Are there still cupcakes in the city?

Andrea Adleman

The title of this post adapts that of Candace Bushnell’s new book Is There Still Sex in The City?

Bushnell is the catalyst behind my cupcake history book. She wrote a newspaper column, which became her Sex and the City book, which became the HBO TV show. In one episode that aired in 2000, a character eats a Magnolia Bakery cupcake, a big-bang moment that turned cupcakes into aspirational lifestyle icons. My book charts cupcakes’ 200-year history so as to contextualize their modern popularity sparked by the Sex and the City scene. I have a book premise today because Bushnell had a book premise 25 years ago.

At her book launch earlier this month, Bushnell said there’s no simple answer to her titular question. Using sex as shorthand for social relationships, lifestyle interactions, and how and where people meet each other, Bushnell analyzes a range of factors that have changed human relationships in recent decades. Life in the city reflects and refracts larger social, economic, technological, and psychological phenomena. Life today is more calculated, whereas the ’80s and ’90s had more of a free-flowing rhythm and communal nature.

While the popular bars of Bushnell’s yesteryear are closing, cupcakeries are opening.

In August 2018, I documented three first-wave cupcakeries that were opening new stores. In August 2019, I eyewitnessed that all three are open for business.

Retracing my trail from south to north, the southernmost new bakery is the Essex Market location of Sugar Sweet Sunshine.
Now open on East 8th Street.
The uptowners — are they talking about cupcakes? The new bakery is at Central Park West by the Museum of Natural History.

This is non-fiction. This story is as solid as brick and mortar. There are still cupcakes in the city.

Late 2019 update: There are still cupcakes in the heartland, too. This is one of countless examples.

2021 update: Two new Magnolia Bakery stores are open in Manhattan and a corporate ownership change promises to increase the company’s footprint. The plot thickens.