Veselka at 70: Ukrainian roots and a Brooklyn branch

By Brian Braiker

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Most New Yorkers don’t need an introduction to Veselka. The beloved restaurant at 144 Second Avenue in the East Village has been a linchpin of the Ukrainian expat community since Wolodymyr Darmochwal opened it up as a corner store in 1954. These days it’s known for its comfort food — its borscht, its pierogis — and its comfortable, welcoming vibe.

One of the last of many Slavic restaurants that once proliferated in the neighborhood, Veselka is turning 70 this year. It’s more robust, vital and relevant as a cultural hub that it’s ever been. It’s expanding into Williamsburg later this year (fingers crossed, some time next month) … and it’s the subject of a new documentary, called “Veselka: The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World,” currently screening at Angelika’s East Village location.

Filmmaker Michael Fiore, a Veselka regular since his days as a student at neighboring New York University’s film school, started filming his documentary 11 days into the Russian war on Ukraine. Over the course of a year he documented its effects here at home, in real time. In it, we meet Jason Birchard, the current owner and operator of Veselka, who took it over from his father Tom who in his turn took over operations after Wolodomyr, his father-in-law, passed away.

“We were originally pitched a father-and-son story,” says Jason Birchard, who is this week’s guest on “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast.” “It just morphed into so much more about my employees and all the different politicians and different interest groups that came through. It was a very tragic time.”

It also resulted in a quietly powerful portrait of family, resilience, love and Ukrainian soul food. Since the onset of Russia’s invasion, Birchard has raised some $600,000 in aid for Ukraine and helped 10 individuals, mostly family members of Veselka staffers, find refuge in the U.S. We meet employees like Vitalii and Dima, both of whom brought family members over with the help of Birchard. And we get not only the history of a venerable institution, but we get to put several very human faces to an often faceless and impersonal tragedy still unfolding on the other side of the planet.

Here, Birchard discusses the history of Veselka, the past two years of war, dealing with local politicians and the media, making upwards of 6,000 pierogis day, the plans for Brooklyn and what’s next (look out for a collab with Katz’s Deli).

The following is a transcript of our conversation, which airs as an episode of “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast,” edited for clarity. Listen in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.

What is the latest with the Williamsburg location? Do we have a date yet?
I don’t want to be committal, but it’s going to be sometime in April. We’ll stay in touch and give you an exact dates. We’d love to have you and your readership come out. We’re going to do some soft opening dates and then open to the public. We’re aiming for early April, depending on the city, and its many different hoops we got to jump through with FDNY and DOB and so forth.

Got to get that gas line right. That’s the big hold-up for a lot of places.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thankfully we’ve been very fortunate with all majority of the city agencies. We had to really actually retrofit this space completely over from what it was once. If we don’t know the location, it’s 646 Lorimer on the corner of Meeker, right by the BQE.

5,000 square feet. Did I read that correctly?
Yeah. Yeah. It was a square box, an old auto body carwash. When we took it over, it was actually stripped of all of its copper and metal and outlets. It was just really just an empty box.

Why Williamsburg and not say Little Odessa in Brighton Beach or somewhere with more historic ties?
Several factors at play. I really think Williamsburg and that part of Brooklyn over the years has always been a very attractive place to me. Obviously, it’s ever-changing and becoming definitely a destination and people are finding quieter solace there versus the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, but it’s so closely located to Manhattan with the premise that this space in Brooklyn, majority of this space is going to be a commissary kitchen for us.

Meaning you’re cooking for national deliveries and deliveries in general?
Not only for our national deliveries, but Veselka on Second Avenue can’t keep up with the demand out of the kitchen that it’s currently there. We also opened the spot in Grand Central Station in the past six months, and that’s been coming out of here. In order for us to grow, we need to expand in Brooklyn and Williamsburg. We had seen other spaces down in Industry City. Little Odessa, Brighton Beach is just too far. That’s another country literally.

Yeah, it is not centrally located. That is fair. I do like Industry City. We have an office there, but Williamsburg it is. There’s going to be retail space there as well?
Twenty\-five perscent of that space will be a retail space or 30 percent. You’ll be able to get your pierogi fix indoors. Table service as well as takeout, a delivery will hit the neighborhood. Whoever wants us, we’ll be on all the third party platforms. We know that Williamsburg is also very close to Greenpoint, which has its Polish backgrounds, but unfortunately I think Greenpoint’s now become very gentrified. A lot of the old Polish places have gone by the wayside, but we’re hopeful and we’re betting on Williamsburg is going to do well for us.

