Nicolas Heller—Commercial Director, Documentarian, and “Unofficial Talent Scout of New York” known as @newyorknico—joins to talk about his new book, a raw and authentic city guide of Nick’s can’t-miss eateries, shops, bookstores, and so much more.
Debbie Millman:
On social media, he is New York Nico and his short videos, photos, and stories celebrate the enduring wonder and wackiness of life in New York. He’s been called the Unofficial Talent Scout to the city, and if like millions of others, you’ve seen his work, you’ll know why. It’s full of New Yorkers of all stripes doing their thing, working, singing, singing while working, riding a bike with a trash can balanced on their head. Normal everyday stuff. In the early days of COVID, he was one of the local heroes when his Instagram channel brought much-needed attention and money to storefront businesses trying to survive in the era of social distancing. He even won a Presidential Medal for his work. I interviewed Nick Heller on Design Matters last year, and we talked all about his life and his career, but this was before his work led to the publication of a brand new book. It’s called New York Nico’s Guide to New York City. It’s just been published, and today he’s here to dish all about it. New York Nico, aka Nicolas Heller, welcome to Design Matters.
Nicolas Heller:
Thank you. Honored to be here.
Debbie Millman:
Nick, let’s remind people of a few important facts. One, you are a native New Yorker as am I, and you’re also considered the Unofficial Talent Scout of New York City to millions of people in and out of New York. Remind us how you first got that title.
Nicolas Heller:
I think I just called myself the Unofficial Talent Scout of New York once, maybe on a post or something, and it kind of just stuck, and then The New York Times used that title in an article, so I’ve been giving them the credit because I think it sounds better coming from them than it does from myself.
Debbie Millman:
Self designated.
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah, being the self-proclaimed Unofficial Talent Scout isn’t as cool as The New York Times calling me the Unofficial Talent Scout.
Debbie Millman:
Well, you first became interested in film, I believe it was the eighth grade, and you took your first film class in high school. You left New York City to go to college and then went to Hollywood to pursue your career there. And I know while you were living in Los Angeles, you failed your driver’s test three times, which makes for quite a lot of difficulties in terms of getting around Los Angeles. How did you get around when you were there?
Nicolas Heller:
I biked everywhere.
Debbie Millman:
Did you?
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah, I biked everywhere. I was in the best shape of my life.
Debbie Millman:
So was failing the driving test, the primary reason you decided to come back to New York?
Nicolas Heller:
I mean, it was one of many reasons. I just wasn’t booking any work while I was out there. I went out there because I thought I was going to make it as a hotshot music video director and just failed miserably. So that was the main reason why I moved back, but I also just … At the end of the day, I’m glad I experienced it. I feel like none of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t experienced Los Angeles and living somewhere else for an extended period of time. But yeah, just not for me.
Debbie Millman:
You said something, I believe it might be in your book. I have it in my research. I’m not sure if I read it in your book or if I read it in one of the other interviews that you’ve done, but you said this. “What I discovered was the whole thing about how the grass is always greener on the other side, but I don’t know much about grass. I grew up around Union Square.” And I love that you shared that, and I think it’s such a wonderful way of considering confronting what we think we need to do versus what we end up doing for lots and lots of different reasons. But it seems that in order to find out that the grass isn’t greener on the other side, you have to walk over to that side too.
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah, you got to experience it in order to know that what you have right in front of you, it’s the best.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, there’s no place like home?
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah. Anytime people tell me that they’re tired of New York, I say, “All right, well, go somewhere else for a little bit, and you’ll be back or you won’t.”
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
Nicolas Heller:
But when you’re born and raised in New York, it’s like you’re used to a certain type of energy and movement. I just wasn’t getting that.
Debbie Millman:
I think anybody that does live in New York for any amount of time at any point in their lives ends up with some of New York in their DNA and that never goes away.
Nicolas Heller:
No, never.
Debbie Millman:
I think people that leave the city will always have that. I haven’t met many people that have lived in New York and then left New York that aren’t proud of that DNA in their system.
