Talkin' "White Lotus" in NYC

 

Once Upon a Time in Greenwich Village ... or ... Where Watergate Began

One fine day -- around noon on March 6th, 1970 to be exact, nearly 55 years ago -- a townhouse located at 18 West 11th Street exploded. In this beautiful, serene part of Greenwich Village, an unimaginable act of terror had occurred.

But not really. The explosion was an accident. 

Inside several young people who were part of the left-wing terrorist group the Weather Underground had been building bombs. They were planning to cross the river and attack Fort Dix in New Jersey, then Columbia University, but these young, brash, radicals had no experience handling explosives -- and tragedy ensued.

This very public act of (accidental) domestic terrorism freaked the city out -- as well as the White House of President Richard Nixon. And it set off a chain reaction that eventually led to the first Presidential resignation in American history.

In the aftermath of the Greenwich Village explosion, a young White House aide named Tom Huston wrote a 43-page memo. Dubbed the Huston Plan, it outlined how the US government should fight back against groups like the Weather Underground -- including break-ins, kidnapping, intercepting mail, wiretapping, blackmail, psy-ops, all kind of nasty and ILLEGAL stuff. Huston presented his plan to then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. No stranger to the dark arts of surveillance and disruption, Hoover actually rejected the plan -- he didn't want his agents to be put into a position where they might get arrested by local law enforcement and, as an old man, he no longer had the stomach to explain this kind of stuff to Congress. So he dismissed the Huston Plan and that, so it seemed, was that.

Nixon was pissed. He didn't want any more domestic terrorism on his watch and he ordered the plan implemented anyway -- until he backed off. But the idea that his White House might have to freelance on its own to stop America's domestic enemies remained a widely held belief amongst All the President's Men.

A year later, in April 1971, the Pentagon Papers were leaked to the press. This massive, secret report detailed how the United States had gotten mired in the Vietnam War and lied about being able to win an unwinnable war. The Republican President Nixon, at first, actually was delighted about the leak -- the Pentagon Papers indicted Nixon's two Democratic Presidential predecessors, JFK and LBJ, over their handling of the war -- and viewed it as a political boon for him. But then his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, told him that if the Communist Russian and Chinese governments saw that someone could leak secret information to the press and get away with it they would think that he, Nixon, was a "weakling." 

Nixon flipped out. He ordered that the man who had leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press, a former Pentagon aide named Daniel Ellsberg, be prosecuted or neutralized. And Nixon didn't want anymore leaks or terrorism or anything like it -- thus the White House Plumbers, a secret group of former FBI and CIA agents, to do dirty jobs for the White House to "plug" the leaks.

In the fall of 1971 two Plumbers -- G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt -- broke into the Los Angeles office of Daniel Ellsberg psychiatrist to find information about him that they could use for blackmail. They found nothing and ended up smashing up the doc's office. They returned to the White House empty handed, the Plumbers were disbanded.

But what should have been the end of the story was only the beginning. 

Hunt and Liddy were sent to the Nixon reelection committee called CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the president). Even though this two dopes had messed up their previous assignment, the geniuses at CREEP decided to put them in charge of "black advance" -- spying in Nixon's potential Democratic opponents and sabatoge their campaigns. Eventually this led to Hunt and Liddy and a group of Cubans breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee on June 17, 1972. Thus Watergate, the most consequential political scandal began. And two years and two months later, on August 9, 1974, Nixon would resign the presidency.

It's hard to realize that such momentous history happened within less than five years in the early 1970s. And obviously Watergate is the famous scandal in history.

The seeds of this most American tragedy weren't planted in the White House or even in Washington, DC -- it happened here on the streets of NYC, where history is always happening, once upon a time. 

"True Detective" Comes to Jamaica Bay

Fourteen years ago I blogged extensively about my visit to Jamaica Bay. A massive wildlife refuge and national park located on a variety of islands in southern Queens, it's a world unto its own, part of the "blue highways" of America in a remote part of of NYC.

It's just another reminder of how huge and geographically diverse this city is.

Well, the HBO anthology show True Detective has apparently now discovered this area too. After previous seasons set in rural Louisiana, Los Angeles, the Ozarks and the wilds of Alaska, the upcoming season of True Detective will take place in Jamaica Bay.

There's no word yet on what the story will be -- it's still being written, apparently -- and no word on who will star in it (it's not yet cast) but, no doubt, I will certainly blog about when it finally premieres (scheduled for some time in 2027, around the 20th anniversary of this blog).

I'm a big fan of True Detective (although the quality of the seasons has been very uneven) but I think setting the next season in Jamaica Bay is quite brilliant -- a mysterious part of the country's biggest city, a place where doubtless lots of bodies and secrets have been buried. The idea of it is intriguing. I just hope it's good!

