NYC NOW - Kelly Clarkson’s Brooklyn Shop Drama and the Great “Real New Yorker” Debate

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

WNYC and Gothamist arts and culture editor Matthew Schnipper joins us to talk about Kelly Clarkson’s dispute with Brooklyn Heights shop Art of Play, a photographer trying to document every neighborhood in the city and what really makes someone a New Yorker. Plus, Citi Bike’s unlikely rise as a symbol of New York cool and some of the places opening their doors for Open House New York.Photo: Sonia Rao/ WNYC & GothamistGot any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail]. Mamdani and 100+ NY officials urge parking lot owners to ban ICEAvila Chevalier insists her beef is with NYPD Commissioner Tisch, not MamdaniA visit to Art of Play, the Brooklyn store in an animatronic bird beef with Kelly ClarksonAre you a New Yorker? The Department of New Yorker Verification will now decide.The hottest way to show you're an authentic New Yorker is… riding a Citi Bike?Inside a photographer's journey to visit every neighborhood in New York City Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jene Pierre. I could walk this street, and then I'll come back and walk the opposite direction, and I see completely different things. A New York City photographer is on a mission to photograph every neighborhood across the five boroughs, plus the beef between Kelly Clarkson and a Brooklyn toy store. It's all ahead on today's edition of the Arts and Culture Check-in. But before we get into that, here's a few headlarks.

lines that have our attention. Mayor Zormamam Dhani and more than 100 elected officials across New York are calling on private parking lot owners to ban ICE officers from using their property. This comes a week after an ICE agent shot a Dominican immigrant in Marble Hill, blocks away from a target parking lot that officials say ICE had been using as a staging ground. A target spokesperson had previously told us that the company has no agreement with any federal immigration office. And that's not the only renewed call being made after last week's ice shooting.

A far-left congressional candidate is pushing for NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to step down. Speaking on WNYC's politics show, Who's running this place? Darya Lisa of Villa Chevalier says she wants Tish to go. I think she is the one who did not meet the moment. And I think that it is important that we have meaningful accountability. As of now, the mayor says he has no person. plans to ask Tish to step down. A police spokesperson noted that the commissioner condemned ICE's conduct after the shooting. You can read more on this story and the other one I mentioned at our new site,

gotamist.com. I don't know about you, but the forecast for this past week has kept me on my toes. And now meteorologists are warning of a cold front. The National Weather Service says a thunderstorm Friday will bring a steep drop in temperatures this weekend. But next week, genuine fall vibes are expected with highs in the mid to low 60s and mostly clear skies. Now that's the fall weather that I like. All right, let's get on with the show. We're back with another edition of the Arts and Culture Check, and it's a look at some of the latest stories from WMYC's Arts and Culture Desk.

And joining me now is editor Matthew Snippert. What's up, Matt? Hi, Janae. Nice to see you. Oh, it's nice to see you too. I've missed you. I've missed you too. It's been a while. It's like, I left during the summer, came back, Fall hit hard.

Where did you go again? I was in Portugal. Yeah, all right. Nobody's really feeling not bad for you, right? Speaking of feeling bad, I am trying to bounce back. Like I said, Fall did a hard launch. Got a little sick, a little tickle in my throat. So I'm just trying to take care of myself now.

Please take care of yourself with all that nice warm sun and relaxation that you have stored up from your trip to Portugal. Yeah. But I am so happy to be here with you during a new season. Of course, the new season brings new trends. And your desk recently did a story on New York City's hottest trend right now, city bikes. City bikes. Who knew New York City's hottest club is the city bike dog? The hottest trend is getting around, literally.

Yeah, we did a story about city bikes. I think this is actually really true. This came really from a photo of Duleepa riding a city bike in Brooklyn in the summer. Oh, my goodness. But we started really seeing a lot of people riding city bikes. Kim Kardashian and Lewis Hamilton riding them. And what I think was interesting about this is, I mean, a city bike in the name, it should disqualify it from being cool.

Like it is a Citibank branded thing. I don't know. It's like this is nothing cool is. Nothing cool about it. Nothing cool is related to major banks, you know, with respect to our finance industry listening folks. But, you know, and this is the thing when city bike started, people, were against it. The docks were taking up space. They were like, these are big clunky things.

Why are we giving so much kind of public space away to it, you know, as a way to advertise Citibank? And honestly, it's been around for over a decade now, and it kind of just has become a part of the fabric of the city. And what's interesting to see is that this thing that kind of people were bristling at at first is now kind of a symbol of authenticity. Hmm. Talk more about that. How so? You know, if you're Duleepa and you come on vacation in New York, she's like, well, what's more New York than just pulling out a ride share bike and going on a trip, you know, that shows that she's a New Yorker just like anybody else. The mayor rides a city bike often. So I think it's just become a thing that people, you know, nobody blinks an eye.

