, 20 pizzas, and, by the time the game started, ~150 of my closest friends. I have no idea if these hosts were hedge fund guys, NYC trust fund kids, or some combination of the two, but they put together a kick ass showing for the final chapter of a kick ass NBA finals that proved to be the first chapter of what has, thus far, been a kick ass summer in New York City.

Maybe I’m feeling a little sentimental, or maybe my brain is still a bit smooth after consuming four bottled aperol spritzes on said rooftop, a 24 oz canned Modelo in Brooklyn, an espresso martini in the speakeasy basement of some Chelsea bar called “Georgie’s,” and a Piña Colada I bought from a Puerto Rican vendor around 12:07 AM while a thousand similarly-inebriated 20-and-30-somethings, all taking advantage of their own prolonged adolescence, sang along to “Empire State of Mind” outside of Little Ruby’s, but God this place really is perfect.

If you spend too much time on social media (in particular, absorbing content with an especially right wing flair), you’ll be exposed to plenty of reasons that New York “sucks.” Here’s a few popular complaints:

I pay more in rent for my studio apartment on West 15th Street than half of my friends back home spend on their mortgages and taxes, Fox News told me that my mayor is a terrorist, the Roosevelt Hotel somehow became an immigrant asylum, and the dating pool of college-educated white folks around my age is just one multi-thousand person psuedo-situationship polycule of flippant hookups and chronic commitment issues.

But the complaints have one glaring omission: this place is the physical manifestation of “fun.”

And as for those prior “complaints?” Make more money, cut off the news (I’d personally love to crush a few beers with Mamdani), the Roosevelt was a beat hotel anyway, and wear protection. All of the “problems” with this place are either minor inconveniences or brain rot.

Back to this watch party.

I knew five people on the guest list before I arrived. I knew 25 after. You have a bunch of folks around my age (give or take ~5 years) who wanted to do three things: socialize, booze, and watch a bunch of dudes throw a ball in a hoop for three hours. And there were thousands of impromptu gatherings just like this (though most probably had poorer views) popping up all over the city. Across the street, three dudes sharing a 3-bedroom (flex) with one bathroom put a projector on their fire escape and streamed the game on the wall of Little Ruby’s, where thousands of strangers posted up on the sidewalk nearby to scream for Jalen Brunson as he euro-stepped across their brick wall display.

Socialize, booze, and watch a bunch of dudes throw a ball in a hoop for three hours. It’s incredible how sports can bring people together.

The unique thing about New York sports, as opposed to any other city, is the sense of pride non-native New Yorkers feel about these sports teams, and, at a deeper level, this city. A lot of folks are proud of where they’re from, but New York is the only place I’ve lived where folks develop a sense of pride in the place they move to. Few folks who move to Atlanta, or Houston, or Denver, or even Los Angeles or San Francisco, are “proud” of those cities. They might like the cities, sure, but they don’t make that city part of their identities.

Why is New York different?

It’s the only place in America that so many people move to because they want to experience the city for the city’s sake. You move to Florida for beaches and low taxes. San Francisco to hit the lottery on whatever industry is ripping in the current boom cycle. LA because you want to be an actor or screenwriter. DC because you’re a sociopath. New York? Because you want “New York.” The “city” itself is the allure. It doesn’t matter if you moved here from Georgia, or Wyoming, or Bogotá, or Buenos Aires. You wanted New York, you got New York, and you’re proud to make “New York” part of your identity.

That shared pride is why the camaraderie among New York transplants is so strong. There’s an immediately understood “game respect game” because you know, without saying a word, that you’re both here for the same reason.

Can a city be “alive”? I don’t know, but on Saturday night, New York City did its best to pass the Turing Test.

Don’t get me wrong, the economics of living in this place make no sense. Spending $4,000+ for a studio apartment, sweltering summers, the occasional sketchball on public transit, and a Matryoshka doll of never-ending status games seems like a bad trade when you could otherwise buy a home anywhere else in the country for a fraction of the income. But who needs 2,500 square feet when you have a Citibike membership, a 4 Charles reservation for 2, and 10 of your best friends just a stone’s throw away?

New York City kicks ass, and this place has never been better.

- Jack

PSA: My first book, Young Money: A Field Guide to Wealth and Purpose in Your Twenties, is coming out on August 4th. It’s my culmination of five years of thoughts on making the most of the opportunity costs of your youth, before the current stage of life passes you by. Pre-order your copy below: