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.

NYC 101

New York City isn't one city -- it's many, as this video explains. That's NYC 101! 

The Epstein Mansion in NYC History

As the world continues to grapple with fallout from the Epstein Files -- and the horrible system of abuse that he enabled and that society ignored for too long -- the issue of the 21st-century Rasputin's real estate (in which so much ugly stuff happened) continues. 

Epstein's Island in the Carribean as well as his house in Palm Beach are the most notable places. As was his townhouse -- the largest in Manhattan -- on the Upper East Side. (See the video below for more.)

The house has a long and varied history, like any piece of NYC real estate, and the story behind it is an interesting as it is sordid. One thing that has been noted is that the house used to be a school -- which is deeply, darkly ironic considering the man's crimes.

And here's the  thing: I remember it as a school!

The Epstein mansion used to be the home for the Birch Wathen School. It was one of those fancy townhouses on both the Upper East and West Sides that were converted into apartments or schools or various business & non-profit headquarters in the 20th century. In 1989 Birth Wathen merged with the Lenox school and it moved ... leaving the mansion vacant. The Victoria Secret founder Lex Wexner bought it and, so it seems, turned it back into a home. He eventually gifted it to Epstein who then made it into his headquarters for foul deeds.

The fact that a townhouse that was turned into a school was eventually turned back into a home is one of those regressive things like a republic becoming a monarchy that's really depressing.

Anyhoo, when I was a kid I went to another private school nearby -- also in a converted townhouse. And one year I took a private school bus service to school that my parents paid for (one of my fellow bus-mates was Cameron Douglas, son of Michael, who was a nice kid but sadly whose life went awry). But the other school that used this service was, you guesed it, Birch Wathen. And every day we would stop first at Birch Wathen -- and the mansion that would, decades later, fall into infamy.

I never went to the school nor was in the mansion so it's interesting to hear stories of those who did. But I was close to it back in the day, a creepy thing to realize now.

Postscript: about three years ago I walked by the mansion on a cold weekday morning. No one was there thankfully, no voyeurs or people taking pictures -- at least not as far as I could tell. Epstein was dead, the FBI had taken whatever they had needed back in 2019, and it was just sitting there, forelorn.

But there was one clear sign that something was amiss, that something was wrong with this place: the huge double-doors where Prince Andrew was seen poking his head out of and where lots of young women of various ages were seen going in and out -- was covered up by a big ugly wood plank. It was a decidedly weird thing (I assume that it was boarded up because the cops didn't want people breaking into the mansion but who knows). I thought about taking a picture of it and posting it on the blog but I didn't ... it just felt wrong and exploitative and voyeuristic of a tragic situation. So I let it be. 

But this story is far, far from over. 

Andrew Corsa & Corsa Avenue & CorsaAveTV

Recently I discovered that I'm a descendant of Andrew Corsa.

Who's he?

He was a farmer born in 1762, and he owned property in what is today the Bronx where Fordham University now stands. 

Most notably he was a "Westchester Guide" (the Bronx being part of Westchester back then) during the Revolutionary War. In July 1781, he helped General George Washington and Count Rochambeau navigate the Bronx, doing reconnaisance with them about British troop locations and movements. It burnished his legend. 

Corsa also had two wives and 13 children, and some untold number of great and great-great and great-great-great and beyond grandchildren.

And Mr NYC is one of them.

Also, the Corsas are on the map! In the Bronx there is an avenue named after Andrew Corsa called ... Cosa Avenue! Here it is:

And in doing some more Corsa research I found ... this ... apparently 14 years ago the was a YouTube channel (and perhaps a public access show as well) called CorsaAveTV. It's something! Enjoy.