Moving to New York Meant Leaving Chicago

The past summer I moved to Astoria, Queens from Chicago when I graduated college. I changed my New Yorker magazine subscription to a real New York address, started doing things that I found in its Goings on About Town section, ate Venezuelan food for the first time, had my tires slashed and learned what all the fuss over Williamsburg, Brooklyn was about.

My girlfriend and I moved into a shitty apartment in Astoria, so close to the East River that when I look for restaurants nearby on my cell phone it often gives me recommendations for things, far outside my price range or interest, on Manhattan's aristocratic Upper East Side. It's a 15 minute walk to the nearest train station but we have a washer and drier in the apartment and rent is cheap so I can't really complain.

Upper East Side, So Close Yet So Far

Upon arriving in New York I found myself increasingly identifying with Chicago. I listened to Kanye and Chance the Rapper endlessly, maybe mostly to hear all their references to the city I had just left behind. I needed to hear Chance say "Went to Kenwood? Me too" and know what Kenwood Academy at 51st and Lake Park looked like. I needed to feel that I understood a place and all of its cultural references. That when Kanye rapped about Lake Shore Drive, I knew every exit from 57th northward. For me those lines were more than words, they were signifiers of a place I called home and local knowledge I'd accrued. I had belonged somewhere.

Chance the Rapper, Circa 2013

Then arriving in New York I felt like I knew nothing.  In Chicago, I felt like I really knew the place I lived, the restaurants, the museums, dive bars, parks and bookstores. But New York was new and overwhelming (does that mean Chicago was whelming? unclear).

My feet, and all of my stuff for that matter, were in New York but my mind was still on Chicago. Almost weekly I brought up Harold's Chicken Shack with my co-workers who had gone to Northwestern, even though they repeatedly made it clear they had no idea what I was talking about.  I would quote to people the exact price of a half-dark special at Harold's ($3.18 with student discount) as I reminisced about delicious, barbecue sauce soaked fried chicken.

At Harold's, Hands Covered in Mild Sauce, Sucking down a Mystic, Mid 2012

So I tried to experience as much of New York as I could. I left work each day with a mission and took each weekend as an opportunity. I ate at a Cypriot restaurant and learned that Ouzo is not a very responsible beverage to pair with dinner. I went to a brewery in the farthest northwest corner of Queens where you could see Riker's Island. I went to book talks in bars and art shows in warehouses. I sat atop roofs in Williamsburg and took the ferry to Governors Island for a poetry festival. I went to almost every single museum in the city that had free hours. I marched across the Brooklyn bridge with thousands of protestors. I found Ivorian restaurants and the best arepas Jackson Heights had to offer. I got stranded waiting for what seemed like eternities at subway stops trying to making the late night exodus back to Queens.

Moonrise in Chelsea

Eventually, when a friend from back home visited I began telling him about this great place to get fried chicken called Pies and Thighs. I was almost salivating as I talked about their chicken biscuit. And later thinking back to that conversation, I realized I'd finally found a new chicken place.