Innholdsfortegnelse for March 29-April 11, 2021 i New York Magazine

1 Rebecca Traister spoke to dozens of former employees of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s about their experiences in his “toxic” workplace for New York’s latest cover story (“Abuse and Power,” March 15–28). On the evening the report was published, New York senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer joined dozens of other New York Democrats in calling for Cuomo to resign. Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Trevor Noah, and Seth Meyers discussed the story on their evening shows, with Meyers commenting on the anecdote about Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, not knowing her colleagues: “Can you imagine that happening at any other workplace? A senior manager joking about not knowing anyone’s name?” On his New York Times podcast, Ezra Klein called the piece “extraordinary” and said it exemplifies “the way we’ve come to…

ONE DAY IN FEBRUARY, Christian Walker, a junior at UCLA and the son of Hall of Fame football player Herschel Walker, opened TikTok to find that his account with more than 400,000 followers had been suspended. For the past eight months, he had been recording sassy, highly stylized screeds on familiar right-wing talking points, from immigration and election fraud to cancel culture and bathroom bills, which would then ricochet across the internet in the form of righteous backlash, supportive shares, and one angry dunk from Kathy Griffin. When his TikTok got reactivated a few days later, Walker uploaded a video of himself pulling into his driveway in a Mercedes G-Wagon, scored by Doja Cat. Caption: “GUESS WHO’S BACK #american #conservative.” “Because I’m right about my political commentary, leftists, who are…

➼ WHEN YOU DO FIND the perfect therapist, paying for the service is often (massively) expensive. Even with in-network insurance coverage, you can face high deductibles and co-pays that quickly add up. Open Path Psychotherapy Collective, founded by psychotherapist Paul Fugelsang in 2012, is trying to change that by organizing private-practice clinicians nationally to offer discounted therapy sessions. After a (onetime) $59 sign-up fee, you can click through the Open Path directory, which lists the available master’s- and Ph.D.-level therapists based on specialty (over 150 topics, from identity issues to fertility) and treatment style. According to patients, navigation is simple: After filtering through therapists based on your preferences, you can read the profiles of the ones who meet your needs, then contact them through the website. One Twitter user with…

For the Rarest of Blooms DUTCH FLOWER LINE , 150 W. 28th St.; dutchflowerline.com ; 212-727-8600 › THIS 36-YEAR-OLD shop is known for its wide-ranging selection of flowers from around the world—including Japanese ranunculus that set designer Noemi Bonazzicalls “exquisite” and “the size of your hand,” peonies from New Zealand, and cherry-red tulips shipped directly from Holland. Set designer Julia Wagner worked with DFL exclusively to create the floral backdrop for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s December Vanity Fair cover. “Dutch Flower Line is my most trusted vendor,” Wagner says. “I have a guy there, Chris DeMeo, who I text whenever I need something truly special. He sourced these amazing wild roses for her shoot and cut all of them from the bush the day before we photographed her.” New…

57 MARKET  363 W. 57th St., No. 1; 212-586-3066 › THERE’S PROBABLY NO OTHER CITY in the world where it’s easier to find a cheap bouquet—the challenge to buying bodega flowers is keeping them alive for more than a couple of days. 57 Market in Hell’s Kitchen sells flowers that are both cheap and long-lasting—remarkably so. A bouquet of a dozen roses costs a mere $20, and people who live in the neighborhood swear they last a solid two weeks. “Listen, this is the most basic corner market,” says Hell’s Kitchen resident TessaConnelly. “And for whatever reason, it has amazing flowers.” There are a few theories as to why that is. For one, they’re not displayed in direct sunlight (which can make them wilt), there are no errant leaves floating…

NIKKI KIMBROUGH  getfitwithnik.com When Nikki Kimbrough was a cast member of Dreamgirls at the Apollo Theater, she would lead her fellow performers through workout sessions. It was there that she started training actor Robert Hartwell, who has been a client ever since. Her boot-camp-inspired interval workouts (which are offered virtually or outdoors and start at $750 for a ten-pack) are intense—in a good way. During a typical session, Hartwell is “sweating, screaming, panting, and looking for water.”…

