@walking-dude There are stores on Long Island and New Jersey that are not too far away (decent access by car) that hot regular Vintage tournaments. Unfortunately, none within NYC (the five boroughs) that organize it at least once a month, although I've spoken to a few store owners willing to try it.
The big issue is parking, as NYC doesn't have stores with access to free parking for large groups of players, and worrying about feeding the meter is a pain when you are in the middle of a round playing. With NYC being so packed and continuously building upward, it pushes parking availability out, which discourages players from out of the area (1+ hours away) from wanting to travel to play. That means lower tournament turnout, which leads to
Lower prize Support (the main draw for players)
Fewer rounds played (which lowers the justification for paying for parking)
Fewer skilled players (the main draw for competitors, and a big way to grow a scene aside from loading upo on prize support)
The last tournament I organized was at Kings Games back in 2005 or 6 for a Mox Emerald, and at the time, it only drew 22 players. The main issue was having to pay 8-10 bucks for parking or risk a 3+ hour communte from outside NYC via public transportation to an area not in Manhattan. And Manhattan commercial rents at that time were skyrocketting to the point where if I had to host a monthly, stores wanted me to rent the space for the day to do it. It was unsustainable.
Kudos to Nick Detwiler in helping grow a scene in NY. I couldn't.
