About the Author

If daring and risk-taking could be attributed to anyone, it would be Deborah Torbert. Growing up in a fatherless household of women, she wanted more from life than the traditional role women of her generation were expected to fulfill. When girls played with dolls, Torbert whittled wood, trained the household dog and sketched kids in the neighborhood. At the age of seven, she decided she wanted three things in life: to go to college and develop a career, to fly planes and to buy a Mercedes. In her late 30s she earned her private pilot’s license and at the age of 46 she earned her Bachelor’s Degree at Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA in Public Relations and Business Administration. At the age of 49 she began a career in marketing and purchased her Mercedes.

On the West Coast in 2000 Torbert experienced a business failure and learned a valuable lesson: Never put the greatest amount of time, money and energy into one client. That client broke his contract and took the company’s talent with him. Struggling but working on a variety of well-to-do projects, Torbert saw things rebounding for her. Then the World Trade Center was attacked. Investors pulled out of two projects. There wasn’t any work in Las Vegas for talent. Tourists were not flying into the city. Torbert had to make a decision where to go from there.

A business friend referred her to his friend in a town in Queens, New York. Everyone agreed that she would stay there to live and look for work. No cost. No worries. Torbert’s only connection to New York City is her distant ancestry to Peter Stuyvesant. With the last of her money, she shipped her things out to New York and settled in a room there. Her pocket held $150 - all she had in the world. A couple of weeks later, the friend said she would have to move out because his friend needed a place to stay because his apartment was going to be renovated. With no job, no money, no relatives, no friends in the area, she faced another tough decision. She was permitted to stay until the first week in December when she absolutely had to leave to allow the other person to come in.

This was the beginning of a long, long journey for Torbert. It is during this time when she learned all the reader is about to read - life in the trenches in the toughest city in the world, by reputation. You will surely learn something new between these pages, no matter how long you have been in New York City. It is a primer, however, not an autobiography. The intent is to instruct.\