BLACK WIDOW PEST CONTROL  blackwidowpest.com, 212-933-1834 A carpet-beetle infestation reported by the board president of a Park Avenue building; a major mice issue plaguing some high-profile residences near Central Park—these are a couple recent jobs taken on by Black Widow Pest Control, which we first heard about from a noted city-rat scientist (he asked to remain anonymous but named Black Widow as one of the top companies he makes referrals to). Black Widow was founded 18 years ago by Rita Bonamo-Geiger, a woman unafraid to stare down “basements that even supers don’t want to go in,” according to her son Nick, who now helps manage the business. The company will field requests from individual tenants (for a base rate of $150), but Nick prefers to work with co-op boards or…

DAINICHI LAZULI  instagam.com/dainichi_lazuli ›DAINICHI LAZULI READS TAROT, heals with crystals, and advises on numerology and feng shui, operating (in normal times) out of the Chinatown Soup art gallery. (These days, you can book him through his Instagram; $35 per 15 minutes.) A key to his popularity seems to be not only what he communicates but how. “He shares what he sees via the cards with such grace” says jewelry designer Anna Sheffield. Which doesn’t preclude him from giving direct advice. Danielle Prescod, writer and co-founder of the diversity consulting agency 2BG, says that “he’s told me to dump basically every guy since I started seeing him—and he was right about every single one of them.”…

MAX WANG STUDIO  maxwangstudio.com › MAX WANG STUDIO, which is run by Max, a woodworker who trained as an architect, and his spouse, Kaori, is the go-to shop for much of GRTArchitects’high-end millwork and custom furniture jobs. They’ve tackled everything from a mahogany lobby reception desk wrapped in CNC-cut scalloped wood to a bright, warm kitchen with all the appliances hidden behind white-oak cabinets. GRT trusts Wang to do it all because “he’s as committed to every nuanced detail as we are,” says Tal Schori, GRT’s co-founder. For a dining table with exposed edges, they exchanged a dozen emails about the right kind of plywood to use. For commissions, Wang likes to start with a home visit and take measurements of the space where a finished piece will live (chairs…

PHOEBE NATHAN Blackstones, 19 E. 7th St.; 2 Sixth Ave.; 212-353-2680 › BELIEVE IT OR NOT, there’s really an art to creating Cher-like jet-black hair. Which is why, rather than relying on boxed dye that quickly turns dull, Misshapes DJ LeighLezark—who is well known for her black bob—has turned to colorist Phoebe Nathan since 2013. A natural blonde, Lezark says that Nathan’s $150 dye-and-gloss jobs create a black shade that actually “stays shiny” (and yes, while the cost is far more than some Garnier Nutrisse, it’s worth noting that other salons will charge up to $300 for a similar service).…

THE SOMERSET HOUSE 76 N. 6th St., Williamsburg; thesomersethouse.com/shop › OWNED BY FORMER FASHION DESIGNER Alan Eckstein, this recently opened Williamsburg showroom sells meticulously maintained, often rare vintage pieces, from a Eugenia Butler oak puzzle chair ($2,800), to a pink Fritz Hansen lambshearling three-legged stool ($395), to a bentwood Danish ottoman reupholstered in Schumacher leopard-print fabric ($850). The inventory goes far beyond seating, though: The two-story space has vases, couches, coffee tables, consoles, and photography prints. And Scott says the “inspiring” way Eckstein stages it all—for example, “sitting the colorful pieces that pop against worn, weathered woods that prevent it from feeling as kitschy, or ’90s-dorm-room-esque, as other stores”—has influenced his own apartment’s design. Plus the variety, Scott says, is just plain fun: He once spotted, in a single corner,…

For Running Into a Momfluencer CAMP , 110 Fifth Ave.; 20 Hudson Yards, second fl.; and 1 Dekalb Ave., Downtown Brooklyn; camp.com › SINCE IT OPENED ITS first location in the Flatiron District in 2018, Camp has become best known for its experiential offerings. You’ll find of-the-moment toys (even stuff for adults) throughout the retail space, which is called “the Canteen,” but go behind the magic door and you’ll discover an entire play area (in the Flatiron location, its theme is “Base Camp”): Kids can climb up a bunk bed that leads to a slide that leads to a disco room with a light-up floor, play in the radio lab, or check out the lake and canoe. There are also arts-and-crafts tables where kids can make slime,…