And that's my thinking every time I get a city bike, right? First of all, I don't go long distances on a city bike. I had a fall last summer. My partner does not allow me to get city bikes anymore. Were you wearing a helmet? No. All right, we'll come back to that. Yeah.

I mean, the helmet isn't the trend. Come on. But anyway. And City Bike does not provide helmets as well. City bike does not provide helmets. Which I personally think is an issue. I'm not walking around with a helmet. Yep.

I should, but, you know, that's another thing. But, you know, Matt, even though city bikes are trending right now, one thing I want to talk about is just how expensive they are. Like, why is that? They're run by Lyft now, which I actually didn't know until recently. You know, Citibank, excuse me, had the name. rights and now it's fully operated by Lyft. It's an only game in town, so this is the thing where they can kind of continue to raise

the prices. It's still cheaper than taking a Lyft. Yeah. Yeah, and there is like a monthly subscription for city bikes as well. You know, which makes a little bit cheaper. But yeah, I mean, look, if you stand there and you say, hey, I want to spend $5 for get from place A and place B, you're going to spend that as opposed to spending $30 or whatever else. I do want to come back to the helmet issue, which I think is interesting.

Mom, Donnie did a video where he was, you know, encouraging people to buy. bike and they got a lot of comments on social media being like put on a helmet. Yeah. And then he went back into another video that was like, you're right. Here's my helmet. Yeah. So I do think that there's something that's missing in this trend, which is safety. Safety.

When's the last time you rode a city bike? Oh, not for a long time. Really? Yeah. No, I haven't rid a city bike in a long time. I don't really ride a bike in the city. The one thing I will say, I will end this of the helmet. So we did speak to somebody who was a club booker who said people are bringing their

helmets to co-check, which I thought was really cool. Wow. Okay. There are ways to accommodate safety. Maybe I'll invest in a helmet. I would love that. Can we crowd fund one for you with our listeners, maybe? Listen, if I need crowdfunding for a single helmet, I need a new job.

This is public radio, you know? It's not that bad. All right, let's move on to another story. Your reporter, Sonia Rao. I know she was not expecting this, this beef, between Kelly Clarkson and a Brooklyn store called Art of Play? Yes, this is quite a story. Art of Play versus Kelly Clarkson. Who you got?

This is a losing battle, I think. Yeah, if we're doing, like, putting money down. I'm not sure anybody's cashing in on this. Aside from maybe the sculptor of the bird, the animatronic bird. Yeah. Kelly Clarkson goes into Art of Play, a unique toys and novelty store in Brooklyn Heights on Atlantic Avenue. she says she gets kind of treated like Julia Roberts and pretty woman yeah you know when inquiring about purchasing this this bird they said hey it's not for sale she later said hey I think

there was a price tag a $15,000 price tag I'm Kelly Clarkson I can afford that Kelly Clarkson I think she's got to have made 10 zillion dollars since you be gone and if she hasn't she deserves it honestly great song if Kelly just stopped since you've been gone she'd be getting all the flowers she needs yeah she says they treated her like they didn't know she was that, you know, like, we'll get out of here. They said they tried to kind of steer her toward a slightly cheaper bird, which I still believe actually for her was $2,000. Yeah. So it's not like they think she's, you know, a vagabond if they think they're trying to sell her something that's $2,000. Right. So but she posts on social media a, you know, essentially a Yelp review saying,

I went to this store, was not treated with respect. The store says we treated with respect. She comes back and says, well, you told me this thing wasn't for sale, but actually it is for sale. I can afford that. They say, hey, Mia Culpa, we're so sorry. I just think this is the type of thing that, like, maybe if you went into a shop, you maybe had an unpleasant experience, what do you send an email? You leave a kind of low-key Yelp. A Google review?

And it's not even cut and dry. Look, I really don't want to be a Kelly Clarkson hater, nor do I want to be a small business. You don't want those dead threats. I don't want the smoke here. Yeah, exactly. Right. So I think what has been fascinating is, you know, usually you have these stories and they're pretty obviously David and Goliath stories. Right, right. This is not.

This is not that. This is like, and everybody kind of wants to see themselves, I think, is David in this story, but maybe they're both Goliaths. I don't know. You know, the one thing that stuck out to me in this story is now the bird is for sale. $15 million, not $15,000. How much would you pay for this bird? Give me $15 million sounds like a bargain, I guess. Yeah.

