Damn, never though I'd see this: there's an upcoming HBO documentary about naughty NYC late-night cable TV host Robin Byrd who ran her stripper/adult star-filled show from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.
And it's called, haha, Bang My Box.
Robin was an "Only in New York" type, a former adult star who appeared in Debbie Does Dallas and who, along with Al Goldstein, brought "the sexy" and scandalous to NYC week-after-week in those pre-Internet/social media days. I remember watching Robin regularly during my high school years (and then in repeats for years afterwards) and she was truly a, uh, needed night cap.
I've blogged about Robin over the years, including back in 2009! And I interviewed former Robin Byrd guest, former adult star Hyapatia Lee, back in 2019. And now ... mainstream culture has caught up with Mr NYC, giving us this documentary about this NYC icon (believe it or not, it's produced by Sarah Jessica Parker), and proving, yet again, that Mr NYC is Ahead of His Time.
I'm looking forward to seeing this doc and also feel, quite smugly, that I recognized Robin's cultural significance much earlier than anyone else!
Postscript: Robin's show ended in April, 1999, just weeks before I graduated from college and two years before 9/11. It felt like, feels like, the end of old NYC and my childhood. Le sigh.
Well, well, well, Mr NYC really is ... well, maybe not exactly prophetic than certainly perspicacious.
In the early days of this blog I wrote about the early 1950's NYC Mayor Vincent Impelliteri -- perhaps the city's most forgotten 20th century chief executive. Well, a man named George Arzt, a lifelong city government journalist and staffer, actually knew "Impy" back in the day. Arzt is retirning after 60 years working in and around city government and he's given a great exit interivew that you can read here.
And then here's another interview you can listen two between podcaster/comedian Billy Procida and adult film star Sonia Harcourt -- where they talk about polyamory and swinging and all sorta of sexy stuff. I interviewed both Billy and Sonia several years ago so it's great to here two previous Mr NYC interviewees talk to each other ... and apparently that's not all they did!
Well this is certainly a Mr NYC first: I'm reviewing a current Broadway show that I had previously blogged about as being a historical curiosity relegated to the distant past.
I'm talking of course about Chess, the messy and failed 1988 musical that has been revived to massive success on Broadway. In 2021 I wrote a lot about how its various problems and controversies doomed it almost 40 years ago, and I mused about whether any producers might have the courage to rework and revive it.
And they did!
Perhaps Mr NYC played a small part on this? (Who knows, only that I was ahead of my time.) So here's my review of the revival:
Set in 1979, the plot involves two brilliant chess masters, American Freddie and Soviet Russian Anatoly, who are set to compete in Milan. The match is heavy with Cold War politics, and the CIA and the KGB want Freddie to lose the match so that the Russians will be willing to engage in the Salt II Nuclear Talks. Freddie doesn't want to do this, obviously. Caught between them in Florence, Freddie's lover whom he mistreats and who, through various personal and political events, moves over to Anatoly -- who then defects to England with Florence, leaving his wife and children behind. Eventually, four years later, they all come together at another chess match in Bangkok -- the all of their fates intertwine and explode.
This version of Chess has a new book that simplifies and clarifies the story. Some of the songs have been put in a more logical order that does a better job of pushing the narrative story. As for the story itself, it still doesn't really work as being quite as compelling as it aims to be, and the characters are a bit two-dimensional. That said, it never lags and you're never bored. Not at all! It's massively entertaining.
Chess is both helped and hindered by a narrator who explains all of the action and the historical context of the show. Because this version is being staged almost 40 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, it is therefore presented in a "once upon a time ..." fashion which gives the audience more perspective -- something obviously not possible in 1988. So that was good. Unfortunately the narrator tells a lot of dumb, corny, jokes that gives the show some humor (it's otherwise pretty heavy) but that is tonally dissonant with the rest of the story.
However, the songs are amazing, and the production is brilliantly staged.
Lea Michele, as Florence, is beyond great -- she is a true Broadway star, the best of her generation, and her version of "Nobody's Side" is so hot, so on fire, it nearly burns the theater down. Aaron Tveit as Freddie and Nicholas Christopher as Anatoly are also great, incredible singers and actors who play these tortured geniuses struggling to survive. The rest of the supporting cast is strong and I must give a shout-out especially the ensemble which is on stage for the entire show and sings and dances throughout, performing many complicated numbers. They are the heart of this show and are wonderful.
So see Chess for a good time, a piece of fun Broadway theater -- a reminder that yesterday's failure can be tomorrow's triumph.
If a building could be called a Drama Queen, then NYC's most drama-filled building is the Ansonia on West 73rd-74th street and Broadway.
I've blogged about it a few times over the years -- and, again, did so long before many others, being ahead of my time!