FOR DOWNTOWNERS TONY JARVIS , Jarvis Painting & Interiors; 917-283-2383; jarvisinteriorsnyc@ gmail.com › MUSICIAN, PAINTER, and contractor TonyJarvis has typically met his clients during downtown gigs. He painted, for instance, the Great Jones Street loft of RobertBecker,the arts editor at Interview magazine in the ’80s, as well as the apartment of Simon Hammerstein, founder of Lower East Side club the Box (Jarvis played there five nights a week for two years when it first opened). And twice Jarvis has used more than a dozen shades of purple to paint a client’s Central Park South home. Sleep No More producer Arthur Karpatiwhose home Jarvis painted with a variety of blues and grays—says he is “especially good at making colors work with each other.” Satu and Celeste Greenberg, the…

PLAYGROUND FOR ALL CHILDREN 11101 Corona Ave., Corona › BUILT IN 1984 in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park (near 111th Street and Corona Avenue), the Playground for All Children is a “prototype for playgrounds that serve children of all abilities,” says Heather Lubov, executive director of the City Parks Foundation. The paths leading to the play equipment are blind-friendly and have handrails that can be grasped by children who use crutches, canes, or wheelchairs. And the features are delightfully varied, including full-body swings, a 12-foot-long suspension bridge, and a sprinkler (plus basketball courts with adjustable hoops and, next door, ball fields with golf programming run by the CPF since the area doesn’t have a course of its own).…

FOR TIGHT HANDIWORK AT HALF THE PRICE ESTILO UPHOLSTERY , 612 Grand St., 212-473-1735 › THIS 25-YEAR-OLD (2016 “Best of New York”) upholsterer is a “cult figure among interior designers,” we wrote, for its low prices—the “high volume that owner Hector Diaz bangs out, from firming up old pillows to grafting entire six-piece sectionals, allows him to charge around $475 for a job that might cost $800 elsewhere—and the attention is to detail. When Noah Turkus of Weiss Turkus Projects needs a set of velvet bucket chairs reswathed in lambswool, he swears by Diaz’s tight handiwork and good prices.” Recent work includes a pair of Eero Saarinen armchairs (done in Knoll bouclé fabric), a slipcover for a white Ligne Roset Togo love seat, and some 1950s lounge chairs in Maharam…

Amy Jones, L.C.S.W. amyjordanjones.com  PATIENT: DESIGNER RACHEL ANTONOFF › AMY IS incredibly kind, intelligent, and curious, and I have found seeing things framed through her lens immensely helpful. My work with her often feels like we are doing investigative work on my mind and memories. Shawnee Benton-Gibson, L.M.S.W. shawneereneebenton.com  PATIENT: CHEF KEESHA O’GALDEZ › YOU KNOW THE vision of what therapy is: sitting on the couch and talking to somebody. That’s not what my experience was. I met Shawnee through my yoga instructor around 2016. I was in my early 30s, going through a horrible relationship with my ex. The vision I had for my life wasn’t matching up with what I was actually doing. Shawnee’s program was in person for about three months with an intimate group of women…

footstepsorg.org  PATIENT: AUTHOR ABBY STEIN › COMING FROM A FUNDAMENTALIST Hasidic community, the “professionals” have a goal of keeping you in the community. My first therapy session at Footsteps [with Michael] was the first time I ever spoke to a professional where I felt listened to, as opposed to feeling like a problem that needed solving. Before coming out as a woman of trans experience in 2015, another Footsteps social worker, Jesse, really helped me by simply making it clear that he was there to make it easier for me mentally. In fact, his reaction to me coming out was: “What can I do to make this intense journey not just easier but more exciting for you?”…

Blindness, April 2 to September 5 Juliet Stevenson narrates José Saramago’s novel at the Daryl Roth Theatre. Restart Stages, opens April 7 A new (outdoor) season at Lincoln Center. Puppetry Season at Dixon Place, April 21 to 24 and May 5 to 8 Shayna Strype’s Mine (opens April 21) and Justin Perkins’s Unicorn Afterlife (opens May 5). Social Distance Hall, TBA  SOCIAL! the social distance dance club, with Steven Hoggett and David Byrne. Party in the Bardo, with Jason Moran and Laurie Anderson.…

