New York: December 2025

Five nights in early December. Two hotels, two neighborhoods, two versions of the city.

The first three nights were at The Ridge Hotel in Bushwick, Brooklyn, which is not where most people stay when they visit New York. I was there because a friend was running a conference in the area and I was speaking at it. The conference was small and scrappy and had the energy of something being built by people who cared more about the content than the production value. I spoke on a panel in a converted warehouse space with exposed ductwork and folding chairs and an audience that was 90% under 30 and 100% paying attention. Those are the best rooms to speak to. No glazed eyes. No phone-checking. Just people leaning forward. After the panel, my friend who organized the thing took a group of us to a bar around the corner that had concrete floors and a DJ playing something I didn't recognize and cocktails that cost $12, which in New York is basically free. The crowd at the bar was the same crowd from the conference, which made the after-party feel like a continuation of the conversation instead of a separate event. I talked to a 24-year-old who was building a content business out of her bedroom in Bushwick and already had more clarity about her audience than most people I meet at bigger conferences. The generation coming up is not playing around.

Bushwick itself is an industrial neighborhood that's been converting into a creative hub for the past decade: warehouses turned into studios, art galleries in former factories, restaurants that open with a pop-up energy and sometimes stick around. The Ridge is built into a former factory building and has that industrial-chic thing: exposed brick, high ceilings, steel beams, and rooms with more space than most Manhattan hotels at a lower rate. The rooftop has a view of the Manhattan skyline across the river that's one of the best vantage points in the city. December skyline from a Brooklyn rooftop at night, with the cold making the lights sharper and the bridge cables strung with what looked like ice, was one of those views I'll keep.

Bushwick's food scene is worth knowing about. The neighborhood has a deep Dominican and Puerto Rican presence and the food reflects it. I ate at a Dominican spot on Knickerbocker Avenue one evening after the conference wrapped. The pernil plate with rice and beans and maduros was one of the best meals of the trip. $12. No menu in English. The woman behind the counter pointed at things and I nodded and everything she pointed at was correct. Sometimes the best ordering strategy is surrender.

I also ate at a ramen place in Bushwick that had a 45-minute wait and a tattooed chef and broth that had clearly been simmering since the Clinton administration. The ramen was excellent. G would have loved it. I sent her a photo and she replied "bring me some" which is not how ramen works but I understood the sentiment.

New York in December is the city doing what it does best: being itself, louder. The holiday windows on Fifth Avenue, the tree at Rockefeller Center, the Salvation Army bells, the cold that makes every warm restaurant feel like a rescue. I walked from Bushwick into Manhattan one afternoon across the Williamsburg Bridge (the second time I'd done this bridge walk in 2025, having done it in October from the Beekman) and the view was different in December light: greyer, harder, more beautiful in the way that cold cities are beautiful when you're dressed for it.

The last two nights I moved to The Parc Hotel in Flushing, Queens, for work that was easier to get to from there. Flushing is a different New York entirely. It's the largest Chinatown in the city (larger than Manhattan's) and the food operates at a level that most Manhattan restaurants can't touch at triple the price. The New World Mall food court in the basement is legendary: stalls serving hand-pulled noodles, Sichuan dry pot, Taiwanese fried chicken, xiao long bao, and about 30 other things I couldn't identify but ordered anyway. I ate there twice in two days and spent about $15 total. The xiao long bao from one of the stalls were better than any I've had at a tablecloth restaurant. The wrapper was thin enough to see the soup inside and the first bite released a rush of hot broth that burned my lip and was worth it.

Flushing Main Street is loud and crowded and smells like five different cuisines at once. I walked it for about an hour one evening, past bakeries selling pineapple buns for a dollar, produce markets spilling onto the sidewalk, a line outside a place that I later learned does the best Lanzhou hand-pulled noodles in the city. There's an energy in Flushing that's completely different from any other New York neighborhood I know. It's not performing for tourists. It's not curating an experience. It's just a neighborhood operating at full volume for the people who live there, and you're welcome to join but nobody's going to explain anything. I ordered something at a counter that I couldn't read on the menu board and pointed at a photo. It turned out to be a scallion pancake with egg and some kind of chili sauce. It cost $3 and was one of the best things I ate all trip.

On my last night I walked from Flushing back toward the hotel and took a wrong turn that led me through a residential block where every house had Christmas lights up and the glow was warm against the cold and the street was empty except for one guy walking a very small dog in a sweater. He nodded. I nodded. December in Queens.

December New York, take three across this blog. This time from Brooklyn and Queens instead of Manhattan. Different boroughs. Different price points. Same city.