The Boys Of The West Village
If the girls are baby Carrie Bradshaws, the boys are baby American Psychos. Plus, recession revival pop and a "reparative" Mother's Day.
I’ve spent most Friday nights this year in the West Village. Not because I’m out drinking or trying the latest restaurant, but because my weekly restorative sound bath class is in the area. This past Friday night after class, I walked by a young man having a temper tantrum like a toddler. Him and his two friends didn’t appear to be drunk, at most, tipsy. He faked cried and wailed in the middle of the sidewalk. “Tom, I’ll give you $100 right now if you keep walking,” his friend bargained.
One particularly cold Friday night this January, I was waiting in line at a bodega behind a group of 20-somethings. Accompanying the girls in fur coats with bare legs, were two young guys buying drinks at the cash register. One of the boys was particularly boisterous, and treated the cashier like he was both his friend and the butt of the joke. Despite the cashier being many decades older, his English wasn’t very good and the young man talked down to him in a patronizing tone. The girls giggled along, validating his performative confidence.
I felt my cheeks flush with both rage and shame, a familiar sensation I get anytime I witness a micro-aggression or someone being humiliated. I’ve felt this flush several Friday nights this year when witnessing the particularly arrogant energy of West Village boys. Most times, it would rise when I was shoved by their roaming loud pack. It’s the only part of the city where I feel completely invisible on the sidewalk.
I rarely have dinner in the West Village, but I did this week at The Golden Swan for work. A fellow Canadian writer who has lived here since the late 90s and I got on the topic of the viral Cut piece on the West Village girls. If you missed it, it’s about how a new generation of young women in their 20s are transforming the West Village into a content playground. Follow-up explainers on TikTok take the argument further, suggesting the West Village has become a microcosm of gentrification in New York.
“The neighborhood has, in recent years, transformed into a fabulous theme park for young women of some privilege to live out their Sex and the City fantasies, posting and spending their mid-20s away. They all seem to keep impressive workout routines have no shortage of girlfriends, and juggle busy heterosexual dating schedules. (The boys they consort with tend to be of the fratty variety.) They work in finance, marketing, publicity, tech — often with active social-media accounts on the side. They have seemingly endless disposable income. They are, by all conventional standards, beautiful. Occasionally, they are brunettes. Whatever their political beliefs, their lives seem fairly apolitical; as one 27-year-old lawyer on a walk with her best friend, both wearing identical puffer jackets, succinctly put their collective interests to me one day in April, ‘Brunches, coffees, dinners, drinks with your girlfriends — that type of energy.’” - Brock Colyar.
“The boys they consort with tend to be of the fratty variety,” is written in brackets as if the male counterparts of the West Village girls are an afterthought. But I think they deserve equal concern. Over a juicy cut of prime New York striploin the other night, my friend agreed. She used to live in the West Village, and said she knew the kind of West Village boys I was referring to. One night, she arrived to her apartment after going to the corner for some milk, to a young man peeing in her doorway. He explained that the bathroom at the corner bistro was full, as if that gave him free license to pee on her stoop. When she looked at him in disbelief, he replied, “but you’re kind of cute, wanna go out?”
What this boy, and the boy I witnessed at the bodega, and the boy I witnessed crying like a two-year-old, have in common is a sense of entitlement. As a former West Village resident says in The Cut piece, “it’s like Disneyland for them.” High off the thrill of being newly independent with daddy’s disposable funds, New York City is their oyster, the West Village their new campus. They treat anyone older/of a different race/with less money like a doormat, and expect a red carpet rolled out for them aT every turn. If the girls view the neighborhood as the movie set backdrop for their dreamy, enviable (to some) life on social media, the boys view the neighborhood as their personal playground for practicing power. The girls that occupy take up the sidewalk with the third limb that is their phone permanently outstretched are annoying, yes, but I fear the boys—who body check me and talk down to service people—more. At worst, the girls are the tradwives of tomorrow. But the boys are baby American psychos poised to become tomorrow’s billionaires.
As I was walking through the West Village this past Friday night, Lorde’s new song came on shuffle, the one she impromptu performed in Washington Square Park last month. When I was first introduced to the song on TikTok, it didn’t immediately grab me. But this time, listening intently, I fell for it. For a moment, I felt the way I felt listening to Pure Heroine in my third year of university in Montreal. There was a period in late winter, early Spring, where I played that album religiously. I listened to it trudging to school through the snow in the morning; walking up St. Laurent to a party in the evening; and biking to my situationship’s apartment in the middle of the night. I remember it made me imagine my life as a movie. It imbued me with a sense of power before we had ‘main character energy’ to describe the feeling. If I’m being honest with myself, there were probably nights where my friends and I were obnoxious out in public; where my peers talked down to strangers or we hogged the sidewalk.
The difference between me at 20 and the West Village 20-somethings is the disposable income the latter possess. But again, if I’m being honest, it’s not like my McGill peers were lacking for money. I remember my first year being an introduction to extreme wealth. Coming from a public high school, I was shocked at the lifestyles of the McGill students who came from private schools and rich families. I remember the way it made some of them, particularly the young men, entitled. Entitled to make racist jokes at me or sexually take advantage of my friends.
