How to write a New York bucket list
In defense of the “West Village Girl”
When “The West Village Girl” essay made its rounds, calling out the monotony of white twenty-something women climbing the influencer-adjacent ladder, it laughed at these women who sought friends in a specific circle in a specific subset of the city:
After they snapped a selfie, I observed one of them, in the course of a minute, check a group chat, swipe through a dozen Instagram Stories, clock in to her Hinge account (no new messages), then throw a few heart reacts into yet another group chat. When I introduced myself, she told me she settled here two years ago after a breakup; it’s a good place to be single. “Everyone’s so attractive. It’s electric on the weekends,” she said. Plus: “We’re all the same! We’re all doing the same thing! It’s not a bad thing. It’s community!”
As these girls got dragged by older women within the article who remarked their time as West Village girls was freer, more fun, I resonated with the pressure the newest round of transplants face.
New York serves as the abstract setting of discovery for self, romance, or purpose. In the beautiful glitter of rain and billboards of light refracted on the street, a main character can say anything.
Less romanticized and more list-icized, Brooklyn and Manhattan online are sold as a a twenty-something’s playground, a sensory overload of new restaurants and experiences to enjoy before life’s obligations—the unspoken implication being a family with a husband and little blonde children—weigh you down.
Hence the nationwide lure of the “West Village Girl” aesthetic of Italian restaurants and athleisure and iced matcha lattes blurred in a warm filter for an Instagram story or TikTok video. If this formula of consumerism guarantees a life worthy of documenting, why not pursue it? (Who influences the influencers?)
Then, you move to New York, and the freedom you thought you wanted is overwhelming.
My friend Jack moved to New York as it re-opened after the pandemic in 2022. He took a day of PTO to explore the city. He found a tsunami of articles online telling him the best way to spend a day in New York. They listed museums and Broadway theaters and landmarks. When the day came, in a frenzy from everything he could have done, he spent the day sitting in Central Park.
As a girl who makes syllabi for leisure hobbies, I love a list’s façade of control. It tickles something unhinged in my brain. The neat stack of bullet points and hyperlinked articles piled like straight-spined paperbacks on a nightstand: delicious. It stacks the unknown into concrete information.
When I first moved to New York, I saw the city and its unknown neighborhoods as a list to conquer. I must, I commanded, sleuth and wander down new streets to prove, outside of my rent checks and W2, I lived in New York. I wore my imposter syndrome across my shoulders like my college leather jacket.
Six years, three neighborhoods, and two boroughs later, I have formed a life here.
When the question comes up—“What’s on your bucket list?”—it suggests prioritizing things I haven’t done or seen yet.
But what if, now that I know my way around, I only want to do the things I like with the people I like?
If I keep this bucket list generic, I disregard the life I already built here. Yes, of course, I can play tourist. I want to go to the museums and parks and shows. But I also have a list of routines and rituals I built that I want to inhabit before I go. I want to sponge up this chapter like the crust of bread on leftover bolognese.
I have my people here, a long awaited chapter of finding the right people at the right time. And we are the first to leave the party as the playlist sneaks into a groove and the guests dance in the living room with a bedroom-level of comfort. So that’s what I want. I want a dozen ways to dance alongside them in a space where we all know where we are and what makes us get up and go.
13 Things To Do Before I Move Out Of New York City
A dinner, family-style across four guests, at some place washed out of the initial PR blitz of “Best Of” lists. Ideally it has dark, timeless walls. No waiting, strong cocktails, buttery everything else. When the meal ends, we decide authoritatively on dessert.
A regular slot for the Lincoln Center AMC in my week where I either (a) see double-header movies or (b) catch anniversary re-releases in IMAX with Carlie.
+ A marathon of old movies shown as they first premiered, across a huge screen with a barrel of popcorn at Metrograph, the Village East Angelika, or Nitehawk.
A setting where the fandom is contagious. I want to go to that reading series where I sat in a packed room with two strangers I liked but never saw again. Or my favorite basement with the best comedy shows for comedians trying things out before they go on to be on TV (sometimes in bit roles, but still).
A private karaoke room for maximum 5 people. This is one of the most intimate things you can do with people you love is claim your top dozen songs you find work for your vocal range.
A tote bag of picnic ware: Cheez-its, flimsy compostable utensils, grapes, a loaf of bread torn with hands after the compostable knife bends in half. A cocktail mix contained in a take-out cylinder like the mojitos Rachel brought. A good book. Something with a crunch. A sandwich, if you’re lucky to be loved or rich that day. Maybe a deck of cards or Uno. From there, a blanket in Prospect Park, and a V of sunburn on my chest.
Solitary mornings at a museum: the Frick Collection, the Joan Didion exhibit at the New York Public Library, the Tenement Museum, the Van Gogh exhibit at Brooklyn Botanical, or MoMA, where I spent my first solo expedition in New York. I had DMed a sorority upperclassmen who had a Seth Meyers internship if she could get me tickets. She said yes, and I took the Vamoose from DC that week to attend the rehearsal before my bus returned that night. (Thank you, Casey Dexter.)
A night with the high school girls in someone’s living room with overstayed welcomes and ordered pizza and a pale yellow to ruby gradient of wine bottles.
A weekend night to do nothing but watch movies in my apartment, holed up beside the spread I collect from the good grocery store on the corner, followed by a lazy weekend morning reading in bed before running to Target or another errand run with Nora.
A weekday morning stroller walk with Katie and Etta through Prospect Park’s uneven side roads.
A trivia night with people who are happy to lose.
Another out-of-state visitor on the air mattress that, when inflated, touches our entertainment console and our couch. Maybe it’s a sister or our friends from Philly who we will see more when we move, but the guest has to allow us the chance to be both locals and tourists. We spend the morning touring our favorite coffee, favorite bagel stop, favorite diner with 24-hour seating and donuts, the other favorite diner with a great strawberry jam and chorizo. Then we lock into a long commute to one of the islands: Governor’s, Roosevelt, Ellis (if we have the physical stamina and historical appetite), Coney. When we return, exhausted after pit stops into pubs, we sit on our patio beneath Mama Bird who guards her nest, her second batch of the season. There’s dessert in the freezer: an apple pie, an ice cream cake.
A haul of a train ride excursion to Jackson Heights or Flushing with Luke, Seth, and Vasu. (Vasu created a grid of who is here what weekends, and the four of us alternate weekends in and out of the city for the rest of the summer. I’m happy to delay this checklist item after we move, when we become the visitors.)
A list offers the chance to explore where you haven’t yet gone, but I would prefer to leave the party in the rituals and routines with the other girls I love who will stay behind.
As a wise West Village sage once said, It’s not a bad thing, it’s community!
Love this. Bittersweet that you're leaving : (