Alison Stewart: Today we are launching our new series, What The Hack? while we crowdsource hacks that will make different aspects of life a bit easier. We begin with life hacks for the greatest city in the world, like which subway car is closest to the exit leading to your apartment, or what time to hit the supermarket and avoid the lines, or that [unintelligible 00:00:29] bar with the best happy hour deal. Christopher Bonanos is the City Editor for New York Magazine and has put together a list of some of his New York hacks.

Hi, Chris. Hey, Chris, are you there?

Christopher Bonanos: I am.

Alison Stewart: How are you?

Christopher Bonanos: All right. It's good to be here. I'm excited to kick this series off.

Alison Stewart: Excellent. Before we go deep into New York hacks, thinking broadly here, why do you think New York presents a unique opportunity for life hacks as compared to other cities?

Christopher Bonanos: Well, for the simple reason that it's so, so much harder to live here most of the time. It's more congested than any other American city. It's more crowded, it's busier, it's more expensive. There are days those of us who think this is the greatest place in the world and would never live anywhere else have our moments.

Alison Stewart: What do you think is challenging about hacks for New York City? I think it's because everybody's so different. What do you think?

Christopher Bonanos: That's true. I think money is a lot of it. We're surrounded by people who can effortlessly live here because they're so well off, and that tends to suck up resources that the rest of us might have. That's part of it, too. There's a lot of envy.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to get you in on this conversation. Let's hear it. What are your New York hacks? Those underrated tips that make life in a city a little bit better. Call or text us now. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Any subway or commuting hacks you might have. Any nightlife hacks you have to save money or have more fun, or tips for navigating a busy New York street. 212-433-9692. 212-433-WNYC. We want to hear your New York City hacks. Imagine somebody is moving to the city and you tell them, "Oh, you've got to know this." That's what we want. 212-433-9692.

All right, let's go to the first hack on your list, and that is how to decide where to live. What is important when you consider deciding about where to live?

Christopher Bonanos: There's no one solution to this, needless to say, where you live in New York, based on your taste, your schools, all sorts of things. Finding an apartment in New York is agony, and there is no one fix, needless to say. I'm not going to give you a tip that is magical, and then suddenly you'll have a cheap apartment exactly where you want it to be. There's two things I always tell people when they ask me this. One is to accept that the perfect apartment does not exist and will not exist, but that very often, you can find the apartment you want, except it has one big thing wrong with it.

Alison Stewart: That's great. That was important. That's a big, important tip.

Christopher Bonanos: You accept one big flaw in order to get everything else. Like, if the thing you just absolutely want to have is an outdoor patio or something like that, then you have to accept that something else is going to be wrong with that place. The kitchen stinks, or the bathroom's too small or something like that, it's two blocks further than the subway than you want it, something like that. You're going to have to compromise on one thing, unless you have basically unlimited funds. Search within yourself, if you like, and say what's the thing you can give up most easily. Maybe you would love to have a big kitchen, but honestly, you don't cook very much. Maybe that's enough. That's one thing.

The other thing I'd say to people is, very often, you want a certain neighborhood, you love a neighborhood's vibe, whatever, and it's just too expensive, or inaccessible, or you just can't find the place you want. What you can do, and this is what I did, actually, when I first moved to New York, is you go a few stops down the line, a couple of subway stops past where you want to be, uptown, downtown, in Brooklyn, and you just make it easy to get where you want it to be. I was a few bus stops from the neighborhood where all my friends lived, but I could be there in 15 or 20 minutes. It was the compromise I made. I was able to find an apartment I could afford.

I tell people this, just accept that you can get some of the flavor of a neighborhood if you move slightly beyond it in one direction or another, and then transit systems, they're for a reason.

Alison Stewart: We've got a great text. Always have an old lady strolling cart to bring to the grocery store.

Christopher Bonanos: Oh, my gosh. Yes.

Alison Stewart: So important. Let's talk to Don from Park Slope. Hi, Don, you're on the air.