Nicolas Heller:
Oh, yeah. I love going to other cities and meeting New Yorkers and just it hasn’t left them, and they miss the hell out of it. I remember I was in Miami recently, which I consider to be the sixth borough. I know that’s controversial, but there’s so many New Yorkers out there, and I was taking an Uber to the airport and I just had the best conversation with this native New Yorker. He was so happy to just talk about New York and all the places that he misses. But yeah, it’s always a blast going outside of New York and finding New Yorkers.
Debbie Millman:
When you first came back to New York, you were coming back to find yourself again, and in one of your lowest moments on that journey at that time was a visit to Union Square, a place that was very familiar to you. And you saw a street character out of the corner of your eye who you’d seen all throughout high school. What happened next changed the trajectory of your life and ultimately led to not only your career, but to your writing this book, and I’m wondering if you can share some of that history with our listeners.
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah. After failing at being a Hollywood director, I came back to New York and was living with my parents in Union Square and trying to contemplate what I was going to do next. So I was just sitting in the park thinking, and I noticed this New York City street character who I’d seen all throughout high school. He is a six-foot-seven white guy with dreadlocks who carries around a 10-pound sign that says, “The six-foot-seven Jew will freestyle rap and heal you too.” Prior to this moment, I was a pretty introverted and shy person, but I used this low point in my life as an opportunity to just break out of my comfort zone and talk to this stranger, and we ended up walking around the city together having a great conversation.
And by the end of that, I asked if I could make a documentary on him, and he obliged and I made this five-minute film about this New York City character that everyone has seen before, but maybe didn’t know the full story of. And it made me realize that I could do this for a plethora of amazing New York City characters, and that’s what I did, and then that turned into my Instagram.
Debbie Millman:
What made you decide that the artists that you were filming, whether it be the six-foot-seven-inch performer or any of the other subsequent films that you made, what gave you the sense that these artists would be as compelling to other people as they were to you?
Nicolas Heller:
Well, at first I didn’t know that they would be interesting to other people. I just saw them as in my head, they were celebrities like Ted [inaudible 00:08:08], the six-foot-seven Jew was as famous as the Kardashians in my mind. Everyone knew who this guy was, but no one knew his story. So I figured that putting their story out there and kind of spotlighting them in that way, people would be intrigued. And unfortunately, these videos that I made didn’t really get the viewership that I was hoping for. I just put them out on YouTube. This was in 2013 when web series was kind of becoming a thing, and it was a little discouraging because in my eyes, these were incredible stories that everyone should know about, but it didn’t reflect that in the views.
So it was also around the time that Instagram was really pushing video. So I started, rather than doing these fully fleshed out five-minute slice-of-life films, I was like, well, why don’t I just film the same people on my phone, not edit anything and just put it up in real-time? And then that’s what people started gravitating towards. It took a minute, but people started gradually getting more and more interested.
Debbie Millman:
Do you consider yourself to still be introverted and shy?
Nicolas Heller:
I am. Doing the press for this book has been not so fun for me because I do not like being in front of the camera. I don’t love having to talk about my work, although I do love talking to you. But yeah, no, I’m still introverted. I’m not as introverted as I once was. I’m not shy anymore. I guess I was kind of shy prior to 2013, but now I can really talk to anybody. But no, I like being sort of a behind-the-camera guy. You don’t need to know anything about me. It’s about the people and the places and the things that I’m documenting.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve gone on to direct big-time commercial campaigns for the New York Times, Nike, Major League Baseball, Calvin Klein, Timberland, and many, many others. Yet you seem to be particularly interested in these small businesses that really make up the fabric of New York City life. What is it about these folks that interests you the most?
Nicolas Heller:
Well, about a year before the pandemic, I started this hashtag called Mom and Pop Drop. I started gaining this following on Instagram, and I wanted to sort of give back to the people and the businesses of New York. So I figured by doing this hashtag, I would give free ad space to small businesses that were interested. So they would film sort of like a selfie video talking about their business, and I would just post it on my page, and that was just a way to give back. People seemed to enjoy it, but it didn’t really move the needle by any stretch of the imagination. And it wasn’t until the pandemic that Mom and Pop Drop really started to have an impact, and it all started with one of my favorite people in New York, Henry Yao, the owner of Army & Navy Bag on 177 East Houston Street.
