{"id":364268,"date":"2026-10-04T18:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T18:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/364268\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T18:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T18:02:08","slug":"the-practical-magic-of-making-friends-on-the-upper-west-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/364268\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘Practical Magic’ of Making Friends on the Upper West Side"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The UWS Movie Club meeting kicks into gear in the private room of Gebhard\u2019s Beer Culture. Photo by Nico Alonso.<\/p>\n

By Nico Alonso<\/p>\n

In a neighborhood of 230,436 people, according to the NYU Furman Center, it\u2019s easy for someone on the Upper West Side to feel like a transient little speck.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just newcomers who feel this way. According to the NYC Department of Health<\/a>, \u201cLoneliness \u2026 is felt by \u201cmore than half of New Yorkers \u2026 at least some of the time.\u201d This issue, sometimes referred to as a \u201ccrisis<\/a>,\u201d other times referred to as an \u201cepidemic<\/a>\u201d has become one of New York City\u2019s biggest public health concerns.<\/p>\n

One couple decided to do something.<\/p>\n

Instead of asking for companionship, they offered it in one reddit post<\/a> on r\/upperwestside. Their thread extended a warm invitation for people to meet at the AMC Lincoln Square 13 after a 7:00 p.m. showing of Practical Magic 2 with the goal of getting people to watch the movie and discuss a common interest in a private room at a nearby bar afterward. \u201cIt\u2019s like a book club, but for movies,\u201d the post said.<\/p>\n

The thread received responses from 26 users and 27 upvotes, building on the success of their very first post from almost two years ago, which amassed 65 responses and 91 upvotes.<\/p>\n

I spoke to the married couple behind it all \u2013\u2013 owner of the UWS Hangout Discord server, Bronwyn McNutt, and organizer of the UWS Movie Club, Brett Dorman. After moving to the Upper West Side from Seattle in May 2024, Dorman took a software engineering role at a local startup, while McNutt worked in the non-profit sector.<\/p>\n

Their \u201cnot-so-secret secondary goal,\u201d they said in their Reddit post, was \u201cto meet the neighbors.\u201d They see the \u201cmonthly-ish\u201d meetings as a \u201cgreat way to build community, especially as someone who moved to the neighborhood recently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month\u2019s gathering at Gebhard\u2019s Beer Culture was lively and welcoming, and everyone made an effort to make sure that everyone was included in conversations. Chatter bounced from the film, to Oscar predictions, to catch-ups about daily life. This group clearly works like a well-oiled machine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dorman (left) and McNutt (right) pose for a photo together after the UWS Movie Club Meeting. Photo by Nico Alonso.<\/p>\n

To Dorman, forming the club \u201cwas selfish because we moved here two years ago and didn\u2019t know anyone in Manhattan.\u201d The couple\u2019s idea came from \u201ca brainstorm of \u2018what are things we like to do that other people probably like to do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were pretty intentional \u2026. We knew it was harder to make friends when you\u2019re, you know, past college age,\u201d McNutt said. \u201cI actually am worried about loneliness \u2013\u2013 societally, I think that is a problem, and I think community is really important. especially local community, both for the social aspect, but just mutual support and like, you know, having a friendly face around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other movies they\u2019ve called to discuss so far have included Sinners, I Love Boosters, The Phoenician Scheme, and Project Hail Mary.<\/p>\n

Club member Taylor Niziak said that joining the club \u201cwas kind of like a New Year\u2019s resolution that I\u2019d start putting myself out there and attending things like this.\u201d When first moving to Hell\u2019s Kitchen and later to the UWS, Niziak felt \u201ca little bit lonely \u2026 even though I was living in a huge city, [I felt] that my world has kind of gotten vastly smaller.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niziak\u2019s favorite part is \u201cHaving people so nearby that I get to spend time with in a casual way, it feels really nice not having to plan things weeks in advance and being able to walk right out my front door and go to a local bar \u2026 It\u2019s actually pretty intimate \u2026 I guess it feels like I have community for the first time since living here in four years, which is really nice. It\u2019s nice to have friends, of course, but having that sense of community, I think is really unique and really really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The movie club is organized on the Discord server, UWS Hangout, owned and moderated by Dorman and McNutt. This behemoth of a server is populated by 1,082 members with subchannels for different plans and interests such as art, board games, food and drinks, and trivia.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s ]broken up into so many different channels where there\u2019s something for everyone. It feels approachable,\u201d Niziak said.<\/p>\n

The longest standing active member of the movie club, Ash Singh, shared that the most frequent and popular event is \u201cprobably the bi-weekly brew crew, which is just a bunch of people hanging out at a bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Singh (right), laughing amid the light conversation at the tail-end of the meeting. Photo by Nico Alonso.<\/p>\n

On the note of loneliness, Singh added, \u201cI think \u2026 an issue with the city is when you first show up here, if you don\u2019t know people here, it\u2019s like being in a sea of people, but you don\u2019t know anyone, so that\u2019s kind of where that \u2026 comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Dorman and McNutt have shown is that, while loneliness is a real problem on the Upper West Side and New York as a whole, it doesn\u2019t take any practical magic to make friends. All you need is a little effort.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to West Side Rag\u2019s FREE email newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>. And you can Support the Rag\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UWS Movie Club meeting kicks into gear in the private room of Gebhard\u2019s Beer Culture. Photo by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-364268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}