Jemima Kirke’s love letter to New York includes a broken penis, a $40,000 diamond onyx cuff and a strange encounter at The Carlyle Hotel. She read it aloud on August 26 at literary group Dream Baby Press’s one-night-only ‘I Love New York’ event. “My boyfriend and I were there for a night celebrating our one-year anniversary,” Kirke recalls. “He had just had minor surgery the day before on his penis – he was in pain, and sex was out of the question. But like my acting teacher always says, ‘When you’re in the creative state, there is no such thing as distraction, only potential for inspiration.’”
So begins Kirke’s reading of a never-before-told story, one in which an unexpected run-in with Tessa Dahl, daughter of children’s author Roald Dahl, results in one of her most memorable New York evenings. The Girls actress told this story aboard a massive tall ship (the oldest of its kind, in fact) docked in New York City’s Seaport neighbourhood. Held in partnership with the South Street Seaport Museum and curated by Dream Baby Press co-founder Matt Starr, ‘I Love New York’ brought together an eclectic line-up of New Yorkers to tell their own stories, in a night that felt like one big love letter to the Big Apple.
Photography Daniel Paik
When I first arrived on the ship, it was still light out, and thankfully for the hosts, a clear, cloudless evening. A few minutes in, I spotted Caroline Calloway, writer and internet personality, and shortly after, New York City Council Member Chi Ossé, who, at 23-years-old, became the youngest person elected to that position. Looking back, the sightings feel like a premonition for one of the night’s themes – on a night out in New York, you truly never know who you’re going to meet. “When I was waiting for a drink, I was with some friends and [editor of Interview Magazine] Mel Ottenberg walked by,” Ossé, one of the night’s readers, later told the crowd of over 400. “After he walked past, one of my friends goes, ‘I thought Mel Ottenberg was Black?’” The audience erupts into laughter. “New York City, baby!”
Along with Ossé, Ottenberg and Kirke, plenty of other iconic New Yorkers took the stage (read: ship deck) over the course of the night, and each reading seemed to speak to the magical randomness of life in New York, where the unpredictable is commonplace. Via a slam poem he originally wrote in college, Max Friedlich, the playwright behind the critically acclaimed play Job, recounted the time a text from an old teacher resulted in him assisting James Franco on a movie set in Brooklyn, where he was sent out to buy a range of prosthetic penises for a scene. Ossé’s reading included an anecdote about meeting Azelia Banks on a night out in Chinatown. According to Ossé, Banks handed him a bar of “Bussy Boy” soap, the male hygiene product that was her latest venture at the time. Several years later, Ossé would go on to become one of New York’s youngest elected officials and pass a historic law banning broker fees. “I did that with the strength and power of Bussy Boy in my pocket,” he joked to the crowd.
Photography Daniel Paik
While Ossé and Friedlich are both born-and-raised New Yorkers, there were also readers like Los Angeles-born actress and filmmaker Alexi Wasser, who, like countless others, grew up fantasising about New York life. “I remember seeing model Jaime King, 15 years old, heroin chic, lounging backstage at a fashion show, smoking a cigarette on the cover of New York Times Magazine and thinking, ‘Oh, holy fucking shit, I have to move to New York!’” Wasser told the audience. Wasser’s reading later recalled the time she, having finally become a New Yorker around age 40, ended up as the personal assistant to a billionaire, who wired her $100,000 to make her first feature film. According to Wasser, they never spoke again after that. But the chance stroke of luck meant that she was able to fund the creation of her 2024 comedy Messy, and the story, told to the ship’s rapt audience, captured another New York truth: no matter your age, your big break could be around the corner.
As the readings went on, nighttime fell and brought with it a full moon. The moonlight, plus the printed ‘flirtation cards’ strewn about the ship, only added to the romance of the evening. According to Starr, this feeling was intentional. The host, who’s lived in New York for 20 years, has been throwing events all over the city for years. Since its founding in 2022, Dream Baby Press has held readings at a Sbarro in Penn Station, a porn shop in the East Village, a branch of Burger King, and a boxing gym in the Financial District. “I wanted to do something that was my love letter to New York City, and figure out, ‘What would a real-life rom-com look like?’” said Starr. The scene in front of us, where a trio of young people were dancing happily under the ship’s string lights, indeed looked like it was plucked out of a 2000s fantasy of big city life. “I really do feel like our events are like mini romantic comedies.”
Photography Daniel Paik
Cheesy as it may be, living in New York does at times feel like living in a rom-com. But while Dream Baby Press successfully recreated that feeling, the point was less about finding love and more about professing love for the city itself. New York is expensive, tiring and at times downright cruel, but for many of us, there’s nowhere we’d rather be. Perhaps the best example of this was found in entertainer Desus Nice’s reading, where he described the time that, after a stint of living in LA, he returned to New York and was greeted by a giant rat running over his feet. “I didn’t scream, I didn’t yell,” Nice told the crowd. “I just said, ‘I’m home.’”