This was in April or May, late April, early May, a friend of mine reached out and told me that Henry was really struggling, there was nobody coming in, he owed months of rent, and another customer had set up a GoFundMe for him. I think they were looking for like $50,000. And my friend asked if I could share the GoFundMe, and I was like, “Well, why don’t I come in and talk to him? I’ll do an interview, post a video on my page.” And I was very familiar with Henry, although we weren’t on a first name basis, I would just go in every now and then. But when I met him to interview him, I just became sort of enamored by this guy, and after posting the video, we raised $50,000 in a day, I think, and that made me realize how special Instagram can be and how you can use social media for good.
People just really wanted to support this guy, and it wasn’t just New Yorkers, it was people from all over the world that just wanted this guy to succeed, and that made me realize that I could continue this with other businesses. So that’s what I did. The next one was Punjabi Deli, and then after that, there was this banh mi shop, and it just went on and on and on, and was able to help raise a lot of money for these businesses that needed it. Through that, I became very close with a lot of these businesses and the owners. To this day, some of my best friends are small business owners like Jamal from Village Revival Records and Henry and Ali from Casa Magazine. Anytime I am in a bad mood and I need a smile, I’ll go to one of these places because they just have the best energy and they’re fun to be around.
Debbie Millman:
What made you decide to gather so many of these stories, sort of the best of New York Nico and write a book?
Nicolas Heller:
Well, one of the most frequently asked questions I get on DM is, “Hey, I’m going to be in town. Can you give me some recommendations?” Obviously, I’m not going to answer all of these messages from strangers, but what I can do is make a book that has all these answers, and this book is, people have been asking me, “What sets this book apart from other New York City guidebooks?” And I could give you a bunch of reasons, but the main reason is that it’s my guidebook. It’s like my favorite places in New York. It’s not anyone else’s favorite places in New York, although in the book you’ll see, I have a lot of my friends who take me to some of their spots, which have become my favorite spots. But I don’t focus on fine dining. There’s no fine dining establishments. I’m not focusing on bars because I’m not really a drinker.
These are just like mom-and-pop shops that have been around for 20, 30, 40, 200 years. Some of the businesses are much younger, but I feel like they’re going to be the next generation of classic old-school mom and pops, if that makes sense. A good chunk of them are in Greenwich Village because that’s where I was born. I was born around Greenwich Village, I went to school around Greenwich Village, so a lot of the places that I’ve been going to for a long time are there, and fortunately are still around. But then throughout my work, I’ve been able to explore farther outside of that particular area, and I’ve found amazing places in the Bronx and Queens and Staten Island and Deep Brooklyn. So yeah, so it’s just like my recommendations. If you follow me and you like the stuff that I post, then here are my suggestions for you.
Debbie Millman:
I loved reading this book for so many reasons. Selfishly, I am, as I mentioned, a native New Yorker. I also have, I think, the noted distinction of having lived in all of the boroughs except the Bronx.
Nicolas Heller:
Oh, wow.
Debbie Millman:
And having lived in the city now for six decades, I was familiar with some places, some of the older places when I moved to Manhattan in 1983, they were places that I began to frequent. But then it was also really, really wonderful to learn about places that I had never been to and had never heard about. So the book is called New York Nico’s Guide to New York City, and you feature 100 business establishments. How on earth were you able to get this list down to 100?
Nicolas Heller:
I visited 130-something spots, and I wanted to include all of them, but my publisher said, “You have a page count that you have to meet, so you’re going to have to whittle this down a bit.” So yeah, I mean, it was hard. I hope that there’s a part two because between when I turned in the manuscript and now, I discovered 10 to 15 more spots that I now love and frequent, and that’s the beauty of New York is you keep discovering new spots. I feel like any other city, not any other city, but many other cities you go to, there’s like a handful of spots that everyone knows about, and those are everybody’s favorites, and there’s no discovering new places. But New York, it’s like you find out about a new spot every day.
