Recently took the family to Legoland, a theme park up in Westchester that opened in 2021. We had a great time -- lots of rides, lots lego stuff to do, and it had a chill, nerdy vibe that we all enjoyed.
My favorite thing, as you might imagine, were the big outdoor Lego builds of American cities -- Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles were featured amongst others. But the really big one, the really major one, was of New York City (no suprise there). Here I will provide you a short photographic tour of Legoland NYC -- it's really amazing to see and something that I encourage all city buffs to check out:
We start out to the north in ...
Da' Bronx
We zoom down into Lego Yankee's Stadium and then visit the Lego Bronx Zoo and the Lego New York Botanical Garden ...
Then we traverse into Manhattan and breeze by ...
The Upper East Side & Upper West Side
Here we see the Lego Guggenheim, the Lego Dakota and Lego Sam Remo as well as the Lego Central Park.
Now let's hop on ...
The Subway
And go to ...
Queens
And go through Lego Long Island City and Lego Flushing Meadows Park to a Lego Mets game at Lego Citi Field.
Let's go back into Manhattan and hit ...
Midtown
We pass by the Lego AT&T Building, the Lego St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Lego Times Square, the Lego United Nations, the Lego Empire State Building, the Lego Madison Square Garden and Lego Pennsylvania Hotel, and the Lego Flatiron Building.
Now we go ...
Downtown
We head south from the Lego Washington Square Arch and Lego City Hall to the Lego Castle Clinton and Lego 9/11 Memorial to the Lego One World Trade Center, Lego Lower Manhattan and, in the midst of the Lego New York Harbor pool, the Lego Statue of Liberty.
But what, dere's more! Let's dip into ...
Brooklyn
And we finish up our visit passing by the Lego Brooklyn Museum, the Lego Grand Army Plaza Arch, and Lego Coney Island.
As for ...
Staten Island
It's not there (yet).
So that's my little tour of Legoland NYC -- but I highly, highly suggest that you go check it out, along with the whole park, yourself.
Over the years I've blogged a lot about how 1970's and '80s NYC was Funky Town.
And Funky Town was a big, wild place!
Here are some more examples of that time, that seems so far away and yet is right around (literally) the corner:
Back in those days trade school commercials were all over NYC television, like these for the Albert Merrill School and Apex Tech (that lovely set of tools is yours to keep after you graduate).
Then there's movies. A lot of great movies were shot on the streets of NYC back then -- The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Annie Hall, and Saturday Night Fever, just to name a few. As you might imagine, shooting them on location could be a challenge. Recently I read about the making of the 1974 original movie The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. You gotta love it -- it's an action movie that stars Walter Matthau and Jerry Stiller! It's a great NYC movie that mostly takes place on the subway movie but it was a tough movie to shoot in the fall of 1973 -- as this article points out.
Talking about NYC movies of the 1970s, recently I was on the East Side and walked by The Copinette restaurant that has a plaque outside, commenterating its appearance in the 1971 Oscar Best Picture winner The French Connection.
And of course, there's The Sexy.
Before AIDS closed them down, sex clubs were prominent around town. Here's previous Mr NYC interviewee and former adult film star Hyapatia Lee talking about her visits to Plato's Retreat and The Hellfire Club and the wild, sexy times she had in this town.
And talking about sexy clubs, one night in 1975 a young songwriter named Van McCoy went to the Apple's Apple nightclub and saw people dancing in an interesting way. He therefore decided to write a song called "The Hustle" and it became one of the most famous, beloved, and iconic disco songs of all time:
So there's just some more examples of Funky Town, a place long-gone but that will forever live in Mr NYC's heart.
Mayor Z has been in office for 100 days -- a rather random benchmark but one that chief executives are always measured against.
Thus far, the mayor has had to deal with a budget shortfall and put together agencies that will deal with affordability. These first 100 days have been, it seems, all about putting the pieces in place to delivery his affordability agenda.
He still has high approval ratings -- but also high expectations. The next 100 days need to be more policy oriented so that the reality can soon match the promise.
Well, well, well, Mr NYC really is ... well, maybe not exactly prophetic than certainly perspicacious.
