New York City has changed in many ways during my lifetime, much of it in the physical infrastructure of the city itself: old buildings torn down and new shiny ones put up, neighborhoods gentrified from poor to rich, pedestrian plazas and new parks, bike lanes -- you name it, this town has transformed dramatically since the turn of this century. If a time-traveller from thirty years ago was to stroll the city streets today, he or she would be like Marty McFly in Back to the Future II, looking in wonder at how the old town had become techy and neon.
And they'd also discover that the city's old public TV station, WNYC-TV, is no longer around.
Today we live in the age of the Internet, streaming shows, and literally thousands of cable channels. We drown in content from all over the world. But it wasn't always like this. Once upon a time, and not so long ago, television was three and a half-networks, local stations, and a bunch of cable channels showing repeats, old movies, and news. Here in NYC any "alternative" programming was reserved for public television stations like Channel 13 which, then and now, mostly showed documentaries, British TV, and children's shows.
WNYC-TV was different.
Owned by the city, a sister broadcaster to WNYC radio (which is bigger and more popular than ever today), and located on Channel 3, WNYC-TV was a bizarre hodgepodge of programming. It was a cross between PBS and public access, a true oddity. WNYC-TV would show local public affairs shows, coverage of the United Nations General Assembly, foreign news from Japan and Italy, soccer games, and music videos.
Like the city itself, the station had a gritty, street-level vibe but also an international flavor. It was intensely local and extremely global.
It also showed a lot of very weird and off-beat British TV, the kind of stuff you didn't see on Masterpiece Theater. During the week, the station would show episodes of the working class British soap opera EastEnders. Very popular in the UK (and still on), the show basically consisted of lots of cocky-accented people yelling at each other in pubs and dreary houses. On Saturday nights, there was The Diary of Adrian Mole, about an English teenager dealing with the miseries of his home life and school (being a teenager at the time, I identified with him except that he had a cute girlfriend named Pandora and, uh ... well, anyway). There was The Fall and Rise of Reginal Perrin, about a food company executive who hated his life so much that in basically every scene he was trying to kill himself, only to get interrupted. There was The Young Ones, an extremely raunchy show about a bunch of university pals living together in a messy house. And there was Shelley, about an overeducated and unemployed man living in London, spending the entire time making fun of people who are more sucessful than him. It's also where I discovered Blackadder!
These shows were like nothing else on regular American TV at the time, and they did quite a number on my impressionable teenage mind. I felt lucky to live in a city where we had a station like this.
And then I went to college. And WNYC-TV vanished.
In 1996, the city sold off WNYC-TV and radio. A foundation was started to buy and run the radio station, and today it's a broadcasting and podcasting powerhouse. But WNYC-TV was sold off to some commercial broadcaster who just leased out its airwaves. Any trace or connection to the city was gone. All that is left of WNYC-TV are various clips on YouTube, some of which you can see below, including the final signoff in 1996.
This is a part of the city that is gone today but whose spirit still lives on.
In late 2020 I blogged about my memories of WNYC TV, the long defunct public television station that was owned by the city and was the sister broadcaster of WNYC radio.
The programming, as I indicated, was a weird cross between PBS and public access, with lots of international programming along with local shows. In the evening they would mostly show half-hour comedy and drama shows from the UK, much of it very offbeat stuff.
One exception to the British stuff on WNYC TV (although still quite "offbeat") were repeats of a late 1980s series called Trying Times. This was, unusually, an American show and it was actually created for PBS. Today we would call it an "anthology show" -- every episode was a stand-alone story with a totally different cast and characters. It could also be described as a "dramedy" -- the stories had a comic tone but there was a serious current underneath all of them. The episodes weren't laugh-out loud funny but there certainly weren't intensely dramatic. They were, well, weird.
Each episode chronicled painfully ordinary Americans (almost all white, let's face it, it was the '80) as they dealt with the trials and tribulations of life. A young lady goes home with her boyfriend to meet his family and it ends up with the father getting his hand caught in a food disposal in the sink. A woman gets divorced and experiences a miserable moving day. A guy who's been writing his thesis for 10 years has to get a job. I remember one odd episode where woman breaks into the house of a man to sleep with him because she's setting him up for a mob hit -- only to discover later that he's the wrong target.
And on and on. In many ways it was Seinfeld right before Seinfeld -- normal people who get into odd situations that escalate beyond anyone's control.
There were only about 12 episodes of Trying Times broadcast in 1987 and 1989. It's mostly (okay, completely) forgotten today but it was, in retrospect, way ahead of its time -- a single camera comedy/drama anthology series about wacky people. But what is memorable are the actors and talents who appeared on this show: Rosanna Arquette, Gina Davis, Candice Bergen, Carrie Fisher, Stockard Channing, Griffin Dunne, Robert Klein, Jean Stapleton, Steven Wright -- even Corey Feldman! Many were at the heights of their careers at the time these episodes were made. Some of the directors, also flying high at the time, were Buck Henry, Michael Lindsay-Hogg (currently getting some attention in the epic Beatles documentary), Christopher Guest, and even Jonathan Demme. There was a murderers row of talent in this series -- and one of the producers was, of all people, David Byrne.