I have no doubt it will. When you think about expanding and the movie gets into this a little bit with the Bowery location, how do you manage retaining the soul of the original Veselka, which has been there for 70 years. How does that translate into a new space starting from scratch, what do you think about when you think about retaining what makes Veselka Veselka?
We’re not going to do Veselka Bowery. We tried to reinvent the wheel there. We knew what we had here. We went to a full bar. We tried to upscale Ukrainian comfort food. It didn’t need to be. We know now going forward, we’re keeping it very simple, similar dynamic or aesthetics, basically the same menu. We’re continuing the staples. Like you said, we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel like we did at the Bowery. That location was a little off centric on First Street, on a dead end, on the Bowery. We really like that location on Lorimer. It’s very visible. It’s very easily accessible. It’s on the way to McCarren Park, two blocks from the L Train. It just has a lot of things going for it. It’s going to feel like you’re at the Second Avenue location. It’s going to have an old diner feel. It’s got some of the same aesthetic artwork. The muralist has taken a piece of one of our old murals that was here and plans to incorporate it there. You’re going to feel just a Brooklyn version of it. I don’t think you’re going to really know much maybe besides the noise of the BQE above.

It’s a win for the borough. You mentioned the commissary kitchen and orders nationally. I wonder what your grandfather would think about the idea that his little Veselka, which opened in 1954, is now nationally recognized? That there’s actually demand beyond even the little Ukraine neighborhood as it existed 70 years ago.
I don’t know. If he were alive now, he’d probably have another heart attack just based on everything that we’ve accomplished here and what it means. I’ve always considered myself very humbled and honored to be here at a really beautiful crossroads here on Second Avenue and Ninth Street, what was once and still is considered little Ukraine. People have come here for many years, especially during these trying times, the recent Russian invasion, I think he’d be happy. I never envisioned this and this great scale, but I have good people on staff. My cousin Justin — who’s been on board, who actually lives in Williamsburg as well — sees a lot of potential there, and I got a good core group of people that love working and we want to continue this brand and the idea of Ukrainian soul food is gaining traction and if you could enjoy it here, why wouldn’t you want to enjoy it in Chicago, L.A. or anywhere else?

Let’s talk about the film. We meet some of your staff in the film. How did it come about? I’m guessing the filmmaker, Michael Fiore, approached you. Was there resistance at all? This was pre-invasion, but post pandemic. What was the pitch?
Mike Fiore was an NYU grad, a film school grad who had been coming here since the mid- to late-’90s, has been a big fan, kind of understood based on what you read on our website or on the menu that we’re a multi-generational family. He was introduced. I was looking to do something for a short doc of sorts, something to put down to give my father some credit for all the hard work that he’s done and the legacy that he’s built, not being of Ukrainian descent, but definitely embraced the Ukrainian roots of this business.

So we were originally pitched a father-and-son story prior to this, I think sometime in November of 2021, and we kind of sat on it not knowing if this is something that we really want to do. And then in the new year prior to the invasion, he said, “If you’re going to tell your story now with the pending Russian invasion, your grandfather with the displaced came here as part of a Russian invasion in the late ’40s, this would be a great story to tell.” We just took it day by day and we didn’t realize what we were capturing. We did a lot of interviews there.

He shot over 20 some days and has a hundred plus hours. It just unfolded. There was obviously a relationship with my grandfather and my father and my father and myself. It just morphed into so much more about my employees and all the different politicians and different interest groups that came through. It was a very tragic time, but actually it was a difficult time for a majority of my staff and I think the movie shows that I did have everybody from Al Jazeera to the South China Sun come get a feel-good story or a human side of a story here because in New York, the largest Ukrainian population outside of Ukraine lives within the tri-state area, so they knew that they can grasp some story here. I’m happy with the final result.

