Alyssa Sheinmel’s New York

When Alyssa Sheinmel‘s The Beautiful Between showed up in my mailbox a while back, the first thing I noticed was that Alyssa had a day job in the marketing department at a big publishing house—well, we writers who work in publishing marketing departments have to stick together, so I moved it up a little higher on my pile. And her debut novel turns out to be really good: an emotionally honest story about a high school student who’s helping her new best friend cope with a tragedy in his life even as it forces her to confront one that she’s been avoiding nearly all of hers. In this essay, Alyssa talks about some of the places that shaped the world of her story—it’s the first stop on her blog tour, so you might drop by Cleverly Inked some time soon to see what she has to say next…

A lot of people who meet me assume I’m a lifelong New Yorker, but I’m not. I was born in California, and although I moved to the east coast when I was six years old, I didn’t move to Manhattan until I was thirteen. And I didn’t think of myself as a New Yorker for a lot longer than that. I fully believed—and sometimes I still do—that I was just a displaced California girl. I didn’t begin to love New York until well into high school (probably around when I discovered shopping)—and even then, I still believed that I had just as good a chance of ending up in California as I did in New York. But the longer I’ve lived in New York, the more I’ve come to love it. It is my home: it’s where I fell in love with my husband and with my dog (yes, I am in love with my dog), where I work, where my friends are, where my life is. So I wanted to share with you a few of my favorite New York City places.

One of my favorite things about Manhattan is you’re almost always within walking distance of a bookstore. Whenever I’m early for an appointment and need to kill time, or when I’m walking around and get caught in the rain, or if I’m just bored and just need something to do, I know that I can head to a bookstore. Here I am at my neighborhood bookstore, trying (and failing) to interest my dog in some Hemingway.

One of the best things about the average day in my life is that more often than not, I go to work. Now, I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy my weekends and my vacation days, but I am very lucky to have a job that I love—well actually, I have two jobs that I love. By day, I work at the marketing department at Random House Children’s Books. By night (I like the sound of that—like I’m a superhero with an alter-ego!), I get to write books (or at least to try). So of course, my office at Random House is one of my favorite places in New York. Here I am, reporting for duty on a Monday morning.

Outside of Random House, the place where I spend the most time is my neighborhood, Tribeca. I love this neighborhood because there are so many old buildings—sometimes I think at least half of them are landmarks. Also landmarked is a beautiful little park on my block called Duane Park.

Living in Tribeca has been very good—or very bad, depending on how you think of it—for my shopping addiction. It’s just a short walk from Soho, one of the best neighborhoods for shopping in the city, and Tribeca itself has a few great little stores hidden up and down it’s side streets. Here’s my favorite, a store called Steven Alan.

Although I live in Tribeca, my favorite neighborhood in Manhattan is probably the West Village. Every street is lined with trees, and everybody there seems to know just how lucky they are to live there. And the best bakery ever, Milk & Cookies is there. You can create your own customized ice cream sandwich! It’s delicious.

But I wasn’t always such a downtown girl. When I moved to Manhattan we lived way up on the Upper East Side, and I went to a school called Spence, which has become an endless source of inspiration for the stories that I write.

After Spence, I moved even farther uptown, to Barnard College. I had no idea I’d love it as much as I did. Today, I can’t imagine having gone to school anyplace else.

After graduating, I moved back to the Upper East Side. Then I lived in another East Side neighborhood called Sutton Place. But eventually, despite a few stops and starts in between, I made my way downtown, and ended up in my current apartment. I’ll never be on of those die-hard New Yorkers who can’t imagine ever leaving, who would never want to live anywhere else. I hope that I’ll get to live in lots of different places. But I have to admit that I really do love it here: I get a kick out of just walking around my neighborhood. Maybe that’s how you know you’ve really made it home.

10 May 2010 | guest authors |