Corey William Schneider was having an early life crisis. Like many young New Yorkers, he spent most of his time at a monotonous marketing job he didn’t care a lot about and his free time in his “comfort zone” of familiar restaurants and bars with his friends, but he didn’t feel fulfilled.
“I realized this is the greatest city in the world, but I didn’t know anything about it. I was ashamed of that,” he says. “I felt like I wasn’t interesting. I wanted to be an expert in New York.”
So he made himself a pact. Every weekend, he’d explore the city, venturing to a new cultural or historic spot way off the well-trodden path. But there was one problem: None of his friends wanted to join him. “The idea of going to Flushing Queens at 10:00 AM on a Saturday was, like, not their idea of fun,” Schneider says.
He started a Facebook group of like-minded travel nerds and announced he would organize an excursion, booking a private tour and even van tickets. However, he was worried he’d be on the hook for the money he had to shell out in advance.
“I thought two or three people would join,” he recalls. “But a hundred strangers joined the group asking how to buy tickets.”
Panicked, Schneider asked Google how to sell tickets online. Google recommended Eventbrite, an event management and ticketing platform that allows users to browse, create, and promote local events.
This was back in 2013. Schneider, now 34, could not have realized it then, but he’d just planted the seeds for what would become a massively popular tourism business called New York Adventure Club, which grossed over $1 million in 2022.
Photo: Corey William Schneider courtesy of New York Adventure Club
From food crawls to art tours
Schneider is now CEO and Founder of New York Adventure Club, an in-person and virtual tourism and events company geared toward locals.
Two years into organizing events, he realized he had to quit his day job and make his bustling side hustle a full-time endeavor.
He runs a tight ship. The staff consists of him and a virtual assistant, but he also contracts hundreds of private vendors.
Every week, New York Adventure Club sells tickets for over 20 events, from virtual webinars like learning about New York’s famed Gilded Age to in-person events, like a food crawl to discover the “secret eats” of Chinatown. The club also organizes social events and puzzle tours.
What makes New York Adventure Club stand out from the hundreds of other tour companies is that it caters to a specific clientele — locals, like Schneider, who want to know the city they love better.
“There’s a lot of organizations that go for those first-time tourists. But when you’ve been to New York more than once and are looking for something else, that’s the niche we fill,” Schneider says.
The 50,000 New York Adventure Club Eventbrite subscribers will likely not find basic tours of the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building, but they will find a behind-the-scenes romp through New York’s Red Light District of yore or a tour of TriBeCa’s art lofts.
Secrets to success
Schneider points to several factors that helped him turbo-charge his tourism business.
Passion
“There’s a lot of baggage that will come with organizing events and a lot of challenges, from logistics to the customers. So, at the end of the day, you want to make sure that you’re doing something you’re passionate about,” says Schneider.
For him, that meant planning events that he’d want to attend himself. Schneider views himself as his company’s best customer and leverages his passion for New York and its history to inform his decisions about his itineraries and partners.
Organization
The logistics of running a company that throws over 20 events a week can be overwhelming. Schneider recommends partnering with third-party platforms that help take some of the organizing burdens off the business.
With Eventbrite, he can leverage their existing infrastructure to promote his events and sell tickets. Schneider is also part of their creator collective, an ambassador program that offers educational resources. Last month, he wrote a blog post about how he stays organized with such a small team.
“If I were just starting out, I would’ve really latched onto all these articles about what an event organizer does and the different components of organizing events,” he says. “It’s not rocket science, but there are a lot of details, so having those resources is very important for someone who wants to get into the space.”
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Yeah, baby. Yeah! Mike Meyers is listing his sprawling New York City apartment in Chelsea for $20 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The 5,700-square-foot penthouse apartment boasts five bedrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms and overlooks the Highline and Hudson River.
Photos by: Compass
Meyers bought the apartment in 2017 for $15.35 million. Real estate agency Compass describes it as “grandly scaled,” with two private elevators opening directly into the entry foyer. The living room is surrounded by walls of floor-to-ceiling casement windows that offer stunning 360-degree views of Manhattan.
The main living room and library are adjoined by a large terrace- almost 65 feet long. You’ll find a “massive Carrara marble waterfall island in the open kitchen.” The oak cabinets have leather-wrapped hand pulls. There is also a giant media room for watching movies and playing games.
The master bedroom has two large, walk-in closets and another “massive” en-suite bathroom with heated marble flooring, a walk-in shower and a wet room with a tub and sauna. A hallway from the private bedroom leads to a private study with a wet bar and access to the second private balcony. There are three additional bedroom suites and a large laundry room is a bonus feature.
Related: Yankee Candle Founder’s $23 Million Estate Comes with an Indoor Water Park and Two ‘Car Barns.’
Where is Mike Meyers now?
Mike Myers took a break from Hollywood after the release of Shrek Forever After in 2010. He returned to the screen in 2018 to star in Terminal and Bohemian Rhapsody. There have been some rumblings that a Shrek reboot is in the works featuring the original cast.
In a recent interview with Variety, Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri confirmed that he and DreamWorks Animation are planning to revive the Shrek franchise and develop Shrek 5 with the original voice actors, including Myers, Cameron Diaz, and Eddie Murphy.