Debbie Millman:
You write in the book about how New York has been counted out many times before. You recall the Daily News headline in the 1970s, “Ford to City, ‘Drop Dead'”, the gritty 1980s, 9/11, and you share how New York has weathered everything, but the COVID-19 pandemic was something else, and New York City shut down. You write about how the streets were empty and the tourists were gone. As someone that was living through it so closely, was there ever a time where you worried that New York City might not recover?
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, around the time that I started helping these businesses, I was terrified that I would have to be doing this forever. It seemed like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I imagine most people thought that way because it’s hard to be there and think that things could go back to normal.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. When I first came back, I went to Los Angeles to be with my then-fiance. We ended up eloping rather than having a big wedding, primarily because of COVID. But when I came back to Manhattan and first walked around, I cried. I cried walking the streets because of how many storefronts were now empty.
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah. It’s crazy that it really wasn’t that long ago, but it feels like a lifetime ago.
Debbie Millman:
Yes.
Nicolas Heller:
But things have gotten better. I’m not being hit up every day by someone whose beloved business is closing, which is nice. I mean, it obviously still happens, but New York is back and it’s alive. But yeah, no, I definitely did have that fear.
Debbie Millman:
The book is titled New York Nico’s Guide to New York City, but you emphatically state that the book is not just a guidebook. How would you describe it?
Nicolas Heller:
Well, to me, I’m trying to figure out how to say this without it sounding arrogant, but I want it be like-
Debbie Millman:
Ah, be arrogant. You’re among friends.
Nicolas Heller:
No, I want it to be an artifact. I want it to be something that you’ll find on a bookshelf 20 years from now and you’ll open it up and be teleported back to this time in New York history. I’m hoping that all of the places in the book are still around, but since I started the book a little over two years ago, I would say eight to 10 of the spots have closed. It’s what happens in New York. So I’m hoping that this book cements these incredible businesses into New York history so that they’re never forgotten.
And like I said, 20 years from now, you can look at this book and be like, “Wow., There was a shop in New York that was devoted entirely to chess? There’s a shop in New York that was entirely devoted to rubber stamps?” I pray that these places are still open 20 years from now, and that whoever’s reading it is discovering this place and then goes to it. But for those twho don’t make it, I want them to be immortalized, and I’m hoping that this book does that.
Debbie Millman:
You start the book with a store called Abracadabra, which is at 19 West 21st Street in Manhattan. And this is a store that was originally opened by Paul Bloom in 1981. The store was bought by Robert Alnd and his brother Joe in 2007, and then handed down to Robert’s daughter Janine and her husband Brian Clark. You’ve been a customer since you were a little kid. Tell us about the store and what you found so interesting about it as a young adult.
Nicolas Heller:
Well, who doesn’t love a Halloween store that’s open year-round? Yeah, I don’t know my earliest memory, but I grew up a couple blocks away from Abracadabra. You step foot in there and there’s an energy. They have everything you could dream of, and they also have a magician on staff, so there’s always somebody there teaching you magic tricks if that’s what you’re interested in. But yeah, I know I just feel like with all the Spirit Halloweens that pop up, it’s like I always encourage people to go to these family-owned spots. You have Abracadabra, you have some others, but yeah, there’s an aura around Abracadabra for sure.
Debbie Millman:
In the Army and Navy bags description, you state that anybody who has gone into a New York City mom-and-pop shop knows that it can take some time for the owners to warm up to you.
Nicolas Heller:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
Why is that?
Nicolas Heller:
It depends. Henry is an exception to that because Henry’s just warm to anybody who walks in. He’s just the sweetest guy ever. But then there’s people like Big Mike at Astor Place who I didn’t speak to for 20 years because I got this very intimidating vibe from him because he has that New York hustler attitude where he just wants to get his work done and anyone who’s getting in his way of getting his work done, maybe he’ll give you a little bit of attitude. So Mike is kind of a good example of that. Maybe at first you’ll think he’s rude or a little grumpy, but once you get to his core, he’s the sweetest guy ever.
