Moving to NYC

I often reflect on why I moved to NYC. There were many reasons. But it was a particularly memorable evening that ultimately convinced me to take the leap.

I flew to NYC for a weekend in June 2015 to attend CSS Conf—a super nerdy and niche conference for front-end engineers. It was a small and intimate single-track conference. I had a great time and got to meet front-end heroes like Chris Coyier and Sarah Drasner. Andrey Sitnik even gave an early live demo of PostCSS, a tool for transforming CSS with JavaScript. The idea felt a bit wild and futuristic at the time, but fast forward eight years and his library is part of almost every modern front-end toolchain on earth.

On Saturday night, CSS Conf happened to coincide with a monthly JavaScript meetup in Brooklyn called BrooklynJS. Conference attendees were invited to an afterparty at a bar in Gowanus. I was excited to attend because I hadn’t been to Brooklyn before and I’d heard so much about it. I hopped on the R train in search of new terrain.

When I arrived, I immediately realized this wasn’t your typical stale tech event. The neighborhood had an industrial-chic charm and the venue felt super creative. Each attendee was given a laser-etched plexiglass drink ticket and told “JavaScript karaoke” would begin soon.

JavaScript… … karaoke?

Yes, indeed.

For the next few hours, we sang songs about variables, prototypes, arrays, transpilers, and everything in between. It was nerdy and it was great.

I’ve been to a lot of cities, and JavaScript karaoke is not something that happens in every city. Or any city, rather. I knew this place was special. Thank you, Jed!

I left thinking, “How could I not live here?” And so I did!