It was built in the 19th-century by a copper heir named W.E.D Stokes who wanted to make it an urban Utopia -- a place where its residents could retreat from city's nuttiness and enter into a world of peace and happiness. It had sound-proof walls so that families could live quietly, and Stokes even had the idea of a roof-top farm (he was well-ahead of his time).
But soon the Ansonia became a den of inequity, with its rich tenants using its sound-proof apartments for parties and affairs. The Continental Baths opened in the basement, becoming a gathering for gay men. And it's also where Plato's Retreat existed for many years, NYC's most famous swingers club.
It's where the 1992 movies Single White Female was set (I've blogged about that too).
But it's not only sex and psychos that made the Ansonia drama filled -- from Day 1 it was a money-pit, Stokes's creation driving him into poverty. And it is the most litigated building in NYC history, with lawsuits flying between tenants and owners for decades.
The Ansonia is, of course, the inspiration for the fictional Arconia in Only Murders in the Building (although it's not filmed there).
Yes, the Ansonia is so drama-filled that it's had podcasts and videos made about it (see below). It's quite a saga!
Last year, after my visit to Paris, I blogged about the amazing exhibit there displaying items from the movies of Wes Anderson.
Few directors have as unique an aesthetic as Anderson, all of his movies have a certain look and feel and mood that binds them together. Several of his movies contains objects that are specific to his oddball universe -- part of the painterly look that his movies have.
Anyway, the Wes Anderson exhibit is going on the road and is only now being written about in the USA -- so, my blog post from last year is year another example of how Mr NYC is Ahead of His Time.
Well, I'll be darned. Mr NYC's powers of prophesy have hit again.
In 2021 I blogged about the late 1980s Broadway musical Chess, about how it was a big spectacle with great songs and a muddled plot, and how it didn't last very long. Towards the end of my post I speculated (if I may be so gauche as to quote myself): "Maybe one day it'll come back to Broadway, if the plot can be brought under control and if there is interest in a show about something that clearly is now a historical era."
Guess what? There is a revival! Currently in previews and due to open on Broadway soon. And apparently it has an all-new book, a reworked story, which it very much needed.
Hmmmmm? Do you think perhaps the producers behind this revival saw my blog post and it sparked the idea to bring Chess back? Probably not. But a blogger can dream.
But wait, 'dere's more!
There's a new mini-series on Netflix called Death by Lightening about the 1881 assasination of President James Garfield. His Vice-President was Chester Arthur, former head of the Port of New York who become the 21st President of the United States and created the Civil Service.
I've blogged about Arthur a few times, including about the fact that he was the only other President besides Washington to take the oath of office in NYC. In this mini-series Arthur is played by Nick Offerman, giving this long overlooked historical figure his due -- but after Mr NYC gave it to him first.
In 2017 I interviewed the journalist Ross Barkan when he kicked off his campaign for State Senate in Brooklyn. He made the bold decision to stop just commenting on politics and instead jump into the fray, slap down his credentials, and put himself before the electorate, ready to serve.
He lost -- and returned to journalism.
But Ross' campaign turned out to be an acorn from which a great oak grew. Ross' campaign manager in that race was ... drumroll ... Zohran Mamdani.
Zohran, as we know, would go on to be elected to the New York State Assembly from Astoria, Queens in 2020 and is now the Mayor-elect of New York City.
Mind-boggling.
Ross has written a wonderful column about his relationship with Zohran during the 2017-2018 campaign and afterwards. It is, as he notes, head-snapping to have known someone when he was an anonymous staffer and is now a world-famous, history-making political figure.
I can only imagine.
But it is amazing to realize that, when I interviewed Ross back in 2017 (twice actually and later on in 2020), he was nurturing a one-in-a-million political talent who would go on not only to make NYC and American history but vanquish a fifty-year old political dynasty.
And to think, to ponder, to be amazed by the fact that there is a semi-direct link from a post on this 'umble blog covering a mere State Senate race to, less than a decade later, worldwide coverage of a history-in-the-making election ... curious the fates are.
History has its eyes on us. And to prove, yet again, Mr NYC is ahead of his time!
American politics has gotten ugly -- and, as we know, quite violent -- in the last few years. And especially yesterday.
It's easy to point a finger at you-know-who but really that's the wrong person.
Point it not at the clown in the White House but at his forerunner, the person who set the stage and made him possible -- Newt Gingrich. The former Georgia Congressman who masterminded the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress is the one who created the ugly political atmosphere that chokes us -- and sometimes kills us -- today.
Believe it or not, I blogged about all this back in ... drumroll ... 2008. The year 1994 was a transformative year in American culture and politics ... and, arguably, not for the better.
You should listen to Mr NYC interviewee Kurt Anderson (also from 2008) talk about the lasting impact of 1994 on our politics in a recent podcast with Molly Jong-Fast. As always, Kurt is very smart and incisive. And, as always, Mr NYC was and is Ahead of His Time.
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.
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.
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!
