More Than Likes is a series about social media personalities trying to do positive things for their communities.
Before he was New York Nico (handle: @newyorknico), the popular social media documentary filmmaker of New York’s quirks and characters, Nicolas Heller was the “Mayor of 16th Street” – at age 3.
On his walk home from kindergarten, Mr. Heller would check in with all the friendly faces around: the Steak Frites manager who kept a tub of ice cream with the boy’s name on it; the security guard at the tile shop who tipped off his cap and made funny faces at him; the antiques sellers who turned their upright mirrors so he could see his reflection.
In a sense, it set the template for what would come decades later.
“Everyone would say, ‘Hey, Nick. How are you, Nick?’” Mr. Heller recalled.
Mr. Heller’s mother, Louise Fili, a graphic designer and author, coined the nickname “Mayor” for her son’s ability to connect with the common people who made the city buzz. “It’s kind of like he’s doing now,” Mrs. Fili said.
‘Typical New York’
For the past decade, Mr. Heller, the self-proclaimed “New York City unofficial talent scout,” has been roaming the city in search of moments that are “quintessentially New York.” His New York Nico accounts — he now has more than 1.3 million followers on TikTok and 1.1 million on Instagram — invite people to celebrate the colorful side of the city: the people, the staples of the community, and the crazy, random moments only understood by those who regularly walk his streets.
One approach that sets Mr. Heller, 34, apart from most social media personalities: he likes to keep a low profile.
“The bigger I’ve gotten, the less I want to be noticed,” Mr. Heller said. “It is my objective. I don’t think people really care about me that much if they do what they see through my eyes.”
It wasn’t until he left New York that he really started to appreciate the city, Ms. Fili said. After graduating from Emerson College, Mr. Heller moved to Los Angeles to try to make it as a producer of hip-hop music videos. “That didn’t go well,” he said. Six months later, he was back in New York, living in his parents’ house, unsure of which way to turn his life.
One day he was sitting in Union Square Park when he saw a street performer he had long admired who was holding a sign: “6-foot-7 Jew Will Freestyle Rap for You.” Mr. Heller had always been too shy to talk to him, but he plucked up the courage to approach the man and ask if he could make a short documentary about him. The man agreed and Mr. Heller turned the project into a YouTube series about local street characters, “No Your City.”
Mr Heller’s approach is based on the knowledge that life can quickly change for the worse, he said, either through a terrorist attack – he was 12 on September 11, 2001, and said he still had nightmares about running from the buildings – or a pandemic.
Mr. Heller created his Instagram account in 2013 and started taking it more seriously in 2015 as traffic for “No Your City” dwindled. He switched to shooting with his phone and instead of presenting full stories, he focused on smaller moments in life capturing the strange and charming corners of the city.
“It’s important to me to preserve what makes New York New York, in all its character, in all its glory,” said Mr. Heller.
‘Real friends’
In early May, Mr. Heller left Village Revival Records, a record store he made famous on social media, into anonymity on a crowded Greenwich Village sidewalk.
However, passers-by noticed the man next to him. Here was ‘Bobby’, who trudges through New York on comically high stilts and who Mr. Heller first mentioned on social media exactly a year earlier.
“Hello Bobby!” said one fan.
Bobby is part of a team of recurring characters in Mr. Heller’s videos, which also includes “the Green Lady,” “BigTime Tommie,” and “Cugine.” A man who goes by “Tiger Hood” organizes “street golf” outings and coaches pedestrians in hitting milk cartons filled with newspapers.
“As I would always tell him, they are people I would run from in the street, or ignore and put on my blinders in New York City,” said Mr. Heller, Steven, an author and former senior art director for The New York Times. “A lot of Instagram is voyeuristic. And I don’t think Nick is a voyeur. I think he is involved with these people.”
During the pandemic, Mr. Heller shines the spotlight on struggling local small businesses, such as Astor Place Hairstylists and the Village Revival record store, which is owned by Jamal Alnasr. “There was a tremendous change in my business,” said Mr. Alnasr. Equally important, there was a personal connection with Mr. Heller: “We became real friends.”
In December 2022, the movie Mr. Heller directed, “Out of Order”, was released starring nearly two dozen of the people he regularly features on his social media accounts. It’s important, he said, to help the people in his videos “build their own careers.”
After saying goodbye to Bobby, Mr. Heller walked to Union Square Park, where he squeezed around people at a cannabis get-together, snapping photos and videos for them to view on his Instagram story later that evening. His lens focused on a person dressed in a head-to-toe costume with cannabis leaves.
The art of observing
Mr. Heller is adept at observing people without being noticed. Another genre of his milieu is the candid shot from life: a man in a blonde wig, high heels, and a Santa Claus skirt parading around Times Square; a woman crosses herself as she crosses the New York City Marathon finish line; two Hasidic Jewish men talk on the sidewalk, gesticulating as their payot blows in the wind. (He often collects these in what he calls his “Sunday Dump”.)
After the cannabis festival, Mr. Heller returns to 16th Street to play golf with Tiger Hood, a long-time photographer Mr. Heller was profiled in a 2019 documentary.
When Mr. Heller stepped over to the makeshift tee (a row of milk cartons strewn across a floor mat resembling a $100 bill) and lined up his club, a small crowd began to pick up. Maybe they recognized Mr. Heller. Or maybe they didn’t and just pulled out their phones to capture a moment on a New York street.
Mr. Heller made contact, the milk carton flew into the air, and for a moment all eyes—and cameras—were on New York Nico.