And actually what made him open up to me was when I saw him in the storage area of Astor Place with his shirt off, painting a Van Gogh-inspired Biggie painting. I thought that that was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. What is the manager of Astor Place doing painting a Van Gogh-inspired Biggie? So I started talking to him about it, and apparently he had just started painting. He’s been wanting to do it his whole life, but never had the opportunity to. So he decided a week prior to me seeing him that he was going to do it on his lunch break. We became friends from that, and then I actually ended up making a film on him called Big Mike Takes Lunch. But yeah, now he’s a very close friend of mine.
Debbie Millman:
In the entry for Casa Magazine’s at 22 8th Avenue, you state that every place included in this book has some character who makes their neighborhood a little bit more special. In the case of the Casa Magazine proprietors, whenever you stop in, you feel their love for the community. Is that a requirement for mom-and-pop shop?
Nicolas Heller:
I don’t think it’s a requirement, but for a mom-and-pop shop that wants to make it into my guidebook, yes. That’s what I love about mom-and-pop shops is the owners are usually there all the time. They’ve probably been there for a very long period of time, and they’re a part of the community and everyone in the community knows them and hopefully everyone in the community loves them. Casa Magazine, in particular, is on one of my favorite blocks in New York City. A couple doors down is La Bonbonniere, which is my favorite greasy spoon diner, and then the M12 bus stops between the two of those places. And Louis Lopez, my favorite bus driver in New York City, is always driving that M12, and he kind of bridges the two spots together and it always feels like a sitcom. Whenever I’m there, something’s always happening.
Debbie Millman:
Tell me about Louis Lopez and what makes him your favorite bus driver and how you even came to that determination.
Nicolas Heller:
I love city workers. They always have the best stories, and I love people that work for the MTA. And when I met Louis and found out he literally had his bus parked outside and was just taking a little break, I immediately just got this vibe from him that he was a cool guy, and then he started showing me his kung fu moves. He’s a big dude, but he knows kung fu. He can put his leg over his head. He’s just great.
Debbie Millman:
Nick, I can’t tell you the joy, the sort of utter joy and the out loud squeal I made when I saw that you included La Bonbonniere, as you described it, a greasy spoon. I moved to New York to Manhattan in 1983 and lived at Hudson and Perry, and
My first job was at 111 8th Avenue, and so I walked from Hudson and Perry very short walk to 111 8th Avenue and passed La La Bonbonniere every single day. And while you described it as a greasy spoon, to me somehow feels like the most elegant diner in the world. The typography on the sign, the atmosphere inside, I didn’t even realize that some estimates range that La Bonbonniere has possibly anywhere from 85 to 95 years old. There’s something about that environment that I feel is quintessentially New York.
Nicolas Heller:
Also, what’s quintessentially New York about it is it’s a French restaurant, technically French, La Bonbonniere is French. I’m sure it was originally owned by a French guy. But now it is owned by a Greek guy and a Peruvian woman, and all the waiters and cooks are from Mexico. Talk about quintessential New York.
Debbie Millman:
I was also happy to see Cozy’s. Also back in 1983 when I was working at 111 8th Avenue. There was a woman, and I’ve written about her, her name was Penelope. And she seemed to me to be the most glamorous sort of competitive colleague that I had. And I remember her saying to her boyfriend that they were going to go to Cozies for dinner, and I had no idea what Cozies were. I couldn’t find them in the phone book and never knew which she was talking about. This was obviously way before the internet.
And then one day was walking around in the West Village, or really The Village, and saw Cozy’s Soup and Burger at 739 Broadway. And I learned from your book that in 2015, Crane’s New York Business published an article reporting about only 400 places in the city had either the word diner or coffee in their name, and that was about a thousand less than a decade earlier. What do you think happened? Why is there so many fewer?
Nicolas Heller:
Well, first and foremost, it’s a shame because diners are the best place to meet people, a friend that you want to get lunch with someone you’re working on a project with. It’s just the best because you can sit there for hours and generally they don’t mind. But yeah, diners are slowly dying. According to John, the owner of Cozy’s Soup and Burger, I believe him. You see fewer and fewer diners, and I think it’s just hard to keep up with fast food and everything else.