"Twelfth Night" on Live from Lincoln Center -- August 30, 1998

I remember seeing this production in the summer of 1998. The star power is unbelievable. It was a fun time!

You can read more about Live from Lincoln Center, including my own experience, here. 

NYC is Under Criminal Control

One of the reasons why I keep this blog running is because I feel like I'm recording history in real time. Journalism may be the first draft of history but this blog is sort of like the messily edited, marked up version before the second draft is completed.

So in this Year of Our Lord 2025 in the City of New York in the United States of America, here's the situation that history will have to try to reckon with: the Mayor of New York City is under indictment and under the control of the President of the United States who's a convicted felon.

The Mayor of New York City is under indictment and under the control of the President of the United States who's a convicted felon.

This is dystopian stuff, the abnormal that has become normalized. Right now NYC is under complete control by criminals. I never thought, never imagined, we'd be in such a situation and that apparently this is what the people of this city and this country want!

And it's having terrible side-effects: the mayor's top deputies are resigning, the people we need to keep the city running are bailing out, fleeing this profoundly messed up situation. I can't blame them but we need them!

And to make it worse: the hot gossip is that the corrupt former governor of New York State might be the criminal mayor's replacement! 

What the hell is going on? We must, as a city, demand better -- and vote for it!

"Saturday Night Live" @ 50

Here's the very first episode of SNL ever broadcast in 1975:

And here's some of the 50th anniversary celebration in 2025:

And here is the complete Mr NYC SNL archive here.

Mayor Adams: Should He Stay or Should He Go?

New York State Governor Hochul has the power to remove NYC Mayor Eric Adams from office. 

Will she do it? 

Adams is deeply compromised because the Trump "Justice" Department is ordering the dropping of Adams' corruption charges but the actual Federal prosecutors on the case are refusing to do so. Resignation is following resignation -- a rolling Constitutional Crises. 

This is an NYC version of the 1973 Watergate "Saturday Night Massacre."

Growing up in decades right after Watergate, I assumed that something like this could never happen again. That America would never elect a bad, corrupt president again. But we did -- twice -- and it's even worse than fifty-something years ago. 

And it's taking NYC with it!  

From Bill Bramhall in the Daily News -- February 12, 2025

"I Shot Andy Warhol" (1996)

I remembering seeing this movie in the summer of 1996. It blew me away and I'm happy that the entire thing is now available on YouTube. Watch it here.

You can also review the Mr NYC Andy Warhold archive here and read more about the life of Valerie Solanas and the SCUM Manifesto. 

Classic Mr NYC

In 2021 I blogged about the infamous NYC madam Polly Adler.

Now there's a great little video bio of her you can watch.

But remember, you heard about her here first -- Mr NYC ahead of his time!

Tony Roberts RIP

Brilliant character actor Tony Roberts has died at 85.

Born, raised, and living his entire life in NYC, Tony Roberts was the quintessential New York actor -- he did theater, TV and movies, his characters always bringing the city to life. 

Tony made several movies with Woody Allen including two of his very best -- Annie Hall and Hannah & Her Sisters. And he made other classic NYC films like Serpico and The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3.

I also recall him being in an incredible episode of Law & Order back in the 1990s.

Most of all, Tony Roberts was a great Broadway actor, starring in over 20 shows over the decades. I saw him on Broadway twice -- in 1990 in Jerome Robbins' Broadway and in 2009 in The Royal Family which I reviewed here. 

He was also a delight to see, a cool, calm, reassuring prescence, and he was always very funny. His best line in Annie Hall: "Where I used to live is now a pornographic equipment store."

A legend. RIP.

Memo from NYC

I love history. Even though this is a blog about NYC, I'm obsessed with late 19th and early 20th century European history, the decades where the various rulers of the great empires in Europe made terrible decisions that led to war and revolution -- and shaped the world we live in today.

And in so many ways the lessons that can be learned from that time and place apply to our country and NYC today. 

"It was hard to be Tsar." So begins the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore's book about the Romanov dynasty that ruled Russia for 300 years. Ruling an empire, a country, a region or a city is hard work. Well, it's hard if you take the job seriously, if you strive to do it well, if you try not to make mistakes, and if you truly care about the welfare and progress of your people and your land.

But if you don't take it seriously, or handle it badly, catastrophe ensues. 

In the years leading up to World War I, three of Europe's biggest empires were ruled by people who were unfit to rule. In short, they were really bad at their jobs. They were incompetent, arrogant, delusional, prone to magical thinking, made huge mistakes, and it all ended in horror.