Don: Hi, yes, I'm calling because it's always driven me crazy that people use cones to save spot, and in some cases, it's legal. If it says Con Edison on the cone, yes, okay, great. If it's just a cone that's in front of a couple spots, take those cones away and take that spot.

Alison Stewart: Thanks. I like his attitude. Appreciate it. Very New York attitude. Take those cones, take their spot.

Christopher Bonanos: Respond with civil disobedience with more civil disobedience.

Alison Stewart: Everybody, what are your New York hacks? Those underrated tips that make life in the city a little bit easier. 212-433-9692. 212-433-WNYC. You can also reach out to us on social media, @AllOfItWNYC. Chris Bonanos, he is the City Editor for New York Magazine. He is walking us through our very first What The Hack?

All right, let's talk about New York. It can be a town of extremes in your apartment. It can be ice cold or it can be furnace level hot. You have a hack for enjoying what you call the 'seasonless New York spots'. What do you mean by seasonless spots?

Christopher Bonanos: Sure. There are plenty of places nowadays that are climate controlled, department stores or whatever. Certainly. A million years ago, for the magazine, I wrote a story about where to stay cool in the summer. I ran around 20 or 30 places in New York with a little thermometer taking readings. The thing I learned is that when you go to the big museums, the temperature never changes, the humidity never changes. It's because they have these extraordinary climate control systems to protect billions of dollars in art. They can't deal with humidity or anything because it expands, it contracts, the paint on the canvas cracks. Things happen. They're trying to protect things that are sometimes thousands of years old. They have the most incredible temperature control. You go into the Museum of Modern Art or the Metropolitan Museum, it is always 74 degrees or thereabouts, and it's always cool and dry and comfortable.

The other thing I would say is that when it's really hot, if you want to stay outside, if you don't want to disappear into the bowels of a museum, get up high.

Alison Stewart: What do you mean by high?

Christopher Bonanos: Rooftops anywhere, even though they bake, if there's any kind of pergola or anything-- There's one place I love. You know the Niarchos Library, which is across from the big Schwarzenegger Building on 42nd Street? This is the New York Public Library's circulating branch across the street.

Alison Stewart: Do I know it? That's where we host Get Lit. I know what you're about to say. Our book club.

Christopher Bonanos: I don't think I realize that's where you do it in person. It's a great building, rebuilt a couple of years ago. It's a really nice library, first of all, and it's the New York Public Library. It's a splendid institution. There's this great roof deck with a cafe that's even open into the evening sometimes, if I'm not mistaken.

Alison Stewart: It is.

Christopher Bonanos: People know about it, but not really. I went up there when it was warm a few months ago, and I just spent an afternoon just sitting there and reading. It's the best. If you go up really high, to the Empire State Building Observatory or something, the wind is wonderful on a hot day. You feel this warm, it's almost like a desert wind because you're so much above the city, even though it's humid that doesn't feel oppressive in the same way.

Alison Stewart: Let's go through a few texts. This one says, "Don't walk slow." Yes, I agree. "Get to know your neighbors. It might come in handy one day." That's Avi from Manhattan.

"Subway hack. For those of us who are always running late, the conductor always closes the door on the first half of the cars, first the back half half. Head to the rear to minimize the chances of getting the door slammed in your face." Wow.

Let's talk to Mark from Madison, New Jersey. Hi, Mark, you're on the air.

Mark: How are you, Alison?

Alison Stewart: Doing great.

Mark: Hey, a couple things. Back to the subway hacks. I think once you're a true New Yorker, you know where to stand on the platform to get to the best exit or the connection. I used to take the subway from Astor Place, and I knew always to stand at the far end of the platform to catch the next one.

The other thing for a hack, for a New Yorker, is when you take a cab, make sure you go to the street to catch the cab if you're going uptown or downtown, that is going in that direction versus have the cab catch and do the sudden turn.

