NYC Local Guides

Sarah Funk is a NYC tour guide from Upstate New York who came to the city for college, got her first job here and quit her first job here. After 10 years of living here, she started her YouTube channel after living here for ten years to share the good and the terrible about this city. She says, “I've seen a lot of sides of the city and the city has seen a lot of sides of me.” The two factors she requires to define a New Yorker are “you have to be living here for 10 years and you have to cry in public.” Listen to hear her advice for someone moving here and getting a job here and to find out what her dream apartment looks like. When it comes to an apartment, Sarah breaks down the 3 elements you want in a perfect apartment. Keep listening for her haunted Broadway story, favorite dive bar with the free hot dogs and her favorite building that was a prototype for the Empire State Building.

As a top New York City photographer, Jacob Santiago shares why he started taking photos of NYC and sharing them to Instagram. He has the perfect advice for people who ask him if it’s ok to take the same photo someone else took. Despite being born and growing up in Manhattan, he gives hope to aspiring New Yorkers that the identity is not defined by the number of years. Instead we create a badge system that really make someone a New Yorker. He talks about how graffiti saved him from being jumped and what it was like to experience both WTC bombings while working downtown. He compares a city-wide power outage many years ago with looting to one recently that showed how much safer the city is and how people came together as a community. Eat up two lesser known pizza places or a story about a $90 tarantula meal that you could only find in NYC. This is a longer episode than usual, but it is so packed with good tips and stories. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy it and please rate, review and share it with friends, thank you!

Dave Krugman is a NYC photographer who started his career by assisting in Annie Leibovitz's photography studio and is now a top photographer for brands like Sony. He grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts and always dreamed of two things: becoming a photographer and living in NYC. After achieving both, he shares how to really get started in photography at any budget. He talks about what technology will look like in the future from augmented reality to smart contact lenses. As a talented photographer, he is approached with numerous big opportunities, but is still humble to say no to things that don’t align with his values and still finds time to give back to causes he truly cares about. Learn his favorite paintings in the Met to his favorite statue in Central Park to his favorite airport to fly into for views and where to sit on the plane.

LA vs NYC? Will is one of the newest New Yorkers on this podcast and the first person I actually interviewed for this podcast! Special guest performance by a NYC heater. Will’s fresh perspective draws lights on some things New Yorkers forget are unique to us. He only just moved here from Virginia by way of LA about a year ago. He compares the creator scene in NYC to LA and explains competition in LA and why he thinks New York is a wonderland compared to LA. What makes someone a New Yorker? He breaks it down from the way we walk to how proud we are of our tap water. Together we analyze why you might be more likely to see people crying outside in NYC than most other cities from small apartments to roommates. Will is proud to say after visiting his local Bodega daily, they now know his usual order. He talks about what it feels like to learn the subway while people are running to catch trains around him and catching his first rat in his apartment.

Nastasia grew up in the Midwest, but now can only imagine living in the chaos and energy of NYC. She didn’t move here by choice, but in small moments like a couple dancing in the streets she grew to love NYC so much that she is now buying a home here. She travels for a living, but chooses to keep coming back home to New York over any other city, even Paris. It’s her soul city that welcomes people who might not feel like they fit in elsewhere. She would love to raise a city kid that is very open minded. Where will she be in 50 years? Listen to find out!