A Day in Manhattan with Journalist Celia Young
Celia Young is a writer and journalist based in Manhattan covering real estate and New York City. Before her role at Commercial Observer she worked at the Milwaukee Business Journal and Madison Magazine, where she covered everything from tourism to entertainment. Celia’s day involves some time attempting to exercise, wandering about the Upper East Side and fighting off her latest existential crisis. Follow Celia on Instagram at @surreallia and Twitter @Celia_CYC.
7:15am: My alarm goes off, followed by three or five more depending on how much confidence I had in myself the night before. The chirping is linked to my morning podcasts, which flow from National Public Radio to The New York Times — as I find anxiety over the day’s headlines more effective than coffee. I usually listen while half asleep, attempting to get out of bed without using my legs (which I have not yet successfully managed). After wrestling off the sheets, I’ll usually try to exercise (something I have also not yet successfully managed). Staring at my ceiling on a yoga mat, pressed between my kitchen table and my couch, I switch to music, trying to make space for my thoughts before the work day ahead.
8:30am: I’ve never been a morning person or much of an afternoon person, but I’ve yet to find a job where I can only work from noon to four. Instead, still half asleep and by now listening to “This American Life,” I make myself a frozen waffle and a chai latte. I’d like to say I spend breakfast looking out my window onto the commuters that shuffle through the crusty-eyed dawn in my corner of Manhattan — or something artistic and romantic like that — but usually I’ll scroll through Twitter or watch a shameful amount of TikToks. Eventually, I’ll switch on my computer and sort through a mess of headlines, emails and news alerts to find some promising stories for the day.
9:00am: Each day I have a morning meeting with my team at Commercial Observer, where I write about real estate, New York City, occasionally architecture and whatever else I can convince my editors will make an interesting story. It’s one of the highlights of my day since the newsroom is full of the most quick-witted, wonderful journalists who make me want to be a better writer. It’s also in these meetings where I figure out what I’ll be writing about — anything from Rihana’s lingerie store opening in Brooklyn to the ever-rising threat of climate change to the city’s coastline. Just in the past few months, I finished a feature on how SoHo’s luxury shopping streets survived the pandemic (in part thanks to the area’s wealthy residents) and who among the city’s rich and powerful have given thousands to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s election campaign. It sounds like a dream, until you see me, hunched over my computer, scarfing down chips while trying to write with one broken finger — the result of dropping a 50 pound bag on my hand. Real life is never as glamorous as it appears on the page, but it's more than worth the words.
12:30pm: I try to break for lunch around the same time every day, but the news cycle doesn’t account for snacks. Safe to say I eat between noon and 2 p.m. every day, most often leftovers and occasionally, a street taco from the vendors outside the nearby hospital. (While the food is delicious, the sirens are a bit annoying.) I try to take a short walk around my block before I get started on another story, especially in the winter, when I realized I can’t go days without seeing the sun and hold on to my sanity at the same time. There’s a beautiful park about 15 minutes from my house that runs alongside the East River, with spectacular views of the water to the right and the less-than lovely FDR Drive to the left. I would highly recommend it to limnologists and automobile enthusiasts alike.
Now that I’m a staff writer and no longer the Breaking News Reporter, I usually reserve the afternoon segment of my day for some work on longer term pieces that sometimes end up in the print edition of the paper — and sometimes even on the front page. Those usually involve a lot of phone calls, research and blaring punk music — the only genre I’ve found to make me write faster, rather than distracting me. Hyperpop is good too — anything that involves screaming.
4:00pm: Every once and a while I’ll be lucky enough to go to an event — sometimes it's meeting a source for coffee or some much-needed sunshine and other times it’s checking out a new opening, like a Japanese market at Industry City.
The campus, down in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is huge, and has attracted companies like Porsche, Volvo and even the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce — which I wrote about when the organization relocated last year. I’ll usually take the train back from my afternoon adventure out of my apartment to head home for dinner.
6:00pm: Once my day ends I get right to cooking, or rely on the culinary skills of my roommate, without whom I probably would have died of starvation or broken more bones than I already have this year (two and counting). We try to cook to save money, despite our kitchen being designed more for reheating than anything else. While I cook I’ll call my boyfriend, who is by this point getting home from work in Chicago and excited to tell me about his day in the Windy City.
Occasionally, I’ll also take an exercise class after work. (By occasionally I mean I’ve done it once). Otherwise, I’ll head to any of the amazing restaurants within a 15-minute walk of my apartment, and almost inevitably end up at La Esquina, a delicious and affordable taco spot.
7:30pm: My night really begins after dinner, when I tend to host friends at my apartment (though it is far from centrally located), grab a drink with my roommate or catch a comedy show in Brooklyn. Despite the hour-plus train ride — which I usually spend blankly staring out the window — I’ve seen some wonderful shows at the Bell House and Union Hall. I try to catch a regular show by one of my favorite comedians and actors Joe Perra, but when I want a more relaxed night, I’ll head to my local bar for trivia, which gives you free shots if you come in second place and cash for first. (The second-place prize can feel more like a punishment than a reward on a Tuesday night). Sometimes I’ll just sit at home, paint, write a bad poem or put on an episode of Love is Blind and turn off my brain for the night. Or, if I’m feeling more alive than usual, my roommate and I will record an episode of our podcast — something we agree is deeply embarrassing but nonetheless happening. As I write this no episodes have aired, and if I ever gain some common sense, never will be.
11:30pm: After deciding to go to bed at 11 p.m. and firmly missing that deadline, I practice piano. I have a small electric piano my mom gave me as a Christmas present, where I try to learn some of my favorite songs. Playing, and playing badly, is a wonderful break from staring at a screen all day and a hobby I will never try to monetize — and as a result, remove all the enthusiasm I had for it in the first place. I like ending my day with this ritual, a little bit of practice where I’m totally focused, immune to email and the distractions of the day, and doing something just for me.