Central Park Pool Opens

Mr NYC Twofer

So today is a combined Classic Mr NYC and Mr NYC Ahead of His Time post:

First, the Waldorf-Astoria is reopening after an eight-year renovation. Mr NYC spent his wedding night there. Read about that here and then watch this story about the new Waldorf below:

Second, there's a new book about how the English gained control of Manhattan island from the Dutch. Well, yours truly wrote about it back in 2017 so read that post here and read the excerpt from this new book here.

The Biggest Political Upset in NYC History?

These people seem to think so -- they discourse about it at 20:24.

I don't know if Zohran can win the general election but he's without a doubt a genuine political talent, a natural, and they fact that he's brown, Muslim and left-wing scares the wits out of the rich, powerful, and old. He's the future -- and they know it because the future always wins. 

Zohran Wins, Heads Explode

Now Zohran hasn't actually won the mayoralty -- he still has to win the general election in November. It looks like there's going be a cluttered and super nasty general election campaign. He'll be up against the Republican candidate, the always crazy Curtis Sliwa, and Mayor Adams himself, running as an independent.  

Expect super racist, fear-mongering propaganda to flood NYC for the next four to five months -- the NY Post will go nuts on him, and he'll get little actual support from the Democratic party. 

And you should also watch this interview from CNBC who gives you an insight into his enemies minds. This prick totally contradicts himself when he says that city hasn't recovered since COVID but there's also not enough housing to match the city's job creation. Dig the logic: "The city is in crises, people are leaving! And too many people want to live here!" The truth: NYC has a bigger population than ever before, 8.4 million. Between 2010 and 2020 over 600,000 people moved in -- that's the equivalent of the entirety of Miami moving here. The DEMAND to live here is greater than the SUPPLY to house everyone -- that's capitalism, something I thought CNBC understood. And usually demands increases, and therefore prices go up, because it's a highly desirable product.

People move in and out of NYC all the time for work, family issues, life changes, many reasons, that's been true since the time the Dutch ruled this town. This focus on how rich people feel about this town is gross -- without a vibrant middle class that can afford to live here we'll turn into a dead city. I don't know if Zohran can actually achieve his goals but the voters clearly want someone who'll try.

I strongly advise watching these two videos from the Bulwark, one that analysis Zohran's victory and the other with an interview with Zohran himself. He's a natural politician, a super talent, one of a kind. 

Something I also learned: he's another Morningside Heights kid! Zohran, George Carlin, Fiona Apple and moi are all residents of those strange streets around Columbia University. Very cool. 

Also, apparently Zohran did very well in Waterfront NYC -- Queens (Astoria, LIC) and Brooklyn (Williamsburg, Gowanus) that's now being renamed the Commie Coast. Cute. 

Mr NYC Ahead of His Time

Okay, doing two Mr NYC Ahead of His Time(s) in under a week may be a little shameless but I can't help it -- I really am.

See, when it comes to people and places and things in NYC, I always feel like I saw them first, got them first, experienced them first -- I was, in a way, prophetic.

Recently two things reminded me of that, and they couldn't be more different.

First, a report on CBS Sunday Morning about the Professional Children's School in Manhattan. I went there for middle school, during my dancing days, over 30 years ago. It was weird seeing what the school has evolved into today -- some things were familiar, some things very different. Plus ca change ... and so forth.

Second, our friend Ross Barkan has popped up again, this time giving a big interview about the mayor's race to Tara Palmeri, one these ex-network anchors who now does her own YouTube show. You should watch it since both Tara and Ross are very smart. 

Specifically, Ross talks about whether or not this election will mark the end of the Cuomo dynasty that has had great power in this city and state for almost 50th year. Are the Cuomos going the way of the Bushes, the Kennedys, the Romanovs and the Habsburgs? Tomorrow will tell us. 

 

Fiorello La Guardia: America's Favorite Mayor

Here's a really good short video bio of 1930s/1940s NYC Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, often considered the greatest mayor the city ever had. It's a good summary of his life, his transformational mayoralty, and his rambuctious, wild personality. 

Here is the complete Mr NYC Laguardia archive and below a discussion about the primary election being held tomorrow for all those aspiring to follow in his footsteps here in the 21st century:

Teen Struck by Lightening! In Central Park!

 

Mr NYC Ahead of His Time

The 2025 NYC Democratic Mayoral primary will end on June 24th and it will go down in history as one of the most befuddling in our fair city. The leading candidates are a former NY State governor (Andrew Cuomo) who resigned in disgrace four years ago and a Muslim Socialist Assemblyman (Zohran Mamdani). 

Once upon a time -- let's say, ten years ago -- the idea that either person could win a primary and maybe get elected mayor seemed unthinkable. Yet here we are. Of course once upon a time we never imagined that a bankrupt conman convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who was twice impeached and tried to violently destroy democracy could be elected -- and re-elected -- President. Yet here we are. 

Dark times. Weird times. Take your pick.

But staying closer to home, one really has to wonder how Cuomo and Mandami became the mayoral frontrunners. This article posits that it's due to the withering of the political clubs in NYC. Tammany Hall is long gone, and the remaining clubs no longer have the power to "deliver" votes that carry mayors to victory. Instead, individualized campaigns took over from the clubs, public financing meant that clubs couldn't throw around money in quite the same way. Clubs can canvas and help turn out voters but they don't have the patronage power of jobs that they used to, they don't have the neighborhood-to-neighborhood power that they used to. And obviously television and social media and outright fame can deliver vastly more voters than a party boss.  