Debbie Millman:
And the margins are so tight in the food industry-
Nicolas Heller:
Exactly, yeah.
Debbie Millman:
… and restaurant business to begin with.
Nicolas Heller:
It used to be so cheap to go to a diner and it’s just not. They’re comparable to fine dining restaurants, and that’s not what diners were meant to be. I’m hoping that it turns around and we see more and more diners. I’ve actually invested in a few newer diners that have been opening up because I want to see them stick around for as long as I’m around.
Debbie Millman:
I want to read a paragraph from the book and then reveal to our audience, the mom-and-pop shop that you’re referring to. You write this, “There’s one truth that resonates throughout all five boroughs. It’s that New York City is a place filled with so many wonders that it’s easy to miss one or a hundred whenever you walk out the door. It could be a gargoyle on the roof of an old brick building. You’ve passed a thousand times and never noticed, or a statue obscured by trees and brush in one of the city’s many parks. There are always things to miss, which means there are endless chances for discovery. Few places sum up that idea as well as the odd 125 square foot structure along 7th Avenue South that countless people walk or bike past every single day.” Nick, tell us what this store is.
Nicolas Heller:
That’s Greenwich Locksmiths.
Debbie Millman:
You wrote this about a locksmith store.
Nicolas Heller:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Debbie Millman:
Tell us more about Greenwich Locksmiths.
Nicolas Heller:
And that’s what I love about this book because it’s like, I have a barber shop in here, I have a locksmith. To me it’s more about the places and the vibe that they give off and the owners and not so much about this is where you got to go to eat. This is where you have to go to buy something. Greenwich Locksmiths is such a cool place, and you can get-
Debbie Millman:
And it’s tiny, 125 square feet.
Nicolas Heller:
And sure, you can get your keys copied there, but you can also have a chat with Phil and Phil Junior who have been there forever. And on top of that, they can customize your keys, which I’m not sure many other places can do this, but they can make not just an engraving, but they can put stuff on the key. So they do this thing where they put subway tokens on the top of your keys, and they’ve done that for me, and it’s super cool. It’s the smallest, freestanding building in New York City at 125 square feet, and they’ve been doing their business out of there for decades. It’s just such a cool place.
Debbie Millman:
Nick, how do you find these places? Yes, most people walk by most of, or many of these environments, these stores, these shops and don’t see them. How do you see them?
Nicolas Heller:
I mean, I went to school around there, so I’ve known about Greenwich Locksmiths forever. But it wasn’t until, I think it was actually fairly recently that I went there for the first time and met Phil and Phil Junior. And the reason why I went there, I think they had just reached out to me and they were like, “Hey, you got to come by and check out our place.” And they were super nice, and they were actually the last addition to the book. I had already turned in the manuscript, and then I met these guys and I was like, “Wait, hold the presses. We got to include Greenwich Locksmiths in the book.”
But yeah, in general, again, a lot of these places I kind of grew up either going to or passing by. And then a lot of the places I was introduced to, many of which I was introduced to over the pandemic, and that just came out of customers or the business owners themselves just reaching out to me to be like, “Hey, if you’re around, can you come check us out?” So yeah.
Debbie Millman:
I do want to ask you about some of the boroughs. You write about Brooklyn, “There was a time when you’d tell someone in Manhattan you were going to Brooklyn and they’d look at you as if you were about to visit another continent.” I know that, and whenever I tell people I was born in Brooklyn, I always say I was born in Brooklyn before Brooklyn was Brooklyn. How and why did that change? Do you have a sense of when Brooklyn became this sort of crown jewel in the five jewels of the boroughs of New York City?
Nicolas Heller:
It’s a great question because I’m only 35, and I remember when I was in high school, I never really went to Brooklyn. I kind of just stayed in Manhattan, and it wasn’t until I graduated from college that I was like, “You know what? I want to move to Brooklyn. It seems like that’s the spot.” So I moved to Sunset Park. This was like 2013, I think, and I loved Brooklyn from the minute I started hanging out there every day. But I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you when it started to become such a hip place, such a sought-after place.
