Janet Barbash, our New Yorker of the Month for July 2012

AANY: I’m with Janet Barbash from Davler Media. Janet, what kind of name is Barbash?

Janet: It’s Russian.

AANY: What do you do?

Janet: What I do is varied. My official title is Vice President of Davler Media. We have fourteen magazines and several websites. City Guide NY is a very important website for visitors. City Guide is the largest visitor publication with distribution of 60,000 magazines a week. We have New York Metro Parents, Promenade Magazine. We have a magazine for parents with children with special needs. We also have an events company called Celebrate. David Miller the owner of the company is extremely creative.

AANY: I hope to meet him some day. What do you love most about New York City ?

Janet: Everything really. I think I have NYC in my heart and soul. I love the diversity of the city. It’s big. It has everything you want. It’s 24-7. You can go marketing at two in the morning. You can go for breakfast, lunch, dinner at three o’clock in the morning or three o’clock in the afternoon. Everything is available. The movement of the city, the beat of the city, but most of all it’s the people that make the city great. If you’re bored in New York , it’s your fault. You can find it all.

AANY: You’re a native New Yorker?

Janet: I was born in New York . I grew up in Chelsea . I love the neighborhood. I graduated from PS 11 on 20th Street . . I did move and lived in L.A for a long time. I lived in Madrid for a few months also. . I always knew I was coming home and was fortunate to get an apartment in Chelsea . You can come home.

AANY: Chelsea has gone through all kinds of changes.

Janet: The community board is great in Chelsea . They are very big on land-marking. The Theological Seminary in Chelsea is land-marked. The brownstones are landmarked. It’s controlled, so there are no tall sky scrapers. It still like that neighborhood I grew up in, like a small community.

AANY: I love the High Line.

Janet: I do too. It’s great for walking. I wish I had more time to walk on it. I have a very busy job, and not a lot of free time. Very often I have meeting at eight in the morning on different projects. I’m out almost every night of the week. We do a lot of events for the concierge community. We are very much involved with the hotels and the tourism market in the city.

AANY: But can you dance?

Janet: Did you see me last night on World Yacht? We did an event for the concierge community. The DJ was great and we danced. I have not done a Conga line in years . I love to dance! I’m just afraid that a lot of the pictures, as I was warned, will be all over Facebook.

AANY: What’s a hot, interesting event each year that you cover?

Janet: We do a yearly event, this is the sixth year, called the Concierge Choice Awards. It is an event where the concierge choose tourism categories, this year there are sixteen different categories, Sightseeing, Attractions, Broadway Shows, Cultural Institutions etc The concierge vote and nominate people and venues in each category and then vote for a winner. It’s a great award-ceremony and charity event. This year it will be held at The Boathouse in Central Park . Approximately three hundred people attend.

AANY: Besides the changes in Chelsea , Times Square is also seeing a facelift.

Janet: It’s all for the better. People visiting from out of town now have options, other than a red light district. That’s long gone. Talk about being gentrified! That is Time Square, where you can bring your family. It’s busy and safe. Economically it had been a success with high occupancy rates in the hotels. I like the pedestrian plaza. It gives people much more room to sit in the midst of the cross-roads of the world. It is like a shot of adrenalin.

AANY: I have a feeling you are well travelled?

Janet: Well, I have not seen everything in the word, but I plan to. I have travelled extensively. I’ve been to most of the countries in South America, a lot of Africa, Asia and I’ve been all over Europe . I have also driven across some of this country.

AANY: You’ve ridden a few elephants in your day?

Janet: Recently I rode an elephant in India . But the elephant ride that I really enjoyed was in Thailand . It was a wonderful experience down a mountain and into a village. I loved it!

AANY: What do you miss most about New York when you return?

Janet: When I do get back into the world of New York City I think the subway gives me that feeling that I’m home. I look down the line of people and the faces and the colors and the looks even the smells, the good smells that is, which is all part of this wonderful city. And when people say: “Gee, you New Yorkers, you’re not friendly, you’re rude and you’re pushy”. Are you kidding? We stand face to face, close in a subway, how can we not get along? We coexist for the most part peacefully. We are accepting and tolerant and polite. If you ever go to the subway in Japan they push you onto the train. New Yorkers stand aside and let people exit and then we get in. We are not rude people - we are busy people, and welcoming, that’s why we had 50 million people visit us this year.

AANY: What do you do to unwind?

Janet: I’m a big gym person. I love Pilates and Zumba. Zumba is the hottest dance class. It’s everything from Bollywood to jazz to hip hop. It’s an awesome work out.

AANY: Last question. Do you have any tattoos?

Janet: I happen to have one that I am very fond of. I had it put on a few years a go. My mother’s name was Rose and It’s a beautiful rose as my mother was. I do miss her.