In the name of small scale adventure, I’m spending one day each month exploring an area in or around New York City that I’ve never been to before. Welcome to the neighborhood. This was my cheat neighborhood. When I made my long list of potential places to explore in this city, I had to rule out Manhattan nearly in its entirety, a result of living and working there since I moved to New York in 2016. But in 2024, I moved to Queens and my map expanded. I’ve been to Jackson Heig

In the name of small scale adventure, I’m spending one day each month exploring an area in or around New York City that I’ve never been to before. Welcome to the neighborhood. When I decided on the neighborhood project for this year, I knew I had to make sure I hit every borough at least once. Staten Island is admittedly the borough I’ve spent the least time in. Or rather, the least extended time in. When I first moved to New York City and would regularly host friends and fa

In the name of small scale adventure, I’m spending one day each month exploring an area in or around New York City that I’ve never been to before. Welcome to the neighborhood. The day we spent in Ridgewood was actually a reschedule. The original day we were going to go was one of those negative temperature days. The reschedule was a blizzard. Nevertheless, on a partly rainy Sunday morning, I got on the train bound for Ridgewood, Queens. Ridgewood sits on the border of Queen

In the name of small scale adventure, I’m spending one day each month exploring an area in or around New York City that I’ve never been to before. Welcome to the neighborhood. Visiting my hometown in December after I’d decided this year’s monthly challenge would be one of mini trips, I sat on the sofa with my mom Googling “interesting places around NY.” Because the challenge emphasizes new-to-me spots, that basically wipes out every Manhattan neighborhood as candidates. But

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with my obsession with consistency and routine. Whether a daily “Happiness is” post, a 2x weekly blog, or a monthly series, there’s something in my brain that loves a time-based plan. In 2024, I created “ A Tangible Challenge ,” where each month I took one in-person class about something I knew (little to) nothing about. The class had to be in person and it couldn’t be related to my professional career. I wanted to learn things u