Intern Summer
Looking back on my first NYC summer
As the summer heat descends on New York City, so, too, does the fleet of college-aged interns walking to lunch three to four suits deep across the sidewalk.
I can say with certainty that I do not wish to run it back to my own intern days, but I cannot help but think of the version of myself that first lived in New York five summers ago with hesitant reverence. This feeling is akin to that of reaching into the pocket of a winter jacket or fumbling through the bottom of a tote bag to find the soft, crumpled body of a blue surgical mask. These memories are stored with a mix of disbelief, disconcertment, and unexpected nostalgia. The pandemic and my intern summer happened in quick succession, intertwining the two into somewhat of a feverish dreamlike piece of time. Thus, a ghostly dissonance creeps in when I pass by Phebes or Fiddlesticks—echoes of evenings long past. Where did the time go?
In the summer of 2021, I listened to Olivia Rodrigo’s Drivers License on loop each morning as I walked to the subway. Inside every pocket and purse was a brigade of pandemic era products: masks, hand sanitizers, my vaccine card. I had platinum blonde hair and applied fake tanner religiously each Sunday—my ankles, knees, and elbows a splotchy orange disaster (evidenced below). NFTs were the talk of town. #FreeBritney was the trending topic of Twitter (not X yet!), and rumors of the J. Lo and Ben Affleck romance revival were flying following her split from A-Rod. The first season of White Lotus premiered in July.
Earlier that spring, as I packed up my sophomore year room, I called my best friend from high school, Evie, to exchange summer plans. I had just received word that I was accepted for my dream internship at an auction house in New York City. No way, Evie said. I am pretty sure that my roommate is doing the same one. As luck would have it, she was correct. Caroline, her best friend from college, would also be in my intern cohort. What were the odds? After text introduction, we started the hunt for a short term lease in the city—joining Facebook groups, applying to NYU housing, scouring lease-break websites, and swiping up on Instagram stories for potential leads. No such luck.
I should have known whom to call to find the answers that I needed. My sweet Nana, to no surprise, had just the solution. She always does! Her closest friend, Helen, was willing to host us for the summer. Helen would be out at her house on Long Island for June and July. Having met at age ten at summer camp in 1947, Nana and Helen are truly friends for life. They went to the same boarding school and then off to college together. After graduation in 1958, they lived together on 72nd Street in an apartment looking over the East River. Nana could walk to the elementary school she taught at and went to see Broadway shows on half-days for what sounds like pocket change now. When I texted to confirm these facts, Nana replied that Helen was very much like her sister—someone she would do anything for.
To know that this feeling is shared and extends two generations is particularly poignant. Having never met me or my roommate (who, to be fair, I had not yet met either!), Helen offered her gorgeous apartment to us for the summer. Can you imagine? I have written more on her utter brilliance here.
Although I had no reference point at the time, it was a strange summer in New York. The pandemic and its aftershocks continued, but protocols had begun to lift. Vaccines were only just available to non-essential workers in April, and normal had lost all meaning. Most of our friends were completing virtual internships, assuming they had not been cancelled altogether—leaving the typical intern population drained. Although most restrictions had been lifted, social distancing practices were largely still in place. There were arrows on the aisles of grocery stores, and outdoor dining had taken over sidewalks in attempts to get businesses back on their feet. Many people had yet to return since lockdown began in 2020—more still made every effort to get out of the city over the weekends.
I first met Caroline on the sidewalk outside of the apartment on a very warm Saturday in June. Fresh off of the plane from Texas, she was eating lunch with her mom at the French bistro on our corner. I was following my own mother down the block, laundry basket in hand filled with bedding and shoes. We exchanged hellos, and it was clear that we would be fast friends. Caroline has an absolutely charming Southern warmth, and her mom called me 'sugar’ as we started to unpack. Sugar! I loved that. We made ourselves at home quickly in this ridiculously lovely apartment, sharing coffees on the roof before work and rushing home to each other to compare notes over a glass of wine. Every day we looked at each other and counted our lucky stars that we ended up there together. To this day, Caroline is one of my closest friends and a testament to the introductions this city makes possible. There is no greater generosity than sharing and introducing friends to other friends. Thank you, Evie!
Despite having the same internship, Caroline and I had quite different summers in the office. Her department was somewhat more rigorous. She worked later and was required to be at her desk an hour earlier in the morning. We never commuted together, joking that we might as well work at different places. She ate lunch at her desk. I ate mine outside and watched the Tokyo Olympics, projected onto a giant screen in the Rockefeller Center rink. As interns do, we dutifully followed instructions to network across the company. I look back at my emails to the executive team with admiration and horror—where did that brazen confidence come from?
There really is nothing quite like the excitement and belief that things will work out that I carried at age 20. The armor of an internship in the city reminds me of the feeling I had when I first got my license—no distance, traffic, or condition could dull the excitement of getting behind the wheel. Likewise, that intern summer, there was no coffee-chat, bar, work-out class, or reservation that I would not try for. There is a lesson to be found in there somewhere.
The summer of 2021 was one of the hottest on record in recent decades with unprecedented and unrelenting humidity. Even a few minutes outside was enough to slick the hair and leave any silk blouse sticking to your back. The office hand dryers became a necessary part of the morning routine to dry off sweat from the commute. Caroline and I often met at the Zara on 52nd and 5th after work to pick out outfits for the weekends—mostly in hues of neon orange or electric pink. We made plans almost every night and were delighted to find reservations at New York’s hidden gems—Jack’s Wife Frida, Rosemary’s, and Serafina. We assembled a motley crew of twenty-somethings to meet up with for happy hours and weekend brunches. Our childhood, high school, and college friends cycled through our apartment each weekend, sleeping in our beds, on the couch, and, at times of max capacity, across the window seat cushion.
With so much going on, Caroline and I swore that there were not enough hours in the day—sleep deemed an unnecessary nuisance that only got in the way of our fun. Caroline is not one to sit still, and I admired her determination to see and experience the city as best we could in one summer. I followed her to museums, comedy shows, parks, and rooftops. We carved out Sunday afternoons to walk through museums and department stores to catch up, relishing the air conditioning, as decades of city women have done before us. It really did feel like the city was our playground, half-empty and entirely new to us. I was amazed to find that there was more to New York than Times Square and the FAO Schwarz store I visited off of Central Park as a child.
I know that to be an intern, in all of its glory and bushy-tailed enthusiasm, invokes a certain level of eye rolling from the general populace. But, there is something so impressive in showing up without any auto-pilot. Everything sounds simple after you learn it, but at the time figuring out how to write a Teams message was enough to spike my blood pressure.
Last week, Caroline and I shared a drink on her roof in Flatiron. Intern summer, she said, I would have killed to be where I am now. We both still work in the arts, surely making our intern-selves proud. In fact, we work in offices directly across the street from one another in Midtown and still meet up for coffees and glasses of wine. For whatever sleep was lost or money spent on Magnolia cupcakes that summer, I have made up for it tenfold in all that I gained. This past weekend in the city was some of the most fun that I ever had. Watching the streets flood with joy for the Knicks on Saturday night was a perfect encapsulation of what makes New York such an incredible place to live. There was enough cheering, hugging, and literal jumping for joy on every corner to make you want to live in the same day forever. Thank goodness for that intern summer. There is no place I would rather be.
Nana and Helen awwww!
I need an internship in NYC. ASAP! 😊