It’s very moving at times. To your point, the timing of it was good. for the restaurant. Obviously for the core staff there, it was horrible. It’s a fine line. You want to tell a good story in real time, but real stories are often hard to tell. You started filming 11 days after the invasion. Was there a moment where you guys thought it might not be a good idea, or did the invasion make it feel more urgent?
That’s a double-edged sword question. I mean, I was very cognizant of the employees’ feelings when the war had started. There were so many news agencies, none of them wanted to speak. They said, “You be our voice.” Like Vitalii and Dima said, it was shocking, overwhelming, very emotional. After working with Mike for the first few weeks, they understood that he kept on coming back. They weren’t the same news outlets that were coming. He was very respectful of their time and place, so he became, I don’t want to say part of the woodwork, but actually we became very familial with him. He’s got this presence where what makes you feel comfortable. My father’s 77. His brother came to the premier last week and said, “You know what? I’ve never seen my brother cry.” Whatever Mike did, he got him to open up.

Well, Vitalii and his reunion with his mother got me. You see him talking to Vitalii who says, “I can’t, not right now. Maybe later.” There’s a fine line between documenting something in a way that’s important and meaningful, worrying about exploiting your people. You seem to be very deliberate in how you take care of your people in a lot of ways.
I think it shows they were comfortable in the end over time. If you remember the war, it was very anxious there for the first week. I mean, they said Russians were going to take Kiev in days, so by the 11th day they had already thwarted the main advance, but they were still on the outskirts, kind of undecided what’s going to happen. I’m not a proponent or advocate of war, but I mean those initial weapons that were given, the Javelins really repelled those advancing columns and then they became sitting ducks, the Russians on their columns leading in and then they dispersed and obviously then caused more havoc on their retreat. They became more comfortable knowing that Ukraine was being very resilient and was going to do everything they could to fight for its life. Unfortunately, I can’t believe we’re now two plus years into this.

Two years this week.
This past weekend. The movie ended on the one year marking and whole lot has not changed in the year past.

Has fatigue set in?
Amongst the staff, I mean it’s become a hot political hot potato. They don’t understand what the politics are. It was such a popularity that we got to help the Ukrainians get the money. It’s always been about, “Just give us the armaments, give us the planes, protect the skies, give us the Patriots.” It’s never been about sending boots in the ground. There’s plenty of guys there. Unfortunately, now it has become fatigue and it’s actually the lack of manpower is becoming a major concern if they don’t get the weapons.

The film does a good deal of outlining how Veselka came to be and what it was. I was surprised to learn that it opened as what was more like a little bodega in little Ukraine.
It was a little bodega in its heyday. It had borscht. It had a couple of different pierogis, but it was a five and dime candy store, cigarette shop.

Newspapers. Yeah.
You make 5 cents on a paper. I mean, I don’t even know. I mean when I was here working as a teenager, that’s what the profit margin was on a newspaper, but he had papers from all over the world, especially those that were written or targeted for the Ukrainian community.

It became a hub for Ukrainian expats, not a restaurant at first and certainly not famous. What do you remember of Wolodomyr?
I don’t have much. He passed when I was like six or seven. I remember coming here and being kind of like a kid in a candy store. We had a assortment of different candies.

You were literally a kid in the candy store.
He’d say, “Okay, one,” and he’d turn his back and I’d grab four or five thinking nobody’s going to know, but actually he had one of those big giant mirrors up high on those ceilings so that you could see.

He probably saw.
He knew and he kind of shook his head, “All right, go on your way.” That’s what it was. It was a mom and pop. This neighborhood was very eclectic, had a large Ukrainian community, but it’s also Second Avenue. During the ‘20s, ‘30s and ’40s, it started changing. This was Yiddish Way. There are a lot of Jewish theaters. The Second Avenue deli was opened at the same year as we were 1954. The original owner has a Ukrainian background as well, Abe Lebewohl.

Little Ukraine itself has shrunk over the decades. You started there when you were 13. Your father was Wolodomyr’s son-in-law, ran it for a generation. Your father’s tenure was interesting. Your grandfather passed away. He took over, but he hit something of a rough patch. The Ukrainians started leaving, that first round of Second Avenue subway construction was disruptive. You yourself distanced yourself from Veselka for a while before coming back. What do you recall of that time? It started picking up when you came back, brought in the lotto tickets and the 24 hour service. What do you remember from those more difficult times?
If we think of the history of New York or the history in general, our city has gone through so many different cyclical events. Now you’ve obviously got the ’60s and St. Mark’s and the Haight-Ashbury of the city and this neighborhood being a Ukrainian neighborhood and then the ’70s invasion of drugs and heroin, and this was a neighborhood that was on a steep decline. The Second Avenue subway, people don’t realize, obviously it was very disruptive on the Upper East side that they continued to build all the way up to 125th. This was going to go all the way to lower Manhattan and they had started this project. The tunnels are still there, believe it or not. It would take a major undertaking now to continue it, but he said those are really tough times and then the ’80s, I think, I hate to say in Giuliani’s defense, he tried to clean up the city and the city started turning around. I do remember when we got the first license to sell lotto tickets. We were like the first in, I don’t know, 20 or 30 block radius that surprisingly people were nuts about it. Obviously, back in the day, this also has a lot of history to the Jewish mob. They used to run numbers here, so when lotto gambling became legal, it was a big thing. I mean, not only lotto, but the daily numbers that win four.