One other suggestion for you, Alison, is if you've ever read The Island at the Center of the Universe, I'd love for that to be part of the book group. That's a great book and it's a total New York book.

Alison Stewart: All right, noted. Thanks for calling in. Let's talk to Denise from Manhattan. Hi, Denise, thanks for calling All Of It. You're on the air.

Denise: Good afternoon. I live in the wholesale flower Market on 6th Avenue and 28th Street, and 28th Street, between 6th and 7th, is the wholesale flower market that designers and party people buy their flowers. If you need to buy roses, you can get two dozen fresh from South America Roses for about $35, but you've got to go from 4:00 AM to 12:00 noon. They sell to the retailers, so they open before the retailers.

Alison Stewart: That is a good tip. Thank you so much for calling in. My guest is Christopher Bonanos, City Editor of New York Magazine. Our first installment of our 2025 series, What The Hack? We are asking you for your New York hacks, those underrated tips that make life in the city a little bit easier. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. You can call in and join us on air, or you can text to us at that number. We've got a lot of subway hacks, so I'm going to turn it to you now, Chris.

You have a transit hack now that the stations on the old IND subways are color coded. How so?

Christopher Bonanos: Yes, this is is an ancient color coding system dating back to the '20s and '30s. It was an architect named Squire Vickers who did a lot of the work on those stations when they were being constructed. The idea is to subliminally signal to you where you are in the system. As you're going along each line, the wall tiles are consistent in color from station to station between express stops. For example, if you're going uptown on the AC, you get to 59th street, tiles are blue. Tiles in the station stay blue until you get to 125th Street when they turn green. The idea is that you can half be paying attention, and if you know your stop is 125th, the green is you pick it up in the background, so to speak, and you wake up to it. You don't have to check the numbers. You don't have to crane your neck and look at the sign on the pillar. You don't have to do anything like that. You just pick up the tile colors.

There are a few stops that have been renovated over the years unsympathetically to this system. It's not foolproof, but especially if you're commuting on a line every day, you can get used to this and pick it up, get it into your head and navigate it without looking too hard.

Alison Stewart: Here's a good text. When you take the subway, carry a tote bag with you. In the spring, fall and winter, when you get on the train, take off your coat or sweater and put it in a tote bag so you're not roasting on the subway. Let's also talk to DeForest in Yonkers.

Hey, DeForest, thank you so much for calling All Of It. You're on the air.

DeForest: Hi, how are you? I have what I use as a mantra. I live in Yonkers, but I work in New York, in the city, in Manhattan, actually. I use this as a mantra. I say to myself, "I'm only looking for one parking space." It works on the law of attraction, and I have worked it for years, and I have discovered parking spaces show up out of what I think thin air, out of nowhere and the most unlikely places. There are times, obviously, when I have to put it in a lot or walk an extra long distance, but generally speaking, I have been coming up with these parking spaces that look like they come up out of nowhere. It's just a simple mantra that I repeat over and over again, "I'm only looking for one parking space."

Alison Stewart: DeForest, thank you so much for calling. Let's talk to Stuart, who's calling in from Long Island. Hi, Stuart, you're on the air.

Stuart: Hi, how you doing? My tip is, if you do have a car and there's a snowstorm coming, try to park on the left side of a one way street because the plows all push the snow to the right side. The cars on the right side of the one way street will get inundated with snow and require some serious digging, but on the left side, not so bad.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for the tip. We appreciate it.

Chris, we asked some producers what their tips were, and we asked one of our producers, Malik, and it's interesting because he's not from here originally. His answers were really pure from the heart. He said some museums have some sort of free discounted Friday situations, and if you go to the Museum of the City, New York, you might as well plan on making a trip to the El Museum de Barrio, too. Do you have any places like that where you do a one, two punch?

Christopher Bonanos: Do I? There's lots of shopping and stuff where I make a little loop or whatever, but in terms of institutions.

Alison Stewart: Or any places that are free that you want people to know about.