In the early days of this blog I wrote about the early 1950's NYC Mayor Vincent Impelliteri -- perhaps the city's most forgotten 20th century chief executive. Well, a man named George Arzt, a lifelong city government journalist and staffer, actually knew "Impy" back in the day. Arzt is retirning after 60 years working in and around city government and he's given a great exit interivew that you can read here.
And then here's another interview you can listen two between podcaster/comedian Billy Procida and adult film star Sonia Harcourt -- where they talk about polyamory and swinging and all sorta of sexy stuff. I interviewed both Billy and Sonia several years ago so it's great to here two previous Mr NYC interviewees talk to each other ... and apparently that's not all they did!
Recently I came upon an article in the Hollywood Reporter listing 47 iconic movie and TV sites in NYC. Read it here. (Why it's not an even 50, I can't say.)
One location that's obviously cited is Central Park which has been used in too many movies and TV shows to count. But one of movies that's not on this list but that makes great use of nation's most famous urban park is Hair from 1979.
Based on the late 1960s anti-war, anti-establishment hippie Broadway smash, it's about a young man named Claude from Oklahoma who comes to NYC on his way to enlist in the army before shipping to Vietnam. (Why a guy from Oklahoma would need to travel all the way to NYC to go into the army is odd but, hey, it's a movie). Anyhoo, while roaming around Central Park one afternoon he comes upon a group of hippies who befriend him and rock his world. He also gets close to a young beautiful society lady who is bored by her preppy boyfriend and upper class life. Eventually it all goes haywire and Claude goes into the army -- before his friends head out to Nevada, trying to rescue him from going to Vietnam. There's a big, surprising, ultimately tragic twist at the end about the randomness of friendship and fate.
When the musical Hair hit Broadway in 1968, it was a stunning, crazy, and almost dangerous thing. America was mired in the hopeless Vietnam war and the anti-war, hippie movement was gaining steam (Woodstock would be a year later). This musical rocked the culture, a show that was both highly political and highly entertaining -- plus, at various points, the cast members took their clothes off. Richard Nixon, right after he became President, imagined that he'd go to a show and, as soon as cast got naked, he'd get up and walk out, showing his solidarity with the Silent Majority, the squares in the "real America" (fortunately he never did it although it would have been lit). Like A Chorus Line, Rent and Hamilton later on, this show defined its time.
But when the movie came in 1979, times had changed. Vietnam was over, Watergate and stagflation had and were traumatized the nation, and this movie already seemed like a museum piece. It was of and about another time. Hair the movie was moderately successfull but didn't have the same resonance as it had had on Broadway 11 years earlier.
The movie was directed by Milos Forman, who had just won Oscars for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and would, later on, do so again for Amadeus. Hair is somewhat forgotten from his filmography. The cast is amazingly -- especially a young Treat Williams (RIP) as George, the hippie leader, and Beverly D'Angelo, the bored young deb. Claude is played by John Savage who had just had a huge success in The Deer Hunter. He's a good actor but rather miscast -- he's not really believable as a young Okie. The rest of the mostly unknown cast is quite good, including the late, wonderful Nell Carter singing in the park at night.
Still, there's something about the movie that sorta doesn't work -- it reminds me of the Rent musical, a great, brilliant show put to film that somehow, someway, sucks the life out of the story and score. But I still suggest seeing it for the music, the cast, and beautiful shot Central Park.
In the wild heyday of the NYC adult film scene of the 1970s and '80s, no star shone brighter than that of Vanessa Del Rio's.
She was the Judy Garland, the Barbra Streisand, the Meryl Streep of that time and place -- quite simply, the best. She was famous and iconic in her time and remains so almost 40 years since she quit the business.
Born and raised in Harlem, Vanessa was the quintessential New Yorker -- and a striking contrast to most of the adult performers of her time and after. She was Latina, curvy, tough talking, odd-looking -- and a stunning, gorgeous ball of fire. From 1974 to 1986 she made roughly 80 movies, many of her as the star. And her various co-stars -- both male and female, and including some of the biggest names of the time -- were both the most fortunate of pepole as well as her helpless prey, so insatiable were her performances. She was amazing!
