Barbie Tawks Brooklyn

 

Tom Stoppard RIP

Probably the world's greatest playright, Tom Stoppard, has died.

Plays like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, Jumpers, Travesties, The Coast of Utopia plays, and so many others, were like nothing that had ever been seen before. Stoppard's use of language was brilliant, complex and yet captured your mind and emotions in equal measure.

He was a true genius. 

I saw several of his plays on Broadway -- revivals of Jumpers, Arcadia, The Real Thing (in 2000 and 2014) as well as new plays like The Invention of Love and, most recently, Leopoldstadt. I reviewed this last play, his great swan song, in 2023, as well as the 2011 revival of Arcardia and the 2014 version of The Real Thing. Read them here. 

And yes, Stoppard also wrote for the movies, winning a screenplay Oscar for the 1998 hit Shakespeare in Love. It had the great line, "That woman ... is a woman!" 

Two amazing things about Stoppard's life and career are worth noting.

First, his native language wasn't English. He was borin in Czecholslovakia, escaping the Nazis with his mother in the 1940s, before landing and living the rest of his life in England. From there he would not only learn his new country's language but take it and mold it into magic for six decades. Stoppard is an open-and-shut case for why immigration, and welcoming migrants, is a smart thing to do.

Second, when my parents got together in the late 1960s, they went to the original NYC production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (I actually have one of their Playbills in the family files). Forty-odd years later my wife and I got together, in part, via our mutual love his plays. Kismet.

RIP Sir Tom. We'll probably never see his likes again.

Here is a local NYC news review of The Real Thing from 1984. "Put the right words in the right order and you can nudge the world a little bit." 

Black Friday on 47th Street

 

Read more about the 47th Street Diamond District below:

Remembering Francis Ellen Work: Princess Diana's NYC Great-Grandma

There are, and have been, royal scandals galore -- Mrs Fitzherbert! Mayerling! Rasputin! Wallis Simpson! Epstein! Megxit! 

And, of course, Diana.

Her notoriously failed 1980s marriage to the then-Prince of Wales/now King Charles III has become the stuff of legend. 

The irony is that, while the marriage itself was a failure, as a royal union it was a huge success: Diana produced an heir and a spare, and they've now produced heirs and spares. The marriage of Charles and Diana may not have lasted but its legacy has kept the dynastic royal line for the House of Windsor secure for the rest of this century.

But did you know that the future Monarchs of the United Kingdom have not only American but also NYC blood?

See, Princess Diana's great-grandma was a New York-native named Frances Ellen Work. She was a classic "dollar bride", a rich new money American who married a broke English bloke with a title.

The marriage was as big a disaster as Frances Ellen's great-granddaughter's -- and Frances' father forced them to get divorced and bring her two sons back to America (much like Queen Elizabeth would force her son to divorce Diana and hand over their two sons). Frances Ellen's rich American father not only hated his British ex-son-in-law but gnerally hated the lust of Britain's nobility for American women and money. 

And here we get to a hinge of history.

Frances Ellen's father stipulated in his will that his sons must never go back to England. They must agree never to set foot in the UK or forfeit their $14 million inheritance. But, when the old man died, the sons appealed to their relatives -- who had also inherited money -- to see if they would agree to waive this clause and let them get their cash without the travel restriction. They agreed. And then one of the sons, Edmund, moved to the UK, married a woman named Ruth, and they had a daughter named Frances. This Frances then married Viscount Spencer and their daughter Diana would then go into history.

Imagine, for moment, if Edmund's relative's had so no. Imagine if they had enforced this clause. Edmund wouldn't have moved to the UK, married, and fathered Princess Diana's mother. And the course of British and world history would be very different.

But it's not. And one day the crown of the UK will be worn by someone with NYC lineage. 

Listen to this great podcast about the life and legacy of Frances Ellen Work. It's a story of booze, bucks, broads, gambling, divorce, and glittering crown.

Just Breaking Balls a 'Lil Bit

Actually, it's never really a good idea to bust a wiseguy's balls.

When the Russians Invaded NYC

It's impossible to imagine a time when the United States and Russia were strong allies. Since the rise of the Soviet Union more than 100 years ago, the relationship between the US and Russia has been fraught, to say the least.

But in the 19th century, Russia was America's best friend in the world.

Both countries, both great continent-spanning collosuses, were at odds with the then-greatest power in the world: Great Britain. Britain, still smarting from the loss of the America, wanted to kneecap the young republic by supporting the Confederacy in the Civil War. In fact, most of Western Europe at the time wanted to support the South -- they wanted access to Southern markets, particularly its cotton, and, like Britain, the other European powers wanted to keep America divided and weak.

