I <3 NY - LGA
I <3 NY - LGA
Ground Central Coffee 52nd St.
Ground Central Coffee 52nd St.
maman - Park Ave.
maman - Park Ave.
maman - Park Ave
maman - Park Ave
The Drama Book Shop - 39th St.
The Drama Book Shop - 39th St.
The Drama Book Shop - 39th St.
The Drama Book Shop - 39th St.
New York Public Library - 5th Ave & 42nd
New York Public Library - 5th Ave & 42nd
NYPL, Rose Room - 5th Ave & 42nd
NYPL, Rose Room - 5th Ave & 42nd
The Bean - 2nd Ave & 1st St
The Bean - 2nd Ave & 1st St
The Bean - 2nd Ave & 1st St
The Bean - 2nd Ave & 1st St
Pulse Cafe - Clinton St.
Pulse Cafe - Clinton St.
Pulse Cafe - Clinton St.
Pulse Cafe - Clinton St.
Think Coffee - Bowery & Bleeker St
Think Coffee - Bowery & Bleeker St
Think Coffee - Bowery & Bleeker St
Think Coffee - Bowery & Bleeker St
La Guardia Airport - Terminal B
La Guardia Airport - Terminal B
In August 2022, I made myself take a vacation. Somewhere I could get some me time. The number one location I’ve been planning on in 2018, before the pandemic, was Italy. I bought the travel guides. Rome, Florence and Milan were on my list with a possibility of Venice. Then two things happened that changed that plan 1) a heart attack and 2) COVID-19.
So as 4 years went by with recovery and lockdown (along with a terrible bout with should I still be writing plays?) I decided the best place to get back the me I loved… New York City. I’m most definitely not the type of person who can vacation by resting. That sounds unnatural to me. I need to be doing something that makes me grow.
So to get back to my theatre-loving ways, I researched different places in the city where I could work on my new play, DARYO’S ALL-AMERICAN DINER. And that I did for the most part at the places pictured above. I forgot if I wrote this somewhere in this blog, but I am a coffee spot / cafe / library / lounge writer! The only time I’m able to write at home is in the middle of the night on a specific spot on a couch when I had a reading of said play/section in grad school! Other than that… the muses can’t be found anywhere near my home address!
So, here are the descriptions of the above:
- (after the “I <3 NY” sign at La Guardia) Ground Central Coffee located at 155 East 52nd Street near 3rd Ave, New York, NY 10022. I don’t have any pictures of where I actually started on the character bios of DARYO’S DINER, but you can peep them here, http://www.joshhelddesign.com/josh-held-design-ground-central-coffee-company. It has a great library feel where John Houseman would appear asking if you’d like a spot of coffee there. The upper landing had a very limited seating area, so I was REALLY stoked to grab one. The first day there, the heat index was something like 100 degrees outside, so someplace with AC was a must. There was plenty of different kinds of caffeinated brews there and I just got the large iced tea because it was so init outside. Because it was a little darkish inside, I found an outlet in the darkness of the wall behind me that fueled my tablet which I used for research as I handwrote the bios. By the afternoon, the place got PACKED! Oh yeah, another note was that in the morning, the location was either close to financial institutions or medical or lawyers offices because the “kids” who came in were in their business suits talking about business stuff or their vacation plans to Barcelona with their college buds.
- maman is located at 230 Park Ave, New York, NY 10169. Part of my research in looking for places to write at was looking on YouTube videos of people’s favorite coffee spots and maman looked quaint. I passed by this spot as I searched for my place to stay. From the photos above, I actually remembered to take a picture of what I was writing that morning… still working on those character bios! I was only there for a little bit since they didn’t have any outlets, not that I needed one, but there was only one table in the back area which I happily claimed with a scrumptious Almond Croissant and a Soy Latte.
- Writing a play at The Drama Book Shop located at 266 W 39th St, New York, NY 10018 has always been a dream of mine since I first visited the store when it was at its old W 40th Street location. I mean, seriously! How could I not be inspired while being surrounded by other amazing plays and books about theatre! So clean and felt important. There were places to sit: stools and a counter along the front windows, round tables with a long leather-covered padded bench on the side of the front area of the shop, and more tables, sofas, and chairs in the rear of the store near where the cafe was. After getting an iced black tea (still swealtering outside), I sat at a corner table near the front with a nearby outlet and finished the outlines! Just pages and pages of written character lives poured out of me. I honestly had to take a pause to realize this dream come true: to say that I worked on a play at a NYC cafe/bookstore… and one co-owned by Lin-Manuel and Tommy Kail. Check!
- The Rose Main Reading Room on the 3rd Floor at the New York Public Library – Stephen A. Schwarzman Building located at 476 5th Ave, New York, NY 10018 was something I didn’t really plan on. I think I saw something in passing about this space. The Rose something something caught my attention, plus I read somewhere that this space was only to be used for studying as talking was not allowed! Sounded like somewhere I needed to peep out… and GLAD I DID!!! As you can see in the photo, there were just rows and rows of tables and seats, and for reals for reals, it was quiet! What a perfect place to get shit done without any distractions. Oh, when I first got in the library, I asked how to get to the Rose Room (I didn’t know it’s official name) and the security guard told me it’s on the 3rd floor, and when I got there, say that “you’re there to study”. Interesting, but when I got to that room, there were peeps outside a station, I guess to keep the riff raff out, and said the magic words, “I’m here to study” and they waved me inside! That’s different! Unfortunately, I didn’t get to do much writing as my tummy was doing loop-da-loops and splishy splashes. đ Still great experience to be there.
- By staying at a different location for the second leg of my NYC experience, The East Village, I found this awesome spot called The Bean located at 54 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003. Based on the character studies, I got to work on my outline here. Because I get to these places early, there were a lot open spaces to sit with my iced tea and croissant.
- Moving down the street from The Bean to the Lower East Side, I landed in an incredible place called Pause CafĂ© located at 3 Clinton St, New York, NY 10002. I had breakfast here which was the Vegetarian Shakshuka, a Moroccan dish with ground beef, spices, and eggs. So good! There was very limited seating here and was lucky to nab a spot towards a back wall where outlets lined the walls. There was one bathroom which this guy who sat next to me seemed to disappear into for really long stretches at a time. LOL for this guy who’s a writer. Oh, but when I was here I found my pdf version of DEVOTED which I converted to text to import into Final Draft. I’ll def work on it soon.
- The final place that I found some writing time in was at Think Coffee located at 1 Bleecker St, New York, NY 10003 and Bowery. I only had like 2 hours here before I needed to check out so I didn’t get too much writing done HOWEVER, I can at the very least say that I started the First Draft of DARYO’S ALL-AMERICAN DINER, inside this NYC Cafe! I haven’t written anything new in so long and as I started writing, it just felt right.
All in all, I set out what I wanted to do and that was to start on the story that had been floating around in my head for at least the last 6 months. Cheers to the next Soy Latte!