The ZG2NYC is an opinionated, anecdotal, low budget, highly participatory exploration of the greatest city on earth. From Japanese breakfasts, art supplies, used books, and wisteria (free for the eating in Central Park) to punk rope, volunteer opportunities, storefront museums and subway musicians, the Zinester's Guide to NYC has it all. To hell with iPhone apps! Over fifty New York-based zine and indie comics publishers contributed listings and illustrations to this book, and they want you to scribble in the margins.
Why watch the parade when you can march in it? The Zinester's Guide to NYC wholeheartedly encourages its readers to guest bartend, play bike polo in Sara Roosevelt Park, create public parks in metered parking spaces, and submit the 5-minute movies they shoot on the boardwalk to next year's Coney Island Film Festival. Pocket-sized and user friendly, the Zinester's Guide to NYC is an indispensable resource for both first-time visitors and New Yorkers of longstanding, a personal history, and a window through which armchair travelers can experience this town.
{"itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":8.99,"ASIN":"1934620467","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":12.15,"ASIN":"1118369017","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":6.25,"ASIN":"1886705976","isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"1934620467::cLvWT5XzP%2FqX3NLd4iVFcaeXCi4YBDHDdVBkpJu4lmHRU%2BavEGwCKPdbN3X5A4KOCaWLM8EPqQ%2Flm08jIGwzAv9QgrtcIgM8rnptfSE%2Bvr4JFEktcalF5A%3D%3D,1118369017::VfjxEuxQ9B1fOY%2FMDDWtaCbeYHmDUFLePSB50Rp2EtpCbIOlG%2BGMAJSQVNOr1DhUcjuTUqGC6gN8oup3KycX9w9xfOIBdj1aIYu8Cdi67SXiA0%2B5DaQLXg%3D%3D,1886705976::OX%2By%2B%2BTcgCYJF5inieqs1K03OhkhV%2Bl5EcQQhWoR5NKhllJIvKhwiwEdB%2BTTG2CAkOqY1vEsGY1sjA1DdaX14PDp717PYGF4i31Wqc855S%2BUKcElHDzjJg%3D%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"currenyCode":"USD","shippingDetails":{"xz":"same","yz":"same","xy":"same","xyz":"same"},"tags":["x","y","z"],"strings":{"addToWishlist":["add to wishlist","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:"],"preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items"]}}
If I could still walk the streets of New York among my People, I would use this truly funny and truly affordable guidebook. It kicks ass. --Stephen Colbert
A remarkable achievement of urban curiosity, beautifully illustrated with original artwork. -- Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
The friendly, funny, snarktastic tone in the intro is prevalent in every single description, without exception. -- Michelle Schusterman, Matador Travel Network
An old school pleasure, the travel equivalent of a lovingly assembled mix tape--useful and full of surprises. --Rolf Potts, author of Vagabonding and Marco Polo Didn't Go There
It makes me want to go climb on decommissioned ships in Staten Island right now, but I can't because I'm in a cocktail dress at 10 AM. --Alex McCord, Real Housewives of New York City
There's so much in this book that it's a bit overwhelming, but I love it! It's kinda like a punk rock Frommer's or Fodor's. --Planet Chocko Zine
If you do everything in this book, you will be more of a New Yorker than even the New Yorkiest New Yorker in New York. --Matt Gross, The New York Times' Frugal Traveler
From the Author
The Zinester's Guide to NYC Virtual Book Tour Bus rolls through cyberspace in perpetuity. Join us! ayunhalliday.com/?p=307
I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and came of age at the height of the preppy craze. For some unfathomable reason, my grandparents had a subscription to The New Yorker and every week, I'd paw through it daydreaming about a glamorous future where I'd be a celebrated stage actress living in sin with some hot, devoted trumpet player in a Greenwich Village loft with a skyline view that I've since learned is only possible from Brooklyn or New Jersey.
After graduating from Northwestern University with an impractical, expensive degree in guess what, I embarked on an exciting career as a waitress, with occasional time-outs for globetrotting of the dirty backpack, banana pancake variety.
In 1988, I joined The Neo-Futurists, a Chicago theatre company notable for presenting 30 original plays in the course of 60 minutes and ordering pizza for the audience whenever the show sold out. Greg Kotis auditioned for the ensemble in 1991 and fortunately, we cast him because otherwise, I might not have married him and moved to New York City where we rented a 340-square-foot apartment in the East Village for $1150 a month.
Boy, were we surprised when a big old stork swooped down a year later, especially since the baby it dropped off had three thumbs and required immediate treatment in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
On Inky's first birthday, I put out the first issue of my zine, The East Village Inky which was and still is written and illustrated entirely by hand because computers tend to take a digger when I'm around (This Web site was engineered by Dave Awl, an old buddy from the Neo-Futurists.)
After a few years, the shadow of the stork fell upon us again and we moved to Brooklyn. Milo was born underwater so lickety split, he almost came out in the Tompkins Square playground.