Christopher Bonanos: Not so much free, but I will tell you about one little museum that I am especially fond of. In my experience, one artist museums tend to be a little, you go in and you go out and you spend a few minutes and get bored, but there's a major exception in Queens. You ever been in the Noguchi Museum?

Alison Stewart: No.

Christopher Bonanos: It's devoted to the work of Izumo Noguchi, the mid century sculptor, set designer, artist, architect, furniture designer, lighting designer. He was really a major figure, died in the late 1980s. The museum is meant to showcase his work, and it is built in his old studio, which is a good size. It's like an old industrial building in it's more or less Astoria. It's built around a central courtyard that's just beautiful. A little reinterpretation of the Japanese garden. They have a great shop selling the paper lamps that he designed, those Acari paper lamps, which you may know. It's a really wonderful place to spend an afternoon. They don't get enough love. I'm always sending people there.

Alison Stewart: Love it. We're going to continue with our What The Hack? We're talking about New York City's hacks, things that make this city easier. Christopher Bonanos, the City Editor for New York Magazine, is our guide. We'll take more of your calls after a quick break. This is All Of It.

You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Christopher Bonanos, City Editor for New York Magazine. He's here for our first installment of our 2025 series, What The Heck? where throughout the year we're going to brainstorm tips on making your life a little bit easier. Taking your calls right now, working things off with New York life hacks, what are your New York life hacks? 212-433-9692. 212-433-WNYC. Let's look at the texts.

"Restrooms. Never leave anywhere without stopping in one."

"Get a New York City library card and use the cultural pass for free. So many museums are available for free."

"Never get into an empty subway car, especially if the car before it or the car after are crowded. It means something not nice is going on in there."

Let's go back to your list, Chris. Broadway hacks, we do a lot of theater on their show. Sometimes it's so expensive. When's your favorite night to go, and why?

Christopher Bonanos: The best bet is usually a week night when there are fewer tourists. You'll be there with New Yorkers. Really probably the least crowded night, and thus the easiest night to get a ticket to a hot show, is Tuesday, usually. The matinees are also sometimes a good deal, the midweek matinee, but Tuesday nights tend to be quietest.

There's also the extra detail that a lot of shows are dark Monday. The shows that aren't are sometimes more available on Monday because people aren't expecting it.

I have also heard that if you go on a Tuesday night, because a lot of the shows are dark Monday, sometimes the actors are more rested and you get a better show sometimes.

There's also one other trick that I'm going to offer, and I can't guarantee this will work, but I know of people who've done it. If there's a really hot show, and I'm talking about Hamilton in 2016, 2015, where you just can't get in, nobody can get in, everything sells out for a huge amount of money way ahead of time, right? Try this. Clear an evening, go to the box office, show up at the theater, and at 7:55, just before the curtain, ask if there's one ticket. Sometimes there's either a cancellation or the people will buy blocks of tickets and there's one seat abandoned in the middle that never sold, or there's just a leftover in the back or standing room. Sometimes, once in a while, you luck out and they'll have one to sell you at face value.

Alison Stewart: How about restaurant reservations? People plan ahead, they use the apps, but you like the good old fashioned way of calling the restaurant.

Christopher Bonanos: Yes. Here's the thing, the apps get a lot of tables, but sometimes, depends again on the restaurant, depends on the place, they hold back a few for people who call. It doesn't work everywhere. Believe me, it doesn't work everywhere. Sometimes if you just pick up the phone and call, they answer, which is itself a crapshoot these days. If they answer, sometimes the reservations line will have tables that aren't fed to the apps. Or, again, they will have a last minute cancellation. You can try at the last minute, too. If you want eight o'clock, you call at 7:40, you say, "Did anyone cancel tonight?" Maybe you're lucky. It costs you nothing to call. Sometimes you can do great.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Tina. Hi, Tina, thanks for calling, all of it. You're on the air.