You can find episodes of Trying Times on YouTube and watch the Golden Age of Television in its nascent form since you can't time-travel 30+ years and watch it on WNYC TV.
A few years ago I blogged about the late WNYC-TV which went off the air in 1996 after the city sold it off (WNYC radio still exists and is bigger than ever).
Now the city's Municipal Archives has digitized thousands of hours of tapes from WNYC-TV, from the 1940s to the 1980s. Obviously it's massive and impossible to watch everything but, if you're interested, you can find it and a history of the station here.
Over the weekend I stumbled upon an old 1989 documentary made for the now- defunct WNYC TV about the monumental US Supreme Court decision of that year which eliminated the Board of Estimate and triggered a restructuring of how NYC government is run.
It's called Power! Who Wins, Who Loses and, given its subject matter, is a shockingly entertaining look at how this city was run for nearly a century -- before it had to change.
He's the man who saved NYC multiple times -- first, in 1975, he was part of the team that prevented the city from going bankrupt; second, in the early 1980s, when he was the head of the MTA and overhauled how that messy public authority was run; and third, in 2009, when he became the Lieutenant Governor and saved the state (and the city's) finances). Ravitch was never elected to anything, but as a lawyers and developer he understand the mechanics of governor better than anyone and
While politicians, elected officials, may be the ones who make the laws and run things on a day-to-day basis, most of them sadly know little about how the government actually runs, how it works, how it finances itself. When it comes to government, most politicians are amateurs. It's people like Ravitch and Stan Brezenoff who understand this kind of thing deeply, they are the professionals who make it work.
And in a time when expertise is being trashed by the proudly ignorant, people like Ravitch should be appreciated all the more -- and their passing should be deeply mourned. RIP.
If you want to know what NYC looked like in earlier eras, there are countless photos you can find online and elsewhere of the city in the 19th and 20th century. You can see pictures of workers building the subways and the city's famous buildings, you can see the old-fashioned streets and lamp posts and street cars, you can see the old storefront signs and billboards, you can see famous New Yorkers of the past like Fiorello LaGuardia or Robert Moses, you can even watch old TV shows set in NYC like the original Tonight Show. When it comes to NYC's past, its visual legacy is secure.
But what about the sounds? Old pictures can show was what the city looked like but what did it sound like?
Well, WNYC has the answer. You can check out its amazing vault of radio broadcasts from the 1920s to today. You can hear famous New Yorkers giving speeches, getting interviewed, debating, and so much more. Listen to William F. Buckley debate Ramsay Clark. Listen to Ed Koch host a forum on drugs in 1969, long before he was mayor. Listen to a broadcast from January 1, 1950, where people wonder what the next 50 years of the 20th century will be like. Listen to a pastor bemoan the tawdry state of Times Square.
It's all here at the WNYC Municipal Archives website. Listen to the past, then contemplate our future.
"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives ..."
Thus spake Saint Augustine. Or an old soap opera. Either way time has been passing quickly lately because life has been quite hectic lately and blogging has gotten away from me lately -- until now!
But as I compose my first real post in over a month, the passage of time is very much on my mind -- and a couple recent events and remembrances have focused my mind on how people and things come and go, and either leave a lasting impression ... or don't.
First, a passing: the brilliant screenwriter and movie director Robert Towne recently died at the age of 89. He wrote and directed several films but the movie that catapulted him to cinematic greatness was his script for the 1974 classic Chinatown (which I've blogged about here several times). Besides being the most perfect screenplay ever written, Chinatown is also probably the best American movie ever made about the dark soul of a city and the forces that shape it. While it's about LA and not NYC, the movie has echoes of the real-life works of Robert Moses in NYC and how, to quote Chinatown, "he made this city." Towne understood the giant, secretive, menacing forces that surround and suffocate us, how cities are largely the products of deeply corrupt and powerful men, and how all of us are subject to their will and live within their warped creations. Hence the movie's iconic final line "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown." But we'll never forget Robert Towne, his great legacy, and what "makes" our city.
Second, another passing but one nowhere near as sad. As I've also blogged about several times, one of my favorite shows ever is the early 1990s sci-fic drama Quantum Leap -- about a brilliant scientist who travels back in time, "leaping" into the life of various people and "putting right where once went wrong," changing history "for the better." It had many great episodes, including several in NYC. A couple years ago it had a reboot that I had high hopes for -- only to see them dashed. The show was a mess. Instead of focusing on the humanity of the characters who were to be saved, it chose to be some kind of weird thriller with numerous and confusing storylines, too many poorly developed characters, and no real chemistry between the actors. It failed completely. Now it's been cancelled, put out of its misery, and hopefully it will be forgotten -- while the great original show will hopefully be remembered and rewatched for decades to come.