Do you guys sell any big winners that you recall?
No, not that I recall, but there would be always the one guy who had a couple thousand dollars tickets. I don’t have that much. If you had a large winner, you had to go downtown. You could cash in different increments tickets, so guys who won big would try to cash in on the smaller side. Then people buy lotto tickets. Then we started building our pastry and coffee programs, so people waiting in line, “Oh, let me get a muffin. Let me get a coffee, let get some pierogis maybe,” or instinctively you smell all that Ukrainian home cooking. Then you buy a ticket. Then you sit on the counter, you get some quick bite to eat, so that definitely was the beginning of a turnaround and then 24 hours. Oh my gosh. I mean I luckily found a few diehard loyal people that worked with me side by side initially, and it was a great experience. I have no regrets. It was hard, those hours, but the different characters that have come through here.

I can only imagine.
All kinds, but mostly good. I mean you would think there’s a lot of drunks or deadbeats out there, but a lot of industry people, different people coming out of the late shows, theaters.

Artists and creators.
Ever since then, it’s only been good. I’m happy that we’re riding a high now.

Knock on wood, so you’re no longer open 24 hours. There’s no plans to go back.
We’ve gone through our cycles. We’ve had 9/11. Super Storm Sandy has caused us to rethink, but people came in droves still back then and then unfortunately the 100 year pandemic really put the screws to us. And then reopening, working the hospitality is not as glamorous as it once was.

Was it ever?
I got a lot of different theories about why it hasn’t come back as to what it was. Prior to the pandemic, there used to be so many theater and TV types, people auditioning for different stuff and people had to be here in person. But the invention and takeoff of Zoom and Google Teams and this and that, people can now audition from Kansas without ever coming to New York because of the pandemic. People don’t want to be too close to other people and the whole mask mandates and this and that. I haven’t been able to find the proper staff and I didn’t feel comfortable going right back to 24 hours knowing the type of crowds that were out late at night. Initially, everybody was hunkered in for two years and when the time came to go out all night, people really did go out all night.

It’s interesting that you talk about riding a high right now, but when your father retired and you took over, you have not had an easy road. First you’re hit with the pandemic almost immediately. Then the war. There’ve got to be days where you’re like, “I just want to run my family business.”
We’re planning a major renovation.

That’s been put on hold, right?
That’s something that we’ve been planning for the last talking about for 20 years, but we had some plans in place at the beginning of 2022, prior to the war. I had plans to close that first quarter. We need to do a renovation. People are coming out.

For people who don’t know because you walk in there, it feels like Veselka, it feels good. What is in your eyes lacking or what needs redoing?
The demand has created the opportunity for me to expand. The toy store that was our neighbor for 40 plus years had given up prior to the pandemic. She had planned to move out.

Dinosaur Hill, yeah.
The basement where I do a majority of my cooking is aging and I need to really fix it up. I’ve done some bandaids and we are planning to do that major renovation. I want to get Brooklyn up and open. This is the mothership, but it’s definitely going to be a flagship outpost in Brooklyn I’m very excited about. I didn’t want to ever have any opportunity for not to be able to get your Veselka fix.

We appreciate you for that. Well, let’s talk about your staff with Ukrainian roots. The film highlights the plight of employees like, you mentioned Dima. We talked about Dima’s mothers working in the kitchen. We meet Vitalii who’s this quietly stoic figure who’s working ultimately successfully to bring his mother over here. You said that in the year since the film’s been made, there’s not a lot of update, but I will reiterate that moment where his mom finally arrives at the airport, it really gets you. It really does put a human face on the toll of this. How’s the staff doing today? I think you’ve worked with by the end of the film, up to 10 refugees and their families to help sponsor them, help them move here. What’s going on today?
They’re all still here. Nine of them work for me out of the 10. Not only does Dima’s mother, his aunt and his uncle also works here. Vitalii’s mom is still here. That’s been a challenge for him because he’s very concerned about his father’s state of mind. He can’t leave. [President Volodymyr] Zelensky in Ukraine has set a mandate that all men, 18 to 60 cannot leave the country. You don’t have to enlist, but you have to stay in country. His father can’t leave. His father’s in his mid 50s.

