Polar Vortex Hits NYC

Fly Fliers Away!

Now that it's opening a massive new complex is NYC that threatens to increase the already spiraling COLA in this town, Amazon is trying to win over public opinion by going on a massive PR campaign.

It's not exactly working.

Oh, Amazon is making promises to hire low income workers, set up programs, etc. -- promises, promises that I'll be shocked if they ever keep.

But one thing they're doing is mailing fliers to just about every resident of NYC touting the benefits of this project. We've gotten more than one -- it feels like 1,000.

Memo to Amazon: you're not going to win "hearts and minds", you're not going to get people to approve of something they disapprove of by clogging their mailboxes with junk. Stop with the fliers!

This is NYC, we're not exactly un-sophisticated, and we know (not very good) propaganda when we see it. Save your money and a few forrests while you're at it. 

Changing Tastes

If you want a perfect snapshot of how NYC has become gentrified, look no further than two establishments in Chelsea.

One is a bar called The Half King that, for years, has been favorite watering hole for journalists. Its  good old fashioned "joint", a booze swilling tap house, and, of  course, it's closing -- its fortunes paralleling the profession so many of its patrons practiced. It's a classic case of rising rents (mainly due to the Highline that has changed the neighborhood) and changing tastes. 

Then, a few blocks away, there's Cote -- the extremely chic Korean BBQ restaurant that some friends and I went to this weekend. Oh man, it was good! And expensive. It's a restaurant inside a nightclub -- very dark, lots of techno music playing, you know, that whole thing -- but the food is outstanding, especially the array of meats that were cooked and served right at our table. The cocktails were, truth be told, a bit mediocre and served with copious amounts of ice but, if Korean BBQ is your thing, this is the place to go. It's also the kind of place that's taking over NYC -- high end, exclusive, expensive, and a bit pretentious -- but, at the same time, so, so good. It is, yes, tasty. 

Tastes change, for the better, for the worse, sometimes at the same time.  

Public Servants Make the NYC Go 'Round

The legendary Norman Goodman, the county clerk of Manhattan, whose name appeared on between 11 to 12 million jury duty notifications (I got a few back in the day), has died at age 95.  He had an amazing career, serving this city faithfully and diligently for 45 years. 

I remember one time at jury duty, the guy overseeing the pool said, "You are the thin line between civilization and anarchy" (getting a big laugh) -- and Norman Goodman kept that line in existence.

We should obviously appreciate guys like him today when, as I type these words, flights to and from LaGuardia are currently GROUNDED thanks to the government shutdown. The big orange menace in the White House is now making travel in this country impossible because he's shafting government employees like air traffic controllers over his big dumb wall that no one wants and won't work to keep illegal immigration down.

At this point, as Howard Stern said not long ago, I want the wall to get build so I can go and bash my head against it, this situation is just so dumb and frustration. Guys like Norman Goodman, and air traffic controllers, are real public servants -- sadly, their boss (at the moment) is not. 

Real Rebels

I love "rebels" but not the kind you might think -- I don't love trolls who exist to offend or traumatize others (like Trump and his vile MAGA brain dead army) nor do I like bullies or knee jerk contrarians.

A rebel for me is not someone who seeks to hurt or damage lives, or who exists to be different just to assuage their own vanity or insecurities -- I like people who look at a political/economic/social system, or at the culture, and say, "Okay, if it zigs this way, I'll zag it that way." I like people who say "What about this?" -- instead of "that." To be a rebel is someone who doesn't just fight the bad in the world but makes the world a bigger place.

Here's an example of a couple of NYC rebels who certainly made our city and our world a better place: James Baldwin, the pioneering black writer and critic, and the recently deceased Jonas Mekus, an experimental filmmaker and writer who founded the Anthology Film Archives and was a godfather of the avante-guarde. They rebelled, not by offending the society and culture they lived in, but by challenging its assumptions and showing how it could be better. They grew the world, not just fight it.

Real rebels.

Today, I don't know what it means to be a rebel but, here in NYC, if you dare not to be wealthy or gorgeous or super-careerist, you're something a rebel. If you hold onto that spirit of fun and espirit de corps you are going against the grain of greed and conspicuous consumption that rules in this city.

Currently, there are three shows on TV/streaming that are just about this kind of NYC rebel: the soon to end Broad City and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and High Maintenance. They're about people who struggle, who live lives defined not by their jobs or money but about what makes them happy in life. They are show about the kind of this city should be for -- and increasingly isn't. They challenge the consensus and make the city a bigger spirited place. 

Real rebels. 

History is 'a Happenin' in New York

This blog mainly focuses (obviously) on NYC but NYC is (again, obviously) in New York State -- and the state government wields enormous power over the 8.5 million-plus folks who live here.

For years, nay decades, the state government in Albany has been a basket-case of dysfunction. Specifically, the state legislature, the bi-cameral institution of the State Senate and State Assembly that could barely pass a budget on time let alone any laws that could bring this state into modern times.

