"Law & Order" Returns!

Eleven-years ago the TV show Law & Order was cancelled by NBC. It was a big surprise, especially since it had run for 20-years and had become a television and NYC institution. Of course the Law & Order "franchise" still went strong with spinoffs like L&O: SVU, L&O: Criminal Intent, and a new one called L&O: Organized Crime. But the mothership had sunk, the "one that started it all" was gone.

At the time I blogged a passionate screed about its cancellation, and how odd it was that there were all these spinoff shows while the original show had been killed (a murder mystery that an episode of Law & Order might have even solved).

Well, never mind. After eleven years, the OG Law & Order is back! The show is being officially revived or renewed -- whatever -- for a 21st season. When it will premiere, and who will be in it, remains to be seen (rumors abound that some of the old cast members might return but nothing is confirmed yet).

I'm generally not a big fan of all these reboots since they almost always fail to capture whatever magic existsed in the original versions. But L&O was and is different -- it was like an old fashioned newspaper serial or a folk song -- it was never young and never got old. The cast kept changing, each episode was a stand-alone story, each week it basically renewed itself, and it's something that can probably go on forever. 

Let's hope it does -- for the sake of television and NYC.

The Upper West Side: Sexy, Scary ... Suburban?

Yours truly has not yet seen the popular new show Only Murders in the Building that involves Steve Martin and Martin Short solving murders in an Upper West Side building with, of all people, Selena Gomez. But the show is a big hit and it's apparently created some interest in the popular neighborhood not seen since the days of You've Got Mail twenty-odd years ago. 

What's happened to the Upper West Sideis indicative of what's happened to NYC in general over the last fifty-something years: from hellscape to playground, from wild to, well, kinda boring.

This years marks the 50th anniversary of Panic in Needle Park, the movie Al Pacino made just before The Godfather. The brutal story about heroin addicts hanging out in Verdi Square on West 72nd street made the Upper West Side look like a village of the damned. This was on the heels of 1968's Rosemary's Baby where the Devil literally took over the body of a young housewife living in the Dakota, just down the block. A few years later came Taxi Driver, with Robert De Niro's crazed Travis Bickle turning into a horrific vigilanty -- and living and hanging out mostly on the Upper West Side. Then, in 1989, Pacino returned to the neighborhood in Sea of Love where he pursued a serial killer, Even the city's "hoity toity" lived in the squalor -- in 1990's Metropolitan the young Tom Townsend lived in the 'hood in genteel poverty -- in great contrast to his Upper East Side debutante friends.  

But forget the movies -- reality was just as scary and sexy. John Lennon was killed in front of the Dakota in 1980. The swinger's club Plato's Retreat was going full blast. I grew up in the area and remember the Upper West Side as a decaying but nonetheless fun neighborhood -- and it felt like a neighborhood, a community, a place unto its own.

This article from Town & Country nails the evolution of the Upper West Side, how it's gone from a place of wildness, a sexy and scary place, into a not terribly interesting suburb. Lots of chain stores, lots of high-end boutiques, lots of expensive restaurants, lots of new glass buildings. Now it's safe. It's "family friendy." It's dull. Don't get me wrong -- it's lovely, and a great place to live. But the Upper West Side of yore is, well, yored. All we have are the memories. 

Caput Mundi: Harry & Meghan at One World Trade Center

"Take On Me" by a-ha from the Brooklyn Duo at Carnegie Hall

Original Siskel & Ebert Review of "Saturday Night Fever" -- 1977

Willie Garson RIP -- "Sex and the City" & "Quantum Leap"

The brilliant, lovable character actor just died from cancer at the age of 57. For many, including yours truly, he will always been Standford from Sex and the City -- a real NYC icon.

But Willie had great range as an actor. In addition to numerous movies and other TV shows (including one that ran for a few years called White Collar), he appeared in two episodes of my favorite childhood show Quantum Leap -- one as a character named Seymour in an early episode set in NYC, and then another where he played Lee Harvey Oswald. His Oswald was an interesting one because Willia played Oswald "in the waiting room" set in the future, and he had to wear a white jump suit while being interrogated by Dean Stockwell. Great stuff!

RIP Willie -- you were the best!