Oh, that’s hard.
Obviously, we’ve never envisioned the war going this long that his mother would obviously rejoin his grandmother and father to be there as emotional and physical support, but she’s come more accustomed to life here. I think her ultimate goal as well as Dima’s mother and aunt, these are stopgaps or just pit stops with the true intention of returning. They’re blessed to have that opportunity to come here, but their home is in Ukraine. They believe in a free democratic independent state. They’re managing. I mean, it’s a day by day. I think they become a little fatigued with the news and don’t understand the politics. The U.S. government supported [Ukraine] for so long and now they don’t.

Now it’s an election year and it becomes a hot potato.
They don’t understand why Trump or Biden and this and that. It’s a little more complicated for them to understand, but they’re just praying that this conflict ends sooner than later.

Speaking of politicians, there’s a surreal scene in the movie where Eric Adams comes and eats with you guys. You’re shaking your head. It’s wild. He’s talking about how it’s the easiest job he’s ever had. I wonder what that relationship is like today.
I hate to say that we weren’t his priority that day. I think he had several agendas. He made not an honorary stop here, but just kind of an obligatory stop.

Perfunctory.
We were introduced to him outside and he comes into the restaurant and his scout team had originally said, “Oh, we’re going to just have a small lunch,” but he brought a whole entourage of cameras and film crews. I’ve never seen, I mean it was a rockstar kind of event and I’ve had rock stars here, not with that following. As the general counsel of Ukraine to the UN was speaking to him, I don’t think you really heard him, and it was unfortunate because he was telling a true horrific story about the bombings affecting children, kindergartens and hospitals. He wanted to just express his message about lifting the mandates and I had a lot of back and forth about his diet, making sure there were vegan options. Then I thought he was trying to be honest about, “Tell me how I can help you,” and then he starts taking notes and it wasn’t notes for me.

It was for the cameras. Right. A lot of thumbs ups.
I hate to say that he has a very narcissistic view of himself. Thankfully later on, he welcomes the baseball team. Again, I think that was just a perfunctory measure of just showing some, it was five minutes out of his way to come out and get a photo op. I haven’t seen or heard from him since. Kathy Hochul, on the other hand, has been here multiple times,

Much less of a rockstar scene when she shows up in the movie.
Much less fanfare and she’s been very supportive of this United for Ukraine program, and so I take what I get, appreciative for them recognizing what we’re doing and who we are and kind of roll with it and we’ve had different congresspeople, different people coming down saying, “We’re here for you.” They all talk the talk when it’s election time. You don’t see him any ever time.

Have you yourself been to the Ukraine? You probably have extended family.
I did a root-tracing trip with my mother back 20 years.

Because it was her father that was Wolodomyr?
Correct. My mother, Marta. We did a root-tracing trip back to where his hometown was and the grave sites of our family ancestry, took a trip to Kiev and Lviv. It was very eyeopening and see that moving to experience, the feel, the connection of where it all started and what connects me to my Ukrainian roots.

You’re seen speaking in Ukrainian to your staffers. Is it kitchen Ukrainian or are you [fluent]?
It’s kitchen Ukrainian. Unfortunately, I grew up Americanized. My grandmother raised us as we were younger. I definitely got a much better ear, but if you don’t use it, you lose it. I mean I use it here on a daily basis, but it is kitchen Ukrainian. Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn’t marry another Ukrainian, married an Ecuadorian woman who I speak fluent Spanish to at home, so it’s a big mix, as New York is. It’s a melting pot of the world.

That’s wonderful. This is the 70th anniversary. Apart from this film, do you guys have any plans or I guess the Brooklyn location is kind of it? Or is there something?
We haven’t picked the exact date of when the 70th anniversary is. The previous milestone years of 50 and 60, it was sometime in the early fall that we picked a date to do a big event to maybe bring back the 1954 prices, maybe close for a party of sorts. Once this war is over, there will be a major block party where I’ll be feeding everybody for the day. I’ll close down. We are planning to pick a day to give back to the community that’s been so wonderful in helping us over the years. On that note, we are thinking of doing the similar thing to start our Brooklyn location. Actually, we’re working with Katz Deli who’ve been here a long time to do a collaboration. It’s not been told, but…

We’re breaking news?
Breaking news, yeah. We’re going to make some kind of collaboration with Katz pastrami into a pierogi filling.