Debbie Millman:
It’s so interesting how trends begin. I know that a lot of people, people that lived in Brooklyn and Queens, Manhattanites, called those people pejoratively bridge and tunnel people, which is just terrible. But I think that initially, people moved to Brooklyn because they got priced out of Manhattan and then ended up usurping the allure of Manhattan in a lot of ways.
And I always knew that Brooklyn was bigger than Manhattan, so to speak, in terms of population. I learned from your book that Brooklyn has 2,736,074 residents. Manhattan, just to compare, has an estimated 1,694,250. You can take all the people who live in St. Lucia, Granada, Micronesia, Tona, Greenland, and Monaco, and they still would make up only about a quarter of Brooklyn’s population, and I love that. I love that Brooklyn was its own city until 1898. I learned this from your book. It’s not just a guide to New York’s best places to go. It’s also, in many ways a book about New York’s magnificent history. But if somebody were to suggest that Brooklyn break off and become its own state, it might’ve seemed far-fetched, but it certainly got the numbers as you put it.
Nicolas Heller:
Yep, yep.
Debbie Millman:
You say this about Queens, “People don’t realize how important Queens is.” So my question to you, Nick, is why is that then? How important is it?
Nicolas Heller:
Queens is the birthplace of so many people who have shifted culture. For apparel, you have Ronnie Feig. You have Teddy Santis from Aimé Leon Dore. You have Angelo Bach from Awake. These are three of the biggest streetwear brands. I don’t even know if you would call them a streetwear brand anymore, but they came from Queens. In terms of hip hop, you have Nas, you have Prodigy, you have LL ool J, you have Run DMC, definitely a lot of culture shifters from Queens.
Debbie Millman:
You can hear Spanish, Urdu, Greek, Tagalog, Yiddish, Nepali, and nearly another 300 more spoken along Roosevelt Avenue alone. You start out the section about the Bronx with this declaration, “Everything you thought you knew about the Bronx was probably wrong.” Like what?
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah, I feel like especially if you don’t live in New York City, when you think of the Bronx, you have a flawed perception of it. There is so much going on in the Bronx. You have, I’m not saying it, but people say the real Little Italy is in the Bronx on Arthur Avenue, you have New York Botanical Garden, you have City Island, which is one of my favorite places in the city. Obviously, you have Yankee Stadium, you have Riverdale, you have Pelham Bay Park, which is an incredible park that I was just in a couple weeks ago.
Debbie Millman:
One of the things that I learned from your book was that a quarter of the Bronx is open space with some of the nicest public parks in New York City. I think people do have this perception that it’s just buildings and apartment complexes, and it’s a quarter of it is open space.
Nicolas Heller:
They have some of the best green spaces in New York. I would highly recommend people check out the Bartow-Pell Mansion, which I just discovered the other day. You’d be shocked to go there. And the fact that you’re in New York is insane because it’s pretty much empty and it’s just full of beautiful greenery and fountains and statues, and you don’t feel like you’re in the city, but you’re in the Bronx.
Debbie Millman:
Is it true that on Staten Island you can get one of the best clam pizzas in the world?
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah, Lee’s Tavern. It’s a tavern, and you would never expect it to have insanely good pizza, but alas, some of the best clam pizza you’ll ever eat.
Debbie Millman:
I spent third, fourth, and fifth grade living on Staten Island. Did not expect to go back, but now I’m making a pilgrimage to have the best clam pizza in the world because I love clams and I’m a pizza fanatic.
Nicolas Heller:
There you go.
Debbie Millman:
What Do you think is the absolute best pizza in all of New York?
Nicolas Heller:
I can’t answer that question. It depends what mood you’re in. There’s so many different types of pizza.
Debbie Millman:
I think I might go with John’s.
Nicolas Heller:
John’s? Okay. Yeah, it just depends.
