Mr NYC in Milan & Italy

The thing about Italy is that, like all great places, it isn't just one place or one thing. There are so many parts of Italy that are so distinct and special, so unique unto themselves -- cities like Rome, Naples, Florence, Naples, Turin, Venice and others; areas like Tuscany, Lombardi, Sicily and others -- that visiting just one of them is an amazing experience unto itself. 

And, of course, NYC and Italy have many historical links. 

Of course, a big reason why Italy is so diverse and fascinating is that for roughly 1500 years -- after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and the unification or "risorgimento" in the 19th century -- Italy as a country didn't exist. It was a collection of small kingdoms, duchies, city states, and republics -- and thus each city and region fashioned its own identiy.

I've visited Venice and Rome multiple times but, until recently, had only spent one night in the city of Milan. That changed last month when I visited the city for almost a week -- first for work, then for fun, with my wife. We had an amazing time and here I'll tell you all about it!

First, a few things to understand about Milan. It's very far north, very close to the Swiss border, and it's not only the biggest city in all of Italy but it's one of the biggest cities in all of Europe. It's also really rich, one of the biggest banking, fashion, and chemical capitals of the word. There's even a couple of jokes about this -- "For every church in Rome, there's a bank in Milan" and "Milan works so the rest of Italy doesn't have to."

While Milan has an ancient history, its doesn't have quite the same feeling of antiquity that Rome obviously does. Milan lives in the future. But it's still replete with history and we saw a lot of it.

The center of the city, what "ties it together", is the Duomo Cathedral. A massive structure, the Duomo is the biggest cathedral in Italy -- except for St. John's Basilica in Vatican City, technically not Italy -- and all the rest of Europe. It took 600 years to build -- between the 1300s and the 1900s -- and you can see why: it is the most ornate, intricately designed house of worship that you'll ever see. It's drench withed marble statues, beautifully carved, on the walls of Duomo and on the top of the cathedral -- that you can visit and that also provides amazing views of the square and city beyond the Duomo. We spent a long time there and this is what we saw: 

Across from the Duomo, as you can see, is the King Victor Emmanuelle statue and the entrance to the Galleria which has lots of high-end stores. After we walked around the Duomo and the Galleria, we treated ourselves to a lovely Aperale Spritz:

That night we went to a ballet at the world famous La Scala Theater. It was under construction when we got there but, along the way, we saw a beautiful LED exhibit and headquarters for the 2026 Winter Olympics which will be held in Milan:

In fact, as the wife and I were crossing the street toward La Scala, a young guy behind us asked if we were American and, when we said we were, he excitedly told us that he was from East Flatbush, Brooklyn and was in Milan visiting a friend -- small town, small world!

Then we saw the ballet that consisted of three seperate pieces choreogrpahed, ironically, by Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine of the New York City ballet. Here's the program of the show we saw as well as the stunning interiors of La Scala (from our nosebleed seats):

Next day, we went to the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie to see one of the most famous paintings in the world -- the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. Along the way, we saw some lovely architecture and an interesting little fountain:

Painted on the wall of the church, Da Vinci created the Last Supper between 1494-1498. You shoud read about it at the link above but a few interesting things to note about this painting: 1) Because it's painted on a wall, many people think the Last Supper is a "fresco" but it's not -- it's a "deco" or a mural. A fresco is something painted on wet plaster, which means it's captured and dried, much like a photograph. A mural is painted on dry wall -- like the Last Supper was. 2) You'll notice, in looking at the painting, that almost everything is grouped in threes and that Jesus himself looks like a triangle. This represents the Holy Trinity -- Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It's a stunning painting and, according to our tour guide, his greatest painting ever, even better than the Mona Lisa in Paris.

