NYC Commercials 1978/79

I can never get enough of these old NYC commercials -- and if you want to know what was popping up on TV screens around the city in 1978 and 1979, see below:

Ronnie Eldridge RIP

Ronnie Elgridge has died at the age of 95. She was a staple of Manhattan politics for decades as an activist, adviser, government staffer, broadcaster, and NYC Councilwoman for a dozen years. She was smart, tireless, and deeply beloved. Her career spanned decades and she never stopped caring about, or working for, her city.

Oh, and Ronnie was married to the brilliant columnist Jimmy Breslin for 25 years, a New York City legend in his own right. They were easily my favorite, and NYC's cutest and most admirabe, power couple. 

RIP.

Inside NYC's Secret Skyscraper

If you ever stroll around Lower Manhattan, you might find yourself on Thomas Street. And if you walk past 33 Thomas Street, you'll pass the most mysterious skyscraper in NYC.

It's a 45-story hulking brutalist pile that looks like a weird Lincoln Log and looms over its immediate vicinity. It has no windows. No ornamentation. Whereas most skyscrapers are gleaming with glass, inviting glares and glare, this one ... doesn't. It seems to be purposefully, aggressively shutting, out the world.

And, if fact, that's exactly what it's doing. 

In fact its an AT&T building that was originally built to connect long-distance phone calls and oversee phone networks. Today it does something similar for the digital age. 

And it's also apparently built to withstand a nuclear attack in order to keep society functioning and communicating. It is, so to say, "apocalypse proof."

So here's a little inside look at NYC's secret skyscaper.

Anti-War Protests Rock Times Square

NYC Back in the Day

The thing about NYC is that it's a city with a fascinating past but that is always,  relentlessly, looking into the future. And Mr NYC tries to be as future-oriented as possible, following the trajectory of the greatest city on earth.

But ... the past never fully vanishes. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, we are always going against the current, "borne back ceaselessly into the past."

To put it another way, people will always be fascinated by NYC back in the day.

So here are some various examples.

Nostalgia for NYC back in the day is so huge that there's literally an entire Youtube Channel called ... NYC Nostalgia. It has numerous videos chronicling life in NYC in the last couple of decades and centuries, including about things you might not necessarily realize existed. For example, did you know there were motorcycle gangs all over NYC? Yes, there were, as this video shows:

Then there's the money. Yes, NYC was built by great wealth and generated great wealth. Heck, there's an entire show about it called The Guilded Age about the late-19th century when NYC's wealth changed the entire nation.

Sometimes this wealth produced great things and sometimes ... not so much.

This was true even before the Gilded Age, before families like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers -- families that name many of our streets like the Astors, the Jeromes, the Schermerhorns, the Delanceys, and many others. Here's a great video about some of these families that used to rule NYC back in the day, the original city elite:

And then there's the darkness. Look at this photo taken in October 2001 at Ground Zero, a month after 9/11:

Ouch. You got then-Commissioner Bernard Kerik who ended up going to jail for corruption (and is now deceased). It includes then-Mayor Rudy Giuilani who later committed treason but trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and wound up broke, indicted and disgraced. And then there's the now former Prince Andrew, who's been arrested for corruption and settled a mult-million dollar sexual abuse lawsuit. The photo above was taken only six or seven months after this infamous photo:

The then-prince was in NYC at that time to pay his respects to the families whose loved-ones has perished, to visit and thank the first responders for their work, and extend sympathy to a traumatized city. 

It appears that, during this visit to NYC, in the aftermath of this horrific event, Prince Andrew came to town not only to provide comfort but also to do some partying with Russian broads. Watch this video about Andrew's 9/11 jaunt, it'll both fascinate and disgust you:

And to think that these dark people were the ones taking care of NYC at this dark time only makes the darkness even darker -- darkness on top of darkness. And today when we see images of the now former prince, this is what we see:

But let's end this look at NYC back in the day on a happier, funnier note.

In the early 1980s, as Saturday Night Live was transitioning out of its '70s heyday, the show went into a critical and ratings downturn -- and flirted with cancellation. But it was saved by a 19-year old kid who was still living with his parents in Brooklyn named Eddie Murphy. His comic brilliance was so blazing, so wild and fascinating, that he saved the show that has lasted for half-a-century. When SNL started back in the day it was a curiousity -- a quirky, funky 1970s late-night sketch show from NYC. But Eddie Murphy turned it into an institution that defines the city and its impact on American culture to this day. 

By the way, you can watch one of Eddie Murphy's funniest "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" sketches below and the entire archive for your enjoyment here. 

This F@&%$#g Guy!

Yep, he's still in business after more than 20 years!

He even has his own Wikipedia page! 

My only questions is: can he still make a living doing this and does it help him score chicks?

Something Important to Remember

Blizzard '26

 'Twas a a doozy. 

Jesse Jackson RIP

The long-time civil right activist Jesse Jackson has died. He was, in many ways, the bridge between the activism of Martin Luther King and the Presidency of Barack Obama.

Jackson kept his civil rights fight going for his whole life -- and he had lots of controversies and lots of successes. He was an American original, a man who burnished his way into history, a legend.

And he was funny. 

In the early 1990s I remember when he popped up on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" and he did a brilliatly hilarious telling of "Green Eggs & Ham." In fact, it was so funny that In Living Color felt the need to match it -- and did, also hilariously. This was back in the day when comedy was edgy, slightly dangerous, and so much more relevant than it is today. 

A much younger Jesse Jackson also appeared in 2021 documentary Summer of Soul about the musical festival in Harlem in 1969. Jesse Jackson's life was truly mult-varied, and epic. RIP.

Memo from NYC

So today a member of the British Royal family was arrested for public corruption.

And the former president of South Korea was sentenced to life imprisonment for leading a coup against his own government.

The former presidents of Brazil and France have gone to jail for treason and corruption too.

But not here. Not in the USA. Not in a country where we say that all men are created equal. Nope. If you're a Donald Trump or one of his associates, you float above the law -- and the media and half of the public are okay with it.

You can engage in blatent corruption and violence and get away with it.

This is a shameful, dark chapter in American history that we're living through. One day I hope it might end.