Occupy Wall Street @ 10

Ten years ago this month the Occupy Wall Street movement began in Zuccotti Park. Here's some of Mr NYC's coverage of it at the time. 

Lisa Cintrice on Her Memories of the Persicos and the NYC Mob

New York City has changed so much in the last three decades that, whenever a story about the old-school mafia pops up in the news, it takes on a creepy zombie-like feel. It's like a piece of the past has jumped out of the shadows, a reminder that something we think of as dead is actually still around, lurking about, ready to strike when the opportunity presents itself. While the mob is NYC is nowhere near as powerful or prominent as it once was in the Joe Columbo-John Gotti heyday, it's still around, doing its organized crime thing as much as it can in the digital era. 

Recently there was a story about the remnants of the Columbo crime family, specifically dealing with a union exhortion scheme. One of the characters in this story is a man named Carmine Persico who was the boss of the Columbo family until his death in prison in 2019. His nephew Teddy is now, apparently, the heir aparent to the Columbo crown now that his uncle's successor, Andrew Russo, has been busted.

Previous Mr NYC interviewee Lisa Cintrice recently contacted me to tell me an incredible story about how, in her childhood, she was a step-sister to Teddy Perscio when her dad was married, for a few years, to Carmine's sister. It's an amazing story and, with her permission, Lisa tells us all about it to Mr NYC exclusively.

Here's Lisa: My connection to the Persico Family

"I was born in 1963, and my family is Italian American. My parents divorced when I was still a baby, I have no memories of a 2 parent household. My brother and I (he was born in 1962) thought everyone lived with their mom and saw their fathers on weekends.

My dad was a good looking guy, he was young, had money and he had lots of girlfriends. Again to us that was normal. Then one weekend when dad picked us up, out of the blue he introduced us to a woman that was living at his house named Patricia Persico. Pat was a beautiful red head who was also Italian American and made some mean sauce. She had 2 sons who were close in age to me and my brother so we were so happy that we had kids to play with when we would visit dad.

Her sons were name Danny Persico and Teddy Persico Jr. During that time we would go to Brooklyn often for Sunday dinner with Pats mom and I would often hear the adults talking about people named Allie Boy, Uncle Carmine and Teddy Persico Sr. (who was Pats ex-husband). We lived a charmed life, vacationed in Puerto Rico, and trips to Italy. All 4 of use kids were pretty close.

My older brother and Danny bonded close as did Teddy and myself. Eddie and Danny were the "good" kids and Teddy and me, well we had spunk and nothing scared us. Teddy and me were always getting yelled at for not doing what we were told. We would just laugh when we got in trouble. I have no bad memories of Teddy or Danny.

After a few years I knew my dad and Pat were fighting alot. Looking back I can say they had a love hate relationship. Thru it all, Pat was always nice to me and my brother. Then one weekend dad picked us up and they were gone. Pat Teddy and Danny, no good bys no hugs nothing they were gone and I was told I could not contact them, which really upset me because I was close to all of them. I was so upset that people who I thought were family were suddenly gone and I never got to say goodbye. Dad moved on and got remarried.

I always wondered what happened to Pat Teddy and Danny. Even as I became a young adult, I still wondered about them. I still missed them. One day in the late 1980's I remember hearing on the news that a Colombo family member named Teddy Persico Jr was arrested for being a king pin in a cocaine trafficking ring I was like WTF? So I looked into it more and realized that was Teddy the Teddy who was my step brother for about 7 years.

I asked my dad about it and he didn’t say much. Keep in mind, although my dad was not a "made" man he was definitely a wise guy and never talked about certain things and Teddy Persico was one of the things he was not going to talk to me about. At that point things from my child hood started making sense. Uncle Carmine was Carmine the "snake" Persico, the head of the Columbo Family. Teddy Persico Sr and Allie Boy were Carmines brothers and also part of the Columbo Crime Family. I still didn’t understand the level of violence they were capable of until I saw a documentary on TV about Carmine and how he was the former leader of Murder Inc., and was running the family from a prison cell. All of this was mind blowing to me.

