For New York transplants, they’ll always remember their first year in the city. Junot Díaz is no different. In an essay for Time Out, Díaz talked about moving to Brooklyn in 1995. He had just moved from Ithaca into a less than ideal apartment. “My apartment on State Street was slumlord shitty and had no insulation, and when it got cold, winter came right through me and my roommate’s big front windows like a White Walker, and we had to wear our coats indoors if we wanted to live,” he wrote.
But not all his experiences were negative, like the time he spent with his friends – who were all activists – and the spoken-word poetry that he consumed. And before the year was up, he got a book contract. Read his piece here.