Remembering Terri Hall, NYC's Most Exotic Multihyphenate

In showbusiness there are lots of people called "multihyphenates" i.e. people who practice more than one craft. Examples: writer-director, director-producer, actor-wrestling star, actress-lifestyle entrepreneur, etc. 

I consider myself a bit of a multiphenate too but the late Terri Hall might be NYC's most exotic and interesting one.

Born in 1953 and originally from upstate New York, Terri came to NYC in high school to train as a ballerina. She had some success, dancing for companies such as American Ballet Theatre (like me) and, overseas, the Monte Carlo City Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet Company. She must have been a really good dancer because those were (and are) some of the top ballet companies in the world. But her ballet career was short -- it appears that drugs and mental illness might have contributed to that -- and by the age of 21 she was doing adult films.

But even in that notorious business, Terri had some success. For the next ten years she made many such films, including some "golden age classics" like The Opening of Misty Beethoven and The Story of Joanna. She worked with many of the top directors and performers of this time like the legendary (and legendarily well-endowed) John Holmes. 

Eventually Terri left the adult biz but didn't disapear from performing right away: she worked as a model for famous photographers, including for the even more notorious  and controversial Robert Mapplethorpe. The work she did for him and others was so noteworthy that it was even displayed at the Whitney Museum! 

Sadly Terri didn't live long -- eventually she left NYC, wound up in Pennsylvania, had various health problems, and apparently died in 2007. She would have only been 53/54 years old -- gone too soon. 

And yet she left her mark.

Even though Terri Hall wasn't some great beauty, her allure was undeniable. She just had that "thing." And how many us can say that we danced with top ballet companies, starred in some classic adult films with famous stars, and modeled for NYC's most famous photographer? That's an amazing legacy -- and an amazing multihyphenate one: a ballerina-adult star-photographer model. 

Only in NYC!

Good Luck Chuck

Review: "The Warriors" (1979) & "Warriors" (2024)

If there was ever a movie that epitomized the idea of a scary NYC-at-night hellscape, then it's The Warriors. Released in 1979 and directed by Walter Hill (a few years before his big Eddie Murphy star-making hit 48 Hours), The Warriors looks and feels almost as if aliens had invaded Earth and are fighting their intergalactic battle on the streets and subways of NYC.  

The movie takes place over the course of one night -- firmly, almost definitively placing itself in the realm of great NYC night movies.

The plot involves various gangs that have convened in Van Cortland park in the Bronx for a massive gang summit. One of them, the Warriors, has made the long trek from Coney Island to attend. The biggest gang leader in the city, Cyrus, announces to the amassed gangs that they should work together, respect each others turf, not kill each other, and use their collective power to overwhelm the police and control the city. He lays out his plan while, every so often, yelling "Can you dig it"? Dig it they do -- until a rival gang to the Warriors shoots Cyrus dead, turns around and blames the Warriors for the murder, and all hell breaks loose.

From there, the Warriors escape and start a long, violent trip back to Coney Island, chased by other gangs and the cops.

Knives and guns and mellees and Molotov cocktails frustrate their journey as they escape into Tremont, then 96th street and Broadway, in and out of Riverside Park, arriving later at Union Square, before finally making it back to Coney Island at early dawn -- only to find that they were still being persued by their rivals. Along the way they hook up with a hot chick (because, well, of course) and a radio DJ narrates their journey along the way. There's even a scene in the park that features a future Oscar-winner (but I won't give it away).

Can you dig it?

The Warriors had a completely unknown cast (some of whom went onto other movies but none who became huge stars) and was a modest box office hit at the time before becoming a cult classic. (Apparently at screenings in the early weeks of its release resulted in violent incidents from people trying to live out the action they were watching on screen.) Even though the book was based on a novel, the heart of the story comes from the Greek legend of the Odyssey, about how the path of humanity is just to go home. 

The Warriors is a wild, fun, and bizarre movie -- some of the fight scenes drag but they're never boring. The cast is young and colorful and full of energy. Most of all, it's the kind of dangerous, subversive movie that no major studio would dare make today. It's a movie in and of its time -- but its themes of youthful alienation and the allure of violence resonants into our day.

In fact, The Warriors resonates so much that Lin-Manuel Miranda himself decided to give it a musical adaptation.

Recently he released a "concept album" simply called Warriors, retelling the story of the movie with an all-female gang (there may be a stage version but that hasn't come to fruition yet). On the album, amongst others, are the featured voices are Marc Anthony, Billy Porter, Lauryn Hill, Hamilton's Phillipa Soo, Busta Rhymes, and Colman Domingo. I've only heard the album once but obviously it's good -- if not entirely memorable like Hamilton. 