Debbie Millman:
I sense sense disapproval with your-
Nicolas Heller:
No, no, no, no. That’s good. That’s good. I just don’t think that there’s a good answer to that because there’s so many different types of pizza. It really depends what kind of mood you’re in. One of my favorite pizza places, it’s in the book, it’s called Cuts and Slices. Their main location is in Bed-Stuy. It’s actually a Black-owned pizzeria, which is not super common. He takes his Caribbean roots and applies it to his pizza-making. So he has oxtail pizza and curry shrimp pizza, and it sounds crazy but it’s so good. But again, it kind of depends what kind of mood you’re in. If you want a little something extra on your pizza, then yeah, you go to Cuts and Slices. But if you want a traditional slice, then you can go to Lindustry or Mama’s Two or Louie’s or Louie and Ernie’s and the Bronx.
Debbie Millman:
Have you tried the pizza place on 7th Avenue and 23rd Street? The pizza slices are a $1.50 a piece. It’s one of the best slices in all of New York.
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah, I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic.
Debbie Millman:
I’m not being sarcastic it is-
Nicolas Heller:
I don’t know if I trust pizza under $2
Debbie Millman:
And then I have to ask you about one other food type. That’s one of my favorites. Any sense of where you could get the very best hot dog in New York
Nicolas Heller:
That I can tell you.
Debbie Millman:
Okay.
Nicolas Heller:
You got to go to the Hot Dog King outside the Met Museum.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
Nicolas Heller:
I’ll tell you why his hot dogs are the best, and it’s very simple. He grills them. They’re not dirty water dogs. Dirty water dogs are no good. They take all the flavor out of the hot dog.
Debbie Millman:
Indeed.
Nicolas Heller:
You got to grill them. Nothing better than that.
Debbie Millman:
I have a couple more questions for you, Nick. Talk about the design and the illustrations in the book. The book is highly illustrated. Who did you work with and what was that process like?
Nicolas Heller:
I worked with Chris Wilson, who I’ve been working with him for eight years now, kind of on and off. And originally I was just going to use him for the cover. I knew I wanted a really special cover. I wanted this to stick out. There’s a ton of New York guidebooks. I wanted something that will catch people’s eye, and my idea was to do sort of my version of Where’s Waldo and to create this sort of fictitious neighborhood in New York that has all my favorite places and favorite people. And it started as that. And then after he did it, I was like, “Let’s get you to do a little bit more than just the cover.” So he did the maps and spot illustrations, and I just love his style.
Debbie Millman:
The book has a real and a wonderful energy to it. You mentioned writing a second edition of the book with another hundred or so places, but you’ve also said that your ambition is to make feature films about New York with your characters, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this book could become sort of episodic TV show about each of these places.
Nicolas Heller:
Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that, but I guess could. I guess we have to see how it does. Maybe I’ll get a movie deal, right?
Debbie Millman:
It would be such a wonderful series to feature either by borough or by neighborhood, or by genre. There aren’t too many. There’s only one locksmith and only one rubber stamp store. But still, there’s so many ways you could organize the various mom-and-pop shops. My dad was a pharmacist and always had a mom and pop shop pharmacy for his whole career, and so it was a joy to see and re-experience life from that side of the cash register.
I used to work for him when I was in college, made all the little signs in his store. And I think it’s a celebration of anybody that was or started or created their own mom and pop shop or for anyone that wants to frequent one. I have one last question for you, Nick. You said at the beginning of New York Nico’s Guide to that you never realized how lucky you were to be born and raised in New York until after you left. Think you’ll ever leave again?
Nicolas Heller:
No. No, I don’t. I hardly ever leave now, and whenever I do, I miss it immediately and can’t wait to get home. So I can’t imagine ever living anywhere else.
Debbie Millman:
Nick, thank you so much for writing this wonderful love letter to New York City. Thank you so much for making so much work that matters, and thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.
Nicolas Heller:
Thank you so much, Debbie. It’s a pleasure.
Debbie Millman:
Nick Heller’s book is titled New York Nico’s Guide to New York City. To read more about Nick Heller, go to his wonderful, vibrant Instagram feed at New York Nico, N-I-C-O. I’d like to thank you for listening and remember, we can talk about making a difference. We can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman and I look forward to talking with you again soon.
Announcer:
Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest-running branding program in the world. The Editor-in-Chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.