THE SUMMER OF 2020, recalls Hillary Schieve, was hard. The pandemic was bearing down across the country, protests over racial injustice were erupting, and her sister’s breast cancer had become terminal. Schieve moved her sister into her house to take care of her; at night, she would watch the news and wonder how she was going to keep it together. Then her sister died, and a few weeks later, Schieve’s brother unexpectedly died too. “When my brother died,” she said, “that’s when I fell apart.” She was having anxiety attacks; she was crying all the time. She wanted to find a therapist to talk to, so she started making calls but no one could fit her in for weeks. She was frustrated and unsure of what to do next. “I’m…

➼ ACCORDING TO THE American Psychological Association, in 2019, 84 percent of psychologists in the U.S. were white. For people of color, that can make finding a clinician who looks like you and understands your experience a challenge. While some national groups—like BEAM and Black Mental Health Alliance—serve the BIPOCcommunity with databases of therapists of color and POC-led online workshops, there is also a growing network of BIPOC organizations in New York connecting people of color with therapists of color and other culturally trained professionals. Here are two. HEALHAUS Members of this inclusive wellness space and café in Clinton Hill have access to sliding-scale private counseling, including teletherapy from any of 17 clinicians HealHaus has partnered with. (All of them take out-of-network insurance.) Plus there are issue-based one-on-one sessions, like…

SUNNY’S FLORIST  102 Second Ave; 212-473-0185 › NUMEROUS PEOPLE WE SPOKE TO raved about this teensy shop (“Basically a stand built into a wall,” says one) owned by Sunny Hwang and her son, Eddy. Lines on holidays—Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day in particular—can stretch for blocks. “When I lived across the street, the line at Sunny’s reminded me to text my mom on Mother’s Day more than once,” says designer SydneyFriedman. But the wait is worth it for the owners’ patience and knowledge (“Sunny and her son were always exceptionally patient with me when I asked them questions, like how to make their ranunculus or alliums last as long as possible,” says Friedman), low prices (premade bouquets go for $14, or you can design your own for $16 to $20),…

FOR A BEAT-INSPIRED WORKOUT DINO MALVONE , thesaltdrop.com › DURING HIS YEARS AS an instructor, and later a studio director, at the West Village location of Barre3, Dino Malvone cultivated a group of dedicated students, including actress Carla Gugino and makeup artist Ashleigh Ciucci, all of whom were eager to follow him when he launched a new workout concept, SaltDrop, in late 2019. After a few months of teaching his beat-driven cardio and body-weight sculpting classes at the Gibney Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center in Tribeca, Malvone moved his operation online when the pandemic struck (a digital membership costs $65 monthly or $650 annually). Malvone leads students through a progressively more challenging workout that starts with toning individual muscle groups and finishes with “a big cardio burst,”…

Neelu Shruti, whom author (and client) Jia Tolentino describes as “a deeply chill and progressive woman,” left her job as an architect to open the West Village studio Love Child Yoga in 2015. Along with pre-and postnatal yoga, Love Child offers childbirth classes (Shruti is a trained doula), lactation consulting, and “Baby & Me” yoga classes for new parents. While Tolentino says she initially “balked at the price” of a full membership ($180 monthly for unlimited yoga and expectant-parent-support classes), she says it was a “lifeline” during her pregnancy. Compared with other prenatal yoga classes, which Tolentino found too gentle, Shruti’s “hit a sweet spot—therapeutic but challenging, a slow but rewarding burn.” Even over Zoom, Tolentino says Shruti is “really good at tailoring each session to the bodies and needs…

FOR YEARS-OUT PREDICTIONS DANTE SABATINO , Tarot by Dante, 364 W. 18th St.; tarotbydante.com , › OVER HIS 35 YEARS as a psychic and tarot-card reader, Dante Sabatino has earned a reputation for his startling accuracy. “It’s truly shocking,” says one private wealth adviser. For Roxanne Ong, an executive at a beauty company, he has been able to predict events “as far as four years out.” Morgane Le Fay designer Liliana Casabal calls him “a true visionary.” And he is able to perform these detailed readings not only privately—in his Chelsea apartment or over Zoom (from $120 for 30 minutes)—but also at parties: Bulgari, Sephora, and Simon & Schuster have all hired him for private events. For Chakra Balancing With Body Treatments TRACEY BYER ,…

