When Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor last November, it was declared that he would be the 111th mayor of New York City.
But ... not so fast.
A deep-dive into the municipal archives reveals that -- in the 17th century -- when NYC was a new city and the mayors were appointed by the British government -- a man named Matthias Nicolls in 1674 briefly served as the city's chief executive.
Nicolls had been mayor before, then left office, but it appears that he was reappointed as mayor before departing quickly again. So Mamdani will technically be the 112th mayor.
It appears that there was no nefarious reason for this oversight -- it was simply a slip of the historical record.
Just another example of how the history of NYC is forever fascinating.
I'm in shock and tears at the awful deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle. Rob made so many classic movies of my youth -- Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, Misery, A Few Good Men -- that his legacy will be burnished into my soul forever.
My favorite, of course, is his 1989 classic When Harry Met Sally ... Rob and Nora Ephron collaborated to make one of the greatest romantic comedies ever.
I've blogged about it numberous times of over the years (read it here) but I'll simply add this: at a time when NYC was going through a rough patch (rising crime, the Crack epidemic, government corruption, severe racial tensions) Rob and Nora gave the world this beautiful, hopeful, and very funny movie that celebrated love and NYC. It was a shot of joy in a difficult time and for that New Yorkers will always be grateful.
Rob and Nora are now gone but we will enjoy their work forever. RIP.
The world of NYC real estate is cut-throat and, in the new Netflix series The Beast In Me, it's both metaphorical and literal.
The plot to this series is pure sensationalist thriller yarn -- dead wives! dead kids! trophy wives! domineering parents! broken families! horny FBI agents! and money, money, money!
It's total nonsense. But it's really well done and quite entertaining.
The plot involves a woman named Aggie, played by the always amazing Claire Daines, who is the author of a hugely successful book that got her a Pulitzer Prize and a big house in Oyster Bay ... but is now grieving her dead son, her failed marriage, and a horrible case of writer's block on her follow up book. She then meets her creepy neighbor Niles Jarvis, scion of a powerful NYC real estate family, who many suspect killed his wife (but was never charged criminally) and whose family is trying build a massive projects in Manhattan called Jarvis yards -- that is facing stiff community and political resistance. Niles is played by Matthew Rhys and man, oh man, he was is one scary dude in this series.
Events and intrigues ensue, secrets are hidden and revealed, and it's all a lot of pulpy fun.
The reason I'm reviewing this show is that while The Beast In Me is pure sensationalist thriller, it also has a Power Broker-Chinatown angle that is quite intriguing -- namely, it makes us ponder who rules and controls the fate of great cities, how and why are these rich and powerful and murderous people allowed to control the future of millions, and how it impacts us all.
