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!
I've been listening to the public radio show This American Life for over 25 years. Recently they did an episode called "In the Shadow of the City" about people who live on the fringes of big cities (something I've also blogged about).
Anyway, one of the segments in this episode is called "Brooklyn Archipelago" about how a bunch of Ukrainian teenagers from Brooklyn managed to get themselves shipwrecked and washed up on a deserted island -- right in the sight of the Empire State Building and Midtown skyscrapers.
A short boat trip in Jamaica Bay turned into a day-long saga more akin to Robinsoe Crusoe or Gilligan's Island (Castaway or Lost). It's a hilarious story about the immigrant experience, being young and reckless, and how the geography of NYC never fails to surpise.
It's also a classic example of how you Gotta Love New Yorkers.
Currently I'm really into looking at ads and newstories from 19070s NYC. I promise I won't post too many of these but I couldn't resist sharing some ads/news stories from back in the city's sleazy heyday. What a different time, what a different NYC it was! Some much more fun but also, let's face it, kinda gross. Enjoy! Or don't ...
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 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.
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.
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.
