Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first: NYC produced both Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. This is a sad, depressing fact of life. These awful men are currently terrorizing the country, trying to obstruct justice and explaining away moral turpitude, making our city and our country the laughing stock of the world. It's an embarassement, a painful thing to see.
So it's good to remember that there are New York who have made the world a better place.
Like Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the brilliant artists who gave us The Gates in Central Park back in 2005. Did you know that in 1968 they tried to "wrap" MoMA? After "wrapping" the Reichstag in Berlin, these two French immigrants came to NYC and attempted to turn the city's leading modern art museum into a work of modern art itself. It didn't happen but, for decades to come, they would continue with such projects, culminating with The Gates. And they remained New Yorkers for the rest of their lives.
And speaking about parks, there's a new exhibit of 60 photographs taken in various city parks and playgrounds in the summer of 1978. There was a newspaper strike that summer and the parks department hired out-of-work photographers to take over 3000 pictures of people enjoying themselves. Look at these pictures if you want to see New Yorkers hanging out over 40 years ago.
Finally, the most amazing New Yorker of them all: a 96-year old legal secretary named Sylvia Bloom who died in 2017. Turns out, she was worth $9 million that she built up over the years through smart investing. In her will she donated almost $7 million to the Henry Street Settlements group and $2 million to Hunter College. Can you imagine the current president or former mayor being that generous? Me neither.
New Yorkers -- famous or not famous, generous or selfish, for better or worse, we're a wild bunch.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please keep it civil, intelligent, and expletive-free. Otherwise, opine away.