Oh, I was just going to say pastrami pierogi. I am so here for that.
I can definitively tell you it’s kind of been on the back burner, but we’ve had some conversations and he’s on board for a short run, as well as doing some different campaigns and maybe a particular menu item will be from the 1950s. The price of the day of an egg cream might be 15 cents for the day, something of that nature.

So for someone who’s never been to Veselka, what would you encourage them to order for the first time? What’s the go-to?
My personal favorite is, I know beets are not everybody’s favorite, but you have to try the borscht.

I like beets.
But not everybody does. The traditional borscht that we make has pork in it, so if you don’t like the beef pork base, we do make a vegetarian version of it and it’s almost a meal in itself. Some people have said it because of its hardiness with the potatoes and carrots and cabbage and lima beans, it’s almost a stew of sorts. But we definitely have to try borscht and of course our pierogi, which we make thousands of with a variety of different fillings.

Was up to like 5,000 a day or something like that they were at?
I think we’re even making more now because we’re shipping them up to Grand Central. Could be as close as 6,000 now, to be honest with you, it’s a lot. The movie, shows four ladies [making them]; I’ve doubled that now. I have eight women making pierogis every day. The demand is there, the pierogis, the borscht, the potato pancakes is what I’m enjoying in the beginning of the movie. Latkes. Those are the three staples.

Anything else you want to say about the film or the Brooklyn location? Do you have any Brooklyn hotspots that you’d like to go to that are neighbors?
I’m learning a lot about Brooklyn, but I’m going to start with the movie. I don’t want the takeaway being that it’s a war movie. I think it’s an antidote to the war movie and I think it shows that everybody can play a part in community coming together that everybody can pay it forward. People are saying, “What can we do?” Well, call your local congressman. Call Mike Johnson. We need to get this bill passed. There’s always continued fundraisings. I continue to advocate through Razom for Ukraine, which is one of our neighboring nonprofits. World Central Kitchen, United 24. There are so many ways every dollar matters. I mean, we’re trying to do what we can to, as I stated in the movement, keep Ukraine for Ukrainians.

It’s amazing what you’ve done. I don’t get the impression that you’re a very self-promotional person, but the fact that you’ve raised something like $600,000 on behalf of these people, you’ve sponsored 10 of them. Really amazing impact what one individual can have.
And I did that from the heart. Nobody pushed me. Nobody said, “Well, you need to do this.”

No, you didn’t have to do it.
There are other people I know that had businesses that took advantage or stood by the sidelines or donated marginally. It just became a crying call to me. Maybe it was my grandfather in my ear saying, “We got to save Ukraine, you got to do what you can.” I’m going to continue to do that. I think the movie fortuitously was released this week on the marking of the two year of the war, and we actually found out today it’s going to be extended for a week here in New York and in L.A. due to the popularity. We’re very looking forward to Brooklyn. I mean, I’m excited. [We’re] friends with Cafe Mogador, the Middle Eastern restaurant. They’ve said actually their location in Williamsburg is busier than the one here in the East Village. We’re just excited that we have this opportunity to be in Brooklyn.

We’re excited to have you and it’s a family business. You have a daughter, right? I don’t know if she’s expressed any interest in taking over someday.
It was never a true intention of me coming here, but it became a labor of love over the years. This will be here if that’s what she wants to do, but I do want her to be her own person and explore the world. Figure out what she wants to do. If she wants to be a part of this, she’ll be given the opportunity.

You tried to distance yourself, but they sucked you back in.
I went to Hawaii for a short time. My maternal mother moved there. From there, actually, I had a great opportunity to live in Japan that was not told [in the movie] and live there for a few years and that’s a whole other experience. When you live outside the country and you see the U.S. from abroad, the broader opinion, what’s happening from a foreigner’s eyes, I love New York. Like I said, I left my heart here. I truly feel a connection here now after many years. It never gets old. I love coming to my job. I love working with the people I have on staff.

Check out this episode of “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast” for more. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts.