On this last day of Black History Month 2022, I want to remember one of my favorite entertainers from childhood who left us far too early: tap dancer, singer, and actor Gregory Hines.
Born in NYC in 1946, he grew up in the Sugar Hill area of Harlem and, as early as two years old, demonstrated his great abilities to dance and light up a stage. A child performer, he made his Broadway debut in 1954 and continued to perform on stage, earning Tony nominations in the 1970s and 80s before winning one in 1992 for Jelly's Last Jam. He was a life-longer performer and teacher of tap dancing, influencing a generation of tap dancers including the great Savion Glover.
Hine's singing and acting career were equally impressive. He fronted a band in LA in the 1970s called Severance. In the 1980s he dueted with Luther Vandross for the song "There's Nothing Better Than Love" that reached #1 on the Billboard charts. And he starred in movies including History of the World Part I, Wolfen, White Nights (dancing up a storm with Mikhail Baryshnikov), and even did a buddy cop movie with Billy Crystal called Runnin' Scared. He also appeared many times on the show Will & Grace and won a voiceover Emmy for a Nick Jr show called Little Bill in 2003 -- the year that he died from liver cancer, aged 57.
Gregory Hines was a blazing talent, a true multi-hyphenate performer, a proud New Yorker, and his passing remains a true loss to the culture of this city and country.
To be a New Yorker is a state of mind as much as a way of life.
If you've ever lived in NYC for any period of time, the city stamps itself on your soul, it lives inside you, for better or worse, forever, wherever you go.
And this is true for New Yorkers past and present, especially for those New Yorkers who carry memories of, and hold deep feelings for, the city's past while existing in its present.
I count myself as one such New Yorker.
Some recent developments has made me think a lot about how New Yorkers reflect upon their city -- past, present, and future -- and how New Yorkers reflect upon themselves.
First, the past: there's a new documentary about the old-fasioned automats, the vast cafaterias around the city where you could get fast, quick meals. You would walk in and go up to an array of small windows, drop a few coins into slot, and the windows would open giving you a sandwhich, coffee, slice of cake, mac'n'chesse, juice, comfort food like that. There were a staple of the city for decades and many New Yorkers -- Mel Brooks, Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, my mother -- were automat regulars. They gave New Yorkers a sense of community, a bond, even if the automat patrons didn't know or talk to each other. It became part of their souls and memories that they carried within themselves forever -- even when some of the automat regulars went on to fame and fortune. Obviously the advent of fast-food put the automats out of business (although the last one didn't close in NYC until 1991) but they remain a beloved part of the city's past.
Second, the present: in case you haven't read today's news (today being February 24, 2022, soon-to-be a date in the past), Russia is invading Ukraine. For most Americans, this is far-off event happening to a far-off people. But there is a huge Ukrainian community/diaspora in NYC, and this tragedy hits them personally, especially those with family back home. In fact, part of the East Village is called "Little Ukraine" and it includes one of my favorite hangout, Veselka, the great Ukrainian restaurant/dessert place. For these Ukrainian New Yorkers, this moment must make them reflect about their home country and their lives and families there vs. their lives in NYC. Because NYC has such a vibrant Ukrainian community, hopefully Ukrainians can get some comfort and strength from each other and fellow New Yorkers.
Third, the future: soon there will be a new Delta terminal at La Guarida airport. What will be special about it (besides it's flashy new 21st-century features) are the six permanent art installations by six NYC artists. The works will include lights, sculptures, tiles, and other artworks that reflect the diversity, vibrancy, and people of this city to the doubtless passengers who will pass through the terminal. It will be the city reflecting itself to the future citizens of, and visitors to, NYC, the past speaking to and educating the future about the people who live, work, and make this city such a special, unique place.
Over the years I've blogged about my childhood experiences in the world of professional ballet. Like much of what we might consider "showbiz", it's a rough, grown-up world for a young developing child to intersect with, a place where the innocence and vulnerability of youth smashes up against the brutal realities of an exacting, demanding profession.