FOR A 72-HOUR TURNAROUND JUSTIN AUGUSTE GUEREUX , Studio Guereux; studioguereux.com › WHEN Abby Bangser needed someone to build spare raw-birch display tables for her design fair, Object & Thing, she and her collaborator, interior designer Rafael de Cardenas, turned to Justin Guereux, who has a background in art direction in addition to fabrication. Guereux was remarkably fast and can turn some projects around in just 72 hours. (“I’ve worked with other woodworkers who have taken more than a year for bookshelves,” Bangser says.) While Guereux’s clients skew high-end and commercial (he’s created a pop-up room for the Brooklyn Museum’s store and wall paneling for Mansur Gavriel’s Soho store), his studio also does custom private commissions. Pro clients, like de Cardenas and Bangser, will come with specs…

For Scarlett Johansson’s Seasonal Highlights EMALY BAUM , Beauty Supply, 237 Centre St., second fl.; emalybcolor@gmail.com › MULTIPLE FAMOUS blondes, Scarlett Johansson among them, entrust their color to Emaly Baum, who for the past five years has been based at Soho’s Suite Caroline but in May will open her own nearby salon called Beauty Supply. “Emaly thinks about where the sun would hit and creates highlights depending on the time of year,” Johansson says. SNL’s Chloe Fineman prefers a more “bright and glowy blonde look,” which, she says, “Emaly is a genius at creating—and that’s very hard to find here in New York, a city of cool brunettes.” Another client, chef Alison Roman, says that Baum implicitly knows “what type of blonde you want” based on your…

FOR A REASONABLY PRICED VINTAGE SOFA LICHEN , 98 Moore St., Williamsburg; 131 Manhattan Ave., Williamsburg; lichennyc.com › NINE PEOPLE TOLD us that visiting Lichen—whose founders met on either end of a Craigslist sale and whose new, expanded location stocks a rotating assortment of muted designer furniture and décor—is the best way to experience the opposite of the gatekeeping that goes on in much of the design industry. Artist Hassan Rahim says that’s in part because of its welcoming staff but mostly because of its deliberately non-egregious pricing. “I saw a perfect dark-gray discontinued BoConcept love seat, thought, Watch, this will be $3,000, flipped the label, and saw that it was $650,” says Rahim. Designer Wesley Scott, who grew up in the furniture industry, says he has…

SAVED NEW YORK 72 Irving Pl.; saved-ny.com away on Irving Place, Saved New York has an Instagram following that includes Marc Jacobs as well as various design editors, florists, and artists. Brooklyn designer Sean McNanney founded the shop in 2015 after working in interiors at Ralph Lauren. The focus of Saved is its house line of handmade Mongolian-cashmere blankets, pillows, and tapestries—though designer Renea LaRiviere says that where the shop truly excels is in its assortment of antiques (like a pair of candlesticks shaped like cobras and an Art Deco mirror by Max Wiederanders) and, especially, “the lamps, which I just love.” Recent lamps for sale: a pair of three-armed Dutch wall sconces ($1,800) and some 18th-century Chinese turquoise ceramic parrot lamps ($2,800) with handmade silk shades.…

PIZZAZZZ TOYZ 281 Court St., Cobble Hill; instagram.com/pizzazzz_toyz_and_kidz ›“PIZZAZZZ IS A PERFECT NEW YORK CITY STORE,” says Books Are Magic owner EmmaStraub,whose two kids are ages 5 and 7. “There is not an inch of wasted space. Toys are stacked to the ceiling along the narrow aisles, and children dart quickly to their chosen kingdoms—LEGOs, trains, action figures, dolls, PAW Patrol vehicles.” (The prices here are moderate—Pokémon cards start at $5, Kid Made Modern crafts kits at $15.) “There may be easier stores to maneuver a stroller,” Straub says, but this nearly 20-year-old Cobble Hill standby has that elusive quality that reminds you why it’s great to shop in New York: “They always have what I need,” Straub says. Just park the stroller outside.…

URIU NUANCE 212-828-3160; uriunuance.com › MARK URIU ORIGINALLY TRAINED as a fine artist, and it shows: He specializes in the specific, from faux finishes (trompe l’oeil, faux marble) and gilding to distressed wall finishes. He was also recommended five times over— Spencer Bailey and Andrew Zuckerman, the co-founders of the Slowdown, describe him as “the go-to in certain high-end architect circles,” and architect Stephanie Goto, who has designed spaces for the Calder Foundation and Hauser & Wirth, says, “He is one of these people we never speak about but is integral to our practice.” Writer Zibby Owens told us Uriu painted her childhood bedroom in a light-blue sponge design she was so obsessed with that years later, she hired him to paint her entire Upper East Side apartment. When they…

