The Last Splash

The 90s in NYC as a 20-something

I’ve been wanting to write something about the 90s with of all the new mostly Love Story-induced obsession over that era, because I was there. I was in my 20s, living in both the West and East Village, working at a design firm, going out 4-5 nights a week, occasionally eating at Indochine (across the street from my office) and Odeon. Going to clubs (including The Tunnel) and Florent for late-night eats, avoiding the street-walkers and still smelling the meat from the butchers in the meat-packing district which was still actually for meat-packing (double entendre works here). I smoked too, obvs. It was all as amazing as it looks, though my version didn’t involve American royalty or hobnobbing with Calvin and Kelly.

Part of why it seems like an especially magical time was surely because I was in my 20s, which was at times hard and heart-breaking but also when you’re spending approximately 75% of your life with your best friends. Everything felt possible or even if it felt impossible, it felt big. You’re carving your way in a brand new life. And as many people who weren’t even born yet have pointed out from seeing the on-screen version of Carolyn Bessette hair-flip and lip bite her way around, there was something so much simpler about that era in general.

Brunch at Coffee Shop with one of my besties circa 1992. Yes, I wore lots of baseball hats, sometimes backwards, apparently.

There were so many fewer people, less traffic. We definitely took the subway (I actually took the crosstown bus to work across West 10th St) but out for the night we mostly took cabs. It took a while to get from Washington Street to 1st Avenue, but then “a while” in a cab was 15 minutes. You could actually be the only person walking on an entire block at times.

West Broadway in Soho looking South (Twin Towers always a marker to figure out which direction to go). I worked on Spring St from ‘91-’95 and my French boss frequented Felix (on the right) for long boozy lunches. There’s no one on the sidewalk!

We were spontaneous in a way that I don’t think 20-somethings can be now. We would call each other at work talk about what we felt like doing for the night, on our office lines because not only was it before cell phones, I also worked in an office before email (insert granny emoji). I know, now we have group chats, but there was something less structured about actually talking on the phone and just two of you basically deciding the fate of everyone. You would then each call another member of the group to convey the plan. It feels like so many steps that would’ve taken forever! The thing is, we had so much time. We weren’t staring at our phones during every free moment. We weren’t spending hours at work reading and crafting emails. We called our clients and got feedback on the spot. We typed up memos and printed them out and faxed them or put them in people’s mailboxes behind reception. When we left work for the day, we left.

We would decide on a place to go to drink or dance or eat and then—we just went. If it was new or hot, say in NY Magazine that week (the actual magazine we got delivered or picked up at a newsstand) or we had a bigger group, we would’ve probably called to make a reservation, but you could almost always get one day-of. If you just showed up and the place was packed, you could walk to something else and decide based on the scene and your mood. You know what else you could do in restaurants without a reservation? Sit at the bar. After writing a draft of this post the other day, I saw this. I’m not the only one.

If you didn’t have a set plan, you would leave a message on your friend’s answering machine (from a payphone) to tell them where you ended up, and they would call in to get it. Once my roommate Krista first had to listen to my stalkery ex-boyfriend rant for minutes about what an awful person I was before she could hear her messages. Whoops! A block feature probably would have been welcome then.

Blizzard of ‘96 in the West Village. My friend Jennie tricked me into coming out, calling from the pay phone of White Horse Tavern and saying it was packed and hopping (it wasn’t, but I’m still glad I went)!

You didn’t know what anyone who you weren’t with was up to and there was something so freeing about that. Did we leave places because they were “lame” to go on the endless and often unrealized quest for a great night? Of course. But you didn’t find out what a great night other people had had by looking at a friend’s pics and having pangs of regret. Everything was pieced together at brunch or over the phone the next day, without photo evidence, just our fuzzy memories.

We learned about new bars and restaurants from friends, people at work or through New York Magazine, the Village Voice or the Zagat Guide—the latter printed once a year!—and later Time Out. No influencers, no Beli. No food pics of the cheese pull or the sandwich split or the cocktail looking pretty in nice light, unless it was on a printed page. Did we miss out on things because we didn’t even know about them? Absolutely. Also, ignorance is bliss.

Zagat guides over the years plus NY Mag covers from '95, many of which I remember because we would keep them and refer back constantly. From coverbrowser.com.

There were secret spots—places not everyone knew about for a while, places that only people who lived downtown would go. There were neighborhood personalities then: the West Village was different from the East Village—West a little prettier and more refined, East grungy and edgy—with no chain stores in either neighborhood that I can remember except The Gap (where we actually shopped for basics), Barnes & Noble and Tower Records (RIP).

Astor Place at Broadway looking East, with two of the few chain stores that existed in the Village. Image by @sir_mirko.

West Bleeker street had nice little boutiques and lots of mom and pops that had been there forever, not multiple designer stores you could find pretty much anywhere. Soho had some fussy, too pricey restaurants but lots we would go to, including Lucky Strike which was a hang-out spot for years. Uptown was either old white money or dorky and bro-y (ok, it still is both), but the East Side and West Side had definitely different feels. You felt a strong sense of place in a neighborhood. A vibe. Now most neighborhoods have aspects that exist throughout the city.

Then it was possible to live in the West Village, in a tiny little 5th floor walk up studio on a dream block, on less than $35k a year. A place that I found in the Village Voice Real Estate listings, after waiting for that week’s issue to come out at 10pm at the newsstand on Astor Place.

The nostalgia isn’t just for a simpler time, it’s for a simpler but much more interesting New York.