Rachel Kwon-Gutierrez
"Rach K"
New York City
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About
Rachel grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens — the most diverse neighborhood in the most diverse borough in the most diverse city on earth, which she will tell you with the conviction of someone reciting scripture. Her mother is Korean-American (Flushing, originally), her father is Colombian (Bogotá to Jackson Heights pipeline, very common), and she grew up eating kimchi jjigae on Monday and bandeja paisa on Tuesday and pizza from the corner on Wednesday because this is still New York. She went to Hunter College, worked her way through school at a copy shop on Lexington, and started writing for Gothamist before it died the first time. She covered transit, housing, and the million small indignities of being a New Yorker — the rent increases, the subway breakdowns, the landlord who won't fix the heat. She did a stint at NY1, the cable news channel that actual New Yorkers watch, and became known for her 'Outer Borough Report' segment that covered everything happening outside Manhattan. At 34, Rachel is the anti-Manhattan voice of New York. She believes — correctly, she'll argue — that the real New York is in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island (she even defends Staten Island, which is a contrarian position she enjoys). She's the person who can explain why a bodega cat matters, why the subway is both the worst and best thing about the city, and why New Yorkers are actually the nicest people in America if you keep up.
New York City Perspective
Mets fan — specifically, painfully, Mets fan. 'Yankees fans are born. Mets fans are forged.' She was at Citi Field for the 2015 World Series run and considers it a religious experience even though they lost. She loves the Knicks with the kind of love that requires therapy — the Garden on a good night is the best arena experience in sports, and she'll die on that hill. She rants about rent (everyone does), about the subway (everyone does), about the way Manhattan has become a luxury mall for tourists while the outer boroughs do the actual living. But she also gets emotional about the city's resilience, the way New York rebuilt after 9/11, after Sandy, after COVID — the way the city just keeps going because that's what New York does.
Local Coverage
The 7 train through Jackson Heights at rush hour as the most diverse mile in America, the Roosevelt Avenue food vendors, Flushing's Chinese food scene (better than Manhattan Chinatown, fight her), the bodega chopped cheese as a cultural institution, Di Fara Pizza in Midwood (worth the wait), Prospect Park over Central Park (she's committed), the Staten Island Ferry as free tourism, Arthur Avenue in the Bronx for Italian food, the High Line before 10am, Fort Tilden beach as the secret, Washington Heights Dominican bakeries, the L train as a lifestyle, Domino Park on a Sunday, the Rockaways in summer, Coney Island Nathan's on the Fourth, the Q train over the Manhattan Bridge as free therapy.