Name: Leanne Shapton
Age: 35
Neighborhood: West Village
Occupation: Art Director of the New York Times op-ed page and author of Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry (Sarah Crichton Books /FSG 2009)
Who’s your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
Peter Hatcher from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.
What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in New York?
The salami-spread sandwich at Café Sabarsky.
In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job?
I ask people to draw the news.
Would you still live here on a $35,000 salary?
Yup.
What’s the last thing you saw on Broadway?
Speed-the-Plow. But Our Town Off Broadway was better.
Do you give money to panhandlers?
On the street, rarely on the subway.
What’s your drink?
Maker’s Mark Manhattan.
How often do you prepare your own meals?
Less often than the dog’s.
What’s your favorite medication?
Fiction.
What’s hanging above your sofa?
The question of what might go there.
How much is too much to spend on a haircut?
$100, but I always spend more anyway.
When’s bedtime?
A moving target.
Which do you prefer, the old Times Square or the new Times Square?
New Times Square; I’ve come to rely on it. I like the whale mural in Port Authority, the Manhattan Plaza Racquet Club, Thrift & New Shoppe, Green Symphony … We’ve suddenly got a Dean & Deluca and a Schnipper’s in the Times lobby, good for pastrami sandwiches and peanut-butter milkshakes.
What do you think of Donald Trump?
I was introduced to him once and found him polite and charming.
What do you hate most about living in New York?
The lack of front lawns and driveways. I love driveways.
Who is your mortal enemy?
Why would I want to immortalize her?
When’s the last time you drove a car?
I’m driving now.
How has the Wall Street crash affected you?
It’s snapped me back into my Canadian frugality.
Times, Post, or Daily News?
See occupation.
Where do you go to be alone?
The ladies’ room.
What makes someone a New Yorker?
Imagination.
