The Passing of Giants

In the last couple of weeks, two giants of NYC passed on -- the radio DJ Paco Navarro and the midtown movie theater The Paris.

Both defined an NYC that, as always, is vanishing.

So who was Paco?

He was an old-school personality DJ. He was also, in his small way, a transformative radio DJ. See, in the late 1970s he became a DJ at WKTU and made the suggestion that it switch to full-time disco music. The ratings for KTU exploded and the ratings for WABC -- up until then the king of music radio in NYC -- plunged. By 1982, WABC ceased to be a music station altogether, instead becoming a talk station, paving the way for the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the revolution of Republican talk radio. Of course, by 1982, disco had also withered so KTU became a classic rock station -- WXRK or K-ROCK -- and soon became the home to Howard Stern for 20 years. So Paco was unintentionally responsible for much of the shape of NYC radio for the last four decades. He was also notorious -- in the late 1980s, he was busted for drugs and spent some time in jail before getting out and triumphantly ending his career in Spanish language radio. He was a trailblazer, an icon, and he'll be missed.

Granted, the Paris movie theater was not person but its closing feels like a death to me.

Unlike most movie theaters that are big spaceship like multiplexes, the Paris was a modest single-screen theater that reflected its upscale setting (59th street and Fifth Avenue, across from the Plaza Hotel, Central Park, and Bergdorfs). It was beautiful, elegant, understated. It had a velvet screen that would rise just before showtime, and it showed art and foreign films (Merchant Ivory, etc.) for an affluent and cultured crowed. You don't remember most of the theaters you see movies in but you never forgot seeing a movie at the Paris -- I saw Howard's End, The Remains of the Day, Life is Beautiful, and The Company there. It was always great to see a movie there at night and walk out of this magnificent theater into the starry and light-filled world of modtown Manhattan. It made you feel great to be alive. But, alas, rising rents and changing viewer habits wrecked havoc on the Paris' business model. It couldn't keep up. And so, another giant of NYC, has passed into history.