No, I mean, you know, I am speechless, I think, a bit at all of this. You know, no one is buying a $15 million bird. Don't say no one. Elon Musk may be interested in this bird. Sure, there might be some kind of like crypto person who thinks that this is a good way to troll everybody. $15 million for an animatronic bird is not a good deal. I mean, maybe $15,000 actually is a great deal. I don't think I would spend that on an animatronic bird.

Maybe Kelly Clarkson still should. I don't know. I don't know. I hope the artist makes some money out of this. I hope that's what I hope comes. That's what will be great. Yeah. We've reached out to him.

We haven't heard back. His name is Bliss, which I think is great. Let us know if you're cashing in on bird checks. Cool name. One hell of a story. What do you make of Kelly Clarkson's fan base? Fans go insane. Sonia headed down to the shop on Tuesday when opened her and a bunch of other reporters.

Adam Rubin, the owner of the shop, says Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger. Which is, you know, in some ways. It sounds like no one ever. A magisterial sentence. Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger. But he said, yeah, we're getting threats, all kinds of things. But how much danger are you in if you are now selling a bird for $15 million? Well, you're selling it, but, you know, you haven't sold it.

You can hire a lot of security with $15 million, but if it's just hanging on your wall, I don't think that bird is going to protect you. Listen, what doesn't kill you? Makes you stronger. Listen, another story that your reporter, Sonia, worked on recently, follows a photographer whose mission it is to photograph every neighborhood in New York City. Tell us about Rob Stevenson. this was a fascinating story.

So he runs a substack called Every Neighborhood, which you should check out. And he, I mean, it's basically that. He goes, he's a photographer, and he goes to every neighborhood.

And he takes photos. You know, he sees who he can talk to. He does two different visits, like one where he won't have researched, takes photos, goes and talks to people, and then he does more research and goes back

and kind of sees, oh, did I miss this thing or this? I try not to do, like, to my first visit, I try not to get any kind of history or backstory.

I just like to go in kind of blind and react to what I come across. It's a beautiful photographer. He's got an amazing eye for, you know, for some strange details that he might find and consistent things that he can see that say, hey, this is a, this marks any New York City neighborhood. Yeah, I think this is a really cool story. And so far, he's visited 150 neighborhoods? How many more does he have? He says he's about halfway done.

Yeah. What was his thinking? Like, why did he decide to even start doing this? He really just said, hey, I want to become more familiar with the place that I live. And I think he thought, let me do this in a bite-sized way. I mean, the whole approach is really just an excuse to kind of like, to go do it systematically and breaking into chunks. So it's more manageable, you know?

It just makes it easier and, like, more focused. It's like giving myself an assignment, really. Even though the city's huge, having some kind of limitations is really helpful. Yeah, so Sonya went up there with him. Nice. So he's visiting places twice. I just wonder if he's noticed any changes, you know, when it comes to the demographics in the neighborhood. Yeah.

He talked about one thing which I thought was really interesting, which was cans. He basically said from neighborhood to neighborhood, he's seeing air conditioners outside. And in each different neighborhood, people prop their air conditioners up with cans. Oh, yeah, with cans. And he said, you can see the neighborhood shift from people having different types of food. So are people having black beans, refried beans, are people having tomato sauce? Like, you can look and see who lives there based on what kind of food they seem to have common enough in their pantry that they can run out and keep their air conditioner from falling over. Wow, that's pretty sweet.

I thought that was cool. I keep looking for them, but they're most prevalent in the Bronx. And then I thought it was interesting because it goes in Belmont, which is kind of still the Italian neighborhood of the Bronx. The cans, they had, you know, like San Marizano tomato cans, whole thing up. And then, you know, a few neighborhoods over, they're kind of El Paso cans and stuff. Any other patterns that he talked about? I mean, the thing that he said he consisted, like the New York City thing that he sees is handball courts in every neighborhood, storefront churches. Ah, every neighborhood.

Yes. Big part of kind of the work is these theme, reoccurring themes, like storefront churches. It's a big one. Or former synagogues that are now churches. Dead ends. There's a field of the dead ends that's kind of universal throughout the city. And smaller things, you know. I know that this photographer, Rob Stevenson, is guided by his curiosity,

but how does he decide which neighborhood he's going to visit? It seemed kind of random, which I think was kind of cool. It was both like happenstance and curiosity. I try to go in order or when I started. I went, you know, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, Manhattan, just to keep some kind of like a parody between the boroughs. But now as I'm getting past the halfway one, I realize there are a lot more neighborhoods in Queens than there are in Staten Island, for instance. Yeah. Did your reporter Sonia talk about what Rob is most fascinated by?

