I was always interested in science, but of course everybody said, "Well, you went straight from High School to Radio City, and you can't do astronomy without physics and blah, blah, blah." Yeah, right.

I lived with somebody who died of cancer—actually, he was the guy who used to manage CBGB's—and we had a loft on Varick and Broome Street. And I'm not religious, but when he died ... I don't know ... I got a 'scope. It was a crappy 'scope, one of those shaky, long skinny jobs, but I was fortunate: somebody was doing work up on the roof and stole it. So then I got an Astroscan. And I went up there, by myself, and the Soho Grand Hotel was like one block below, and I knew those people had to be looking and thinking ... but, No! I wasn't looking at them! They didn't know Jupiter was right over their hotel!

And I took a couple of courses at the Hayden Planetarium (then it was the Hayden), but nobody else observed! They call them Armchair Astronomers: they go to lectures, but they don't really observe. And my dancer friends, for them it was astrology, not astronomy. So I had nobody to discuss any of these things with.

I don't know how I got Sky and Telescope Magazine, but I noticed a thing for the AAA (Amateur Astronomers Association), and I started wanting to join and I contacted them. And I am not a group person, at all, I mean, forget it. And they immediately contacted me back. I was already quite an accomplished observer, because I did it by myself for a couple of years, and they treated me like royalty, from the get-go. It was sexism, in reverse. I mean, in the AAA the women do not make the coffee. I thought, these people have me mistaken for somebody else, because I'm supposed to know physics and chemistry and I don't know any of those things; I only know what I know!

Actually, it ended up to be, for the first time in my life, I found a group of human beings that I actually felt comfortable with. And it was the diversity of everyone. I mean, there's Neil Tyson, who's the Director of the Hayden Planetarium, or Rose Center or whatever the hell they call it now. All these different people: construction workers, dancers ... whatever! It's very diverse people with one common thing, and that is the love of the night sky: the universe! I made some of the best friends I've ever had. It's just a wonderful feeling.

I mean, if I went to a Board meeting, I could sit on the floor in a yoga position and if Neil came in, he'd sit down beside me, and stretch his leg up and I'd stretch mine higher ... whatever! Everybody's kind of nuts, but also smart.

I can get stuff that most people can't get: asteroids and comets and things. Men, now I hate to be stereotypical, they hate to look at maps, they hate to have to read, you know? So they can only get the obvious targets that they already know. But a comet or an asteroid, or any interloper, is going to be passing on a nightly basis in a different location, so you have to look at a map, to see precisely where it is, because it's going to be just a little dim object. I don't have the world's greatest vision, but I can find the faintest galaxies in the sky. It's experience. And you don't need the world's darkest skies—you use what you got. I mean, Manhattan, that's the best place in the world to start! Little did I ever think of that, but there's so few stars that you can see, there's no confusion! Starting from a Soho rooftop? All you can see is the handle of the Big Dipper! So that's the easiest place in the world to begin!