Shining a Light on Unknown New York
Greeter Jesse Richards’ forthcoming book, Unknown New York: An Artist Uncovers the City’s Hidden Treasures, illustrates the surprising, little-known corners that give New York City its special flavor and lasting appeal.
In addition to volunteering with Big Apple Greeter, Jesse runs the Central Park Sketching Meetup, which gives people the chance to explore new neighborhoods while creating and sharing their drawings with other New Yorkers. Jesse is also chief product officer at Voxy, a firm that develops language-training software and classes for businesses.
Volunteer Amy Swauger spoke to Jesse about Unknown New York, which will be published in September by Workman Publishing. (This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.)
Amy Swauger: Are you from New York originally?
Jesse Richards: No, but close by. I’m from New Jersey and I moved to the city in 2003, so it’s been more than 20 years now. I love it.
AS: How did Unknown New York come about, and tell me about the Central Park Sketching Meetup. How did that happen, and how are those things connected?
JR: The book really came out of the combination of these two hobbies that I have. One is running this drawing group, the Central Park Sketching Meetup, and the other is Big Apple Greeter. I’ve actually been running the sketching group since 2007. Big Apple Greeter I think I’ve done for the past five years.
The book came about because I had a lot of drawings from years of doing this drawing event, these drawing meetups throughout the city, and I thought I should publish these as a book. At first I thought of it as an art book, and then it became a combination of an art book and a guide book. And when I thought of the theme of “unknown New York,” sort of obscure places, that’s when it really came together.
I thought of that because over the years, the people who attend the sketch meetups, the artists, have wanted more and more variety and different places to sketch. Originally the group just did Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum. You could sustain a group on that easily, but we soon branched out and I realized that people were coming just because they liked finding new places that they had never been.
And then when I started putting together walks for Big Apple Greeter, and doing research on a particular area, I would find all these amazing historical tidbits and spots. I drew some of those and that gave me ideas of where to take the drawing group and visitors. It’s just very synergistic.
AS: What do you hope people will take away from the book, and how do you see people using it?
JR: I think it’s the same as I hope tourists get out of a Greet, which is an understanding of New York as a real place, and not as a stereotype, either negative or positive. That it’s home to all of these people, and the rich history and diversity of the city leads to all these idiosyncrasies and all these cool things.
I love when people tell me after a Greet, “Oh, we never would have walked this way. We never would have seen any of this if you hadn’t shown us.” They want to go to Times Square and Grand Central, and that’s fine. But there’s all this rich stuff that I think can be highlighted. And I think that’s true anywhere, but I think New York in particular because of the sheer amount of people and history.
AS: You’re doing a lot! How do you balance everything?
JR: It’s tricky. I’m the chief product officer at Voxy. In my role I manage a team of product managers, designers, content production people, and product support that all help build and support the technology. I’ve worked from home ever since the pandemic. That helps with juggling time, although I miss my commute when I was walking to work. It’s a lot of work but I try to juggle everything. I do the meetups maybe once or twice a month. I do Greets once or twice a month. And that’s about all I can handle!
AS: Do you have a favorite place in New York yourself? Places that are important to you or that you particularly enjoy taking visitors?
JR: Yes, and they’re not necessarily the most obscure. But I take a lot of them to the Brooklyn Promenade. I think it’s just incredible. And if visitors want to see Brooklyn, I take them to Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO. I find with a lot of the Greets that I find a stand-out place and then build a Greet around it. With that one it’s the Promenade. For others I do SoHo and the Lower East Side. I start at Freeman Alley. That’s just a great spot that tourists love to see. I usually end at Washington Square Park, which is another stand-out place. Washington Square Park isn’t obscure, but it’s not on every tourist’s list either.
AS: I’m not a Greeter, but from talking to Greeters it seems that one of the things that’s important and that visitors really appreciate is that, as you say, anybody might go to Washington Square, but they wouldn’t necessarily notice everything there is to see or understand why it’s an important place for the city.
JR: Right. Or know that Stanford White, the [Washington Square] Arch’s architect, was assassinated. All those crazy facts.
AS: All those great stories. So what’s next for you? Do you think you’ll do more books?
JR: I hope so. There’s plenty of content. It’s a lot of work, so we’ll see how this one does. I have a YouTube channel. I don’t post very frequently, but I do some walks through New York. I was thinking of doing something related to landmarks, sort of the opposite of this, because I’m convinced that New York has more well-known landmarks than any other city in the world. If you polled people around the world, they know all these things about New York, and all these semi-famous, well-known things.
It’s funny, I work from home and my company is international. So I work with a lot of people in Brazil and Italy and Spain and Mexico. And when something happens in New York… Like last year when one subway station flooded, there were people in Brazil asking me if I was okay. They get the news about New York. It takes a big event for us to get news about another country. I think the world is obsessed with New York to some degree, and there’s a lot of rich material to pull from.
AS: The book looks beautiful and I know it’s really going to find its audience. Thank you for doing this interview and congratulations!
Unknown New York: An Artist Uncovers the City’s Hidden Treasures is published by Workman Publishing.