Eating in NYC Back in the Day

Review: "Six Degrees of Separation" and Its Legacy

In 1981 a deeply disturbed black seventeen year-old named David Hampton ran away from Buffalo to NYC to start a career as a con man. He had nothing, knew no one, and was lost in the big city. But he was determined, in his own scary way, to "make it there."

He did -- sort of. 

A decade later his bizarre story resulted in a hit play, a movie, and the popularization of the "six degrees of separation" concept into American culture.

In 1983 David Hampton showed up at the home of a wealthy Upper East Side couple, claiming that he had just been mugged in Central Park. He said that he was friends with their children at an Ivy League college and that he was also the son of Sidney Poitier. David "Poitier" was extremely charming, funny, insightful, and he won over the couple instantly. They allowed him to stay the night at their apartment -- only to wake up the next morning to find him in bed with a gay hustler.  David vanished before the police arrived and soon the couple found out that David was a con man who had infilitrated their lives. The playright John Guare knew the couple and, after learning their story, wrote a great play about it -- Six Degrees of Separation -- that eventually became a so-so movie.

The fictional drama expands upon the real story. In the play, David's name is Paul and, after he escapes, the couple try to help the police to find him -- meanwhile he continues to seduce men and con them and others out of money (Paul/David had found this couple in the first place after he had, earlier, randomly seduced a troubled rich kid who really did know this couple's children). But Paul's interuption of this wealthy couple's life makes them realize how fragile, how fake, and how empty their existence truly is. They realize that Paul has, in a strange way, made them examine their lives, their marriage, their relationships with their children, and the whole world that surrounds them -- a world that people like David covet without truly understanding, a world that this couple comes to realize doesn't give them any real happiness. The couple comes to understand the pain that motivates Paul and the pain that they feel but can't acknowledge to themselves -- until Paul forces them to. They come to realize that everybody in the world feels pain, and that randomness, that chance meetings between people, plays a huge role in everyone's lives, and changes their fates. The climax of the play is a monologue that the wife gives. It concludes with:

"I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice. Fill in the names. I find that A) tremendously comforting that we're so close and B) like Chinese water torture that we're so close. Because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. It's not just big names. It's anyone. A native in a rain forest. A Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It's a profound thought. How Paul found us. How to find the man whose son he pretends to be. Or perhaps is his son, although I doubt it. How every person is a new door, opening up into other worlds. Six degrees of separation between me and everyone else on this planet. But to find the right six people."

Heavy.

The play takes the always uncomfortable issues of race, class, privilege, socioeconomic advantage and envy, and puts them front and center. It makes people look at themselves, think about themselves, in ways that are both uncomfortable and illuminating. And thirty years ago, this was an even bolder thing to do than now -- John Guare was ahead of his time. 

I remember as a kid when this play was being staged at Lincoln Center. I was going to school near there and remember seeing the enormous banner for it on the street every day. I also heard ads for it on WQXR -- "See ... Six Degrees of Separation" -- and on TV. It ran from the fall of 1990 to early 1992 -- and a straight play that runs for more than a year is a big hit. The movie came out in 1993 and wasn't a big hit -- but the legacy of Six Degrees of Separation is immense. 

The success of the play caused David Hampton to threaten John Guare with violence, try to get a cut of the play's profits, and eventually sue the playright (unsuccessfully) for $100 million. And Hampton continued his con man life well after the play and movie were produced, using his newfound celebrity as well as new identities to con people. Eventually he migrated, at least for a time, to Seattle but wound up back East, dying in New Jersey in 2003 from AIDS. His life was tragic, obviously, and ironic -- the most legitimate and successful thing he was ever a part of was something he didn't create, wasn't actually involved in, and didn't get to enjoy the money from. He was like the gangster Henry Hill -- a truly bad guy who's life inspired a truly great work of drama. 

The original 1990-1992 NYC run also inspired a lot of careers from actors I love and who found great success afterwards. The most famous person in the cast at the time was Stockard Channing who had already done Grease and would later be on The West Wing. She was one of the only people from the play to do the movie -- and got an Oscar nomination for it. Courtney B. Vance originated Paul, and others in the cast included Anthony Rapp (Rent), John Cameron Mitchell (a huge actor and playright), Evan Handler (Sex and the City, Californication), David Eigenberg (Sex and the City), and Robert Duncan McNeill (Star Trek: Voyager). Later on Kelly Bishop (pre-Gilmore Girls) replaced Stockard Channing, James McDaniel (pre-NYPD Blue) became Paul, and a very young and totally unknown actress named Laura Linney also joined the cast. Another replacement actress was Deidre Lovejoy would later be on The Wire. In the movie, a young actor nameed JJ Abrams had a small part -- and now he's one of the biggest directors in the world. 