Because, you know, he's been doing this for three years. I think, you know, he seemed to really just enjoy some of the, just the wandering around is really really. what it seemed like. This way of being kind of a tourist in his own city. Yeah. Check it out. If you want to see what Rob Stevenson has been up to, he uploads his photos to the substack called The Neighborhood, along with some written research as well about the

neighborhood and its origins. Pretty cool. Very cool. You're listening to The Arts and Culture Check-in on NYC now. We're going to take a break here, but when we get back, we discuss who qualifies as a New Yorker. Plus, Matt talks us through some of the highlights of this year's Open House, New York. Stay with us. Welcome back to the Arts and Culture Check-in.

I'm talking with WMYC's Matthew Schnepner. Before the break, we met Rob Stevenson, a photographer who's made it his mission to visit every neighborhood in New York City. Matt, is Rob a New Yorker we hadn't talked about it? Oh, man. That's a contentious question. Rob was not born in New York, but he lives in New York. I'll leave you to decide if he's a New Yorker or not or maybe somebody else.

You know, everyone here has their thoughts on that question. Like, who is a New Yorker? Aside from people who were born and raised here, right? Matt, are you a New Yorker? I don't know. Depends on what you think. You know, I was born here. I was not raised here.

So I got one of the two and born of raised. I was born here and then I left when I was four. Okay. I don't mean, I didn't leave. I wasn't like I. got up and left us a four-year-old and was like, I'm done with the city. My folks took us away, I should say. Okay.

And then I came back after college when I was 20, just turned 23. Oh, you're a New Yorker. So I've been here for 25 of my 44 years I've lived in the city. Okay. Well, I'm bringing this up because there's another story that your reporter Hannah Frischberg did recently. Born and raised. Born and raised. And her story poses that very question, are you a New Yorker?

Can you tell me about the Department of New Yorker Verification and the artist behind this? It's so ridiculous. So, all right. I mean, this is a, I mean, again, obviously, this is a real thing, but real is very, you know, about as imaginary a term as New Yorker, I suppose. So basically, yeah, the Department of New Yorker verification, this is a website that an artist named Franz Aliquo is set up. So he has designed this website where you. can submit your bona fides, and then he will decide if you were New Yorker.

This was, so this summer, kind of J-Lo went viral when she had a video on Subway Takes where she said, unless you were born and raised in New York City, I think she actually said, unless you were born in New York City, you were not a New Yorker. And then people, you know, everybody chimed in about this. And he said, well, I'm going to decide. So he has a site, and you know, you can send him your information.

And he'll decide if you're a New Yorker. And then he'll issue you an effect. official New Yorker ID. And what kind of information is he asking for? He's asking for you to send in where you were born. And then he says you can send in like your high school transcript to prove that you went to high school here. You know, and he says you can have like your bodega guy like, you know, make that official. Like it's very cheeky.

Yeah. I mean, look, like, do I personally think you should send this guy all of your personal information? No, and people in the comments were heated about that. Yeah. If you were in theory to do this, you let him know, how long have you lived in New York? You know, if you weren't born here, you get certain points for how long you lived in New York, so you send him that. You get other points for like, did you have ever get attacked by a rat, you know, did you, just did you ever get bedbugs, get scabies, you ever get mugged, did you ever fall into a subway grade, kind of ridiculous stuff that's, you know, that gives you your. bona fides as a New Yorker if you are a transplant.

Wow. Wow. And then he'll tally this up. And, you know, he will be the official, the department will be the official decider. And do I get a card? Do I get a certificate? A hat? You got a hat sounds fun.

But you know what? Would an official New Yorker wear a hat that says official New Yorker? I don't think so. Is that not a Yankee hat? No, it's not a Yankee hat. Oh, okay. I think you get a digital kind of certificate looks kind of like a New York City passport of sorts.

It sounds like you get a fraud alert. That's what I'm getting to. Because, I mean, it's an application process. I know from myself, I'm always thinking about threats to my data or my privacy, you know. And this sounds like a way for him to get people's information. It's funny. You know, I have to say, I edited this story. You know, as you said, Hannah, our reporter worked on this.

At no time did I think, oh, this is a crazy way to do a sense. scam because at no time did I actually think, oh, this is a thing that anyone is actually going to do? No one's doing it? I mean, I'm curious. Look, if you have done this now since we, no one had done it when we had put the story up. One person had done it.

One person. Who? Please. A guy who was like a cop did it. And then he is like, your site looks too much like an official site. You should probably make it look less like an official site. So he did. He added a few things that was like, this is not an official.

New York City site. This is this is not a dot-gov website. It's a dot-NYC website. This is a parody thing. Yeah, don't give your information to this guy. Don't give your social security to this man. Don't give him your address. Like, is he technically asking for you to do that?

