Laura Pedersen, author of bestseller Play Money and award-winning Buffalo Gal, serves up a hilarious memoir about three decades of city life. Originally from Buffalo, NY, friends thought the seventeen year old was suffering from blizzard delirious when she left Buffalo for Manhattan. Pedersen experiences her adopted city in the best and worst of times while becoming the youngest person to have a seat on the stock exchange, performing stand up comedy, and writing a column in the New York Times. Neighborhoods that feature chai bars, Pilates studios, and Gymboree were once drug dens, ganglands, and shantytowns. A trip to Central park often ended in central booking, identifying a perp in a lineup. New Yorkers are as diverse as the city they so colorfully inhabit, cautious but generous, brash but welcoming. Both are captured through the comedic eye of Pedersen. Enjoy an uproarious romp down memory lane as the city emerges as the modern metropolis we know today. Finalist for the 2015 Seven Sisters Book Awards "The prolific author and playwright Laura Pedersen parcels her stream of consciousness into wily and witty essays in Life in New York: How I Learned to Love Squeegee Men, Token Suckers, Trash Twisters and Subway Sharks ." — The New York Times "A wonderfully written history of New York covering all the bases from the subway system, fashion, graffiti to Wall Street, the many offbeat illuminating facts are eye openers. Laura Pedersen’s comedic gift really made this read a memorable journey on the authentic New York only a ‘local’ could provide. Thanks to Pedersen I feel like an almost honorary New Yorker." — My Book Self blog Reviews for Buffalo Gal: A Memoir : " Buffalo Gal: A Memoir , by Laura Pedersen, offers a humorous look at growing up in upstate New York during the 1970s." — Publishers Weekly "Above all, this book is laugh out loud funny. Pedersen infuses the book with humor and a wonderful take on the world in which she grew up. Her excellence in writing allows her to infuse deep humor without slapstick and without taking away from or demeaning a life, a place, and a time." — Front Street Reviews Honorable Mention, Memoir category - Eric Hoffer Awards (2009) "With a title like this, how can you possibly resist picking up the book! New York scares this country girl, so I always love to read about it - to me it's like looking at the wild lands of some foreign country in National Geo! I love the stories!" — Dew on the Kudzu blog Laura Pedersen is an author, humorist, and playwright. She was also the youngest person at age 20 to have a seat on the American Stock Exchange, while earning a finance degree at New York University's Stern School of Business. She writes for the New York Times and is the author of Play Money, Beginner's Luck (chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection), Planes Trains, and Auto-Rickshaws, Buffalo Gal and Buffalo Unbound. Life in New York How I Learned to Love Squeegee Men, Token Suckersm Trash Twisters, and Subway Sharks By Laura Pedersen Fulcrum Publishing Copyright © 2015 Laura Pedersen All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-936218-15-8 Contents Introduction, I'll Take Manhattan, On the Sidewalks of New York, A Hole in the Ground, License to Thrill, Rental Illness, Man (and Woman) in Black, A Helluva Town, Stayin' Alive, The Turnaround, Carpe Noctem, The Real March, Madness, In the Hoods, I've Always Depended on the Knishes of Strangers, Twelve Angry New Yorkers, Urban Dictionary, I Saw Mommy Kissing the Tree Man, Humidity City, Tails of New York, Wall Street Bull, Sects and the City, Graffiti Goes Pro, Treadmills, Trans Fats, and Treatments, Time's Winged Taxicab, About the Author, Acknowledgments, CHAPTER 1 I'll Take Manhattan As my bus lurched toward the Lincoln Tunnel a sign proclaimed: no trucks over 12' 6". Underneath, in equally large letters, was painted: we mean it! Obviously I was entering a reckless, self-destructive society that couldn't or, more likely, wouldn't follow the kind of simple direction I'd learned in kindergarten. Back home in Buffalo, when my teacher told us not to eat paste she didn't need to tack on a threat. And upon exiting the Thruway near the house where I grew up it wasn't unusual to see a woman hand her entire purse over to the toll taker if she'd just had her nails done. After the Lincoln Tunnel sign I was half expecting a troll to ask me a riddle before I was allowed to enter the Big Bad City. Having been raised minutes from the border I probably had more in common with Canadians than your average New Yorker. For instance, we Buffalonians know that if you play goalie they have to pick you for the team. Also, that peeing in a snowsuit to keep warm does not work the same way it does in a wetsuit – this will just make you colder and cause no small measure of embarrassment all around. I also knew that nose breathing in winter is better than mouth breathing fo