Inside Riverdale

Here's a look at the quiet bedroom community just north of Manhattan in the Bronx that many quiet, rich New Yorkers call home:

"Bad Lieutenant" (1992) Car Warning Scene

Remember, folks, always drive with your license or registration or else ... well ... it could get messy.

Remembering "Trinity" (1998)

Back in the day, when working class families still lived in Manhattan, it wasn't a crazy idea to make a TV show about them.

Thus was born the very, very, very short-lived series Trinity, about a working class Irish-Catholic family in Hell's Kitchen that ran for less than a month in the fall of 1998.

I vaguely remember when this show aired because it was during my senior year of college and I was living away from the city, pining for it from afar. If I'm correct, it aired on Friday nights so I wasn't really watching TV then but I think I caught a little of it once. It seemed like a heavy, intense drama about miserable white people and, apparently, it completely turned off audiences and was cancelled after only four episodes.

So why remember it? A few reasons.

First, it was a show about working class NYC, the kind of thing you don't really see today. It was about real people living real lives and, if it was airing today, I'd give it a chance.

Second, it was created by John Wells. He was the guy who created the massive TV hit ER just a few years earlier, and this show seemed like it could be another big, popular, and critically acclaimed success. Sadly it was not to be -- but years later he'd create (or re-create from the British version) the show Shameless that ran on Showtime for many years about another working class family (this time in Chicago).

Third, the cast. The patriarch of the family was played by the wonderful actor John Spencer who had appeared on LA Law a few years earlier -- and then, a year after Trinity was cancelled, would return in triumph with The West Wing, staying on it until his untimely death in 2006. Then there was Sam Trammell who, about a decade after this, would appear on the big vampire show True Blood. And yet another actor on the show who would go onto greatness was Bobby Cannavale who would later on appear on Boardwalk Empire and in lots of Marvel movies. 

So here's to Trinity, a forgotten NYC that had a brief, moment before its creators and stars went onto big things later on. 

Pope Francis RIP

Pope Francis has died. I blogged about him a little over the last 12 years, including his 2015 visit to NYC. You can find the archive here.

And here is what NYC St. Patrick's Cathedral Cardinal Dolan is saying and doing about this big moment.

He was a great pope, a really inspiring and compassionate figure, a moral beacon and we needed him more than ever in these dark times. I guess God needed him more.  

Rest in Peace. 

And soon the conclave to elect his successor will begin!

The Dolans of NYC

There are lots of rich and powerful families that own huge swaths of NYC. The Rockefellers, the Tisches, the Trumps, the Lauders, and lots you haven't heard about.

One of those families is the Dolans who own, amongst other things, the Knicks and Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, and other big venues.

This short documentary about the Dolans is a hilarious and insightful summing up of this bizarre NYC dynasty that wields great power over the city -- and does it really badly.

The Pause is Over

I've been out of the country for the last nine days so blogging went on pause.

But Mr NYC is back and there are lots of topics I plan to blog about soon.

Keep coming back here and look for it!

So We Beat On ... "Gatsby" turns 100

One hundred years ago today, the third, relatively short, novel by F. Scott Fitzgeral. Titled The Great Gatsby, it got mixed reviews, sold poorly, and was generally viewed a failure.

Now, a full century later, its regarded by critics and generations of readers as one of the greatest novels ever written, and the greatest American novel of the 20th century.

The American dream -- its unending allure and its many dangers -- that the novel explores and lays bare, remains essential, more relevant than ever before. 

The green light still shines bright. And tonight, the lights of the Empire State Building will turn green. 

I've written a lot about Gatsby over the years so I won't rehash it here. But I always go back to this book, always re-read it, because the of the haunting final line: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Hands Off Protest Rock NYC

The national media gave these thousands of protests nationwide, that included millions of people, very little coverage. But see for yourself what happened in the streets of NYC. The people are rising up! 

Review: "Manhattan Murder Mystery" (1993)

Of the fifty-something movies that Woody Allen has made over half-century, some are great classics, some are really good, some are just okay,  and some are entirely forgettable. 

One of my favorite of his movies that is often overlooked in his oeuvre is Manhattan Murder Mystery in 1993. It's actually really good. 

The story concerns a middle-aged, empty-nest couple named Larry  (Woody) and Carol (Diane Keaton) who live a good quiet Manhattan life with friends and work and culture and all that you could want from marriage and NYC. But Carol is bored -- and when she suspects that their neighbor might have murdered his wife, she takes it upon herself to investigate the "crime", dragging a very reluctant Larry along the way. What starts out as a lark becomes something much, more darker.

And, in the meantime, they talk a lot about the state of their marriage. 

By the time Woody made this movie, he had been directing movies for almost 25 years and was already wildly successful and acclaimed. And he was still challenging himself -- he shoots this movie in a documentary, fly-on-the-wall way. He manages to make the filming look casual but there's a steady intention to each shot, a real vision at work, and it's one of my favorite of his movies as matter of pure directing style. 

Then there's the cast -- Keaton, reuniting with Woody over a decade since Manhattan, is brilliant and Alan Alda and Angelica Huston, who had appeared, seperately, in Crimes & Misdemeanors a few years earlier, are excellent. And the movie manages to be both an intriguing mystery yarn while also a meditation on getting older and what you want out of the rest of your life.

And it's funny! Woody has made lots of funny movies but this might be one of his best. The humor is so understated that, when a joke arrives, it lands softly and firmly and really tickles your funny bone: "I can't listen to that much Wagner, I get this sudden urge to conquer Poland!" 

This movie was also a bit of a turning point in Woody's life and career. When he made it, he was going through his nasty custody battle with Mia Farrow, and that's why Diane Keaton replaced her in the movie (although Farrow, weirdly, after accussing Woody of child abuse, then showed up ready to work; Woody understandable didn't want to work with someone trying to put him in jail). He also wrote the script with his old partner, the recently deceased Marshall Brickman and their magic chemistry shows. 

Right after this Woody would make the classic Bullets Over Broadway and then begin an uneven series of movies until the triumph of Midnight in Paris in 2011. 

So I highly recommend this often forgotten Woody classic. It's not just a good movie, it's a balm. 

The Eric Adams Saga Takes Another Bizarre Turn

Whoever said "May you live in interesting times" was an asshole.

Actually, it was/is an old Japanese proverb and was in fact meant as a curse. The flip side to that is another Japanese proverb that states "May you have a boring life" and that was meant as a blessing.

As I get older, I see the wisdom in both sayings. 

Here in NYC, we're living in the "interesting times" of Mayor Eric Adams -- the criminal who runs the city. Only now he's technically not a criminal any more -- the corruption charges against him were dropped -- with prejudice, meaning they can't be brought against him again -- and now Adams says he's running for re-election as an Independent.

I hope to heck he loses but who knows? These days the vox populi est imbecile. 

Then again, in the 19th century there was Fernando Wood, in the 20th century there was Jimmy Walker -- so now, in the 21st century, we have Eric Adams. 

Still, the whole thing is rotten and weird and depressing. New York City deserves so much better than this.