West Village is Paradise

It’s 10:37 a.m., and I wake up in my West Village shoebox ($7,200 a month for a place smaller than my Murray Hill flex room). I feel like I’ve made it. Yeah, I’m in my second year of high finance (think Evercore / PJT / Truist). Still doing the same bitch work and taking it on the chin from people who make my annual salary in a month. But I live in West Village now. That’s basically the same as going A2A in a year.

Murray Hill Saturdays? Sad. (Think Kelley / Fischer / Ross energy.) You’d roll out of bed at noon, throw on a white 2023 DChi formal shirt (Nashville), and grab a $4 bagel at Bread and Butter before drinking High Noons on View 34’s rooftop with six other guys and talking about your college intramural basketball team. (Fuck Sig Chi.)

Last night was brutal. I got off work at nine. That was lucky. I went straight home to see my two semi-target college roommates (think Harvard / Yale / WashU). I hadn’t seen them in a month. We had dinner at a corner spot on 10th Street. Seventy dollars a head. I didn’t eat a thing.

Next, martinis at Saint Theo’s. I spent the night talking to a 5’11” blonde from a super target (think Wharton / Princeton / Dyson). She was perfect but lived in FiDi (what the fuck?). She asked where I was in the city. A slight grin forms on the right side of my mouth. “I live in the West Village.” She smiled, then said she had to be up early for “something important.” Not the reaction I wanted. She left. Her loss. How many other 23-year-olds can front living in the WV on their own without their daddy’s money?

Let’s get another round. I blacked out by midnight. At some point, I dropped four hundred dollars on snacks at Employees Only. My Amex (think Black / Silver / Savor Blue) is bleeding. My work phone has 12 different Teams notifications. My head pounds. But none of it matters. I don’t live in Murray Hill anymore.

My head is split. My mouth tastes of gin. I pull on jeans, Vejas, my Automatic Slims hat, and step outside. Fuck. The sun is bright on the cobblestones.

I walk to Apollo Bagels. The line is long. Too long. I don’t wait. I turn away.

At Buvette, the girl hands me avocado toast. Twenty-three dollars. I pay it. A golden doodle in a Ralph Lauren sweater stares at my toast. I eat 75% of it then toss it. Roommates pinging me on getting back at it. Houston Hall needs me today.

As I get back to my apartment and brush my teeth, I stare at myself in the mirror. Murray Hill felt like the little leagues. JV. D3 ball. West Village feels like Margin Call, The Big Short, Bruce Wayne’s penthouse, American Psycho. Sure, I’m still just an analyst doing everyone’s bitch work. But if my high school friends could see me now, they’d think I run the city.

West Village is paradise.