Not Russia.

Russia wanted to check the Western European neighbors by keeping America strong. So in 1863, as the Civil War raged, and to prevent the Confederate Navy from attacking Union ports, sent its Atlantic Squadron to New York Harbor. They were welcomed as friends, Russian sailors were the toast of the town, the bond between the two great nations deep and strong.

So strong, believe it or not, that when President Lincoln was killed the next year, the Russian Tsar Alexander II made all of the empire mourn. Lincoln and the Tsar, though they never met, had a lengthy correspondence and both were liberators of their people (Lincoln, the slaves, the Tsar, the serfs). And then, in 1867, the US and Russia did a little real estate -- the Russian sale of Alaska to the US. Oh, and Russia had a naval base in California.

That's how close the two countries were. And then, in the 20th century, it all fell apart. 

But at least in 1863, when the Russian navy hit NYC, there was nothing by bonhomie. 

The City Within: Inside the Secret World of NYC's Orthodox Jewish Community

 

The Band on SNL — October 30, 1976

Nearly fifty years ago -- on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976 -- the great rock band The Band gave their final performance (with the original lineup) at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, CA. 

It was a nearly six-hour long show where The Band played their greatest hits ("Up on Cripple Creek", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "It Makes No Difference") with with many guests including Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Hawkins, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Neil Young, and Mr Bob Dylan (amongst others). 

The concert was filmed by Martin Scorsese (the same year that Taxi Driver was release) and it became a landmark documentary, considered one of the greatest concert documentaries ever made, called The Last Waltz.

This one concert -“The end of an era” was how many people referred to the close of 1976. The dreams of the 60s and early 70s had faded, and we were ready for a revelation, a revolt, a changing of the guard. Punk rock—and, later, hip-hop—wanted to give music and culture a good slap in the face. It felt like everyone wanted to break something. - performed and recorded just over a month before my birth -- was a singular moment in music and cultural history. Robbie Robertson, the lead guitarist and chief lyricist for The Band wrote, in 2016:

“The end of an era” was how many people referred to the close of 1976. The dreams of the 60s and early 70s had faded, and we were ready for a revelation, a revolt, a changing of the guard. Punk rock—and, later, hip-hop—wanted to give music and culture a good slap in the face. It felt like everyone wanted to break something.

The end of that era, that faded world, was what I was born into -- and its intense to think about, how my beginning was at the end of something.

I love the music of The Band, and I went to see a re-release of The Last Waltz with my friends in 2002. As mentioned, the concert took place in San Francisco but, about a month earlier, The Band appeared on Saturday Night Live and was introduced by the writer-actor Buck Henry who mentioned that their final show was coming up. 

What an amazing moment in culture -- and in the history of SNL, NYC, and the culture at large.

Two Classy Brits Talk About the NYC Mayor-Elect

I was going to blog a little bit how about the Mayor-Elect, Zohran Mamdani, is from my childhood neighborhood, Morningside Heights. Zohran grew up there and went on to greatness, and I grew up there and went on to ... anyway, read 'bout Zohran's Morningside Heights childhood ...

... and then listen to my favorite Two Classy Brits talk about Zohran's historic victory and the road ahead for NYC. 

Classic Mr NYC

Well, I'll be darned. Mr NYC's powers of prophesy have hit again. 

In 2021 I blogged about the late 1980s Broadway musical Chess, about how it was a big spectacle with great songs and a muddled plot, and how it didn't last very long. Towards the end of my post I speculated (if I may be so gauche as to quote myself): "Maybe one day it'll come back to Broadway, if the plot can be brought under control and if there is interest in a show about something that clearly is now a historical era."

Guess what? There is a revival! Currently in previews and due to open on Broadway soon. And apparently it has an all-new book, a reworked story, which it very much needed.

Hmmmmm? Do you think perhaps the producers behind this revival saw my blog post and it sparked the idea to bring Chess back? Probably not. But a blogger can dream. 

But wait, 'dere's more! 

There's a new mini-series on Netflix called Death by Lightening about the 1881 assasination of President James Garfield. His Vice-President was Chester Arthur, former head of the Port of New York who become the 21st President of the United States and created the Civil Service. 

I've blogged about Arthur a few times, including about the fact that he was the only other President besides Washington to take the oath of office in NYC. In this mini-series Arthur is played by Nick Offerman, giving this long overlooked historical figure his due -- but after Mr NYC gave it to him first.