flâneur

Postcard 055 - Crosby x Howard • Buttondown

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Four years ago, I met up with a high school friend to wander SoHo, eventually stopping for drinks at NoMo SoHo — a hotel I’d never seen in a part of the neighborhood that felt entirely unfamiliar to me. Now, I can name most of the stores along Crosby Street where it meets Howard. My favorite retailers and barbershop are there. When I’m not staying with a friend nearby, I stay at a hotel down the street. And my cousin lives just a few blocks away. As I walked to my Blue Bottle this morning, I was struck by how normal this felt. I’d walked down Broadway to this Blue Bottle dozens of times, though rarely at 6:30am (thank you jet lag). And as the coffee hit, I snapped out of it, recognizing that having a familiar routine in a city you don’t live in (or didn’t grow up in) isn’t actually normal. Last week, I had the chance to see Do Ho Suh’s “Walk the House” at the Tate Modern — an exhibition that asks the question “Is home a place, a feeling, or an idea?” (If you have a chance to see this,

July 11, 2025 Postcard 055 - Crosby x Howard It’s remarkable how quickly the foreign becomes the familiar. Four years ago, I met up with a high school friend to wander SoHo, eventually stopping for drinks at NoMo SoHo — a hotel I’d never seen in a part of the neighborhood that felt entirely unfamiliar to me. Now, I can name most of the stores along Crosby Street where it meets Howard. My favorite retailers and barbershop are there. When I’m not staying with a friend nearby , I stay at a hotel down the street. And my cousin lives just a few blocks away. As I walked to my Blue Bottle this mornin

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