So I highly suggest watching the movie and listening to the album and just be grateful that, in our day and age, if you get lost in NYC late at night you can just use your phone to get a cab.

Marshall Brickman RIP

The brilliant comic writer Marshall Brickman has died at the age of 88. He wrote for Johnny Carson in the 1960s and then went on to write and/or direct films like Simon, Lovesick, The Manhattan Project, For the Boys, and others.

But he's best remember for two enormously successfully collaborations: he was Woody Allen's co-writer on the great films Sleeper, Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Manhattan Murder Mystery, and he wrote the book for the big hit Broadway musical Jersey Boys (about the Four Seasons).

He co-won an Oscar for writing Annie Hall with Woody -- and the two also played jazz together. Woody has given his old friend and collaborator a memorable tribute that can can read here. 

RIP.

View from the Beverly Road Subway Station, Brooklyn -- 7:56 AM

Fort Totten

New York City is littered with the military history -- places like Governor's Island, the Armories on Park Avenue and Central Park, Snug Harbor, Fort Hamilton, plus multiple recruiting stations around town. 

Easily the most fascinating of all of NYC's historical military sites is Fort Totten out in northeast Queens. Built during the Civil War, it was a fortress to protect the city. 

Today it is a multi-use park by the city, state, and US military -- the Army and Coast Guard still hold "exercises" there but, in addition to a lot of green space, there are historic houses, reseach centers, and even a public pool. There's really no other park or public space in the city quite like it and, in summer, it's a wonderful place to stroll around, look at great views of the Manhattan skyline in the distance, and be in a place that is at once historic but, at the same time, very much thriving in the present. 

P.S. I went to Fort Totten in in 2019 when an Iron Throne was snuck in there for a promotional event -- but sadly the lines were too long and we couldn't sit on it. But it was a cool moment in cultural history, never to be repeated. 

100 Years of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Yesterday marked the 100th year since the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

If you want to know the whole history of how this NYC -- and now American -- tradition started, listen to this great episode of the Bowery Boys. 

Also, did you know that back in the 19th century -- before the parade -- there used to be a Thanksgiving tradition called Ragamuffin Day? Apparently it involved people dressing like homeless people and knocking on people's doors asking for treats -- something that morphed into Halloween in the 20th century. 

And here are some Mr NYC-exclusive photos of the parade taken at an exclusive vantage point:

And you can watch the whole thing here:

Mr NYC in Dordrecht, Holland

Recently I crossed the pond for a few days of work in Dordrecht, Holland. I had very little time, and it's not a very big city or tourist destination, but I did manage to find out a few interesting things about it and take a some nice pictures.

Dordrecht is the oldest city in Holland, older than the current capital and better-known Amsterdam. Its was founded around 1120 and it still retains a medieval look and flavor. Like most of Holland and its cities, its full of canals and water, and highly walkable. And even though it has a population of only 119,000, nearly 20% of it is foreign-born -- it's a really multicultural place.

There are numerous medieval monuments in town but the most notable of them is Grote Kerk, or Church of Our Lady, that was built between 1284 and 1470. It's a very impressive structure, and even though it was an old Catholic, re-Reformation church, today it is very much a Protestant cathedral.

Finally, I saw this sign about a woman I never heard of before named Lenie Dicke who was an active member of the Resistance in Dordrecht during World War II. At one point she was captured and, in a moment of brilliance and bravery, actually ate a book listing the names of other Resistance members, sparing their lives. She's a Dordrecht hero and actually lived until the year 2000.

Again, it's a small city, not big and glamorous like Amsterdam, but worth seeing for its charm and history.

So long, Chuck

WNBC-TV news anchor Chuck Scarborough has announced his retirement after 50 years.

Chuck is an absolute legend in NYC, someone who made local news cool. Mayors, governors, presidents, all kinds of other famous and powerful people have come and gone in this last half-century but Chuck remained, reporting on it all. The city won't quite be the same without his steadying, calming presence on our airwaves every night.

Here's Chuck announcing his departure, and some notable past stories he reported on.

Memo from NYC

Greetings! I haven't been blogging for the last couple of weeks because I've been super busy and also traveling internationally -- more to come on that later.

And yes, the results of the election this month also deflated my desire to blog. But if you want to know more about how I feel about this country's descent into fascism, please read this column by Elie Mystal that perfectly sums up my views on it. 

I'll just add: we are living in the upside down, through the looking-glass, in bizarro-world, a banana republic. The abnormal is normal, the unacceptable is accepted, the gross has been made palatable, sickness is considered healthy.

It's "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" time -- the darkness is bigger and badder than we thought, and beyond our ability to defeat it. We simply have to find someway to survive in it, lighting a candle -- or many -- in order to see our way thru it.