What it's Like to Live in Times Square!
Plus! A petting zoo proposal!!
Hello everyone,
Welcome to Issue #186 of CAFÉ ANNE!
So yes, Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral election, with more than a million votes. But I must note that 6,382 New Yorkers voted for Eric Adams, who dropped out of the race last month. Was I among those voters? I’ll never tell!
In other, other news, judging by the comments on last week’s feature story about Lorenzo Tijerina launching his trilingual Sunset Post, approximately 67% of CAFÉ ANNE readers are, like myself, former community newspaper reporters. And why is that? BECAUSE WE ARE THE BEST PEOPLE.
In other-other news, the folks with the David Prize approached recently, asking me to propose a “big idea” to improve life in New York City. Of course I offered my plan for the world’s largest free petting zoo—in Midtown. Here’s the little video they shot of me describing my vision.
Finally, huge petting-zoo shoutouts to our newest paid subscriber Nelson H. That’s enough $$$ to buy 60 servings of goat feed!
I am very excited for this week’s issue, of course. We’ve got an interview with NYC musician Jake Rich about what it’s like to live in Times Square. Please enjoy.
Regards!
Anne
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FEATURE
What it’s Like to Live in Times Square!
What’s it like to live in Times Square? I’ve always wanted to interview someone who willingly lives in the one place most New Yorkers say they wouldn’t be caught dead in. But how would I find such a person?
I finally spotted an opportunity when Rob Stephenson, a fellow newsletter writer who profiles a different NYC neighborhood each week, devoted an issue to the area. At the end of his post, he included a photo of Jimmy’s Corner, the legendary Times Square bar.
“I was very intrigued by whoever lives in the top-floor apartment above the bar, with its mix of wind chimes, potted plants, and Buffalo Bills memorabilia,” Rob wrote, referring to a photo he’d taken.
“Upon closer inspection,” Rob continued, “It would appear they are also curious about me.”
Suddenly I knew: this was the Times Square resident I would write about!
I went to Times Square, found the right building and dropped a letter through the mail slot addressed to “Third floor occupant.”
After introducing my blog, I wrote,
“Last week, my friend Rob Stephenson, a fellow writer and photographer, did a story about Times Square and he noted your apartment above Jimmy’s Corner, with the Bills sign in the window. Go Bills!
I am from Buffalo and liked the idea of a story about a Bills fan (and former Buffalonian?) living in the world’s most chaotic, crazy place, because I am betting you are fairly down-to-earth. I am curious why you are living there, and what it is like for you.
Are you available for an interview? We could meet at Jimmy’s, or some other place nearby that you like.”
And you know what happened next? Nothing! Months passed, and I totally forgot the whole thing.
Then, on a recent Sunday afternoon, I got a text from a mysterious phone number—with a Buffalo area code.
“Hi Anne,” it said. “My name is Jake Rich. I found this letter on my stairs earlier this summer.”
He attached a photo of the letter I’d pushed through the mail slot.
“Please give me a call ASAP,” he added.
I rang him immediately. Jake, it turns out, had a proposal: “I wanted to invite you to an event we’re throwing in my apartment tonight.”
Jake, a musician and event producer, was hosting a rager for his theater friends—with a go-go-dancer, puppets, Stevie Wonder’s former keyboard player and two members of the Roots.
“I was getting ready for the party,” said Jake, “and I saw your letter sitting on my shelf and I said, ‘Maybe I should give her a call. Also, the Bills won today!’”
Reader, I’d love to say I dropped everything and went to this party. But it was a school night. And I know from experience—it’s hard to conduct an interview when you’re competing with go-go dancers and puppets.
We did, however, agree to meet at his place on a Tuesday afternoon a few weeks later.
Jake’s apartment, which faces the Millennium Times Square Hotel and the Hudson Theater, occupies the top floor of an old, three-story building. When he buzzed me up, I climbed two flights of stairs and was greeted by a life-size poster of the legendary Bills defensive end.
“That’s Bruce Smith!” said Jake, greeting me from the doorway.
“The Bruce!” I said.
Jake ushered me in. He was a big guy in his mid-30s, dressed in all black, clutching a mason jar filled with murky, dark green liquid. “Liquid chlorophyll water,” he explained.
“That sounds horrible,” I said.
“It’s so tasty, do you want a shot?”
I chugged my shot. It tasted like chlorophyll.
“So what’s with the doctor’s scale?” I asked, taking in the apartment’s many curiosities.
“It’s for weigh-ins,” said Jake.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know, you’re gonna have a boxing match, you got to make sure people are in the right weight class,” said Jake.