How did I not realize sooner what was going on? It all seemed so normal back then. Teddy has spent many many years in jail. Shortly after his 20-year drug sentence, he was arrested again for putting a hit on someone while at his grandmother’s funeral. He got 12 years for that and got out after 10 years or so. After that I didn’t see anything about him in the news, one mutual friend even thought maybe he was in witness protection. I thought anything is possible. That is until this week when I learned that the entire leadership of the Columbo family was arrested including Teddy Persico Jr, who was still on supervised release from his last jail stint. They wanted to take control of a labor union. WTF who does that? Oh yea they do! 

Danny did not follow in his family footsteps but he passed away at a young age and I am not sure what from. I often look back wondering how things would have been if my dad stayed married to Pat. Maybe it was for the best that they were no longer in my life.

I have decided I am going to write to Teddy since he will be a captive audience for my letters and I have a lot of questions for him. I am sure he knows about my past, (wonder what he thought of my army stunt) and he may even have some questions for me :)

That’s my story and I am sticking to it!"

Thanks Lisa! Here's a great picture that Lisa shared of herself as a child with the Persico siblings:

Simon & Garfunkel Sing "America" in Central Park -- September 19th, 1981

 

"Once Upon a Time in Queens" and the '86 Mets on ESPN

The Year of Our Lord 1986 A.D. was a memorable one in 1986 for NYC -- and for me personally.

The city was bursting with renewal. The Beastie Boys were reinventing rap music out of Brooklyn; in Manhattan, Woody Allen was at the height of his career with Hannah and Her Sisters while nightclubs likes Tunnel and Limelight were the hottest places in the world. And out in Queens the Mets played the most memorable season in its history. 

In 1986 NYC was in a period of transition -- from the dark days of the "Bronx is Burning" 1970s to the "luxury product" of the 21st century. A new documentary from ESPN called Once Upon a Time in Queens covers the '86 Mets on the way to their World Series victory -- and how the city embraced and related to the team. 

The players on the '86 Mets are on the tip of any New Yorker's tongue who was alive at the time -- Doc Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Lenny Dykstra, Gary Carter, and others. They played hard and, oh boy, they lived harder too! 

In between outings, they'd snork coke and bang chicks. They trashed hotel rooms and many of them got arrested. It's amazing that anyone playing on the '86 Mets was able even to swing a bat or throw or catch a ball, let alone win a World Series. The amount of wildness they engaged in, the all consuming debauchery -- the drugs, the booze, the broads, the fights, you name it -- must have exhausted them. And yet ... they played amazing baseball and achieved greatness. 

If you want to read more Mr NYC coverage about NYC in 1986, go here.

The NYC Waterfront

The most southern and northern tips of Manhattan ...

... and several points in between.

Grief and Grace @ Ground Zero: 9/11 @ 20

This past weekend was the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks -- the most tragic event in this city's history, a most solemn event. Grief, sadness, despair, anger -- the whole gamut of negative emotions -- New York City has experienced all of them, at every moment, since that day, and will forever. The sadness is as much a part of the city as its concrete, steel, and waterways.

And yet ...

For me, personally, as someone who saw the Twin Towers collapse from a window in the Flatiron Building ... for someone who felt the anger, the rage, the despair, the confusion on that day and those afterwards ... for me ... to paraphrase Evelyn Waugh, "something quite remote from anything" that the terrorists and the first-responders or anyone else ever intended came out of this tragedy that, collectively, we all suffered from, something that could never have been imagined at the time: a certain kind of grace, a strange, paradoxical enlivening of the spirit. It obviously didn't happen on 9/11 but a few short years aftewards.

Around 2 AM on January 1st, 2003, about 15 months after the tragedy, I found myself in Lower Manhattan on my way home from a New Year's Eve party. I walked by Ground Zero. This area, this sacred ground, which had become the center of the world for the last year plus change, was totally deserted, no one else there but me. The whole of Lower Manhattan was almost pitch black except for some low-lit street lamps and the floodlights around Ground Zero. I looked through a small window in the fencing and walls around Ground Zerp and saw the huge empty pit. My mind, obviously, leapt to the memory of 9/11/01, of the lives lost, of the chaos that had descended onto our world. But I also felt a certain kind of peace, a certain calm, a certain honor at being alone in the prescence of these departed lives, their spirits soaring about me. I knew, somehow, that they were okay. 

