New York City doesn’t know what it’s doing either
By: Abstract Magazine
Tags: Travel, Life, New York

You’ve graduated, moved to New York City, and now you don’t know what you’re doing with your life or even where to get a decent cup of coffee. By Matthew Weddig

Moving to New York is scary, even before you start searching for a good bar. Photo: Harry Slater

I pretty much moved to New York City by accident, something most people do on purpose. A certain stereotyped dream behind moving to New York makes it not just part of how people plan their future, but idealise it. In contrast, New York was simply where I got a job offer, so I somehow managed to feel a little guilty about moving there.

A sprawling city where there is famously too much can pose somewhat of a problem, especially at a time in your life when you never know what you’re doing anyway. You could visit a new bar every single day and not see them all, and that’s assuming that you want to spend your life only going to bars.

I have no idea how people were adults before Yelp, the inevitable cross between social media and guidebook. Suddenly plopped down in the middle of new place, figuring out how to rebuild my personal web of restaurants and coffee shops was somehow a more daunting task than actually moving. Being a brand new adult, I’m baffled by how people were able to do that before they could take advantage of the aggregated opinions of practiced adults who had already decided on one of the dozen Chinese takeout places on their new street.

There’s undoubtedly a certain irony to finding an alternative to a big, ubiquitous chain like Starbucks by browsing through community opinions of what’s “good” (which can translate simply to “popular”), but it’s not actually that simple. The bar example is a good one; I had two friends from college visiting me in my new apartment (and, dauntingly, new life) in Brooklyn. Not having had to entertain friends in Brooklyn previously, I had little time to find cozy, quiet bars where we could talk over craft beers or proper cocktails (preferably with something of a hipster vibe). Finding a bar that meets those very specific requirements is nigh impossible just stumbling around Brooklyn and popping your head in the door, yet Yelp is a tool that somehow lets you narrow down your search to cozy, quiet, craft beers/proper cocktails (preferably with a hipster vibe).

Hipster is an actual category on Yelp. It’s an option under ambiance. Take a moment to appreciate what a weirdly useful tool this is.

Of course, not everybody finds such bars ideal, which is why I feel Yelp offers something essential beyond an average star rating. Single reviews won’t sway me, although when a negative review of a bar complained “I saw a hipster reading books” with a frowny face, I was convinced I needed to check it out. But skimming through a few dozen opinions lets you skip the busywork of finding and getting familiar with these places yourself. Within 15 minutes, I had narrowed the list down to a bar-slash-coffee shop, a speakeasy with a rotating menu of eight different cocktails, and what I can only describe as a western-steampunk-geek bar with a TARDIS restroom. There was literally a TARDIS against the wall, and inside was the toilet. (I later learned Matt Smith and Karen Gillan have been there and signed the wall.)

Now, you may have found three bars which were almost as perfect for you just wandering around by chance, but Yelp cuts through the haze in a way that you enviously wish you could for the rest of your life.

Moving to New York when you have just graduated and never seem to know what you’re doing is incredibly overwhelming. Yet through its endless list of things to do — almost all of which you will never manage — and not being certain you’re even making reasonable decisions about any of it, a big city like New York is weirdly symbolic of that period of your life. Suddenly faced with too many options, you learn real quickly that there is no magical binary of the right or wrong way to find happiness. And it is overwhelming, but it is more importantly freeing.

Unsurprisingly, it’s easier to learn this lesson about a city like New York than about what you’re doing with your life. And that’s totally fine. What it is, though, is an easy way to begin learning the freeing thought process of simply being able to decide “Yes, that is what I want to do next”. Especially when Yelp is pointing me towards a bar with a TARDIS restroom.