But the legacy of Six Degrees of Separation goes beyond the life of this man and the real and fictional drama he inspired: the concept of "six degrees" became popularized, it became conversation fodder, it became an idea, a meme, part of the popular lexicon -- that we're all seperated in this world, in this life, by only six people. It gripped the public imagination. So much so that a popular game called "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" was created (finding actors who worked with him or worked with other actors who worked with him) that has saved many an awkward conversation. There was even a bad TV show called "Six Degrees" several years ago (that had nothing to do with the play).

Before social media and COVID-19, Six Degress of Separation reminded us that we're all connected to each other, directly and indirectly, one way or another.

I'm pretty sure David Hampton didn't realize, in 1983, that so many great careers would be spawned, and American culture altered, by his one-night con. 

The world truly is a random place. 

Postscript: I never saw the play when it ran in NYC but I saw it a couple of years later in Washington, DC with Marlo Thomas in the lead role. She was great but sadly I don't remember much else about the production.

You can read all of the various articles The New York Times wrote about Six Degrees of Separation here. 

The Dirty History of NYC's Clean Water

If you want to understand the history of America, particulary its growth and development, you could study the history of one thing -- water. Without access to water, without bringing it to all parts of the country, America would not be what it is today.

The history of American water is the history of American power. Who got it? Who didn't? Who brought the water to what part of the country and controlled the flow? Who used it to make money and gain power over others? All the gold, all the land, all the money, all the oil, all the tech, etc. -- none of that would matter if it wasn't lubricated and supported by a constant supply of fresh clean water to the people. 

"Whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting over," is a quote attributed to Mark Twain -- and man, oh, man, is it true. There have been numerous battles in American history over water including into the present day -- look at Flint, Michigan!

In NYC, we are blessed with some of the best fresh water in the country, and it runs copiously and almost without interruption from our taps. But the history behind our superior and clean water supply is down and dirty.

Prior to the American Revolution, New Yorkers got their fresh water from well springs and reservoirs like the downtown Collect Pond. Attempts were made to create pipes that would channel the water from the reservoirs to buildings but the Revolutionary War delayed these plans. In the late 1790s, those Founding Fathers and musical hip-hop stars Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr -- the most powerful politicians in New York State -- developed a plan to build a massive water system for NYC, sinking more reservoirs in the city and transporting fresh water from upstate down into the city.

But Aaron Burr, lifelong corrupt sneak that he was, had a plan to use it to enrich himself.

The bill passed by the New York State Legislature to create this company and water system included a provision to have the water supplied by a private company -- one that Burr and his cronies owned call the Manhattan Water Company. And the bill included a loophole that allowed the company to use any "surplus capital" i.e. profit for whatever the owners of this company wanted.

So the Manhattan Water Company, under Burr's direction, built a cheap and shoddy system of wooden pipes, keeping the overhead low. While New Yorkers now had easier access to water, it was polluted, and people still got sick from it. The whole purpose of this new system had been to bring clean water to the city and improve public health but greed and corruption kept it dirty and people literally died from it. It wasn't until 1842 that the city took control and built a new aqueduct from upstate, bringing vastly more -- and vastly cleaner -- water to the city, spurring its growth. But that doesn't excuse the fact that, among Aarron Burr's crimes, killing Alexander Hamilton in that duel wasn't the worst thing he did -- he literally comdemned the entire City of New York to drinking and bathing and cooking with dirty water for a generation.

Oh, and what did Burr and his cronies do with the profit they made from the water company? They used it to create a bank, the Bank of Manhattan, that later became Chase and is now called JP Morgan Chase, one of the biggest financial institutions in the world. 

So NYC's water supply and biggest bank are funamentally based on corruption. Nothing changes.

Yet it also proves that access to clean water means economic and population growth, the development of infrastructure and real estate, wealth, political power, and the building of civilization. To paraphrase the movie Chinatown, the history of water in NYC and elsewhere proves that you don't bring water to a city-- you bring the city to the water.

And it's not just money or power the people who build and supply the water gain -- they also control the future.