Did you know, for example, that NYS was the last state in the entire country to pass an uncontested divorce law? Even the most conservative, Bible-thumpin' states had passed laws like this but, because of our dysfunctional legislature, this common-sense reform didn't happen until 2010. Gay marriage passed ... in 2011 ... and no reforms anywhere near that consequential happened after wards. 

The reasons were clear: the State Assembly was (and is) overwhelming controlled by Democrats. The State Senate was overwhelming controlled by Republicans -- and then by this evil thing called the IDC, a group of "breakaway" so-called Democratic state senators who voted to give the Republicans control of the State Senate in exchange for various perks (biggest staffs and office budgets, committee chairmanships that resulted in "lulus" i.e. extra salaries -- basically, legalized bribes). This kept the state legislature divided and any kind of progressive reform agenda was dead.

Until now.

In September 2018, almost all of the IDC state senators lost their primaries to real Democrats. In November 2018, the Democrats picked up several more state senate seats. Now the Democrats control the entire state government -- and they have gone on a legislative tear that's transforming this state for the better.

Voting reform. Banning "gay conversion" therapy. Strengthening reproductive rights. The DREAM act. And that's just the beginning! 

There's been more reform in NYS in the last two weeks than in the last ten years, and there's much more to come (including legal weed and ending cash bail and vacancy de-control). This is exciting, amazing stuff.

It's easy to be cynical and disgusted by politics, particularly when you look at the freak show of Trump's DC. In many ways, what's happening in DC now is what's been going in Albany forever -- but Albany is improving while DC is getting worse. The amazing reforms of this moment in our state shows that when good people vote for good people and good people get the power to do good -- good things happen! What's going on in Albany right now sprung from political activism and that activism has translated into power -- power in action and power with results that materially improve people's lives. It shows how toxic the legacy of GOP and IDC control of the State Senate was -- and what a great thing it is they've been defeated. 

Reform isn't happening in DC (and won't for a long, long time) but it's happening right now here in New York. 

"When you get caught between the blood moon and ..."

AOC Takes the Floor

The "Yutes" of NYC

In the great movie Heathers (which is 30 years old, sheesh!), the main character's mother asks, rhetorically, "Are you telling me this is not a time for troubled youth?"

The only honest answer to that is that it's always a time for troubled youth -- or, as they said in My Cousin Vinnie, "yutes." To be young is to be troubled, as, some might say, "natch." 

So what about "yutes" here in NYC -- are they troubled? 

Not really. Surely some are, but I don't think the young people of NYC are any more or less troubled than elsewhere -- unless, apparently, they live on Staten Island. I was a young person in NYC once, and I survived -- someway, somehow (but I wasn't on Staten Island).

One of the things we "yutes" of NYC did back in the day was go to video arcades, like Playland in Times Square that is now long, long gone. Video arcades have more or less vanished since people can now play games on their phones. Shockingly, however, there is one remaining arcade in Manhattan, in Chinatown, where yutes from all over the city congregate. Like many old school establishments that have been displaced by the Internet (like bookstores or shopping malls), this place had survived by becoming a gathering place, a hub of social activity. It's a perfect example of how a business can survive the digital onslaught by adapting and changing, and recognizing reality instead of fighting it.

That said, being a "yute" will always be difficult --  some things will never change!

One of 'Em Daze

Yesterday, on January Fifteenth of the year of our Lord Two-Thousand Eighteen, the following things happened here in NYC and New York State that might, just might, mark the beginning of better days ahead.

In 'udder woids, S*&t happened.

Yesterday was 10th anniversary of the Miracle on the Hudson, that Mr NYC blogged about then ...

Yesterday, the New York State legislature passed a law ending "gay conversion" therapy which is really a human rights violation. Now young New Yorkers will be protected from this evil, barbaric practice ... 

Yesterday, Adam Moss, the great editor of New York magazine resigned. He made sleepy local mag into a national powerhouse and now a new editor will, I hope, build on his excellent legacy ...

And yesterday, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand declared that she's running for president (on late night TV no less). Who knows? Maybe she'll become the first female prez ...

So much happened, it's almost dazing. 

Remember, Mr NYC also has a Twitter account where I post and re-Tweet all kinds of interesting stuff so please click on the link to your right to get "value-added" from this blog!

Public Advocate: Special Election on February 26, 2019

Get more information about this special election, and who's running, here and here.

As far as I can tell, this is the first city-wide special election since, I jest not, 1950 -- when Acting Mayor Vincent Impelliteri was elected to complete recently resigned Mayor O'Dwyer's term. 

It's rather amazing to realize that, for almost 70 years, NYC has not had a vacant city-wide office (Mayor, Comptroller, City Council President/Public Advocate) requiring such an election. In those decades, New York State had had (at least) two governors, two Attorney Generals, and two Comptrollers resign. We've also had one U.S. President die and one resign (and, hopefully soon, a second). And in NYC ... stability. 

So this election is a historic moment, and I can't wait to be a part of it.

The People of Queens & NYC: Past & Future

Well, I guess it's official: The Economist, the magazine everyone in power reads/pretends to read, has discovered Queens.

