{"id":796476,"date":"2026-05-14T19:14:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T19:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/796476\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T19:14:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T19:14:20","slug":"lila-raiceks-guide-to-uptown-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/796476\/","title":{"rendered":"Lila Raicek’s Guide to Uptown New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

Architectural gem:<\/strong> The newly renovated Frick Collection<\/a>, based in Henry Clay Frick\u2019s 1914 mansion, is a beauty. I\u2019m sad that Flora Yukhnovich\u2019s \u201cFour Seasons\u201d<\/a> is gone, but sit beneath the glass-domed roof in the Garden Court and find Whistler\u2019s gossamer portrait of Frances Leyland.<\/a><\/p>\n

Best time to visit, weather-wise:<\/strong> Cue Billie Holiday\u2019s \u201cAutumn in New York,\u201d but don\u2019t miss the park smothered in pink confetti from the cherry blossoms bursting in Spring.<\/p>\n

Must-skip\/don\u2019t bother:<\/strong> If there\u2019s a line for frozen yogurt…<\/p>\n

Workout:<\/strong> Looping endlessly around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir<\/a>. My best friend and I call them \u201cdespair walks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheap date:<\/strong> The concerts at SummerStage<\/a>, and the French film festival Films on the Green\u2014both free and outdoors in Central Park. And, always, Shakespeare in the Park<\/a>, if you wait in line for tickets!<\/p>\n

Worth-it splurge:<\/strong> Dining beneath Joan Mitchell\u2019s \u201cKing of Spades\u201d at Marcel<\/a>, the new restaurant inside the brutalist Breuer building that now houses Sotheby\u2019s. I\u2019m a bit biased because I got married at La Mercerie<\/a> in Soho (where we lived for 2 years), so I\u2019m in awe of anything that Robin and Stephen Alesch<\/a> design\u2014and their latest is elegantly enchanting.<\/p>\n

Best place for people-watching:<\/strong> The bar at Polo Bar<\/a>, sorry. (Hi, Nelly!) A favorite sighting was [Aryna] Sabalenka right after she won the 2025 US Open.<\/p>\n

Secret spot only locals know:<\/strong> Albertine<\/a>, named after a Proust character, is a charming French bookshop tucked inside a Beaux Arts mansion. The hand-painted celestial ceiling, wreathed with gilded zodiac signs, is transporting, as is its selection of French poetry.<\/p>\n

Spa or salon:<\/strong>\u00a0I rarely have time (endless deadlines!), but recently, before a photo shoot, a friend sent me to\u00a0Georgia Louise,<\/a>\u00a0who depuffed me in ways I didn\u2019t know were possible.<\/p>\n

Favorite film about New York:<\/strong> There are many to choose from, but the 1964 film The World of Henry Orient<\/a> blissfully captures another era\u2013and gets a mention in the book. (I first watched it with my mom.) There\u2019s a classic scene in Central Park when the teenage girls spy on Peter Sellars at the Alice in Wonderland statue, but I often think of the heart-twisting shot when Val traverses a snowy, funereal field all alone.<\/p>\n

Something you should know about my city:<\/strong> While it\u2019s gained new attention, the Upper East Side has had an unfair rap. Particularly when I was a single, struggling playwright living in rent-controlled garrets, I was always dazzled by the rich tradition of female writers who once lived and wrote here: Sylvia Plath, Shirley Hazzard, Dorothy Parker, Wendy Wasserstein. And of course, Joan Didion, who described living in a \u201cmonastic\u201d place uptown in her infamous essay. I love this line: \u201cI remember walking across Sixty-second Street one twilight that first spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

How this city influences my writing:<\/strong> New York is inexorably in motion, it\u2019s febrile, feral, and kinetic. I love disappearing into the carnival of strangers, while remaining attuned to the wild, unexpected moments in the everyday. I wrote most of The Plunge while alone in the city during the pandemic, inspired by how tenaciously it pressed on during its darkest hour. For a writer, the tensions of New York\u2014grit and glitter; chaos and solitude\u2014provide a charged space in which stories can take hold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Architectural gem: The newly renovated Frick Collection, based in Henry Clay Frick\u2019s 1914 mansion, is a beauty. I\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":796477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1022,392,18302,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,16355,27645,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,1940],"class_list":{"0":"post-796476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-living","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-storytypelist","19":"tag-textaboveleftsmall","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-web"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116574530325317957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}