Richard Hake RIP

The longtime WNYC reporter and local "Morning Edition" host Richard Hake died this weekend at the age of 51. His kind yet authoritive voice was a constant morning companion, an audio balm of sorts. 

Like many a great radio host, you felt like you knew him. I'm really sad that he's gone so suddenly, far too soon, and I'll miss listening to him.

RIP

The Plan to Reopen NYC

Remembering the New York Coliseum

If you go to Columbus Circle, on West 59th Street next to the edge of Central Park, you'll find the blue twin towers of the Time Warner Center. This mighty structure is the home to numerous high end restaurants and stores and spas, luxury apartments and hotel rooms, the music venue Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the cable network CNN.

It's a true 21st century multi-use, multi-purpose behemoth. It's hard to believe that, twenty years ago, what sat on this very spot was an empty shell, the abandoned New York Coliseum.

The New York Coliseum was constructed in the early 1950s by the master builder Robert Moses. A huge post-war project, the building was a kitchy, tacky piece of 1950s nightmare architecture. It looked like an old-school television set without a screen, a boring lump of bad design.

In case you were wondering what I thought of it, I thought it was really ugly.

But for decades it thrived as a convention center, with events like the auto show, flower shows, home expos, and many others being held there every year. Then, after the Jacob Javits Center opened in the 1980s, the Coliseum went into a severe decline, closing in 1986 except for the very rare event.

As kid, whenever I passed it by, I was always amazed that this huge space was just sitting there, existing there, empty and largely abandoned. The only time I remember seeing it used was, once a year, when a bunch of bright red neon letters would be put over the entry, announcing the Coliseum as the location for the New York City Firefighters Annual Physical Exam. In the summer of 1996 I went to the Coliseum for the first and last time when there was a small exhibit about the New Deal (I got to see one of the microphones that FDR used for his Fireside Chats behind a glass screen). The exhibit was great but I remember thinking that the Coliseum was a depressing, sad, old building that was more than long in the tooth and probably doomed.

I was right. In 2000, a year before the original Twin Towers were destroyed, the Coliseum was torn down. By 2004 the Time Warner Center had risen to take its place. Columbus Center was reborn. 

And another piece of NYC passed into history, as unloved with its creator.

A long, long time ago, in an NYC far, far away ...

... there were these things called telephones, that today we call "landlines", and you actually had to pick them up with your hands and dial the numbers with your fingers, then speak into this thing called a handset  ...

... and you could even find some of these things on the streets of the city in contraptions called phone booths ...

... and if you were bored, lonely, or horny, you could call these things called "chat lines" ...

Oh, those were da' days! 

Kids, ask your parents.

Review: "The Bonfire of the Vanities" (1990)

This is a bad movie -- a legendarily bad one. I've blogged about it incidently over the years.

But the story behind its creation is fascinating. There's even an entire behind-the-scenes book about it called The Devil's Candy which is way better than the movie. 

"Bonfire" is based on Tom Wolfe's massive 1987 novel of the same name about how greed and, obviously, vanity corrupt not only people but an entire city. A high-living Wall Street trader named Sherman McCoy and his mistress get into a hit-and-run accident with a young black man in the Bronx -- and his life becomes a media storm that inflames the entire city's media, judicial, and political worlds.

Because the book was so successful, a movie version seemed inevitable. And then every decision the producers made was wrong.

Who do you get to play the to-the-manor-born, aristocratic Sherman? Why Mr. Middle America himself, Tom Hanks!

Who do you get to play Peter Farrow, the emaciated British tabloid reporter who turns the hit-and-run into a media sensation? Why Mr. Die Hard action movie hero himself, Bruce Willis!

Who do you get to play the 21-year old Maria, a Southerner, Sherman's mistress? Why thirty-something year old Melanie Griffith!

Who do you get to direct this social satire? Why horror/gangster movie director Brian De Palma!

What do you with material that's been highly acclaimed for its smart humor and biting wit? Why you turn it into a raunchy, gross, Animal House-like romp.

As one reviewer said at the time, "You've got to be a genius to make a movie this bad."

The movie really is a mess. It's not funny, not insightful, and doesn't work. 

But, as an NYC movie, it actually works strangely well. De Palma is a great visual stylist. The movie starts with a stop-motion view from the Chrysler Building, to making JFK Airport look positively cinematic, to making the South Bronx look truly menacing, to making Park Avenue and Wall Street look both properly gorgeous and monstrous at the same time, to all sorts of weird camera angles, it's worth see just for its imagery if for nothing else. 