Tina: Hi, Alison. Great show and love the magazine. Actually your devil whammy brought to mind. Whenever I go to the Botanical Gardens, I always make room to go to Arthur Avenue afterward. The two are institutions. Sometimes if you have the stamina, you could do Bronx Zoo instead of Arthur Avenue, or switch it up. My original column is about landlords and rent stabilization. If you're lucky enough to get an apartment that you like, particularly in a pre-war building, especially if you see older people, the likelihood is that there's some rent stabilized units there. If your place has been upgraded with maybe some new appliances or something, you can check the Rent Stabilization Board and look at the rent stabilization history and see if the landlord increased the rent by pretending to make lots more capital investment in the unit than were actually made. They will claim it so they can deregulate your rent stabilization into free market rent.

A couple of my friends have done this and gone to court when they found it was truly faked, the landlord pretended to make these, got thousands of dollars in back rent.

Alison Stewart: Good tip. Thank you so much for calling in about that one. My guest is Christopher Bonanos, City Editor for New York Magazine. We're going to talk about supermarkets in New York. Many have experienced the Sunday morning Trader Joe's line out the door. What's your hack for hitting the supermarket?

Christopher Bonanos: It's not so much a hack as an enthusiastic recommendation. Plenty of people know the great New York supermarkets, places like Fairway or whatever. My favorite store in all of New York City anywhere is [unintelligible 00:23:07] on Lexington Avenue, 123 Lexington Ave, near 28th Street. It's not exactly an undiscovered gem, but it is a spectacular place. It started life in the 1940s as an Indian spice shop, and it has since expanded into almost every kind of ethnic groceries. They sell spices in bulk of when I tell you incredible variety.

They basically seem to aim to carry everything that's like from France and Spain, to the West, to East Asia in the east, China and Japan and Korean ingredients, with a lot of emphasis on the Middle East and India. It's the place where there's an entire room full of different variations of hot peppers. There's an aisle full of flours, types of flour, and I don't mean blossoms, I mean for baking.

I have never gone in there wanting a non regular supermarket ingredient and not walked out with it. They always have it, everything, ever. It's the only supermarket where I go to browse sometimes because you discover new ways of cooking just by walking up and down the aisles. It's so good. It's also got this weird, this is a bit of history, but just the building is an old formerly a brownstone on Lexington Avenue. It was once occupied by the Vice President of the United States, Chester Arthur, New Yorker. He was inaugurated in the front parlor.

Alison Stewart: Who knew?

Christopher Bonanos: Yes. Up with a [unintelligible 00:25:05]

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Ronnie from Sugar Loaf, New York. Hi, Ronnie, thanks for calling. You're on the air.

Ronnie: Hi. When you were talking about weather, one of the greatest things is to take a ferry ride. The new ferry system goes all around New York. It's not free, but it certainly is a good buy, and certainly kind of special. You can go from the Bronx, you can go down to Wall Street and go to Long Island City, Astoria. By the way, when you were talking about the Noguchi Museum, I actually took the ferry to Astoria and got off and went to the Noguchi Museum. On the way, I stopped at Socrates, which is an outdoor sculpture place that is free. That's my suggestion.

Alison Stewart: All great suggestions. Chris, we're coming to the end of the segment. Is there any hack that I haven't asked you about?

Christopher Bonanos: I don't have anything else that leaps to mind. The best advice I have is just noticing. Like you were talking earlier about finding the right spot on the platform to exit. You can commute for a long time without ever doing that, and then one day you just have to start. You have to force yourself to pay attention. You do it once and it gets programmed into your head and then you go on autopilot and it's until you change jobs, you're going to commute there every day pretty much for the rest of your employment there. Being a New Yorker is partly about being wise to your environment anyway, and that's my best advice as an observer of the city, noticing is especially valuable.

Alison Stewart: Christopher Bonanos is City Editor for New York Magazine. Thanks for joining us for our first episode of What The Heck?

Christopher Bonanos: Anytime. Great to be here.

Alison Stewart: Thanks to everybody who called in.