Greg wrote Urinetown! (the Musical) which, to everyone's amazement, made it all the way to Broadway and now he's such hot doodie he might burn you, so don't touch him! Don't tell him I called him hot doodie either because he's rigorous about his modesty and I already drew a couple of pictures in The East Village Inky where he dances around naked.
I eschewed housekeeping and wrote a book called The Big Rumpus so I could remember what life was really like when my children were small and so that you'd have something to purchase in bulk for Mothers Day and every other major holiday.
Then I had to write another book in case you pride yourself on hating kids or break out in hives at the thought of reading another birth story. My second book is called No Touch Monkey! The ranking brass in the East Village Inky guerilla marketeering squad think it'd make an excellent present for everyone who received a copy of The Big Rumpus from you last year, not to mention the special dirty backpacker in your life. If an Amazon customer reviewer is going to hate on any of my books, that's the one! Boy, is it ever! I'll fix their wagons someday.
Gosh, playing in the ashtray of my tattered memories was such fun, I started rooting through all the crappy day jobs I held while pursuing an elusive dream of life on the golden-but-not-nearly-wicked-enough stage. If you, too, have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageously low-wage fortune, reading Job Hopper is going to feel like taking off your girdle. If you've been pulling down six figures since the day you graduated B-school summa cum laude, reading Job Hopper is going to feel like taking off someone else's girdle.
The most recent autobiographical dough to come pumping out of the template is Dirty Sugar Cookies: Culinary Observations, Questionable Taste. It's a love letter to everything I've ever eaten and a few of the things I wish I hadn't. I might add that it's got one of the gnarliest indexes I've ever seen, short of The Merck Manual. It made me so hungry, I had to start a food blog just to justify some of the crazy things I've stuffed in my pie-hole over the years. (I eventually realized that blogging's not for a hard core zinester like me, but you can find the archives online if you search for "Dirty Sugar Cookies Eggplant Tofu" which is what I always do when I'm trying to remember how to make my husband's favorite recipe.
In 2008, Hyperion published a picture book that had been knocking around in my rusty old brain pan since my then-4-year-old daughter observed that there's "Always Lots Of Heinies at the Zoo". True enough! She's twelve now. You do the math. Anyway, it's illustrated by Dan Santat, and it has a Bossa Nova beat, in case you want to dance to it. I'm particularly proud of the line about the junk in Ms. Elephant's supplemental trunk, and my favorite illustration is the one on the back cover.
Then came Zinesters Guide to NYC, an anecdotal, illustrated, low budget, highly participatory guidebook to New York City. It is believed to be the last wholly analog specimen of its kind. Stephen Colbert said it's truly funny, truly affordable and that if he could still walk the streets of New York among his People, this is the guide he would use. Have your cake and eat it too by using your smart phone to check if a certain gluten free and/or vegan and/or venerable bakeries listed in this delightfully old school volume are still open or whether you should savor that listing as New York history.
And now comes my graphic novel, Peanut, a collaboration with illustrator Paul Hoppe. It's about a girl who fakes a peanut allergy under the mistaken impression that it will improve her social standing at her new school. Schwartz and Wade is publishing it in January 2013, just in time for...Christmas... oh.
That photo is what I wear when battling the haters who write scathing reviews of No Touch Monkey. As you can see, I am also enjoying a cup of Official Writer Drink.
If you'd like to learn more about what's shaking in Ayun layund, or find out how to order the East Village Inky, or see some old timey photos from back in the day, I've got a website. I named it after myself. No, not Ayun Junior. Ayun Halliday Dot Com! We can even be Facebook friends. I'll wish you a happy birthday.
A funny, smart, and above all, friendly guide to off-the-beaten-path NYC attractions. Reading it is like hanging out with a down to earth friend who just happens to know a bunch of incredibly cool places to hang out. And, much like your dream spouse/significant other, you can bring it home to the parents and all your friends will fall in love with it, too. (Don't let them steal it, the greedy tramps! Buy 'em their own copies!)
I am not even halfway through this book and I have already flagged dozens of pages. I am a native New Yorker and there are so many things in this book that sound awesome that I have never heard of before now. I can't wait to check out so many of these things, I wish the days were longer so I could spend more time using this guide. It has everything, from bicycle polo, to cheap vegan eats to the best places to get a slice all over the city. You'll also get great snarky commentary from some of the funniest writers in the world of zines. It's so cheap, I can't see any reason why you wouldn't get this book. It's AWESOME.
I have had a serious love affair with New York my entire life. I visit often and plan to move there. This guide is fantastic, with tons of interesting and affordable places to check out. I have read every guide there is on NYC and by and large they contain the reviews of the same hotels and theater options. This book offers really unique places that are also more affordable than most of the stuff you find in the guidebooks. You can find the standard upscale restaurant, hotel and broadway show reviews on many sites and books, there is nothing out there like this guide, I cannot wait to go again in a few months and visit some of the places reviewed in the book. It makes me miss NY every time I pick it up.