I remember when this movie came out late in 1990. This is a now legendary movie season where lots of big movies with big stars, like "Bonfire", came out and bombed at the box office. Havana with Robert Redford, The Russia House with Sean Connery, and others just all tanked. The Godfather Part III came out and got a decidely mixed reception. 

No, the winners at the box office that winter were a snotty unknown ten-year old in a silly family comedy called Home Alone and an unknown theater actress named Kathy Bates in a horror movie called Misery (that got her an Oscar). 

Ah, memories ...

God Bless Staten Island!

What if you held a protest and nobody showed up?

Even, it appears, the organizers of the protest?

As you're doubtless aware, around the country, a small bunch of morons are holding pathetic rallies where they protest the social distancing effots and lockdowns, etc., that are necessary to stop this pandemic in its tracks. However, that isn't stopping some Republicans from demanding -- SHOUTING! -- that the economy must be "reopened" ASAP so that they can back to their normal lives, making money, and hanging out with people. These idots don't seem to realize or care that, by "reopening", more and more people would get sick, meaning this pandemic would continue even longer, and the economy will only continue to suffer. 

Logic has never been a Republican strong suit. 

While it's an extremely tiny, fringe number of people who are engaging in these dumb rallies, the media is treating it like it's some kind of mass uprising akin to the French Revolution. It's not. It's a freak show. The vast, vast majority of Americans approve the lockdowns and social distancing and don't want to do the stupid and dangerous things these "protesters" are demanding.

Out in the most Republican part of NYC, Staten Island, one of these protests was planned for last Sunday -- only nobody came to it! The cops did, in order to monitor and hopefully break it up, but this turned out to be totally unnecessary. No one showed. 

Call it the protest that never was -- and thank you Staten Island for having some sense.

Proves that, in NYC, even our Republicans are better!

Stay well, Staten Island.

Smackdown! Cuomo Makes Prez His B#%&

Gotta Love New Yorkers

This is a heartbreaking story about a santiation worker named Raymond Copeland, a guy not much older than me who also has daughters, who just died in the line of duty from COVID-19.

Raymond committed his life to serving this city and the ones he loved and did it unflinchingly. He died so that the people of NYC could live. 

I know we all want this situation to end ASAP and hope we can forget it as soon as possible -- but we must never forget people like Raymond or their families, ever.

NYC Singalong -- April 16, 2019

Cartier Catches Your Eyes

New York City is home to great architecture (newsflash, I know) but what's most interesting about great buildings are the stories behind them.

Every notable structure in this town, if you delve deep enough into the backstories, always reveals a fascinating tale of big personalities and big egos mixed with economic urgency and flat out greed -- all set against the backgroud of American and NYC history. 

One such building is on 52nd and Fifth Avenue, the gorgeous flagship store for Cartier, the world famous jeweler. The building has operated as Cartier's NYC headquarters for more than 100 years (since 1917) but the history behind this building is as interesting as its contents.

These two articles (here and here) give you an in-depth look at a building that, when you pass it on the street, you might find beautiful but not otherwise think about twice. 

Think again -- and learn more. 

Interview: Brianne McGuire on Staying Sexy in Quarantine

It’s been about a month since NYC and the rest of the world fled into lockdown – and, at the moment, there’s no real end in sight. The socioeconomic impact, the mental health fallout, and the overall societal repercussions of this situation will play out in totally unpredictable ways. However, there’s one thing that we can all predict: now and forever, people are gonna get horny. So in the age of COVID-19, how do we stay sexy in quarantine?

No one is probably better prepared to answer this question than my previous interviewee Brianne McGuire, creator of the SEX COMMUNICATION podcast. She was kind enough to do a brief follow up interview with Mr NYC about how she’s handling life in quarantine and how we can stay sexy during this unprecedented time.

So what are you doing or working on while in quarantine? How are you and those close to you feeling these days?

I’m currently working on the relaunch of GRAPHICPAINT as a custom web application — our launch date got pushed to the end of April / early May because of COVID-19. I’m also continuing to produce and publish new episodes of the SEX COMMUNICATION podcast; recording new interviews, editing content, etc. I did just finish a dedicated site for the show since it will be moving from the GRAPHICPAINT website once the relaunch is complete — check it out at sexcompod.com!

