After moving to The Upper West Side from Long Island in 1997, NYSN founder Dave Cervini found it challenging to make new friends. Many of his friends were still in the suburbs, getting married and starting families.  Meet Up & Facebook would not exist until ’03 & ’04. He was working On the Air and as Promotions Manager at 103.5 FM and 105.1 FM for ten years at that point.  After spending endless nights going out to bars, he realized there were dozens of things he wanted to do in the city but not alone and meeting people in bars was not they way he wanted to connect with people.

He approached several non profit groups and started to use the skills as an event planner for the radio stations to plan social events for people to come together while doing specific activities that he enjoyed.  The results were amazing!  While his initial focus was to perhaps meet someone special, he realized that he was meeting great new friends that shared similar interests.

In the beginning he attended all the activities and used his connections from the radio industry to plan some unique experiences.  In 2004 he decide to leave his career in radio to pursue this full time and the New York Social Network was born! Back then he hosted 3-5 events a week, today we host 9-18 fun actives for people to come together with a focus on trying to plan as many diverse experiences as possible.  Dave still hosts many events but we now have a part time staff that handle the rest.  100% of our staff members are/were actual members of NYSN who were looking to meet others before joining the team. That gives each host that special perspective and connection to all who come out.

We have had millions of people attend our events since 2004 and we look forward to expanding our offerings into the future to include more people who are looking to make friends and connection while doing activities that they love or may have never tried before.