The church protects the Last Supper like a nuclear warhead -- it's in a air-controlled room, only a few people can visit it at a time for about 15 minutes, and you can go to through a few rooms before you get access to it. Also, there's another painting across from it, The Cruxification by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, that is also an amazing thing:

Also, during World War II, Milan was heavily bombed by the Allies. The Last Supper was protected by a whole bunch of sandbags that kept it safe. In addition, there's a lovely little garden behind the church is a fountain with a some frogs that, our guide told us "No kissa, no prinza."

That afternoone was visited the stunning Sforza Castle. It was built by the family the ruled Milan in the 15th century and it's a huge fortress with massive battlements, courtyards, and walls:

On our last day, we visited the funky, vibrant, artistic neighborhood of La Brera -- it's like a Soho, Williamsburg, Upper West Side place -- full of culture, history, good food, and highly walkable. While there, we visited the Palazzo Brera which is a big building full of art academies and cultural institutions. It also has a beautiful garden in the back that was built by the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa in 1775 when Milan was part of the Habsburg Empire:

And, nearby, we also found another cute little church:

As you can see, there's so many fascinating and beautiful things to see in Milan that it's hard even to comprehend it all. Just so you also know, Milan has a really great Metro system, it's a super easy city to get around. 

Finally, the food! We ate two really great meals in Milan that signify everything that's great about Italy -- the nouvelle restaurant 28 Posti where we ate a delicious tasting menu (and where we met a lovely couple from Chicago who were having a last big trip before the expected birth of their child in 2025) and the Boeucc, an amazing place that's been in business for 1696 -- it's older than the country of Italy itself! We had a dinner than included an incredibly good truffle pasta -- super good!

And then we left. Back to NYC. Just so you know, the airport is quite far from the city of Milan -- it's an hour by train. It's always painful to be in a train station in Italy because you can see all the amazing cities that are just one ride away, and it's tempting not to just hop onto one of them and go to Venice, Verona or so many other places:

But Milan is a great place and totally worth seeing. 

I've been to Italy a few times now but, as indicated earlier, mostly in Venice and Rome. As a kid I spent some time in Florence and saw the David Statue and the Duomo there but I haven't been back since. One day I shall return there and also go to many other great places in Italy. And, when I do, I'll be sure to blog about it all here!

Jimmy Carter in NYC

Jimmy Carter has died and I'm pissed -- he was only 100 years old and we didn't get to have him nearly long enough.

The man from Plains, Georgia travelled far and wide in his century on earth, including a stint in the Navy, Georgia state politics, the peanut business, amazing humanitarian work and elections monitoring -- and yes, he was also the 39th President of the United States.

Here's Jimmy Carter in NYC on July 14th, 1976 accepting his presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden.

And here is the early morning hours of November 3rd, 1976 when he's declared Presdient-elect by Barbara Walters broadcasting live from NYC. 

And here's a story about his work with Habitat for Humanity in NYC.

RIP Mr President. We didn't deserve you. We'll never see your likes again. 

Top of the Wall @ Riverside Park -- December 25, 2024, 5:35 PM

 

Bob Dylan: Live from Riverside Church -- July 29, 1961

There's a new movie that's just come out called A Complete Unknown about Bob Dylan's early years in NYC. A Minnesota transplant, he hit the Greenwich Village club scene in 1961, and within a couple of years he was famous, his folk songs becoming an indeliable part of American culture. 

During those early days in NYC, Dylan was gigging everywhere he could, most famously at the Gaslight Cafe in the Village. But his first known broadcasting gig happened on July 29, 1961 -- just six months after he'd moved to NYC -- at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights. He was one of several singers to perform at the Riverside Church Hootenanny, and it was broadcast on the church's radio station WRVR 106.7 (today it's the much listened to Lite FM).

Below is a segment of that broadcast featuring young "Bobby" and you can find the set list of the songs he sang here. It was also at this event where Dylan met Suzy Rutolo who would become his girlfriend and creative muse -- they would be together when Dylan began to produce his most famous, legendary works. And even though Dylan in NYC in the early 1960s is most commonly associated with Greenwich Village (as the Bowery Boys have recently done an episode about), it was actually uptown -- in the same neighborhood that produced George Carlin, Fiona Apple and Mr NYC -- that the first step in the legendary journey of Bob Dylan through American culture was taken. 