As for how I’m feeling, pretty shitty most days! I haven’t had an income for some time and this whole global situation has made my job search even worse. I keep thinking of the saying, “rejection is protection” and that my not getting hired is the universe telling me to focus on building my own income, i.e., focus on getting the new GRAPHICPAINT off the ground as it will be a subscription-based platform and potentially can support me. Fingers crossed!

Has anyone told you about any positive or negative impacts of being in quarantine on their relationships and sex lives?

A lot of people have confided in me about feeling frustrated during quarantine. Many of us are in isolation with no physical partners and it is really tough being without bodily contact if that’s an important part of their life. I’m currently quarantined with my roommate but sexual connection is not on the table for either of us so I have been really craving hugs, kissing, sex, etc. The positive side of this is that we’re kind of forced to get in touch with ourselves, physically and spiritually. Masturbation can save us all!

How has this situation impacted your libido or sex life? Are you more or less horny these days?

Because I’m often depressed, my libido is not great and I am definitely much less horny than normal. Low libido plus not being quarantined with a partner equals high frustration but little motivation to masturbate.

What kind of things do you think people might want to explore sexually, both as couples and individually, while in quarantine? What kind of sex and masturbation tips would you give to men, women, and couples?

Masturbation is definitely something I would recommend diving into if you are quarantined alone. However, if you are like me and sexually unmotivated, I recommend turning to explicit media! My podcast SEX COMMUNICATION has lots of audio porn episodes available and it’s a really low-pressure way to introduce some sex content into your life and routine. Of course porn is good too, but the benefit of the audio porn on my show is it’s REAL; real people having real sex. Yes it’s a shameless plug but I don’t care.

What other advice would you give people and couples, about keeping their relationships strong and their sex lives hot, during this time of crises?

Record your own audio porn! Seriously — and then send it in to the podcast so we can share it anonymously and help some other folks get off. It may sound like I’m kidding but our best content is crowdsourced and there is something incredibly freeing and arousing about recording audio of sexual activity — no one can see you so you can be as filthy and freaky as you like without feeling judged. Low-key exhibitionism! 

As for other advice: STAY SAFE. Do NOT invite anyone over to have sex — you would only be inviting outside contamination in and it’s just not worth it. We each have all we need to get off (our own bodies and minds) plus countless sources of sexual content online. 

Also — tell someone you love them.

I will! Thanks Brianne!

Review: "Cry of the City" (1948)

As a big fan of the noir genre, I've often griped about how most NYC noir movies are nowhere as good as LA noir movies -- and that's still true. But recently I saw a NYC noir movie that was really good -- Cry of the City from 1948.

It concerns a professional criminal named Martin Rome who has recently been arrested for killing a cop during a robbery gone wrong. He escapes from a prison hospital and tracks down a crooked lawyer who wanted to get him to plead guilty to another crime he didn't commit (in exchange for representing him and preventing him from "getting the chair") while he also tries to get help from his family and find "his girl", the beautiful Teena. Meanwhile a cop named Candella who grew up in the same neighborhood as Rome hunts him relentlessly, his pursuit turning into a obession. The movie is set in the grimy world of post-war Little Italy and downtown Manhattan, back when it was still a working class place, where cops and hoodlums co-existed and were even related. 

It's a dark, brooding movie, a story about people trying to be more than they were born into, more than they are, the world conspiring to keep them exactly in place.

This is noir at its finest. 

Victor Mature plays Candella, the cop on a mission. He's a handsome but troubled soul, and Mature fills him with complex humanity -- you get that there's more to the man than what we see on the screen. He also has the movie's best line: "There won't be any shooting in this house so long as momma's here." Richard Conte plays Rome -- the anti-hero of this story -- and he's intense, scary, and disturbingly likeable. I honestly hadn't seen these actors in anything except for Conte -- 24 years after this movie, he'd appear as Barzini in The Godfather. This movie also marked an early appearance of the actress Shelley Winters who would go on to have a huge career.

So, if you're in the mood for a real NYC noir flick, check it out. 

And now for something completely different ...

... from a very different time, from a very different city, from a world totally uncognizable today ... drumroll ... here are a bunch of NYC supermarket commercials from April 1985!

They might make you nostalgic, they might make you weep, they might make you happy, they might make you verklempt -- but they are a reminder that the more things change, the more things stay the same -- plus ca change and so forth -- we'll always need groceries. 

Why Us?

The writer and New Yorker Peggy Noonan points out in this column that, for the third time in 20 years, NYC has become the epicenter for a global crises -- 9/11, the 2008 meltdown, and now, COVID-19. 

