10 Great Places to Write in NYC*

10. Winter Garden, Brookfield Place, Battery Park City

Best if you are inspired by people watching. Bring your notepad and pencil because there are no tables nor anywhere to plug in your laptop. But pre-COVID this place had an abundance of benches for top notch people watching all year round. It’s especially nice during a rain or snowstorm because you can get here through an underground tunnel from the Oculus. Bonus, there are palm trees.

9. Café Standard, The Standard Hotel, East Village

Best for cocktail hour writing because they have a selection of nonalcoholic juice concoctions that cost as much as a cocktail, so you don’t feel bad for taking up the table.

8. Rose Main Reading Room, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, New York Public Library

Best for pure ambience. Bring a sweater because they keep it chilly. No food or drink. If you want to put in more than a couple hours, this is not the place. Folks will nab your spot when you go to the bathroom. But if you don’t go pound some keys in this temple to reading at least once, can you even call yourself a New York writer?

7. Housingworks Bookstore, 129 Crosby Street

Best for frauds. Look like an intellectual without writing a word. I always assume that everyone else here just hasn’t worked up the courage to tell their partner that they got laid off months ago and are currently burning through their savings.

6. Think Coffee on W 14th Street and 8th Ave & 5. Think Coffee on E 13th Street and 4th Ave

Best for caffeinated writing. There are a dozen Think Coffees near NYU. When I was in grad school, I tried them all. These two are on the larger side and just slightly off campus enough to mean that you might be able to get a table. Unlike a lot of coffee shops in New York, Thinks are often large enough to accommodate a fair number of laptop junkies and its sort of assumed that everyone is there to get shit done. The one on 13th is close to the Strand if you would rather read than write, but the one in Chelsea is often the least crowded.

4. Lobby, Ace Hotel New York, W 29th Street

Best for cozy writing. If you can snag a seat on one of the couches, you’re in for a treat. Yes, this is a hotel lobby, but it feels more like the jam pad for a celebrity’s large and eclectic entourage.

3. Hungarian Pastry Shop, W 111th Street and Amsterdam

Best for writing to a deadline. There’s no Wi-Fi so you have no choice but to write. It’s crowded enough that you might accidentally type a few paragraphs on your neighbor’s computer, but they’ll be nice about it. So long as you’re writing, why not keep the Hungarian coffees coming. You deserve it.

2. Irving Farm, W 79th Street and Broadway

Best for illumination. Hidden in this otherwise pedestrian UWS coffee shop is a lovely skylight backroom with a decent number of tables.

1. Dear Mama Coffee, W 129th Street and Broadway

Best for spacious thinking. High ceilings and a plethora of tables spread out makes this one of the least crowded spots to line edit your manuscript. Feel free to mutter to yourself. You’re not bothering anyone.

*Actually, just Manhattan. It’s hard enough to leave my apartment most days, much less my borough.