She played Marie in "The Nutcracker" at the New York City Ballet in 1976 (you can read her review here) and became the subject of a book that same year called A Very Young Dancer. It was a backstage collection of photographs showing her rehearsing for the famous ballet, a behind-the-scenes "making of" look at the magical production. (Remember, back then, we didn't have reality TV or social media or anything like that so the public rarely saw the behind the curtain of cultural touchstones.) The book became a surprise bestseller, inspired many young women to pursue dance, and Stephanie became a temporary celebrity.
However, like in my experience, it turned sour when the teenage years arrived. She began to misbehave at the School of American Ballet (the feeder school for the New York City Ballet and where the kids for "The Nutcracker" come from), her dancing suffered, and eventually she was kicked out of the school. Her dreams of being a professional dancer were shattered and, it appears, she never got over it. This dissapointment was also exacerbated by clinical depression.
In her adult years, she migrated to Wyoming and she died there, from suicide apparently, at agae 56. She seems to have had a vagabond life but also had some good people in it and some love. It's a sad ending to her life. But I hope she had some happiness from time to time and that she's at peace now.
To paraphrase Dr. Strangelove, I have neither the time nor the inclination for the strategic thought the game requires. Much like driving a truck, I have great admiration but not the skills to do it. Barring a late in life conversion to the game, I'll never get into the game of chess.
And yet, oddly enough, yours truly has written two blog posts about the game -- one in 2008 and another in 2021 -- and both are two of my favorite posts ever.
The 2008 post was about a bunch of NYC kids who won several national championships down in Florida. I was flattered enough to get a thankful comment from one of the championship chess coachs.
The 2021 post was an admittedly snarky look back at the musical Chess that had a short, infamous life on Broadway.
But the legeacy of chess in NYC runs much deeper.
Never mind that Bobby Fischer, probably the greatest American chess player in history, grew up in Brooklyn (he wasn't born in NYC but moved to the city at age six) and trained here. All over the city you can walk in public parks and see people playing it on cement tables built for the game. There are chess clubs in public schools all over the city, with students winning (as previously indicated) at championships all over the country and world.
It's over 100 years old and is as New York an institution as has ever existed. The club has members who have been playing there since there were children and are now quite elderly. It has had some famous members over the decades too, including Dada/Cubist French artist Marcel Duchamp, a young boy named Stanley Kubrick who would gone on to direct classic films (including the aforementioned Dr. Strangelove), and, more recently, radio legend Howard Stern.
More amazingly, it has survived COVID and keeps going. This has been in part because of the popularity of last year's The Queen's Gambit on Netflix but chess is one of those games who popularity is perennial, whose practioners are devoted, no matter if the game has moments of fadishness.
The players at the Marshall Chess Club are the hardcore devotees who keep the game going no matter what -- and keep its proud legacy in NYC alive.
In the almost fifteen years of this blog's existence, I've written a lot about how the "face" of NYC keeps changing, transforming, evolving. It's inevitable that in a city of almost nine-million people that the physical, economic, political, and cultural infrustructure of it will forever alter itself.
Old buildings will be torn down, new ones raised. Some businesses will close, new ones will open. Politicians of various stripes will leave office, new ones will replace them. Shows and cultural institutions will dissapear, new ones will appear. It's a cycle, the constant churn of the city, the forever changing face of NYC.
Recently -- talking about a cultural institution that vanished and reappeared -- the sequel series to Sex and the City, And Just Like That, has inspired writers to look at how different NYC has become in 2021-2022 compared to the show's original run from 1998-2004. As this article indicates, the show feels less inspiring, less fun, in part, because the city of today feels less inspiring and fun than the one in the original show. It's vastly more gentrified, sleek, overbuilt, and boring -- plus it's been dealing with a pandemic. A young colleague of mine who recently discovered the original show has told me about her fascination of the NYC portrayed in Sex and the City -- it seems like another, wilder, funner, cheaper world. Even though the first show ended less than twenty-years ago, it feel literally like a whole different planet. It's amazing to contrast the NYC of And Just Like That to the 1950s, 1960s city of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. That city feels not only like another world, but another universe.