And she asks a very simple, understable question: why us?

Because when you're the center of the world, as she indicates, "The city of skyscrapers draw the lightning." These types are horrors are "the privlege of living in the most exciting little landmass on the face of the earth."

Indeed. 

Queen Elizabeth II said, after 9/11, that grief if the price we pay for love. And this kind of nightmare is the kind of experience we pay for living in the great city of dreams, the most magical city in the world. 

And it's worth it. And it always will be.

Don't Forget Chinatown Stories

Read more about this series. 

The Racial Impact of COVID-19 in NYC

This probably comes as no surprise but the people suffering the worst from COVID-19 are the people who mostly suffer the worst in life -- black and Latinos, and those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale.

Blacks and Latinos are dying at twice the rate of whites in NYC. It just goes to show how persistent and ingrained inequalities are always exacerbated in a crises. Ironically, it's Asians that are the least impacted -- considering that this crises started in China and so many people have been avoiding Chinese businesses and have been openly racist towards Asians in general.

Classic Mr NYC

A little over a year ago I interviewed Billy Procida, the comedian and host of The Manwhore Podcast, to get his take on the complexities of gettin' busy in NYC. His interview, like his podcast, was a sexy and rollicking good time.

Well, Billy, like the rest of us, is hanging tough and socially isolating but he's doing it in a very interesting way -- he's staying with his girlfriend and her boyfriend in a Jersey City apartment. Yes, he's part of a triad, a polyamorous relationship, and they are camping out together in non-traddional style. They're even doing podcasts together where they talk about, and analyze, this very interesting situation.

Recently Billy was interviewed by New York Magazine where he talks about his current living arrangements. I strongly reccommend reading both interviews since Billy is a very entertaining guy.

Couple of additional thoughts: I don't know Billy or his lady personally but I know other non-monogamous couples and they are actually some of the nicest people I've met. It's quite amazing to see people who can be so open and loving (literally and what not) with each other. Also, from this article, I learned about the word "metamour" -- another way of saying "eskimo brother". If you don't know what either term means, Google them.

Cuomo Announces Drop in COVID-19 Deaths

Ron Perlman Unfiltered

Ron Perlman is one of those actors who has been around forever, appeared in every movie and TV show, and even voiced cartoons. He's a real working, journeyman actor, a consistently great performer -- especially the Hellboy movies and the show Sons of Anarchy.

I remember as a kid he was on this very bizarre 1980s show called Beauty and the Beast, one of the weirder shows to ever appear on network TV. It's about a gorgeous woman who falls in love with a half-man/half-beast who lives in a secret world beneath NYC. Ron Perlman played the beast, the world sexiest animal.

And Ron Perlman is from NYC, a child of Washington Heights. And even though he's a big actor, he's a character himself. You should read this big interview where he talks about his career but also talks about his family, many of whom have worked for the city government their entire careers (like mine!). And he unloads on Trump -- oh man oh man, does he ever. It's a great read!

Also, listen to his WTF interview from a few years ago -- it's also wild!

Adam Schlesinger RIP

His great band, Fountains of Wayne, named a whole album after a major drag in Queens.

And here they are playing their biggest hit, "Stacy's Mom", at Webster Hall in 2003. RIP Adam, you were brilliant.

Please Stay Home!

This is quickly becoming a genre -- people walking around an empty NYC and then writing about mourfully it. The latest example, and it's a good one, can be read here. 

However, much as I love NYC, I won't be contributing to this new-fangled genre. 

I'm not walking around the empty city because 1) I have little kids at home that I have to take care of, and 2) going outside, unless it's for food or other vital necessities, is not a good idea, particularly in Manhattan or any densely populated part of the city. 

So yes, read and enjoy (if possible) these articles but, to anyone else thinking about writing another one, please don't and just stay home!

Marie Brenner's Letter from New York

The great Vanity Fair writer Marie Brenner has a powerful article about NYC during this pandemic, about how the city is mimicking, in its way, the time of the Great Depression.

She compares the make-shift hospitals in Central Park to the Hoovervilles that were built there, how desperation for survival invaded an area built for recreation. Brenner also write about how this crises compares to stories her father told her about the Great Depression -- and how a time and place that felt so distant feels so frightening recognizable today.

It'll be interesting to see what writing and stories about this time survive into another era. This piece might be one of them.