Like, yes. But like, I don't think he's sitting here, sitting there waiting for people to ask him their opinion. I think the whole thing is an art project. Well, honestly, what this tells me, the fact. that no one has done it aside from this one cop, it tells me that everyone out there listening to this podcast is a New Yorker because you're not dumb enough to sign up. Look, if you need friends to tell you if you're a New Yorker,

like, you know, maybe you're not a New Yorker. You know, my theory is if you move to New York and you pay your rent consistently, at least for a year, you're a New Yorker. You're a New Yorker. It's too damn high. The rent is too damn high. Honestly, like, who is and is not a New Yorker?

like not, you know, I find myself with them like hater moments from time to time. But otherwise, I'm like, you want to live here? Like, go for it. Go for it. Yeah. The only people will, well, I'm not going to talk about, talk bad about people. Only God can judge me. Really?

I feel like all kinds of people judge me, actually, including myself. That's a New Yorker thing to do. Now, we'll talk about that at happy hour. But I wonder, are you a real New Yorker if you've ever been to Open House New York? Okay, I've never been to Open House, New York. All right. I'm excited. Have you?

I've never been. I was like how every year I'm like, here's 90 things I want to do. Every year is none. Seriously, though. Tell us about Open House New York. What is it? Yeah, it's this really cool event. I have to imagine organizing this is a real pain in the neck.

But every year, the nonprofit organization, Open House New York, works with private institutions to have them grant access to people in the city. Basically, stuff you don't get to see because it's not public becomes public. And they organize this over the course of a weekend. And there's a ton of different stuff you can see. Most of it is free. So you can go, you know, walk on the crazy bridge. You can go to a different museum. You can go to an archive.

You can go to a different store. You can go to all of these different places. You know, we were kind of talking about them as little private eatings that decide to kind of stop gatekeeping. Yeah. Over 300 places to go. There's a lot of places to go. But you guys narrowed it down for us. So we got the top five?

Yeah. So, I mean, this was Anna's like, and she's excited about going. going to go to this watchtower, this fire watchtower. Hey, I wanted to go to that. Yeah, Mount Morris. Yeah. It looks crazy. You know, you're going to climb up and you get an incredible view of the city.

So that's a place you can't usually go. I was interested in Roy Lichtenstein's studio, which sounds like an amazing thing to be able to see. There was this crazy, like, monumental labs, which is in Greenpoint Brooklyn, which has, like, it's a stone cutting institution. And they use, like, giant robotics to cut stones. I was like this sounds both like the past and the future meeting each other. Yeah. That sounded really cool. And there was also just like an amazing Queens Walkway tour, you know, which you can

kind of go for a mile through this abandoned railway, which honestly sounds extremely cool. Want to see a dead body? Oh, God. I'm like, I don't know. It just sounds great. Like I was excited. Honestly, I was excited about the rubber stamp thing. Cool.

And most of this is free, right? A few things cost, I believe it's like $7 or something. but pretty much everything is free. And this is happening this weekend. That's October 16th, 17th, and 18th. Yep. O-H-N-Y.org. All right.

I will definitely check that out. I think I need to go to be a real New Yorker. I don't know, man. I think that's like, I think, listen, we're on NYC now. You work here. I think you count. Okay. Thank you.

Because you were born, not here. New Orleans. I mean, which seems like a, that seems like a cool place to be from. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's cool.

You know, it's funny because everything I see says born and raised. I was thinking about this and it's like, can you be born but not raised? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you were born here. I was born here. I was born here. New York Hospital doesn't exist anymore.

I feel like actually I'm giving out too much information. Yeah, they're going to look you up. They're going to verify your New Yorker's status. What if I get like half status? Oh. Unofficial official. I think I wouldn't want to have it at all. It's like I have a green card.

New York green card. Well, Matt, it was so lovely talking with you again. And thank you for breaking down all these stories for us. If you want to read these stories that Matt and his team have been working on, you can visit our news site, gotamist.com. We'll also drop the links in the show notes. That's WMYC and Gothamist's Arts and Culture editor, Matthew Schnipper. Thanks today.

Thank you, Matt. A quick note before we go. We're taking the show on the road. That's right. We'll head to East Harlem on Thursday. October 22nd for a live podcast recording and a community conversation about the Second Avenue subway extension and how it's impacted residents and business owners in the area. The event is part of WNYC's In Conversation, the Affordability Series.

For more information and to register for free tickets, visit WNYC.org slash events. We hope to see you there. Thanks for listening to NYC Now. I'm Jene Pierre. Have a lovely weekend. See you next time. Thank you.