But that's just the NYC of the popular imagination, popular culture, as re-interpreted by TV. The future of NYC is always, always determined by it's phyiscal shape, economy, and politics. And that's changing, big time.
Within the next fifteen years, by the time this blog celebrates its 30th (!) anniversary, the following developments will have profoundly altered the face and life of NYC:
First, there's the Interborough Express, a reconstituted freight train line that will be turned into rapid transit connecting Brooklyn and Queens. Until now, there has never been any good public transportation between the city's two biggest (by far) boroughs, and this be a big change. It will originate at Woodside, snake through Maspeth, Middle Village and Ridgewood, then curl into Bushwick, Brownsville, Flatbush, Borough Park, and terminate at Bayridge. It will connect to the 2, 3, 5, 7, B, D, F, Q, and R subway lines, plus various bus lines. It will be the most massive expansion of public transporation in this city in a century, make commuting to and from and between those neighborhoods and boroughs much easier, dramatically lower car and subway congestion, and its impact on housing values and businesses in the areas it serves will be immense.
Second, casinos -- they're coming to NYC. There's the Racino way out in Queens but there are plans -- and new laws supporting them -- that will allow the construction of casinos all over the city. This city is, not suprisingly, the nation's biggest untapped casino market, and the city loses huge amounts of tax revenue that goes to Atlantic City and casinos out on Native American reservations. A whole new industry, a whole new tourist and cultural magnet, will have a massive impact on the cultural and economic life of NYC. No longer will people be coming here just for culture and history -- they'll be coming here to drop their kids college funds into slot machines, to "let it ride."
Third, and final (for now), is the political map of NYC and the whole state. For decades and decades, the New York State Legislature had divided political control -- Democrats controlled the Assembly, Republicans controlled the State Senate. This wasn't an accident. When both parties got control of the respective chambers, they made a deal to gerrymander their districts, their political maps, basically guarenteeing each party control for each chamber. This lasted from the 1970s to the 2010s. It was unnatural, ridiculous, corrupt. But a few years ago the Democrats got control of the State Senate and now -- with a Democratic Assembly and Governor -- they are gerrymandering the state so that Democrats will control the New York State Legislature for the rest of the decade.
Also, and most controversially, for the first time in over a century, Democrats are able to gerrymander the state's Congressional Districts which could shrink the number of Republican representatives from 7 or 8 to 3 or 4. This means, at a national level, there could be up to four new Democrats in Congress and could, potentially (although not certainly), determine control of the US Congress.
Needless to say, Republicans in New York and nation-wide are howling, yelling and screaming that Democrats are abusing their power in order to protect and consolidate their power. Obviously the Republicans are hypocrites and liars (what else is new?) because not only are they viciously gerrymandering the numerous states that they control but they engaged in gerrymandering for decades in New York to keep control of the State Senate -- not to mention creating a whole new State Senate district (did you know we have 63? Insane!) and engaging in outright bribery (remember the IDC?) to stay in power. The fact that this state had divided control of the State Senate for so long was because of gerrymandering, it just happened to be bipartisan gerrymandering. Now the state is being re-gerrymandered for Democrats, and there's nothing the Republicans can do about it. It's also a rare display of raw power, a power play, by Democrats and obviously Republicans don't like having to take their own medicine.
In NYC this means that the long-held Republican district in State Island will probably (although not certainly) flip to the Democrats, effectively ending any chance of a Republican representing any part of NYC in Congress. It's fun to watch the loathesome Republican representative bemoan her fate, accusing Democrats of trying to "steal" the seat. No, Democrats are simply using the power that the voters gave them and that's called democracy, something that, we know, Republicans actively want to overthrow.
So, as you see, New York City is changing all around us and before our eyes. It's changing in our hearts and minds. It never stops and never stops evolving. The face of the city from yesterday, today, and tomorrow will always be diffferent.
