The Dominican-born author of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” grew up in Middlesex County, N.J., but now splits his time between Beantown and the Big Apple. This is his New York.
1 The 6 Train Going to The Bronx, it’s so reliable. Only take a cab at 3:30 in the morning when your girl’s in high heels and is like “Yo, wise up.” The N and the R are the worst, but I can always finish a book on them.
2 Empire State Building,
350 Fifth Ave., at 34th Street I’m obsessed with streamlined moderne, better known as art deco, so of course I consider the Empire State Building to be one of the most perfect iterations of the form.
3 View of N.Y.C. from the Mitsuwa Marketplace,
595 River Road, Edgewater, N.J. New York doesn’t make any sense without those views from New Jersey. Another view is from these apartment buildings in Washington Heights that run across 178th Street, and you can look down the entire spine of Manhattan.
4 Mamajuana Café, 247 Dyckman St. , at Seaman Avene You will never see cooler or more welcoming people. It looks like they carved a restaurant out of SoHo and plopped it uptown. It’s completely Dominican [including bottles of herb-based mamajuana liqueur] but everyone is welcome there. And you can’t say that about a place in SoHo. So much of downtown is cool but not welcoming. This place has all the coolness and it’s humane.
5 St. Mark’s Bookshop, 31 Third Ave., at Ninth Street I live and die by it. Those guys don’t know me from paint, but whoever the buyer is always seems to have exactly one copy of the exact book I need. And they’re always open till midnight.
6 Camaradas el Barrio Bar & Restaurant, 2241 First Ave., at 115th Street The last place I got smacked up was at this bar. Oh man, big mistake – right before I went on book tour.
7 Landmark Sunshine Cinema, 143 E. Houston St., between First and Second avenues I went there with my goddaughters, and they were acting up so much in the back row that I felt like I was back in New York again, and not in some knockoff mall movie theater in Jersey.
Yakitori Taisho, 5 St. Marks Place, between Second and Third avenues The place never fails me, and it’s right across from Kim’s Video. All my visiting Japanese friends go there, and you don’t have to take out a mortgage to have a good meal.