Back then, I envied their privilege and longed for their approval. I remember being so proud when I took one of the hot finance bros I always admired at the gym home, even though his eyes remained dead as we hooked up. A few years later back in Toronto, I walked by him in the financial district. He was wearing a suit, and I was in some variety of my usual casual clothing. When I made eye contact I was expecting him to stop and say hi. But he didn’t recognize me at all. The same glazed over gaze he had in my bedroom. That night I had been a faceless object to fill his own needs, and now, with nothing to offer him for personal gain, I was a nobody.
Best,
Anna
Published 📝
Forbes - Mother’s Day Gift Guide 2025: The Best Gifts For Community-Minded Moms
Whether you’re a new mom, recent empty-nester or senior mom, motherhood can be isolating and lonely. From fragrance tours to reading parties to cooking in an immigrant’s home kitche, these experiential gifts focus on building community and/or connecting with nature in NYC (you don’t have to be a mom to enjoy them!).
Forbes - An Expert’s Guide To A Stress-Free Mother’s Day
Some of my favorite quotes from the three experts I interviewed:
“The messaging around Mother’s Day does not always speak to the reality of being a mother, the load of invisible labor that motherhood entails does not stop because there is a ‘day,’”— Macall Gordon.
“The mental load, emotional labor and constant multitasking that come with motherhood—especially for those balancing careers, caregiving and everything in between—are quietly exhausting,” — Megan Dalla-Camina.
“A day devoted to relaxation isn’t indulgent—it’s reparative. When we let mothers exhale, even for a day, we create a ripple effect: calmer homes, clearer minds, and a culture that values women not just for what they do, but for who they are,” — Megan Dalla-Camina.
Reading 📖
🇨🇦 An Indigenous woman on the rivers of Ontario, “rivers are the veins of our mother, the earth; they are the visual mapping of a watery network.”
🫠 When the world is slipping beyond comprehension.
“Fake images of real people, real images of fake people; fake stories about real things, real stories about fake things. Fake words creeping like kudzu into scientific papers and dating profiles and e-mails and text messages and news outlets and social feeds and job listings and job applications. Fake entities standing guard over chat boxes when we try to dispute a medical bill, waiting sphinxlike for us to crack the code that allows us to talk to a human. The words blur and the images blur and a permission structure is erected for us to detach from reality—first for a moment, then a day, a week, an election season, maybe a lifetime.” - Jia Tolentino.
😔 Why are young people so unhappy?
🚬 The brotherhood of quitting Zyn.
📷 The case against the 20-photo carousel.
🪩 Are parties dead?
🍫 Why we need to stop labelling foods ‘guilt-free.’
🥘 25 years of dining in NYC.
Watching 📺
I still haven’t been to Staten Island, but I want to go to eat at Enoteca Maria, a 35-seat Italian restaurant where the chefs are grandmothers from all over the world. This comforting concept is the inspiration for Nonnas, a new comedy on Netflix starring Vince Vaughan and Susan Sarandon. Vaughan plays a grieving son who decides to open an Italian restaurant to honor his mom and reignite fond childhood memories of his family cooking Italian. “Eating their food keeps them alive,” he says in the film, when his friends try to stop him from spontaneously buying a dumpy restaurant space.
I’m not usually a sucker for Netflix’s homepage recommendations, but after my yoga instructor kept going on about Mother’s Day in class on Friday (she reminded us to buy our moms something nice or at least call her, not once, but three times!) I was craving something particularly comforting. I made the mistake of smoking a bit before watching this, not realizing the film opens with a prolonged food scene that could be taken straight out of Chef’s Table. So I don’t recommend watching this without a snack handy. But I do recommend it if you’re in need of a heartfelt hug.
Listening 🎧
I’ve noticed a resurgence in post-2008 recession pop (Lady Gaga/Beyonce’s ‘Telephone’ has been playing everywhere lately!), and so I can’t help but see Lorde’s new single as riding that wave. Do I like it because it’s nostalgic or is it actually good?
Snacking 🍌
The best thing I ate this week was a self-pitying purchase on Friday night in the West Village. After all the Mother’s Day reminders in my restorative class, the grief was heavy and you know what I want when I miss mom—🍌 . Magnolia was out of my usual small banana pudding, so I treated myself to a larger pint.
The night before I was treated to culinary creations from visiting Boston chefs—Robert Sisca, Tracy Chang and Carl Dooley—at The Golden Swan. The NY prime striploin felt like classic bistro fare but my favorite was a spiced fluke soup. I stayed too long because I missed Gwyneth Paltrow’s appearance at my next event at Genesis House. She was debuting a new indoor forest installation inspired by Korean wildlife.
At home, I’ve been snacking on another Korean brand, Gimme Seaweed, and one of my favorite protein shake brands—Koia. I love their new nutrition shakes that are shelf-stable (NY fridge real estate is always a challenge!). The vanilla is delish so I can’t wait to try their chocolate banana next.