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This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
About 770 billionaires live in the United States, according to a new report on the world’s wealthiest cities from London-based consulting firm Henley & Partners.
There are just a handful of cities they love to call home — or at least park their private jets when they’re in town.
Three of the four biggest clusters of billionaires in the world are classic US destinations for the uberwealthy: New York City, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area, which includes the neighboring tech hubs of San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Nearly 163 billionaires reside in those three hot spots alone.
Some of America’s richest residents, though, choose quieter cities for their home bases.
Comparably smaller Seattle, Washington boasts 10 billionaire residents, while Boston, Massachusetts claims eight.
And one of America’s fastest-growing cities — Austin, Texas — has emerged as a relatively new billionaire hot spot, counting nine as residents. Henley & Partners said that “no state income tax and ample space” helps make the Texas capital a prime destination, especially as tech titans like Elon Musk descend on the city.
Check out the full list of the US cities where the most billionaires live.
9. Boston, Massachusetts
Boston, Massachusetts. DenisTangneyJr/Getty Images
The CEO of biotech and vaccine giant Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, and founder of online furniture company Wayfair, Niraj Shah, reside in Beantown, according to Boston Magazine.
Population: 675,647
Number of billionaires: 8
Number of high-net-worth individuals with wealth over $1 million: 41,700
Increase in millionaires and billionaires from 2012 to 2022: 50%
8. Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas. dszc/Getty Images
Electric-car billionaire Elon Musk, who is a recent transplant to the Texas capital, said on a podcast that his new hometown will be “the biggest boomtown America has seen in 50 years.“
Population: 961,855
Number of billionaires: 9
Number of high-net-worth individuals with wealth over $1 million: 30, 500
Increase in millionaires and billionaires from 2012 to 2022: 102%
7. Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington. Sean Pavone/Getty Images
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz calls the “Rainy City” home.
Population: 737,015
Number of billionaires: 10
Number of high-net-worth individuals with wealth over $1 million: 50,500
Increase in millionaires and billionaires from 2012 to 2022: 68%
6. Miami, Florida
Miami Beach at night. Buena Vista Images
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida as a whole — and Miami in particular — lured finance and tech elites away from worse weather and higher taxes in northern cities. Take billionaire hedge-funder Ken Griffin, who moved himself and his hedge fund Citadel to the Magic City from Chicago.
Population: 442,241
Number of billionaires: 12
Number of high-net-worth individuals with wealth over $1 million: 38,000
Increase in millionaires and billionaires from 2012 to 2022: 75%
5. Houston, Texas
Houston, Texas. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
People with fortunes buoyed by oil and pipeline companies, including Jeffery Hildebrand and Richard Kinder, dominate Houston’s billionaire scene, according to the Houston ABC affiliate.
Population: 2,304,580
Number of billionaires: 20
Number of high-net-worth individuals with wealth over $1 million: 98,500
Increase in millionaires and billionaires from 2012 to 2022: 65%
4. Chicago, Illinois
A bicyclist rides near Lake Michigan with the Chicago skyline in the background. Beata Zawrzel/Getty Images
The chairman of Hyatt Hotels, Thomas J. Pritzker, and a grandson of the Walmart founder, Lukas Walton, call the Windy City home, according to Chicago TV station WGN.
Population: 2,746,388
Number of billionaires: 24
Number of high-net-worth individuals with wealth over $1 million: 124,000
Increase in millionaires and billionaires from 2012 to 2022: 24%
3. Los Angeles, California
The downtown LA skyline. halbergman/Getty Images
California is home to the most billionaires — not just in the US, but in the world, according to Forbes. Los Angeles, in particular, is a hot spot. Some billionaires there have names that light up Hollywood marquees, like director Steven Spielberg. Others prefer to fly under the radar, like reclusive In-N-Out heiress Lyndsi Snyder.
Population: 10,014,009
Number of billionaires: 42
Number of high-net-worth individuals with wealth over $1 million: 205,400
Increase in millionaires and billionaires from 2012 to 2022: 35%
2. New York City
The Manhattan skyline, with One World Trade Center at the center. Getty Images
Former mayor and one-time presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwartzman are two notable billionaire New Yorkers.
Population: 8,804,190
Number of billionaires: 58
Number of high-net-worth individuals with wealth over $1 million: 340,000
Increase in millionaires and billionaires from 2012 to 2022: 40%
1. The Bay Area, made up of San Francisco and Silicon Valley
The downtown San Francisco skyline. Alexander Spatari/Getty Images
Tech’s explosion has made San Francisco and nearby Silicon Valley the largest cluster of billionaires in the US and the world. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet’s Larry Page, and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky all call the region home.
Population: 7.7 million, according to the San Francisco Chronicle
Number of billionaires: 63
Number of high-net-worth individuals with wealth over $1 million: 285,000
Increase in millionaires and billionaires from 2012 to 2022: 68%
All population data is from the US Census’ 2020 survey except where otherwise noted.
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'This is the place that she came from' Work to restore childhood home of Nina Simone in Polk CountyPreservation efforts are underway at the …
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