Kitty Beans
Kitty grew up in the West Village during a time where even looking in the direction of the subway could get you beaten, mugged, and slapped with one of those gloves that have fire ants sewn into the palm. She chain smokes cigarettes by taping the whole pack together and inhaling them all at once. She can direct you to all the bars on the West Side that still allow knife fights in the basement and always sleeps with a rocket launcher under her pillow. Kitty slept on the subway tracks for most of the ‘70s and once stabbed Ed Koch for smirking at her.
Salvador Niknaks
Salvador ”Sally” Niknaks bought up a block of houses in Bushwick in 1982 for $6 and a pack of smokes. In 1984, a lawsuit was brought against him by the borough of Brooklyn for only renting properties to men who looked exactly like him. Sally, as a landlord, is anything but dependable and once tried to fix a leak in the plumbing by plugging the hole with half a tuna on rye and a dill pickle. Now, he’s learned how to optimize his space and rents his newly-renovated micro-miniature-tiny-apartments to students for $10,000 a day.
Annie Holloway
No one loves New York City more than Annie Holloway. On the walk from her favorite coffee shop to her other favorite coffee shop, Annie gives the homeless slices of homemade apple crisp and fresh pencil bouquets. You can typically find her writing love letters to all the trees in Central Park in a bookshop run by an elderly couple who fell in love at the top of the Statue of Liberty. Annie once came upon two rats getting married, but didn’t say anything.
Peter Love
The opening shot of the “Welcome To The Jungle” video, where Axl Rose steps off a Greyhound bus with a piece of straw in his mouth was based off every single time Peter leaves his apartment after dark. During his first week in the city, Peter got mugged 66 times, sometimes getting mugged by a completely new person while in the middle of a mugging. He only eats at TGI Fridays, because the optimism reminds him of the Midwest and spends most of his earnings at the M&M’s store.
Trip von Trapp
Trip is one of New York’s baddest bad boys, which is made evident by the length of his hair and the content of his indie magazine, Bad-Bad Boys. His decadent apartment in Hell’s Kitchen costs $100 a month, because of rent stabilization and the careful avoidance of the New York City Rental Board. Trip’s credit card bill is as thick as a phone book and the bearskin rug in his bathtub is just a testament to how bad everyone else’s style is. You won’t find Trip’s parents crashing on his couch, because they have a reserved penthouse at the top of the Freedom Tower spire. It’s very expensive. Trip never calls a friend by his birth name and cries in his coke dealer’s arms every Saturday.
Streets Kyle
Streets Kyle and his girlfriend, Streets Sarah, have been on the streets since 2014. They play one guitar at the same time all over St. Mark’s Place and use any spare cash they can get to feed their dog, Streets Dog. They call money “scratch,” food “grub,” and sew all their loose bandanas into vests. Streets Kyle’s cardboard sign expresses how he wishes to cautiously explore the benefits of anarchy while acknowledging the pitfalls of a leaderless society.
Ryan O’Ryan
If you want to know what this NYU grad is up to, just check out his web series. He, along with his saddest female friend, star in every episode and comment on situations every New Yorker can relate to: officiating a marriage between Trevor from the M&M’s store and a Times Square Elmo, trying to convince a senior citizen in a rent-controlled apartment that you’re his biological father, and successfully mating a pigeon with a rat.
Lawrence Thomas White
His hair is thick, his glasses are one-of-a-kind, and his boots cost $495—each. Lawrence lives in a “cool, little spot” on the Lower East Side and he spends his days working as a freelance graphic designer for a consulting firm led by a DJ—in Brooklyn. The back of his wife’s head is more attractive than 99% of the population and their two pristine daughters are named Frances (Frankie for short) and Johnny Rotten. Every Sunday, Lawrence plays G.G. Allin songs for his daughters on the guitar and bakes cronuts from scratch.
Sylvia Klunk
Nobody knows sex in the city like Sylvia, not even that woman who made that show! She wears a decadent cape made of smaller, less decadent capes and never walks by a thrift store without stopping in to inquire if they have any Lincoln-style hats. You can often find her typing her relationship advice column on an old abacus and drinking a latte made from all froth and a spritz of gin.
Jeremy Glass is a writer from New York who spends his weekends eating noodles and writing fake bios for aspiring writers on Craigslist. Here’s his Twitter.
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