Keeping the Past Alive

I'm a lover of history, not just because it's the greatest story ever told, but because it links to and tells us so much about our present -- and where we're going in the future.

When you link past, present and future in something, you get a sense of timelessness, a touch of the infinite.

The ultimate links can be several things -- including documents or records of events created in real time in the past or of places where history has happened.

You might not think that a Greenwich Village political club would be a fascinating hub of history -- but it is. The Village Independent Democrats is more than 70 years old and has been responsible for producing very important New York politicians including Mayor Ed Koch. The club is now archiving its records, which include meetings with Jane Jacobs when she was fighting Robert Moses's Lower Manhattan Expressway and documents about other important political events both from Greenwich Village and NYC history. 

Also, a piece of NYC history that will hopefully see new life is the Metro movie theater on 100th street and Broadway. I remember this place as a kid and saw lots of movies there. It's a beautiful, unique, art deco theater with a beautiful stone insignia above it's huge marquee, the quintessential movie palace (it was even in a movie itself -- it's where Woody Allen goes to see a Marx Brothers movie at end of Hannah and Her Sisters, where he learns the meaning of life). Sadly the Metro has been closed since 2005 and multiple attempts to reopen it (including as an Alamo Drafthouse) have failed. However, there are currently negotiations to reopen it as a move theater/community space and it could be a great new addition to the Upper West Side which has, sadly, become something of a movie desert in the last several years. If it reopens, it will be a piece of NYC movie history living again. 

When past, present and future link together in NYC, you see and feel how truly timeless this city really is.