With classic Oxbridge condescension, this haughty publication writes a long, totally inaccurate portrayal of this borough of 2.5 million people as containing either just-of-the-boat immigrants or Archie Bunker/Trump-like white people. As a resident of this borough for over a decade, I assure the people of Queens are not so easily categorized -- but trying telling The Economist that.

However, this lengthy article does have a wonderful history of how this northwestern patch of Long Island became Queens. It's worth reading just for that.

And talking about that, how about learning about a girl from Queens  (and other places), Padma Lakshmi, the former model and current TV cooking guru. Her's is an amazing story of a immigrant done good.

P.S. This has nothing to do with Queens but it does have to do with the people of NYC -- a profile of one of the last remaining Bowery flophouses in the city and the people who live there in defiance of gentrification and changing times. It's a reminder of how the past is never quite in the past -- and how some people will resist the future at all costs.

"The Sopranos" @ 20

During my final winter break from college, walking around a recently New Year's Eve'd Times Square, I looked up and saw a giant billboard for a new show about to debut on HBO: The Sopranos.

The billboard featured, if memory serves, several men and women (plus a couple of children) standing around and looking menacing. I didn't recognize any of the actors in this new series except for two -- the guy who beat up that girl in True Romance, and the wife from Goodfellas. I had no idea what the show was about but, from the looks of it (including the gun substituting for the "r" in title), I guessed it wasn't about opera singers. I also figured that I'd never watch this show (heck, I didn't even have HBO at the time) and it would probably get cancelled quickly. The Sopranos, as advertised, looked dumb and hammy. Who cared? 

How wrong I was. It turned out to be a groundbreaking, brilliant show -- a dark satire about American life wrapped up in a traditional mafia drama. A middle aged man, under pressure at work and home, goes to therapy to get cured of his recurrent panic attacks and tries to understand his life and existential dread. The fact that this man is also a mafia boss and killer only made it more compelling. 

And how appropriate that the show began in 1999 -- The Sopranos brought television, and really American culture, into the 21st century. It was post-modernist, destructive, and it re-invented the serial TV drama with cinematic storytelling and production values. Today, most of TV looks like The Sopranos (dark, profane, violent, extremely funny, nonlinear plots) but, back then, NYPD Blue and ER were considered edgy TV. The Sopranos, pun fully intended, whacked that idea.

The Sopranos was set in New Jersey and created, at least in its time, a sort of "Jersey Chic" (before Jersey Shore would have that honor). NYC was the place where mobsters and their family and friends would go to do business, have fun, and commit various crimes before going back to their suburban homes and lives. In the opening credits, Tony Soprano drives through the Holland Tunnel and we see the city fade away in his side-view mirror -- this is a show that exists nexts to and in the shadow of NYC. In that way, The Sopranos was and wasn't a NYC show.

HBO is currently re-airing the show and you can also find it on HBO Go and On Demand. It's worth re-watching and this handy guide can help direct you to its best episodes.

Two Views of Lower Manhattan from Brooklyn @ Night

" ... gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees ... had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an æsthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Mayor De Blasio on "The Simpsons"

More on Hizzoner's guest shot. 

BioBAT Art Space

"It's an art, not a science," is an oft-used expression but why can't it be both?

Starting today through March, in Brooklyn, the two will triumphantly merge.

The BioBAT center is a reconfigured factory at the Brooklyn Army Terminal that leases lab and office space to emerging science and technology companies. This week marks the center's inaugeral art show, The Spontaneous Emergence of Order, at its new Art Space (curated by previous Mr NYC interviewee Elena Soterakis, one of our most popular interviews and others).

The works in this show are based on scientific disciplines that gives us, the laypersons, a greater understanding of how these disciplines operate in reality -- specifically, how the chaos of the natural world finds its order through scientific principles. Through the beauty and creativity of art, one learns more about the central realities of science.

It's a fascinating, groundbreaking exhibition and one you should definately check out! 

Tish James Makes History

Happy 100th Birthday to J.D. Salinger

Son of NYC, brilliant author, and legendary recluse J.D. Salinger turned 100 yesterday.

Yes, he's been dead for almost 10 years but his work (Catcher in the Rye, the Glass family stories, etc.) will live forever.

What made Salinger's writing revolutionary at the time it was published in the late 1940s and early 1950s was how raw and fresh it was -- he wrote about deeply flawed, unapologetically awful people in a prose style that was unsentimental, totally modern, and shockingly real. His characters were repellent yet deeply sympathetic at the same time, and he was really the first author whose writing spoke to the post-World War II, rock'n'roll generation. Holden Caufield, nearly 70 years old now, remains an iconic characters of rebellion -- the ultimate NYC teenager. 

And if J.D. Salinger was alive today, he'd probably love the TV show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as much I and so many others do -- a show about a foul-mouthed NYC female comic in 1950s NYC. This big interview with the show's star about how this should could only be done in NYC is fascinating -- and how this city gives her the right access to "the rage" needed to play a trailblazing character. 

Holden would probably have gone to one of her shows.