The ballad of Jake Shane goes something like this: Grow up in Washington Heights, wishing that you lived some dozen blocks south on the Upper West Side instead. Move to Los Angeles and find it an easy place to call home. Find career success posting comedy videos on your Instagram, @passthatpuss, which you initially founded to review octopus dishes. Stay true to your roots and keep that handle intact even as your remit expands to podcasting and socializing. Return to New York when Broadway comes knocking. Realize, after the time away, how much you really do love the Big Apple, and the far-north neighborhood that raised you. Turns out, what his mama told him when he was young—that it was way cooler to be from Washington Heights than the Upper West—was true, then and now.
Shane, whose run in All Out at the Nederlander Theater ends March 8, took some time to show Condé Nast Traveler some of his favorite Manhattan haunts—from a five-star hotel to a tawdry nightclub to the first brow aesthetician that put him at ease.
Tell us about where you grew up in New York.
Washington Heights! I love it there because that’s where I became a person. It’s where I grew up, and where I spent a lot of Covid. The memories are, like, taking my practice ACT at home, eating at the same fucking Indian restaurant [Swagat] over and over again, taking the 1 to [Calhoun] school [on the Upper West Side], walking my dog. Just living there.
At the time, I didn’t appreciate it, because all my school friends were from the Upper West Side. I was so insecure, like, painfully insecure, that I didn’t live there because it was too expensive. I would always get so embarrassed when people would be like, “Is growing up in New York like Gossip Girl?” For me, it wasn’t. And my mom would always tell me how cool it was that I lived in such a vibrant neighborhood. I didn’t get it at the time, but now I do and I wish I had that mindset. I want people to know how cool Washington Heights is—it’s hard in New York to find a real neighborhood where you know neighbors in other buildings, see the same people everyday, and still have your mom-and-pop shops. It’s super Jewish and Dominican. They have the best Dominican food in the city. I love this place called Malecon. Chicken and rice every time. Fire.
