The Basics
Age and occupation. How long have you lived here, where did you come from, and where do you live now?
I'm from the former insurance capital of the world (as sad a claim to fame for any place I know). I have lived on the UWS for better or worse (and it has certainly been both) since just after my brownstone, a known drug haven in the 70s, became less, uh, business-oriented. I miss all the fun. Can we say 'getting on' for my age? And occupation? You know, writer thingy.

Three For Thee
1. How exactly does the "brain trust" over at MUG operate?
If you think there's a brain trust over here, you obviously have not read MUG. You are perhaps thinking of the Economic Policy Institute. In any case, we bumblefuck our way through articles, employing smoke, mirrors, frequent use of cliches, and a graphic designed to distract you from the content.

2. So Bob Pittman lays down some large bills for DailyCandy. Is MUG in the acquisition game or just content to be hanging out doing its thing?
Hey, I'm just trying to get tomorrow's article together. But I'll talk to anybody.

3. Got any "insider secrets" on surviving New York winters?
Not really, nothing that wouldn't apply anywhere else: helpful are a significant other and/or a shaggy dog under the covers, a bottle of Maker's Mark on the nightstand, and the ability to make graceful leaps over slush.

Proust-Krucoff Questionnaire
Time travel question: What era, day or event in New York's history would you like to re-live?
I wouldn't mind being on the sidewalk where Judge Crater was last seen so we could clear up that little mystery. But if I could choose anywhere and time, I'd take Thornton Wilder's advice to "choose an ordinary day. Choose the least important day of your life. It will be important enough." With that in mind, I'd like to spend a spring day in the 1830s walking around what is now the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, but what was then St. John's Park and then do what I most love to do in New York now: walk and walk and walk.

What's your New York motto?
Often wrong, never in doubt. Happens to be my family motto, too.

Best celebrity sighting in New York, or personal experience with one if you're that type.
I'm very happy seeing Candace Bergen most mornings when I walk my dog.

Finish one of the four following sentences:
3) I hate computers for replacing the card catalog in the New York Public Library and I hate the way...
Food Emporium replaced one heinously annoying jingle ("Someone made a store just for me, Food Emporium, Food Emporium") with one nearly as bad.

Who do you consider to be the greatest New Yorker of all-time?
Andrew Haswell Green. He was an amazing man, little-remembered today, which is an outrage. Green was as much responsible for Central Park as Olmsted and Vaux, he helped create the NY Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History, he led the committee to consolidate the five boroughs, and helped preserve Niagara Falls, the Palisades, and City Hall.

What was your best dining experience in NYC?
Lunch at the old Bouley.

Of all the movies made about (or highly associated with) New York, what role would you have liked to be cast in?
Nick Charles in The Thin Man

If you could change one thing about New York, what would it be?
West 4th Street should not cross West 12th Street. That is just disturbing.

Charlie Suisman's Manhattan User's Guide is a daily e-mail designed to keep you on top of the city.