QUEEN  queen.nyc “The hummus is untouchable,” says actor and musician Brendan Daugherty of Queen, a “wildly popular” Mediterranean café on Starr Street that offers catering and began as a simple falafel window for hungry fire-breathers at the performance space House of Yes. The catering menu includes meze like charred beets and spiced carrots alongside baba ghannouj and za’atar-dusted labneh, plus sandwiches of chicken shawarma and roasted eggplant. It’s perfect for a group because, says Eva Evans, a video producer who has used Queen to cater shoots, “it’s easy to order for all dietary restrictions, and it travels well.” And according to House of Yes co-founder Kae Burke, “Queen has single-handedly fed the entire circus-performance community in Bushwick.”…

JACOB K. JAVITS PLAYGROUND Inside Fort Tryon Park There may be no playground in the city with a better view than Jacob K. Javits Playground—elevated on the ridge of Fort Tryon Park, it overlooks the Hudson River and New Jersey’s Palisades (to be fair, Pierrepont Playground, from which you can clearly spot the Statue of Liberty, may give it a run for its money). The playground recently received a $3.1 million makeover after 28 years of neglect, and the facilities now match the scenery. Dattner calls the reconstruction “spectacular.” Toddlers and young children have their own aquamarine jungle gyms; older kids and adults can enjoy new basketball courts, exercise equipment, and climbing walls.…

212-243-3233 PATIENT: DRAG ARTIST LADY BUNNY › SOME OF THE BEST ADVICE I have gotten is that you don’t need to settle on the first therapist you see if you don’t feel that they are right for you. Even though presumably all therapists know the mind, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to go jibe. I went to the Washington Square Institute—used by many, many rock-and-roll musicians, artists, and performers—for decades and then it closed. I started seeing a new person, and we’re just ten sessions in, but she is lovely. It’s a good idea to look into therapy now, because for many people, our future is a question mark, a job is a question mark, our health is a question mark, and we’re isolated.…

THE FIRST STORY the world told about Helen Oyeyemi was that she was a prodigy. A South London girl who had emigrated from Nigeria at the age of 4, she was inward-keeping, sometimes bullied, often desperately sad. As a teen, she endured bouts of clinical depression that she countered with books from the library, episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and, eventually, writing. When she was about 15, she read a perfect book. “I stayed home from school,” she told me. “I was ‘off sick’ for three days in bed reading Ali Smith’s Hotel World and just being like, This is allowed? I can’t believe this. I immediately wanted to try it.” Reading was an intense, isolated, even isolating experience. “That’s what made it feel like it was my lifeblood…

You are looking for traditional therapy but don’t want to leave your house. Try one of these national telehealth companies that offer mental-health care alongside virtual medical treatments. The psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors in their databases practice cognitive and dialectical behavioral therapy with specialties including anxiety, trauma, and addiction issues. Doctor on Demand: Fill out two short questionnaires about the frequency and intensity of your issue and your irritability levels, mood, and any recent changes in sleep and diet. Then choose a therapist (40 percent of whom identify as people of color) by selecting the time that works on their calendar. Most reviewers describe their therapy sessions positively, calling the app, which was co-founded by Dr. Phil in 2012, a “godsend” and a “gold mine.” One sums it…

ON WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, Randall Emmett presided over a crime scene near one of America’s few tropical rain forests in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico. Robert De Niro, dressed as a small-town Georgia sheriff, emerged from a sun-faded mobile home and walked solemnly past a black van marked CORONER, looking like a man uneasy about the ordeal ahead of him. In Wash Me in the River, the feature film Emmett had just started shooting, that ordeal was to pursue a recovering opioid addict exacting revenge on the drug dealers he holds responsible for his fiancée’s death. Off-camera, De Niro’s ordeal was no less daunting—somehow, the great actor had to keep Hollywood’s worst filmmaker from ruining the movie they’d set out to make together. Emmett, who is 50, has directed just one…