If you're a fan of the White Lotus series, you'll note that there are lots of scenes of characters lounging by pools or laying in bed, reading. Over three seasons, lots of different books have been used as props -- including Barbra Streisand's phonebook of an autobiography -- and they help to give the characters reading them another dimension.
In this third season of the show one of the characters is reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned -- a book I blogged about back in 2022. And there's a person whose whole job it is to get these books onto White Lotus, a sort of literary props master, that must be a fun job. (People on TikTok are chatting about it).
This remind me of a story -- albeit, a very short, rather underwhelming one. But it involves another noteworthy HBO show.
In early 2001 I was working -- miserably -- at a company that produced trade books. It was an awful job at an awful company with awful people, and I didn't last long there. But there was one fleeting brief moment that catapulted me into cultural relevance.
One afternoon my phone rang and I answered. A cheery voice said to me, "Hi! I'm calling from the HBO show The Sopranos!" I was floored. In early 2001 The Sopranos was, by far, the hottest show on TV. Everyone was watching and talking about it. This was while they were making the third season that included the legendary "Pine Barrens" episode.
Of course, I thought, "Why the hell are they calling this company?" But the friendly guy on the phone informed me that they needed books on real estate for an upcoming episode and could we provide some gratis. I said I thought that was possible, took down the info, informed my bosses, they went nuts, and off the books went to the Sopranos production company.
Months later, I'm out of this job horrible job and, one night, catch the show. And there, at the end of the episode, is Edie Falco herself reading the book I sent. That was weird, and cool, and my only connection to one of the best TV shows ever made.
I don't recall exactly which episode it was but it's towards the end of the third season. So, if you ever see it, remember Mr NYC himself masterminded this epochal contribution to the culture.
I might be forgiven for claiming that I possess a crystal ball. I don't -- but I certainly have, over the years, written about things long before the mainstream media or others have.
That's why I created an entire section of this blog called Mr NYC Ahead of His Time with examples of my psychic abilities.
Two blog posts that I did were about the borough of Queens and how it's essentially the "swing" borough in NYC politics -- the borough where mayors are made, the true political pulse of the city. (I referred to Queens as the "Ohio" of NYC but these days it's more like the "Wisconsin.") Also, I blogged about the political dynasties in this city, families that have posessed power in NYC for generations.
Well, whatyaknow, there was recently a big article that breaks down exactly how Queens breaksdown politically and how volatile it is, and the role that political dynasties play in NYC politics.
Like ... wow! I was writing about this stuff LONG before the hotshot political reporters in this town did. I don't claim to be brilliant but yours truly sure does have a habit of noticing and writing about things before others, a kind of "sixth sense" about NYC.
I plan to continue doing this for a long time to come!
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!
Five years ago, on New Year's Eve 2019, I did a big interview with former adult film start, and current Native American activist, Hyapatia Lee. She talked freely about her amazing life and career, including about the times she visited NYC and appeared on the Robin Byrd Show.
Well, Hyapatia also has a great YouTube channel and, in her most recent post, she talks more about her time in NYC, her visits to Robin's show, and her experiences in the business. Enjoy! Love you Hyapatia!
As the legal inferno involving Mayor Eric Adams continues to burn, some NYC scribes are rememebering other mayors from times gone by that also got into trouble.
The two mayors mostly commonly remembered for getting into big trouble are Jimmy Walker and William O'Dwyer, both of whom resigned in 1932 and 1950, respectively, and then fled the country. Also there was Fernando Wood, the 19th mayor who was vastly more corrupt than either Adams, Walker or O'Dywer -- and never got into trouble at all.
I recently came upon a few articles (here, hereand here) about these men, comparing their stories to the predicament that Eric Adams finds himself in (sadly two of these articles are behind a paywall).
But Mr NYC, yours truly, was blogging about these naughty mayors long ago, before any of this meshugas (read about them here and here) -- and remember, Mr NYC is always ahead of his time.
As always, Mr NYC pointed out the oddness and possible criminality of Mayor Adams well before most of the media -- once again, Mr NYC being ahead of his time.
Just last week I blogged about the difficulties that NYC Comptrollers face when they run for NYC mayor -- only one comptroller, Abe Beame, has gone to sleep in Gracie Mansion.
For more than half a century every subsequent comptroller has succumbed to the Curse of the Comptroller.
Doubtless when each of these comptrollers were first elected they must have felt, elated with the flush of a great victory, that the mayoralty was their's for the taking (only to find, years later, that it was out of reach).
Well, the current comptroller Brad Lander must feel the same way because he's just announced that he's running for mayor in 2025. This is going to get nasty really quick -- and as unpopular and vulnerable as Mayor Eric Adams is, it could wind up with both guys heading to their political doom.
But remember, when pundits start talking about the difficulties comptrollers runnings for mayor have, remember Mr NYC wrote about it first!