“You have boxing matches in here?”
“We have yet to have an official boxing match,” said Jake. “But sword fights, yes!”
He handed me a long bamboo sword and we engaged in a brief sparring match. I shall not reveal who won, but here’s a hint: the loser had to give a tour of his apartment.
It was a long, narrow affair—15x70-feet—with the living room facing the street and a back bedroom featuring a fire escape and a small window covered with plastic. The place was jammed, in a charming way, with a baby grand piano, drum kit, six guitars, masks, wind chimes, paintings, books (philosophy, religion, fiction), vinyl, CDs and cassettes.
Plus: plants galore, vintage Bills wastebaskets, a recording studio, weights, an exercise bike, a skateboard, Tibetan flags and, in the single tiny closet, a pair of Bills logo high-top sneakers.
When I noticed the Stevie Wonder songbook on the piano, Jake told me about the time he met his hero at a music conference. “He told me, ‘All of us have gifts and we need to share those gifts,’” he said. “It was truly one of the greatest moments of my life.”
We sat on the sofa. Jake had incense burning and Rasha Nahas playing on the stereo. He offered another drink: “A glass of water, or some coffee, or a beer, some whiskey, some tea?”
Over coffee, I learned that Jake grew up in Hamburg, NY—a small town south of Buffalo about 15 miles from my own hometown. He came to NYC in 2008 for school, studied screen writing and then worked in entertainment—producing events and managing bands. Prior to Times Square, he did the usual Brooklyn-with-roommates thing, moving between Bushwick, Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy. He was couch surfing in October 2020 when he got a text from a real estate pal about an available apartment.
“They sent me this address,” said Jake. “And it was West 44th Street. Like, ‘What? No one lives there.’”
He jumped on his bike and pedaled to Times Square. The previous tenant had just died and Jake was the first person to see the apartment. He signed a lease on the spot.
“I worked out a price, said yes, stepped out, and then I was like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I’m about to live in Times Square,’” said Jake. “And then I was like, ‘You didn’t even look at the bathroom!’”
Never mind the tiny bathroom. The place came with all sorts of treasures. The previous tenant, an artist named Lanny Powers, left no will and had no next of kin. His paintings still hang on the walls.
So what’s it like to live in Times Square?
When Jake moved to the neighborhood on Election Day, 2020, it was a Covid ghost town. The only people around were construction crews boarding up the storefronts in preparation for feared post-election riots.
Now, Times Square’s pedestrian counts are back up to nearly 400,000 a day. “And personally, I love it,” said Jake. “But I love weird experiences. The worst thing in the world, I think, is to be bored.”
“There’s news stories that shake the whole planet, and they’re a few blocks from me,” he said. “Just the other day, this woman went viral for chasing down Keanu Reeves...I watched it happen out my window, and then I saw it on TMZ.”
“I’ve had run-ins with huge celebrities out here,” he continued. “I’ve had conversations with homeless folks, I’ve met artists, the Naked Cowboy. I’ve met tourists, I’ve met pro athletes. Just about everybody comes to Times Square at some point in their life.”
He loves the street action —the pedicab drivers, showtime performers, Elmo characters, palm readers and ticket hawkers. “It’s oddly representative of a lot of New York,” he said. “There’s so many hustlers out there, so many people who have all figured out their grift.”
And he enjoys shooting the action with his camera of choice—a cheap Kodak 35mm disposable.
He even loves the commercialism. While most New Yorkers hate Times Square, he said, “The way I started to see it after living here for a while is like, all of the stuff that you love about New York, you need this here in order for all that to happen. You need all this tourism revenue, and you need all of this ad money that goes into these billboards—this is what allows you to have your quaint little neighborhood over there.”
But he does have a pet peeve: the black smoke wafting from the food carts. “That is probably the number two thing that bothers me most about being in Times Square,” he said.
“Is number one the slow walkers?” I guessed.
“No,” he said. “The number one is the song Empire State of Mind with Alicia Keyes and Jay-Z. If I had a genie and three wishes, one of my wishes would be to get rid of that song forever. It’s so overplayed around here.”
I was dying, of course, to hear what he does on New Year’s Eve. He typically throws a big house party, it turns out, but it gets harder every year. He tells the cops downstairs that he’s hosting a gathering, and shows his license to prove his address, but his guests need to arrive by 4 pm if they’re going to get through security.
