Dimension 20’s sold-out appearance at Madison Square Garden saw the return of their Unsleeping City campaign, set in a magical sixth borough of New York City. Ahead of the live show, we sat down with Ally Beardsley and Brennan Lee Mulligan to get their take on the real New York City.
Read on for advice on the best time to visit Times Square, and the unsung neighborhoods that were foundational to Mulligan’s bohemian youth in the city.
Yankee Stadium
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Yankee Stadium is a stadium that I didn’t go to too much. My dad was a Mets fan, and I used to go to Shea Stadium with my old man, and we would yell at the Mets, which is what Mets fans do. If you love the Yankees, you want to see the Yankees play, then go to the Yankee Stadium.
I bear them no ill will, but I would not pressure someone to go to a Yankees game if they did not feel in their heart that that was right — we’re starting off with something from a place of pure, kind neutrality.
Ally Beardsley: Last time I was at a baseball game, the woman in front of me was Googling “how long is a baseball game.” So it should tell you how much fun is in store for you.
Greenpoint
Beardsley: You got married there.
Mulligan: I got married there. Look at that. And I lived in Greenpoint for a little while because a cruise ship broke! And I had nowhere else to go. I had to sublet my room and I had to move into Ryan Haney’s place. I slept in a closet on an air mattress.
Greenpoint was very central to me because at my most bohemian, where again, I was sleeping on an air mattress in a closet, that’s where I was. So there’s a little bit of autobiography. That was also a time when I had just been dumped, and so I was single and dating and I was fun and fancy free in Brooklyn. So it’s like, We’re dating! We’re doing shows at night! It’s in a new neighborhood! Life’s an adventure! Oh, we have feelings for each other! Let’s go to your place. I sleep on a balloon. That was the vibe. I was like, I need to date so I can sleep somewhere where I can actually rest.
It is a vibrant immigrant community in New York, and I think there’s a certain degree in Greenpoint of places that are weirdly central while being off the beaten path. So it felt like a cool little artsy place to be hidden away.
[In the Unsleeping City campaign] Pete the Plug was looking for the New York transplant experience, and at the time we were doing this, Greenpoint was a neighborhood that still had affordable apartments. It’s still largely a Polish immigrant neighborhood, and there’s places for artsy — like, people in Pete’s bracket made sense to live in Greenpoint.
Beardsley: And not anymore.
Mulligan: Less so these days. Less so these days for sure.
The City Hall subway station
Mulligan: This is not in service and has not been for a long, long time. You get here by I think taking the 6 [subway line]. You take the 6 past its last stop and it goes through a beautiful non-in-use subway station that you can see through the windows of the train. God, it’s magical. I can’t believe — no. Did we use this [in Unsleeping City]? I think this is where the entrance to the Dragon of Bleecker Street place was, in the Unsleeping City. It’s an incredibly magical location. Stay on the 6 past the last stop heading southbound.
It’s a funny thing because obviously every New Yorker complains about the subway, because it should be better, but it is still the best 24-hour public transit. It transports millions of New Yorkers every day. It’s an incredible feat, and it creates a type of civic life that cannot exist in the American cities that were poisoned by Robert Moses’ attempts to kill it, and that affected the American city such that places that should not be car-centric are car-centric.
Beardsley: Yes, shoutout to the MTA. Metro North. My whole family works on Metro North.
Astoria
Mulligan: Astoria is a really wonderful neighborhood. I believe for a period of time, Astoria had the distinction in the world — not just the country, in the world — of being the postal code with the most first languages spoken of anywhere in the world. And if that doesn’t make you proud to be a fucking New Yorker, I don’t know, baby. The melting pot shit is not a joke, man. I know it’s corny, but it’s fucking beautiful. It’s amazing. People all over the world come to Astoria and live there. And as St. [Anthony] Bourdain said, Queens is the center of New York food. There’s amazing food in every single borough, but Queens has a relationship to food, especially because of all the vibrant different communities. How many first languages are spoken here? How many cuisines are represented authentically from people who know how to cook it?
A bodega
Beardsley: A bodega is a place where cats live.
Mulligan: A bodega is a spiritual center that gives the lie to the disproven thesis that the only way to ensure reliability of service is through the forced sterility of a corporate chain. You can get the constancy of your Panera Bread from multiple, homegrown, local businesses. God bless the bodega. Long may she reign.
Beardsley: I love bodegas. God, I love bodegas. “How’s your wife?” I love to say that when I walk into a bodega. Immediate familiarity.
Times Square
Mulligan: The most magical place in Times Square is not a place. It’s time. Times Square is the armpit of hell for 20 hours out of the day. But for a four-hour stretch in between, I’d say, 1:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., Times Square is beautiful.
Beardsley: Like during COVID, where everyone was like, “Times Square is empty!” It’s really crazy how beautiful it is.
Mulligan: I used to be a driver for indie features. I was a production van driver, and when you’re a driver, you gotta be up early enough to pick up the earliest people who are getting up. So I was up at like 3:30 in the morning to get to work, and I’d walk through at like 4:00 a.m. with a cup of coffee and be freezing cold, and look at the lights. And you see all of the fucking beating heart of this modern world and advertising. And just for a moment, all of this power and energy is directed at selling you, and you alone, lingerie and Broadway tickets and M&M’s. And you’re like, this is crazy.
What’s the real sixth borough?
Beardsley: The one in your heart.
Mulligan: Los Feliz.
Beardsley: That’s real! That’s fucking real!
Mulligan: Lemme tell you, Los Feliz is Brooklyn circa 2006. I look around and I’m like, I saw you in Brooklyn. I saw you in Brooklyn. What are you all doing out here?
Beardsley: If you’re moving to LA from New York, just go to Los Feliz. You’re going to end up there anyway.
Mulligan: You legally can’t get an apartment anywhere else.
The post Dimension 20’s guide to the real Unsleeping City, actual New York appeared first on Polygon.