LUNA FAMILY FARM  instagram.com/ lunafamilyfarm When Popupflorist founder Kelsie Hayes shops for flowers for her apartment, she heads to Tompkins Square Park on Sundays. “In the summer and early fall, they have gorgeous zinnias and dahlias. In the winter, fresh evergreens and wreaths.” The Luna family, who joined the city’s Greenmarkets in 2018, grows more than 40 flower varieties in Burlington County, New Jersey, and brings them by the bucket to Union Square every Wednesday and Saturday, the Columbia Greenmarket on Thursdays, and the Stuytown and Tompkins Greenmarkets on Sundays. Luna sells huge bouquets of marigolds for $10 and Latin American vegetables and herbs like papalo, serville, and pepicha.…

LUIS NOVAS The Row Astoria, 4308 Broadway, Astoria; therowastoria.com; 646-823-2376 ›“I’M KIND OF A WHINY LITTLE BRAT when it comes to strength training,” says stand-up comedian Gina Brillon. When she started sparring with Luis Novas, who owns the Row Astoria studio but specializes in boxing drills, Brillon warned him, “I’m probably gonna curse you out.” Novas took the challenge in stride; Brillon says he’s “funny enough that I would forget about how much I hated the stuff we were doing.” (He charges $900 for 12 hour-long training sessions.) Novas took the time to explain how his strength-and-conditioning routines would make her faster and more effective in the ring, and, she says, “He came up with fun exercises that I really enjoy.”…

For Core-Building Calisthenics CHELSEY WILKENS , Soho Strength Lab, 182 Mulberry St.; instagram. com/chelseywilkens › MODEL AND TRAINER Chelsey Wilkens has the kind of gymnast’s body—on full display on her Instagram account—that makes you want to hire her. At least that was the case for interior designer and cookbook author Athena Calderone, who spotted Wilkens on social media over a year ago and has been training with her ever since. In their private sessions ($150 at Soho Strength Lab or virtually), Calderone says Wilkens leads her through “a series of incredibly challenging and repeated calisthenics-like exercises to build endurance, core strength, and flexibility” that she describes as “hard AF while being both humbling and fun.” And yes, ever since they started working out together, Calderone reports, she feels…

ELLEN GOLDBERG 11 Cornelia St.; schooloforacles.com A psychic who’s also a trained psychotherapist? It’s no wonder Ellen Goldberg is popular among powerful New Yorkers, like Paulette Cole, the CEO of ABC Carpet & Home. In each session, clothing historian Kate Sekules says, Goldberg “listens very closely, and reads everything—palms, cards, stars—for a true and deep view of you.” The Cornelia Street apartment where you can visit her again post-pandemic happens to be beautiful, in the back of a bright landmark building. (For now, she’s doing video sessions, starting at $300.)…

ELEPHANTS CUSTOM FURNITURE  elephantscustomfurniture.com; 646-812-5313 ›JULIANA CODAS AND GOKHAN DOGUER charge about $2,000 for an unadorned bathroom vanity made of Baltic birch, which, in the world of built-ins, is on the inexpensive side of things. Though the firm is equally comfortable using more luxurious woods and finishes, “you don’t get a lot of shops who can do a range of work and have it be consistent at all price points,” says TaniaChau, the interior-design director of Alda Ly Architecture. Chau has worked with Elephants on tasks as big as creating open shelving, toy storage, and closets for a kids’ playroom and as small as repainting the doors on kitchen cabinets. And Elephants is fast, too: A typical kitchen takes most contractors 12 to 14 weeks, but Elephants averages just six…

MALCOLM CUTHBERT Baja Studio, 20 Thompson St.,No.1C; 347-981-8333 Creating an intentionally grown-out-looking dye job without it looking too (unintentionally) messy or grungy is not as simple as it may appear. Which is why actress Emma Greenwell is so devoted to Malcolm Cuthbert, who counts FKA Twigs among his clients. “He is an incredible communicator,” Greenwell says. “He gets me, and he gets my hair.” By which she means: He creates “a natural and rooty color” for her (for $365); it grows out so well that she only needs to visit his Soho salon every three to four months.…

CORONA PLAZA 40-04 National St., Corona ›“WHEN I NEED ANYTHING HERE IN NEW YORK, my first instinct is to buy from street vendors, who have been left out of pandemic relief,” says Elena Ketelsen González, assistant curator at MoMA PS1. She tends to make her way to Corona Plaza in Queens, an open-air commercial hub just off the 103rd Street 7-train stop, where, seven days a week, from early morning to late into the night, vendors sell fruits, food (tamales, elote), flowers, and home goods. “You can pick up everything from embroidered Mexican tablecloths to colorful aprons,” says González, who frequents vendor Don Vincente. (If you’re in the market for pottery, González says that, not too far away, she finds brightly colored hand-painted earthenware vases made by street vendor Gregoria…