The article also revives the memory of a mayor that I blogged about in 2007: Vincent Impelliteri (called Impy) who was handpicked by Tammany Hall to run for City Council President in 1945 because he was an Italian from Manhattan ;they needed to balance the citywide slate (Mayor, William O'Dwyer; Comptroller, Lazarus Joseph; City Council, Impelliteri) with an Irishman, a Jew, and an Italian. When O'Dywer resigned in 1950 Impy became mayor. This is held up as an example of how clubs, the political "machines", made mayors back then.

But one thing the article gets somewhat wrong is that while the political clubs and machines can't "make mayors" these days, they can still make members of the city council, State Assembly and State Senate. No, they can't make another Impy -- or Robert Wagner or (going even farther back) Jimmy Walker, but the clubs/machines still wield a lot of power in NYC under the radar. 

So here we are, less than a week before the primary, and the most likely winners are a guy running on huge name-recognition and another on social media savvy. 

Tammany Hall could never have imagined that.

If you want to know more about where Zohran came from, read this article by three-time Mr NYC interviewee Ross Barkan about Zohran when Ross ran for State Senate in 2018 and Zohran worked for him. It's interesting to see where this possibly transformative political figure came from and who he is.

And remember, I was blogging about all of these people -- Cuomo, Zohran, Ross, even  Impy! -- several YEARS before this current moment. 

And yet again Mr NYC is ahead of his time while the rest of NYC is catching up!

Lower Manhattan as Seen from the Governor's Island Ferry -- August 17th, 2023

Review: "Julie & Julia" (2009)

Flying home from Paris one of the in-flight movie options was, naturally, Julie & Julia from 2009.

This comedy is a dual bio-pic about the famed cookbook author and OG TV cooking show host Julia Child, and a woman named Julie Powell who cooked all 524 recipes from Child's 1961 tome Mastering the Art of French. The movie flashes back and forth between the late 1940s/early 1950s (when Julia Child and her diplomat husband, Paul, were living in France and she was discovering her love of French food and the genesis of her book), and 2002 when a young, newly married woman named Julie Powell, living in NYC, decides to cook all of the book's recipes.

It's a movie about love and inspiration -- the love of food, of culture, of significant others, of the better and more refined things in life, and how these things are always challenged by the harsh realities of the world. In the Julia Child/French/mid-20th century part, Julia and her husband's life and careers are challenged by the Cold War and encroaching McCarthyism, and the Julie/NYC/early 21-st century part is challenged by the shortness of money and the dark shadow of 9/11. The movie's point is doing what you love, being with who you love, enjoying what you love is possible -- but it's a lot of hard work and sometimes we face big forces beyond our control.

Julia Child is played by Meryl Streep in one of her typical dazzling performances. Her husband is the always great, always lovable Stanley Tucci. Julie Powell is played by the perky Amy Adams and Chris Messina is her clueless but loving husband. The movie does a good job of interweaving the two stories and showing us the luscious world of post-war France and the gritty reality of early aughts NYC. And if you love food, especially French food, you'll get really hungry after watching this.

Julie & Julia was the last movie written and directed by Nora Ephron, three years before her death in 2012. She was the brilliant writer of When Harry Met Sally ..., Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, and other movies.  This movie was her swan song -- and a really good one at that -- if not necessarily up there with her classics. It's worth seeing, especially if you love Paris, NYC, food, and everything that makes life worth living.

"No Kings" Protest Rocks NYC

Mr NYC in Paris: Le Grande Finale

And so now we come to the end. This will be the last post about my Paris trip and my personal favorite -- pictures from the nighttime bus tour we took.

It whizzed us around the city as darkness fell and the city of lights began to shine. So many of the places we had seen looked different, and even more beautiful, in the evening lights (even my oldest kid, who likes to be grouchy all the time, broke out into a smile). 

In addition to all the famous sights we also saw places like the L'Olympia Theater (where the Velvet Underground reunited in 1993 and recorded their big double live album) and the original Moulin Rouge. An incredible, memorable night!

Can Zohran Win?

Personally I don't think he can (although it'll probably be close) but the young Assemblyman is running a hell of a race: he's a strong, smart, charasmatic candidate; a great communicator; and really stands out amongst the hacks and has-beens he's running against. He's a 21st-century candidate, not a 20th-century holdover. He's the future, whether people like it or not. 

Still, would NYC really elect a 33-year old Muslim Socialist to one of the most important job in American politics? Hard to see, but I hold out hope.

Listen to this smoking hot English lady talk about Zohran's chances. For an election that's all about the grit and grime of NYC life and politics, this gives it all a little glamour:

Mr NYC in Paris: Odds & Ends

We also saw some other cool fun stuff randomly around Paris, including Metro stops named after famous Americans. In a city with so many beautiful things to see, these were notable to us as well:

Mr NYC in Paris: Wes Anderson Exhibit @ Cinematheque Francais

Our time in Paris coincided with a big exhibit at the Cinematique Francais, the French cinema museum, about the films of Wes Anderson. The American filmmaker now lives in Paris, and he donated many artifacts from his movies over the decades to this lavish and gorgeous exhibit. If you're a man of his movies, you'll recognize a lot of the stuff that we photographed here:

And here's more about the films of Wes Anderson here: