NYC Celebrates Sondheim

 

Fun City Cinema

If you love movies, love NYC, and really love movies set in NYC, then you'll want to listen to this special episode of Marc Maron's WTF podcast with film historian Jason Bailey.  

Recorded live at the Paris movie theater -- the last single-movie house in all of Manhattan (maybe the whole city) -- Marc and Jason discuss the history of American film as it relates to NYC and why the city is always a great backdrop to just about any film set in it.

Most of all, Bailey makes a point how any NYC movie is two things -- a story about people in NYC as well as a document about the city at that time.

You can back and look at movie set in NYC in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s and see how different the city was back then. Movies like Midnight Cowboy (1969), Taxi Driver (1976) and Slaves of New York (1989) really capture what the city was like at the moment they were made, the gritty reality of a different time. But go back even further, to King Kong in 1933, when the massive ape takes hold of the Empire State Building, burnishing the building into cinema history. What's important to remember is that, in 1933, the Empire State Building was brand new, more of a curiosity than an iconic image at the time.

Movie change, NYC change, but NYC and the movies is marriage that will last forever.

Stephen Sondheim RIP

This was one of those days you hoped would never come but knew one day would -- and here it is: the passing of Stephen Sondheim, the composer and lyricists of such classic musicals as Gypsy, West Side Story, A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods, and many others. 

He has died at age 91. 

To say that Sondheim was "one of the best" or "one of the greatest" American musical composers who ever lived is not enough -- he was the best, the greatest, truly without peer, someone whose likes the theater will never ever see again.

His cultural contribution to NYC is unmatched -- he was producing great musicals on Broadway in the 1960s and '70s at a time when the genre and the city were otherwise in trouble, keeping the flame and magic of the theater alive. In fact, "Being Alive" from Company, his iconic NYC musical, perhaps captures the man's work, life, and career better than anything.

Sondheim was a giant, a giant now in the sky, and if you want to understand the power of his music and influence then watch one of the people he influenced, Lin-Manuel Miranda, sing "Giants in the Sky" from Into the Woods. 

And his music and legacy will live, as the song "Sunday" in Sunday in the Park With George says, "forever. 

If you want to read what Mr NYC has written about Stephen Sondheim over the years, go here. 

Daytonian in Manhattan

Recently a friend forwarded me a link to a blog called Daytonian in Manhattan that chronicles "The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating."

Fascinating it is!

This blog has literally thousands of posts with pictures and individual write-ups about the numerous (I mean numerous) structures that make up the 13-mile isle.

This is history inside of history, the stories that surround us and make up NYC, and it's an amazing thing to see if told so well.

Classic Mr NYC

One of the most popular blog posts that I ever wrote was about Rao's, the super-exclusive East Harlem Italian joint that yours truly has eaten at -- twice.

This month Rao's turns 125 years old, bragging rights that few eating establishments in NYC or anywhere in this country can brag about. For more about the history of Rao's and what its anniversary means, go here -- and also get the recipe for Rao's famous Sunday Gravy.

They Made Our City Better

Recently three New Yorkers passed away who, in their own quiet but profound ways, made this city better.

They weren't famous (well, one was a little famous), they weren't household names, but they lived lives and had careers that left an imprint on the life of NYC.

The city government today would be a lot different if not for a man named Edward Sadowsky. A 24-year member of the city council from Queens, he pushed for reforms that eventually led to the abolition of the Board of Estimate and growth and empowerment of the council. Because of him, the city government became more democratic, more representative, more reflective of the populace. He also wrote and passed the legislation to create the cultural affairs department and the Taxi & Limousine Commission -- a lasting legacy for our city. RIP.

Then there's Helene Fortunoff. If you're old enough to remember, you might have once upon shopped at a Fortunoff jewelry store. She married a man whose family had a mom-and-pop store and she turned it into a retail giant with a flagship on Fifth Avenue and stores around the NYC region. It became a popular place for couples and high-end shoppers to buy jewelry, and the business lasted for years (because Helene retired and sold the company). She even hired Lauren Bacall to be the company's spokeswoman, giving Fortunoff some Hollywood glamour. Helene Fortunoff was a tough NYC broad who did good. RIP.

Finally, Bettina Grossman, a 50-year resident of the Chelsea Hotel, an artist who never quite made it but who dedicated her whole life to art and creation. She was a character, and eccentric, and she made her mark in the cultural life of NYC. RIP. 

Au Review Les Auteurs

New York City has produced a wide variety of cinematic auteurs -- Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Sydney Lumet, Abel Ferrara, Whit Stillman, Nora Ephron, Hal Hartley, Jim Jarmusch, and many others. They all made classic films that captured the glamour and grit of NYC, their movies got under your skin and made you not only see the city with your eyes but feel it in your soul.