P.S. Riverside Church means a lot to me -- it's right near where I grew up, it's where I went to nursery school and where I eventually got married. So it's really cool to find out what an important piece it played in both the lives of Bob Dylan and yours truly.

P.P.S. And while we're thinking about Bob Dylan, let's not forget about Llewyn Davis because, remember, for every Bob there's a lot more Lleweyns. In fact, you might say the Mr NYC is the Llewyn Davis of NYC bloggers!

Remembering Terri Hall, NYC's Most Exotic Multihyphenate

In showbusiness there are lots of people called "multihyphenates" i.e. people who practice more than one craft. Examples: writer-director, director-producer, actor-wrestling star, actress-lifestyle entrepreneur, etc. 

I consider myself a bit of a multiphenate too but the late Terri Hall might be NYC's most exotic and interesting one.

Born in 1953 and originally from upstate New York, Terri came to NYC in high school to train as a ballerina. She had some success, dancing for companies such as American Ballet Theatre (like me) and, overseas, the Monte Carlo City Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet Company. She must have been a really good dancer because those were (and are) some of the top ballet companies in the world. But her ballet career was short -- it appears that drugs and mental illness might have contributed to that -- and by the age of 21 she was doing adult films.

But even in that notorious business, Terri had some success. For the next ten years she made many such films, including some "golden age classics" like The Opening of Misty Beethoven and The Story of Joanna. She worked with many of the top directors and performers of this time like the legendary (and legendarily well-endowed) John Holmes. 

Eventually Terri left the adult biz but didn't disapear from performing right away: she worked as a model for famous photographers, including for the even more notorious  and controversial Robert Mapplethorpe. The work she did for him and others was so noteworthy that it was even displayed at the Whitney Museum! 

Sadly Terri didn't live long -- eventually she left NYC, wound up in Pennsylvania, had various health problems, and apparently died in 2007. She would have only been 53/54 years old -- gone too soon. 

And yet she left her mark.

Even though Terri Hall wasn't some great beauty, her allure was undeniable. She just had that "thing." And how many us can say that we danced with top ballet companies, starred in some classic adult films with famous stars, and modeled for NYC's most famous photographer? That's an amazing legacy -- and an amazing multihyphenate one: a ballerina-adult star-photographer model. 

Only in NYC!

Good Luck Chuck

Review: "The Warriors" (1979) & "Warriors" (2024)

If there was ever a movie that epitomized the idea of a scary NYC-at-night hellscape, then it's The Warriors. Released in 1979 and directed by Walter Hill (a few years before his big Eddie Murphy star-making hit 48 Hours), The Warriors looks and feels almost as if aliens had invaded Earth and are fighting their intergalactic battle on the streets and subways of NYC.  

The movie takes place over the course of one night -- firmly, almost definitively placing itself in the realm of great NYC night movies.

The plot involves various gangs that have convened in Van Cortland park in the Bronx for a massive gang summit. One of them, the Warriors, has made the long trek from Coney Island to attend. The biggest gang leader in the city, Cyrus, announces to the amassed gangs that they should work together, respect each others turf, not kill each other, and use their collective power to overwhelm the police and control the city. He lays out his plan while, every so often, yelling "Can you dig it"? Dig it they do -- until a rival gang to the Warriors shoots Cyrus dead, turns around and blames the Warriors for the murder, and all hell breaks loose.

From there, the Warriors escape and start a long, violent trip back to Coney Island, chased by other gangs and the cops.

