Thursday, November 29, 2018

Grande Dames

New York City has never had a female mayor (hopefully it'll have one, a good one, in my lifetime) but, nevertheless, NYC women persist. They persist in racking up, along with their male counterparts, great accomplishments across the fields of finance, culture, politics, education, and so much more.

As a father of two daughters of NYC, I seek strong female role models for them to admire.

Case in point -- Tish James, the current NYC Public Advocate and New York State Attorney General-elect. Soon she'll be one of the most powerful women in this state and country -- a ground breaker in so many ways. 

Or Melissa Mark-Viverito, the former New York City Council Speaker who has recently declared that she will run for Public Advocate once Ms. James vacates the post.

Beyond politics, few women in NYC are as powerful as Anna Wintour -- an English immigrant and editor of Vogue magazine, she rules the fashion word in NYC and, in many respects, the world. Reports of her demise are constant -- and forever premature. Men in positions of power come and go but Ms. Wintour goes on.

But great NYC women are just powerful -- they're also funny. Sure, there's lots of women comedians in NYC but my favorite NYC funny lady is Roz Chast, the legendary New Yorker cartoonist. Now she's getting her own exhibit which runs in Chelsea until December 15th. In a city and industry where careers rise and fall quickly, she's endured -- persisted -- for more than 40 years.

In the movie Love, Actually, the lead character says "Love, actually, is all around us." 

In NYC, grande dames are everywhere, all around us, making our city and world a better place.
And let's appreciate them, not when they're gone, but now. 

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