Some of these auteurs still working, some are dead, some are retired (willingly or not) but, as this article clearly asks, who are their successors? Where is the next generation of NYC-centric filmmakers who capture the grit, excitement, and unique spirit of this town?

Oh sure, there's more movies being made in this city than ever before -- but they feel like they could be set anywhere, the city is just a backdrop not a central character.

My theory: as the city has become more homogenized, more gentrified -- safer, richer, with lots chain stores and glass buildings that could built anywhere, as the city's soul has been bleached by money, NYC has become a better place to live and less interesting cinematic characters. And so the new generation of NYC auteurs have had, in a way, less to work with -- even if NYC is more populous and popular than ever before. 

Dean Stockwell RIP

The great character actor Dean Stockwell has died at the age of 85. His acting career spanned 70 years, starting as a child star in the studio era of the 1940s, spanning well into the 21st century. The height of his career, after his childhood, was in the 1980s and 1990s in classic films like Dune, Paris Texas, Blue Velvet, Married to the Mob (Oscar nomination) and To Live and Die in LA. 

But his greatest role was as Al, the holographic sidekick, in the 1989-1993 sci-fi show Quantum Leap. His performance was so funny, so moving, so brilliant that he crafted one of the most unlikely and great characters in TV history.

Last year, in the doldrums of the pandemic, I interviewed Jean-Piere Dorleac, the talented costume designer for Quantum Leap who outfitted Dean Stockwell in all kinds of memorable garbs. You can read the interview and lots more about this great show here. 

Remembering Polly Adler

Every so often there will be a "scandal" when a prostitution ring gets busted. And while sex always sells, the media goes especially nuts when the ring in question turns out to have been run by a woman.

Back in the 1980s, there was the Mayflower Madam, Sydney Biddle Barrows, a lady with a distinguished pedigree (private schools, good jobs in the legit world, a descendant of the Mayflower passengers). More recently there was Kirsten Davis, the ridiculous character whose agency was involved in the Spitzer scandal back in 2008.

New York City has always produced eccentric characters doing weird, fascinating, and sometimes illegal things -- so it's no surprise that our madams are equally colorful.

But perhaps the most colorful of madam in NYC history was Polly Adler. Born a Jew in Russia in 1900, her family sent her to Massachusetts to live with relatives so she could avoid the horrible, state sanctioned anti-Semitic pogroms. After growing up, she moved to NYC and opened her first brothel near Columbia University. Her establishment became the best in the business, the most popular brothel in town. She had to turn away clients and woman who wanted to work for her, the demand was so high. She would get busted every so often -- and then went right back to work. Her clients included the powerful columnist Walter Winchell, Mayor Jimmy Walker, a soon-to-be famous singer named Desi Arnez. Polly even became personal friends with the famous writer and notorious wit Dorothy Parker.

And yet it wasn't the law that was Polly's most formiddable enemy -- it was the mob. Shakedowns, violence, and an unending stream of threats put her life in perpetual danger. Eventually she went to jail and finally quit the business in the 1940s, moving to Los Angeles, writing a book about her life, and dying in 1962 -- at age 62.

Polly Adler was a denizen of another age, another NYC. Her life was one of glamour and danger, of excitement and pain. She had an amazing life -- just one that I don't think any of us would ever really want to live ourselves.

Mayor-Elect Adams

In 2013 and 2017, I did election night live blogs of the results as they came in. This year events ensued (good ones!) that prevented it. However, the big news is that Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams won the mayoralty and will replace Mayor De Blasio on January 1st, 2022. Above is his victory speech.

As for the outgoing mayor, what's his legacy? Previous Mr NYC multi-interviewee Ross Barkan has a smart, comphrensive look at what Bill DeBlasio did and didn't do as mayor -- and what was his "fault" and what was beyond his control.

NYC moves ever onwards.

The Talented Mr. Adams

If, as predicted, Eric Adams wins the NYC mayoralty tomorrow, it will be the culmination of a lifetime ambition that took this son of Brooklyn from the NYPD, to the State Senate, to the Brooklyn Borough President's office, and now, we presume, to Gracie Mansion. 

And yet, in this long march to the top, the man himself remains elusive, a bit of an enigma, a living question mark. Who is he exactly, what's he all about? He seems to be whatever you want him to be -- or not. 

Whatever he is, whoever he is, without question, Eric Adams is a talented power player.

He has used his knowledge of the city and innate political skills to rise and rise -- and, tomorrow, he will either realize his ultimate goal of becoming the next mayor (and the only second black one in NYC history) or he will be dramatically upset and it will all come to nothing (plus we'll be saddled with the bizarre Curtis Sliwa as mayor, an until-now unthinkable and scary proposition).

Then we'll see just how talented Mr. Adams really is.