Jake fetched his laundry bag and we set out to tour Times Square from a resident’s perspective. He couldn’t show me his local supermarket, because there isn’t one. He typically shops the Whole Foods on Bryant Park, a 15-minute schlep. He doesn’t even have a local bodega. The place down the block caters to tourists, with prices to match—a bagel with cream cheese costs $4.50, a candy bar $2.75.
But there’s bargains in Times Square if you know where to look, he said. The Royal Grill halal cart on 46th Street with its $8 kati roll special is a favorite, and Jimmy’s Corner offers $3 beers. “It’s one of the cheapest bars in New York!”
Jake has several go-to coffee spots including Gregorys and Vanilla Gorilla; his choice depends on what direction he’s heading. He avoids crossing through Times Square whenever possible. “It’s a lot energetically, and takes a lot of time, so you have to be intentional about where you go,” he said.
Though he does have some tricks. When he’s behind a slow walker, he starts whistling. “What I do is I whistle badly, like there’s no rhyme or reason to it,” he explained, as we battled through the crowds. “There’s no melody, no rhythm. It’s just bad. And then people are like, ‘Who is this person?’ and they get out of your way.’”
He’s never dined at the Times Square Olive Garden or the Times Square Applebee’s. But he does recommend Café Un Deux Trois for the atmosphere and Becco for the all-you-can eat pasta special. He’ll stop by Times Square’s 24-hour CVS for ibuprofen, “But if you want to buy, like, ice cream, the price is gonna be crazy.”
It was funny to see him trooping through the Times Square in his NASA jacket and laundry bag, flanked on by blazing ten-story billboards.
Jake, who is recording his music for the first time since 2011, finds the advertisements inspiring. “Every billboard shows somebody’s thing that they took a risk and went and made,” he said. “This album, this movie, this product. Nothing happens without risk. And then I say, ‘Oh, I have better music than that, but I haven’t put out my first album.’ So it gives me a push.”
On the way to the laundromat, Jake offered a critique of a ticket-seller’s pitch, broke down the pedicab business model, showed me his favorite incense store and admired the gargoyles on an art deco building. His laundromat, it turns out, is way over on Ninth Avenue—there’s nothing closer. But he’s clearly a regular—he chatted with the owner, Terrence, for a long time before inviting him to an upcoming party.
Next: a favorite tree on 46th street filled with songbirds, a peek at a French bistro that famously serves absinthe and a photo op at St. Kilda—his favorite coffee spot west of the square.
“How long do you think you’ll live in Times Square?” I asked, as we headed back.
“I love my apartment, and for my current lifestyle, I don’t have any reason that I would leave,” said Jake. “But if I were to have a kid, I don’t think I would want to raise an infant in Times Square...I don’t feel like you’d be setting your kid up for success.”
The plan was to end with a drink at Jimmy’s Corner, but the bar was mobbed, and after three hours with Jake and Times Square, I was spent. We were chatting out front and Jake was telling me about the friends he’d made at the bar, including an archeologist pal, when guess who came by.
“We were just talking about you!” said Jake.
“He said you spent half the year at this bar, half the year in Kenya,” I added.
“Pretty much,” said Evan Wilson, the archeologist friend.
They discussed celebrities they’d met at the bar. “Mike Tyson comes in once or twice a year and gives out weed gummies—he has weed gummies that look like pieces of bitten-off ears,” said Jake.
“Bono used to come here quite a bit,” said Evan. “So I would go to the back, and Bono would be in the back, and I used to call him Sting as a joke.”
But the bar also attracts Times Square’s bell hops and waiters and security guards—along with plenty of tourists.
“Jimmy created this place as a neutral zone,” said Evan. “He wanted it to be like an equalizer between everybody. It doesn’t matter who you are—Times Square is the crossroads of the universe. So he was like, ‘This is where you should be hanging out.’”
“I think it’s a magical place,” Jake agreed, nodding to another friend passing by. “And it’s one of those things where, if your head space is like, ‘This is awful,’ it’s going to be awful. And if you focus on the slow walkers and the people behaving poorly, then that’s the experience you’re gonna have. And if you look for the magic, there’s plenty of it here—maybe more than any other neighborhood.”
CAFÉ ANNE is a free weekly newsletter created by Brooklyn journalist Anne Kadet. Subscribe to get the latest issue every Monday.
So good! If we could work out a system where you interview every person that I inadvertently photograph in unusual locations I think we could win a Pulitzer. Humans of New York meets Where's Waldo. Would love to hear some of Jake's music. Disappointed you guys didn't jump on some folding tables. Also, is Lanny Powers the same Lanny Powers that made the Dawn of the Dead poster? Thank you for putting this all together!
This is such a great New York story, Anne.