GRANDMA’S PLACE 84 W. 120th St.; grandmasplaceinharlem.com › SO FIERCE HAS BEEN THE SUPPORT for Grandma’s Place that the 20-year-old Harlem store, which came under threat of closing in the pandemic, has become famous lately—appearing on the news, on New York Nico’s Instagram, and even on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “They’ve been a fixture on this block,” says father of two MikeRobles,who lives around the corner. The owner is 81-year-old neighborhood resident Dawn Harris-Martine, a.k.a. Grandma Dawn, who has been, Robles says, “so warm and open about creating an environment and fostering a place where kids can come in and have a good time. It really is like Grandma’s place, where you can just come in and say hi. And if you need a math book, for example, you know…

For Healthyish Food THE CULINISTAS , theculinistas.com › LINDSEY TAYLOR WOOD, CEO of the Helm, a VC firm for female-led start-ups, has hired the Culinistas for large summit events and small dinner parties. Wood is the type of person they tend to attract: extremely busy female founders who appreciate the type of healthy food (gluten free and dairy free, but you wouldn’t know it) that their chefs tend to specialize in (Gwyneth Paltrow, not surprisingly, was an early client). Founders Jill Donenfeld and Tiana Tenet have actually seen their business expand as restaurants contracted last year, extending in-home chef services to upstate New York and year-round in the Hamptons. You can host a dinner party of pistachio-roasted carrots and couscous with pea shoots for your pod starting at…

FOR MULTIPLE PYRAMIDS ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND , Central Park West and 67th St. › ADVENTURE Playground—which sits just north of the West 67th Street entrance of Central Park—has long been considered practically a piece of the city’s architectural history. Built in 1967 by architect Richard Dattner (with funding from the Estée and Joseph Lauder Foundation), it’s comprised of linked pyramids, mounds, and other structures built of concrete and stacked cobblestones designed to let kids determine how they’re going to play—which is what made it a go-to spot for architect David Rockwell when his two kids were young and inspired his design for Imagination Playground in the South Street Seaport. “With its clever use of shapes, textures, and colors, it manages to be visually stimulating without being overwhelming,” says Rockwell. “But what…

TEARDROP PARK River Terr. and Murray St. › DESIGNED TO FEEL LIKE YOU’VE stepped into a glen in the Catskills, Teardrop Park in Battery Park City is lush with trees and woody shrubs (most of which are native to New York State) lining the meandering paths. A 27-foot-tall wall of jagged bluestone evokes a mountainside, and the other rock formations dotting the park are perfect for young climbing enthusiasts. “The primary focus of the design is not to give children a bunch of colorful playground challenges but to submerge them in a natural environment to explore,” says Mark Reigelman, the Brooklyn-based artist and designer of Domino Park Playground (see previous page), who counts Teardrop Park among the best in the city. There are also limestone boulders to climb over, a…

FOAM R US 30-60 Steinway St., Astoria; 718-255-1639 After Jack Wilson successfully acquired a rare Jean Gillon leather chair this winter, his first call was to Foam R Us, a bright-blue storefront situated between a dog groomer and a hair salon on Steinway that he has been working with for more than two years. “The original foam had completely crumbled. They managed to reconstruct it using a series of sculpted foam pieces,” says Wilson, who runs the Instagram account Angular Vintage. The company patched rips, replaced missing straps with matching leather, and added new nylon backing—all within budget and ahead of deadline. On a day-today basis, Foam R Us is most likely to be giving new life to sagging cushions on ordinary recliners, sofas, and window seats (prices…

caredash.com  PATIENT: DESIGNER NIYI OKUBOYEJO › I’VE HAD A FEW THERAPISTS in the past. One of them was okay. The most recent one was a disaster. It really wasn’t going anywhere, and I kind of felt like, Ugh, let me try somebody else. Venita’s good at revealing stuff and guiding me to a place where I’m like, Oh, okay, that’s what is going on. She’s helped me guide myself away from that codependency in the sense of wanting to please people or believing that their validation validates your existence. She’s helped me get to the point where I’ve got my confidence back.…