Just as a New Yorker knows what it means to play tour guide, most know the false sense of confidence we feel walking around the city. (No, not a pilgrimage to Carrie Bradshaw’s townhouse, just three minutes from my last apartment.) I’d walk them through a square of the West Village containing The Stonewall Inn, where many credit the modern LGBTQ rights movement's inception, and which will play a big role in this year’s World Pride-celebrating 50 years since the Stonewall riots.
Given my location-in the heart of the West Village-I was also able to offer guests something special, whether they liked it or not. Ironically, it was by 30, when friends starting having kids and visitors waned, that I had my tour guide routine down to a science: We’d share small plates and have too many negronis outside at Via Carota I’d become a member at MoMA for the $5 guest passes I’d politely tell guests if they wanted to walk the ever-crowded Brooklyn bridge to do it alone and I was a pro at satisfying everyone’s most popular request: to visit a rooftop bar. Being from Iowa and having went to college in the midwest, I spent much of my 20s hosting old friends in tiny apartments with miniscule bathrooms.
