How Do You Find These People?

I’m asked that all the time. There are a few ways: I ask the owner of a place to suggest a good regular; I reach out to an interesting person to see if they’re a regular anywhere; I just ask anybody and everybody if they know somebody. However, finding people isn’t the hardest part. What’s really tough is sitting down with a total stranger and shooting the shit in a way that you don’t weird them out, you gain their trust, and hopefully you get them to say something interesting or meaningful, or at least wild or fun. I find people. Finding their story is what I’m really after.

That’s what brought me to the regulars. I wanted to uncover the stories the people around me carry with them from the places they love. I wanted to tell the stories that they might not have told or even recognized they had inside them. And that happens a lot: at the end of the interviews, so many regulars will say they never thought about the things we discussed before. They never had to put into words how they think and feel about the bar, the restaurant, the shop where they spend so much of their lives. I also learned quickly that when you talk to somebody in a place where they feel most comfortable, you’d be surprised at how many intimate, personal, and human details they divulge.

I moved to Brooklyn twelve years ago, and I still have mixed feelings about the place. Too many people. Too overwhelming. Too much constant change. And yet, I still haven’t figured out anywhere else I want to be. One way or another, this has become my home. And in this time, I’ve learned I like connecting with Brooklyn. To the rest of the world trying to catch a glimpse of what’s become known as Hipster Heaven, the scene became the story. I wanted to reveal the deeper and even more entertaining stories of the real people living in this scene.

I wanted to show where and how these folks lived. Where they drank coffee, threw back beers, partied, and played music. Where they brunched, blogged, broke up, and fell back in love. Where they danced, laughed, punched, puked, and cried. The same thing happened in cities all over the United States and all over the world. But only these stories happened in Brooklyn, where I also danced, laughed, punched, puked, and cried. And only these stories happened in a time when Brooklyn became infamous. Brooklyn is now the cool industry, just as Hollywood is the film industry, and Detroit is the auto industry. And nearly every single blog, magazine, and TV show wants a piece of the action.

When I got here, this new Brooklyn was already on the map. The word “gentrification” was thrown around well before I arrived. And I believe with my presence alone, I’m part of the shift. That made it all the more important and interesting to seek out people like me as well as people older, younger, and definitely different than me to learn their experience, their feelings about the places in their native or adopted neighborhoods. You learn a lot about a person when you hear them talk about the place they call their own.

So why would you want to be a regular? It’s about belonging somewhere and having somewhere belong to you. It’s about privilege and status. And in New York, that’s high currency. This is also a town where you can always be alone in a crowd. And being a regular gives you something even more personal: a sense of home. These are stories about people finding a home in an ephemeral world of bars, restaurants, shops, and clubs that open, explode, and burn out like so many stars hidden in that bright and sleepless New York night sky. It’s easy to hide in plain sight here. It’s not easy to make real human connections.

I like talking to regulars. I like good conversations. I believe that’s really all we have in this world—the feeling that you “get” someone, the sudden connection of understanding someone. Even if it’s shared with someone you don’t know, someone you won’t know, someone you’ll only sort of know over a beer, a cup of coffee, a walk among the cool but ultimately forgettable items in a hip neighborhood shop. That’s what these stories are all about: a brief, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant connection with a person who really knows a place in what many refer to as the coolest part of the world. I think you’ll want to meet the regulars, too.

(Photos by Phil Provencio)