This might sound irrational but it's true. 

About a year-and-a-half later, I took my late aunt down to Ground Zero. Up until that time, we had never been close simply because I didn't know her very well and she lived out of town. But she really wanted to see Ground Zero so I took her. On the subway ride down, she told me all about her life, a fascinating story. And then, at Ground Zero, we walked around while she peppered me with questions about the speed of the recovery and everything that we going on down there -- and I answered her as best I could. Soon she burst into tears and I comforted her. After that, we became very close until her passing several years later. 

So, in a strange way, 9/11 and its legacy -- as awful and tragic as it's been -- provided me with as much grace as grief. And perhaps that's a perverse way to feel -- but it's the truth, a strange facet of what it means to be human. 

As Seen @ Citi Field -- August 31, 2021, 9:11 PM

This is an important message and, for some people, even quite romantic:

Daze Like These

The last 24-hours in NYC have been ... something.

As we move towards the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the city is struggling with other recent losses, losses that sadden and remind us that the only permanent thing in life is ... impermanence.

Last weeks storms, the offshoot of Hurricaine Ida, hit NYC hard, particularly Queens. President Biden came to the city to survey the damage and talk about how, with climate change, we'll only see more of thing kind of thing.

Over in Brooklyn, there was the death of the brilliant actor Michael K. Williams, Omar from The Wire and a searing, amazing talent. His death from an apparent overdose is a huge loss for the culture and the city. 

And there was another, quieter loss, a fellow name Phil Schaap, who was a professor of Jazz at Columbia and other city institutions as well as a radio-host at WKCR. He was the Jazz Bard of NYC, it's keeper of the flame, and his passing is, to be cliche, the end of an era. 

RIP to all.

Ida in NYC: Floods and Aftermath

Graffiti Gangs of New York

Over the years, I've blogged about graffiti, the unofficial artwork of NYC (including the second post I ever wrote on this blog). 

In the past graffiti was viewed as a public menace, a defacement, a blight on the city. Of course, part of that hatred towards graffiti was towards the artists who created it (namely, people of color). 

Oh, how times have changed.

Today graffiti is high art. Graffiti is now being extolled and celebrated all over NYC, and some graffiti artists who, in the past, were viewed as criminals are now finding big careers in the art world.

These two articles (here and here) gives you some insight about the evolution of graffiti art and artists in NYC. It use to be a gang activity. Graffiti gangs roamed the city, making their mark, blatantly annoucing their existance to people who didn't want to know about it. Now these same people do. The evolution of graffiti from the streets to the galleries is an example of how creativity -- and the future -- is formed literally from the ground up, the grassrootes (or, in this case, the concrete roots), and how the future is all around us all the time. 

Ida Whacks NYC

Literary Hangouts

The New York Times has published an impressive list of some of the legendary bars, restaurants, hotels, buildings -- even a church! --  where the great writers in history use to hang out, drink, chat, and make merry. 

There are some obvious places on this list like (the Chelsea Hotel, the White Horse Tavern, Elaine's) as well as some places that are reminders that the literary history of NYC is not exclusively white -- for example, a building in Harlem where W.E.B Dubois and other great black writers would congregate, or the largely Hispanic Nuyrican Cafe. Reading about these places, you are mentally and emotionally transported back to a time where the written word, and the lively mind, were celebrated.

That said, there are some notable omissions on this list, and I'll mention two of them.

First, there's Pete's Tavern on Irving Place where the famous short story writer O Henry often hung out and wrote, as well as where Ludwig Bemelsmans literally wrote the first and quite legendary children's book Madeleine. Pete's Tavern was more than a hangout -- it was a workplace, an incubator of literary inspiration.

Second, the West End Gate in Morningside Heights near Columbia University. This was a popular hangout for the Beat Generation authors, like Jack Kerouac, Allan Ginsburg, and William S. Buroughs. It even got implicated in a murder in 1944 involving a Columbia student named Lucien Carr -- bizarre story that become a movie called Kill Your Darlings several years ago.

There are literary and other cultural hangouts all over this town -- and that's part of what makes NYC so great.

Counting Crows - "Washington Square"