In Germany there was Kaiser Wilhelm II. An erratic, arrogant, narcissistic man-child, he engaged in building up a navy that Germany didn't need, just to piss of England (and his English relatives), tried to play different countries against each other, fired the best Chancellor that Germany ever had (Bismark), and finally plunged Germany into war in 1914 that forced it to fight on two fronts. Eventually Germany lost the war and Wilhelm fled the country -- leaving his country in ruin, eventually leading to the rise of the Nazis.

In Austria-Hungary, you had Emperor Franz Joseph, an amiable but unimaginable ruler who refused to give the 11 nationalities of his empire any real political sovereignty or respect. He was also vulnerable to demands of his army chiefs who yearned for war, any war, and eventually capitulated to their demands to attack Serbia -- that triggered World War I. Franz Joseph died in 1916, was succeeded by his very young nephew, and eventually Austria-Hungary lost the war, the empire broke up, and Franz Joseph's dynasty, the Habsburgs, lost power after 600 years.

And finally, in Russia, you had Tsar Nicholas II, the most staggeringly dumb man ever to rule a vast empire, who believed he'd be a great ruler because God wanted him to, who refused to make reforms until violence ensued, started wars (like the one with Japan) that Russia list in 1905, oversaw the massacre of Bloody Sunday, and finally plunged Russia into war in 1914 with an army that was totally unprepared to fight. This led to the fall of the Romanovs and the rise of Communism.

Disastrous rulers all -- and some of the people who worked for them were even more insane (like advisors who wanted wars or encouraged repression or ... Rasputin). It was rule by the unserious, rule by the mendacious, and it had very serious and cruel conseqences.

We see this in America today.

Today we are being ruled by reckless and unserious people who are dismantling our government, draining our country's power, condoning criminality and violence and repression, and destroying our nation's reputation. It's a horror show (unless you hate America, in which case it's a triumph). 

Closer to home we have Mayor Eric Adams, perhaps the worst and most unpopular mayor this city has ever had, a criminal and a narcissist, a disaster. And he sure doesn't take his job seriously -- Adams has even said that his job, being mayor of the country's biggest city, isn't hard! It's like when Donald Trump told Bob Woodward that he didn't think that the COVID crises was a leadership challenge!

Well, if you don't really care about your job or your city or your country or your people or the challenges facing them ... then leadership is easy. Then it's easy to be the Tsar, or the president, or the mayor, or the whatever. Like school. If you don't care about doing your homework or taking tests or getting good grades, then school is a cinch! But if you do care, well, it's a little harder.

If someone tells you that something that is intrinsically hard is in fact easy, then that is not a serious person -- and that person should never be in a position of power or responsibility. 

Last year I did a blog post about the kingdoms of NYC and I included links to a British mini-series from 1974 called Fall of Eagles. In 13 brilliant episodes it dramatizes the 70 years leading up to World War I and the fall of the German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires in 1918. I can't praise this show enough -- it's massively entertaining and also shows how the warped personalities and priorities of these rulers and their minions created hell.

I strongly recommend you watch it and you can find all the episodes for free on YouTube here. The best episodes, in my opinion are: Episode 4 about the 1889 Mayerling tragedy; Episode 5 about the Nicholas II and Lenin (played by a very young Patrick Stewart); Episode 9 about the annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary; and Episode 10 about the start of World War I. 

These episodes most of all demonstrate the failures of people unfit to lead or who operate through delusion and lies. And it makes you look at the people leading America and NYC today and realize that what happened in the past sadly is happening again today here at home. 

Remembering "Serpico" the TV Series

In 1973 a movie called Serpico starring Al Pacino about the corruption whistler-blower NYPD cop Frank Serpico came out. To this day it remains a classic flick with one of Pacino's best early career performance (it came out between the first two Godfathers).

Then in 1976 a TV series called Serpico starring a guy named David Birney about an NYPD cop named Frank Serpico who busts other corrupt cops came out, ran for 15 episodes, got cancelled, and was promptly forgotten.

This being Mr NYC, I'm naturally interested in little forgotten cultural nuggets like this. And even though it wasn't a great show, it's certainly an interesting late 1970s slice-of-life. The show's pilot aired in April 1976 and then for half-a-season from September 1976 to January 1977.

Interestingly enough (for me) the show aired at the same time the recently deceased Jimmy Carter was elected and when yours truly was born. It also went off the air at the start of one of the most consequential years in NYC history. 

If you have any interesting in watching this show, you can actually see the whole series here. And believe it or not, as of this writing, Frank Serpico is still alive at the age of 88!