What’s your historical Los Angeles and New York connection?
I was born in Valencia, and didn’t even make it to visit NYC until 2005—my boyfriend surprised me with a trip for NYE.  Ironically enough, I got extreme food poisoning the first night, yet I still decided at one point I’d live in NYC. I then moved from San Diego to LA, and ended up marrying that same boyfriend.  We both eventually wanted to live in NYC.  When I left Participant Media in LA, we moved to NYC where I worked for Righteous Pictures, and then ultimately decided to start my own film promotion and social action campaign company, Picture Motion.

Describe your experience in NYC.
I absolutely love the people here, and maybe it’s because of the industry I work in.  There’s a really good community of socially conscious folks—they are really welcoming, and once you know one, you know them all.   I hosted SXSW NYC in 2011 at Purpose’s offices.  It was my first opportunity to invite everyone I had met (and hadn’t met yet) to one place and get more established.  We all work in the same neighborhood more or less, which is really convenient.

What was the biggest challenge of moving from LA to NYC?
Space!  I live in Flatiron—there’s a lot less space for your dollar, and my dog doesn’t like it so much—she’s used to having more room and a pool to boot. I have a Puggle named Lord Voldemort, also known as LV (she’s a lady).

How can NYC and LA best engage with each other?
A lot is event based—every time I’ve come to NYC, I’ve been able to go to 3 different things, whereas in LA, I used to be excited for the once a month event in Santa Monica.  I got to know all of these amazing people in NYC through events.  LA could learn from NYC’s event-driven culture.

Favorite LA secret spot
Lola’s!  It’s not so secret, but just so tacky—there’s a fireplace and leopard print furniture, and it has an amazing happy hour until 7:30, which is late for LA.  I also like the surly goat with their shuffle board, or the Belmont with their karaoke and delicious mac and cheese.

Favorite NYC secret spot
Nomad library used to be for a hot second, but now everyone knows about it—so now, it’s going to the short line at shake shack in Madison Square Park, getting a beer and sitting in the dog park with the dog after work.

Would you move back to LA?
Probably eventually because all my family is there—I heard you have to wait until NYC spits you out, so don’t leave too early because you’ll always want to come back and be nostalgic.

If you were not running PictureMotion, what would you be doing?
I don’t know—I really like what I’m doing—I already had that question, and so this is what I do!  I work with fantastic people and some nutty filmmakers and love all of the projects.  Maybe I’d go to med school, I do love Grey’s Anatomy.

From the 2462 Miles newsletter: connecting NEW YORK CITY + LOS ANGELES