JESS' NYC CITY GUIDE
Jess (@jessglistening) is the founder of brand marketing agency Scallion Pancake (@scallionpancakenyc), focusing on purpose- driven and POC-owned brands and causes. She also runs Ghost Vintage (@ghostvtg), a vintage store, and helps run Second-Life Marketplace (@secondlifemarketplace), a second-hand and vintage platform and event series.
We interrupted her busy schedule to ask her where we should sleep, eat and party like a local in NYC. Travel may not be on the cards right now but we can certainly get prepared! Here are just a few things to add to your Big Apple bucket list...
Chilly’s: Where should we stay?
Jess: Greenpoint, Fort Greene or Bushwick. Still very central to all the tourist hot spots but gets you out of the chaos of Manhattan. You’ll get to see what life is like as someone who actually lives in the city, and the best views are from Brooklyn! I love The Hoxton, The Wythe Hotel, and Urban Cowboy.
C: Where should we eat?
J: Di An Di for delicious upscale Vietnamese food in Greenpoint (get takeout and sit by the water!), Xian’s Famous Foods for quick, delicious and spicy noodles and dumplings, and Le Bernadin, the only fine dining spot I like in the city.
C: Where’s your favourite spot to people- watch?
J: Any of the parks - they’re the life and culture of the city for me. My favorite places to people watch is parking my butt with a takeaway cocktail on a bench in Washington Square Park, Transmitter Park (which also gives you an amazing waterfront view of the city) or Prospect Park.
C: If we were in the mood to party, where would you take us?
J: In the past I would have said start with drinks at The Lot Radio, an independent, super cool open-air radio hosted from a reclaimed shipping container, followed by dancing at Goodroom, Public Records or Nowadays. With the pandemic, partying feels like a relic of a far-away past version of NYC, but people always seem to find a way in this city. I’ve seen spontaneous dance parties pop up in McCarren Park, Transmitter Park, Prospect Park and there’s St. James Joy, a neighborhood mask-on block party are decent temporary alternatives.
C: What’s the best thing about living in New York?
J: That it is constantly adapting and you
can be whoever you want to be without judgement. There’s an incredible freedom of expression and thought that happens when you throw so many ambitious, creative, kind and intense people in one city with very little private spaces.
C: If you didn’t live there, where would you live?
J: Berlin for the culture, Sydney for the sunshine.