In the decades since she left the business, Vanessa has popped up here and there. She appeared on NYPD Blue and also had an entire Taschen book made about her. She's on social media and appreciates her fans. Now in her 70s, she lives quietly (I believe on Staten Island) and lives a fairly quiet life. But her legacy will never be quiet -- it will rage on forever.
Well this is certainly a Mr NYC first: I'm reviewing a current Broadway show that I had previously blogged about as being a historical curiosity relegated to the distant past.
I'm talking of course about Chess, the messy and failed 1988 musical that has been revived to massive success on Broadway. In 2021 I wrote a lot about how its various problems and controversies doomed it almost 40 years ago, and I mused about whether any producers might have the courage to rework and revive it.
And they did!
Perhaps Mr NYC played a small part on this? (Who knows, only that I was ahead of my time.) So here's my review of the revival:
Set in 1979, the plot involves two brilliant chess masters, American Freddie and Soviet Russian Anatoly, who are set to compete in Milan. The match is heavy with Cold War politics, and the CIA and the KGB want Freddie to lose the match so that the Russians will be willing to engage in the Salt II Nuclear Talks. Freddie doesn't want to do this, obviously. Caught between them in Florence, Freddie's lover whom he mistreats and who, through various personal and political events, moves over to Anatoly -- who then defects to England with Florence, leaving his wife and children behind. Eventually, four years later, they all come together at another chess match in Bangkok -- the all of their fates intertwine and explode.
This version of Chess has a new book that simplifies and clarifies the story. Some of the songs have been put in a more logical order that does a better job of pushing the narrative story. As for the story itself, it still doesn't really work as being quite as compelling as it aims to be, and the characters are a bit two-dimensional. That said, it never lags and you're never bored. Not at all! It's massively entertaining.
Chess is both helped and hindered by a narrator who explains all of the action and the historical context of the show. Because this version is being staged almost 40 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, it is therefore presented in a "once upon a time ..." fashion which gives the audience more perspective -- something obviously not possible in 1988. So that was good. Unfortunately the narrator tells a lot of dumb, corny, jokes that gives the show some humor (it's otherwise pretty heavy) but that is tonally dissonant with the rest of the story.
However, the songs are amazing, and the production is brilliantly staged.
Lea Michele, as Florence, is beyond great -- she is a true Broadway star, the best of her generation, and her version of "Nobody's Side" is so hot, so on fire, it nearly burns the theater down. Aaron Tveit as Freddie and Nicholas Christopher as Anatoly are also great, incredible singers and actors who play these tortured geniuses struggling to survive. The rest of the supporting cast is strong and I must give a shout-out especially the ensemble which is on stage for the entire show and sings and dances throughout, performing many complicated numbers. They are the heart of this show and are wonderful.
So see Chess for a good time, a piece of fun Broadway theater -- a reminder that yesterday's failure can be tomorrow's triumph.
Two buildings on opposite sides of the world -- a century apart -- sitting quietly on city streets wherein the course of history was changed and two great empires were shaken to their foundations.
If a building could be called a Drama Queen, then NYC's most drama-filled building is the Ansonia on West 73rd-74th street and Broadway.
I've blogged about it a few times over the years -- and, again, did so long before many others, being ahead of my time!
It was built in the 19th-century by a copper heir named W.E.D Stokes who wanted to make it an urban Utopia -- a place where its residents could retreat from city's nuttiness and enter into a world of peace and happiness. It had sound-proof walls so that families could live quietly, and Stokes even had the idea of a roof-top farm (he was well-ahead of his time).
But soon the Ansonia became a den of inequity, with its rich tenants using its sound-proof apartments for parties and affairs. The Continental Baths opened in the basement, becoming a gathering for gay men. And it's also where Plato's Retreat existed for many years, NYC's most famous swingers club.
It's where the 1992 movies Single White Female was set (I've blogged about that too).
But it's not only sex and psychos that made the Ansonia drama filled -- from Day 1 it was a money-pit, Stokes's creation driving him into poverty. And it is the most litigated building in NYC history, with lawsuits flying between tenants and owners for decades.
The Ansonia is, of course, the inspiration for the fictional Arconia in Only Murders in the Building (although it's not filmed there).
Yes, the Ansonia is so drama-filled that it's had podcasts and videos made about it (see below). It's quite a saga!