Knives and guns and mellees and Molotov cocktails frustrate their journey as they escape into Tremont, then 96th street and Broadway, in and out of Riverside Park, arriving later at Union Square, before finally making it back to Coney Island at early dawn -- only to find that they were still being persued by their rivals. Along the way they hook up with a hot chick (because, well, of course) and a radio DJ narrates their journey along the way. There's even a scene in the park that features a future Oscar-winner (but I won't give it away).

Can you dig it?

The Warriors had a completely unknown cast (some of whom went onto other movies but none who became huge stars) and was a modest box office hit at the time before becoming a cult classic. (Apparently at screenings in the early weeks of its release resulted in violent incidents from people trying to live out the action they were watching on screen.) Even though the book was based on a novel, the heart of the story comes from the Greek legend of the Odyssey, about how the path of humanity is just to go home. 

The Warriors is a wild, fun, and bizarre movie -- some of the fight scenes drag but they're never boring. The cast is young and colorful and full of energy. Most of all, it's the kind of dangerous, subversive movie that no major studio would dare make today. It's a movie in and of its time -- but its themes of youthful alienation and the allure of violence resonants into our day.

In fact, The Warriors resonates so much that Lin-Manuel Miranda himself decided to give it a musical adaptation.

Recently he released a "concept album" simply called Warriors, retelling the story of the movie with an all-female gang (there may be a stage version but that hasn't come to fruition yet). On the album, amongst others, are the featured voices are Marc Anthony, Billy Porter, Lauryn Hill, Hamilton's Phillipa Soo, Busta Rhymes, and Colman Domingo. I've only heard the album once but obviously it's good -- if not entirely memorable like Hamilton. 

So I highly suggest watching the movie and listening to the album and just be grateful that, in our day and age, if you get lost in NYC late at night you can just use your phone to get a cab.

Marshall Brickman RIP

The brilliant comic writer Marshall Brickman has died at the age of 88. He wrote for Johnny Carson in the 1960s and then went on to write and/or direct films like Simon, Lovesick, The Manhattan Project, For the Boys, and others.

But he's best remember for two enormously successfully collaborations: he was Woody Allen's co-writer on the great films Sleeper, Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Manhattan Murder Mystery, and he wrote the book for the big hit Broadway musical Jersey Boys (about the Four Seasons).

He co-won an Oscar for writing Annie Hall with Woody -- and the two also played jazz together. Woody has given his old friend and collaborator a memorable tribute that can can read here. 

RIP.

View from the Beverly Road Subway Station, Brooklyn -- 7:56 AM

Fort Totten

New York City is littered with the military history -- places like Governor's Island, the Armories on Park Avenue and Central Park, Snug Harbor, Fort Hamilton, plus multiple recruiting stations around town. 

Easily the most fascinating of all of NYC's historical military sites is Fort Totten out in northeast Queens. Built during the Civil War, it was a fortress to protect the city. 

Today it is a multi-use park by the city, state, and US military -- the Army and Coast Guard still hold "exercises" there but, in addition to a lot of green space, there are historic houses, reseach centers, and even a public pool. There's really no other park or public space in the city quite like it and, in summer, it's a wonderful place to stroll around, look at great views of the Manhattan skyline in the distance, and be in a place that is at once historic but, at the same time, very much thriving in the present. 

P.S. I went to Fort Totten in in 2019 when an Iron Throne was snuck in there for a promotional event -- but sadly the lines were too long and we couldn't sit on it. But it was a cool moment in cultural history, never to be repeated. 

100 Years of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Yesterday marked the 100th year since the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

If you want to know the whole history of how this NYC -- and now American -- tradition started, listen to this great episode of the Bowery Boys. 

Also, did you know that back in the 19th century -- before the parade -- there used to be a Thanksgiving tradition called Ragamuffin Day? Apparently it involved people dressing like homeless people and knocking on people's doors asking for treats -- something that morphed into Halloween in the 20th century. 

And here are some Mr NYC-exclusive photos of the parade taken at an exclusive vantage point:

And you can watch the whole thing here: