What Does It Mean to Be a New Yorker?
An Olio x Warm Cookies for the Revolution Lighthouse party

What does it actually mean to be from a place?

Is it how long you’ve lived there?
Where you went to high school?
Your subway etiquette? Your rent burden? Your stamina for noise, crowds, and contradiction? (Talkin' NYC here)
Do we even care about these titles?

Or… are there some different ways of thinking that we need to entertain?

Join Think Olio and Warm Cookies for the Revolution for a cozy Sunday house party exploring identity, belonging, and place — with conversation prompts, music, and fresh cookies...because yes.

This is a chance to meet neighbors and others in the Olio community, share stories, disagree a little bit, dance, and chat about what it means to belong to this city and how we can help it to thrive.

*We'll be running this event on a pay-what-you'd like sliding scale and every contribution you make helps us to keep these kinds of thoughtful and intimate gathering spaces thrive. Thank you! No one will be turned away :)

Why This Conversation Now?

New York is always changing — but right now, the pace feels especially noticeable. With a new mayor, shifting priorities, rising costs, and evolving neighborhoods, many of us are asking what kind of city we’re living in… and what kind of city we want to help shape.

What to Expect

Cookies (because civic life should taste good)

Conversation prompts designed by Olio and longtime member Pilar (she (she runs a local organization called CUP (Center for Urban Pedagogy) that works to make sure new yorkers know about the policies shaping our city.

Casual, house-party energy — It's a day time event so we can party and still be home for a nice Sunday dinner.

Some Questions We’ll Play With

When did you first feel like a New Yorker — if you ever did?
Do you need to be “from” somewhere to belong there?
How has this city changed since you arrived? How has it changed you?
What do you want to protect about New York? What needs to change?
Does the label “New Yorker” still mean anything… and do we even care?

An Entry Point into Community

This gathering is also an entryway — a low-stakes, welcoming way to meet others in the Olio community and imagine what it could mean to shape small parts of the city together: through conversation, creativity, care, and collective presence.
We'll be running this event on a sliding scale and every contribution you make helps us to keep these kinds of thoughtful and intimate gathering spaces thrive. Thank you!

You’re welcome whether you were born here, arrived last year, are passing through, or resist labels entirely. This is about being in relationship to a place — and to each other.

About our partner for the evening:
Who or what is Warm Cookies for the Revolution?

"We create live events, video series, board books NOT for babies, collaborating with everything from circus freaks, lowrider car clubs, comedians, mariachis, food battles, and truly anything that gets regular people to connect and have a say in the decisions, storytelling, and culture work of their community. We work with residents to take crucial, boring, heated, or otherwise challenging issues and make sure that they are as accessible and disarming and engaging as possible, for people who are least likely to show up and take part, so that they have a say in their own history, present, and future."

*artwork by Blanka Amezkua