Third, it's hard to believe but it's been over a quarter of a century since Sex and the City first hit our airwaves. It's now become a part of NYC's culture and identity but, back in 1998, it was just a little show struggling to find an audience. The pilot was directed by Susan Seidelman who also made the funky 1982 NYC movie Smithereens which I reviewed back in 2017. In this recent big interview, Seidelman remembers the making of Smithereens, the S&TC pilot as well as her classic 1985 movie Desperately Seeking Susan. In many ways these movies and TV shows define late 20th-century NYC -- and Susan Seidelman's vision made them happen.
Fourth, an anniversary, a big one: WNYC radio is 100 years old! Yes, broadcasting in this town has existed for more than a century. Probably the most powerful public radio station in the country, WNYC has had a tremendous legacy -- and present day relevance -- to the life of this city. Besides going back and reading my numerous posts about WNYC, you can also listen to a history of the station here and also a recreation of the station's first July 8th, 1924 broadcast here.
All things and people pass, come and go -- but so much else lasts (like this blog!). And, for that, yours truly is truly grateful.
In the early 2000s, New York City was recovering from 9/11, the twelve years of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's reign were just starting, and the turbocharged gentrification of the city was on its way. It was a turning point in NYC and also for me personally -- I was a couple of years out of college and still finding my way, personally and professionally. It's also when a small, very offbeat, extremely local cable channel hit the air that was destined to be short-lived but was, at least for me at the time, a fun diversion.
It was called MetroTV, and it was an odd child of both New York magazine and the Dolan-family owned MSG networks.
Like its parentage, its content was a mashup of programming from the MSG networks. During the day it broadcast weather, traffic, educational programming, and, on the weekends, sports.
It had these very NYC-centered shows about dating, sex, love, and being single in NYC. There were shows like Naked New York where relationship "experts", book authors and magazine writers, adult start, and various other experts in the excercise of Venus would be interviewed by a middle-aged guy and his very hot younger female sidekick. There was To Live and Date in New York, a reality show about single people. There was The Radio Chick on the Prowl where a oddball radio host Leslie Gold would talk with people about -- guess what? -- dating! And there was, most originally, a show called Strictly Personal where people would record themselves talking about why they were great dating prospects and then they would direct people to a dating website to contact them. A friend of mine even appeared on this! (Yours truly did not.) This was in the early years of online dating, before the IPhone and dating apps completely changed the game.
In a way MetrTV reminded me of the old WNYC TV -- lots of dull programming and some really wacky stuff.
MetroTV started in 2002 and ended in 2005. By then most of this programming had been cancelled. I don't know why it didn't last -- shows about love/sex/dating might get boring after a while and also this channel was so far down on the dial that people probably didn't find it. MSG seems to have realized that sports programming was probably cheaper and more popular.
I tried to find old clips of MetroTV shows on YouTube but none were to be found -- seems like it's all been memory-holed, locked in vaults somewhere. But it was a moment in time, gone but not totally forgotten.
Yet another piece of kooky 1950s NYC propaganda, this time produced by WNYC when the city owned its own public TV station. Again, you must see it to believe it -- and see how much the city has changed in the last 50-plus years.
Blog posts are, in many ways, a bunch of essays of varying length that are collected, chronologized, and streamlined on this platform called "da blog." In the analog world, essays usually appear in newspapers, magazines, books, or other various tactile media, usually with a similar logic applied to their aggregation.
So where does that leave the radio essay?
For decades the radio essay was ephemeral, existing only for as long as it was broadcast across the airwaves and into the minds of its listeners. Then it vanished into the ether of time. Alistair Cooke, both before and after he hosted Masterpiece Theater on PBS, produced radio essays for the BBC called Letter from America. He broadcast thousands and thousands of them, from 1946 to 2004 (!), commenting on everything from the re-election of Harry Truman to the Second Iraq War. Most of those radio essays no longer exist but more than a thousand have been rescued and now, thanks to the Internet, are easily accessible.
The radio essay is now more lively and powerful than ever!
Which brings me to The Fishko Files, a wonderful oddity in the world of present day New York City radio. Broadcast on WNYC every Friday morning, and freely available online, they are short essays by culture critic Sarah Fishko. She covers the whole swath of culture in NYC and elsewhere, both past and present -- art, architecture, music, movies, TV, even unknown or recently discovered recordings. She "writes" about Leonard Bernstein, James Dean, Woody Guthrie, Scott Joplin, Andy Warhol, the architecture of the Old Penn Station, movies about the Holocaust, the new Whitney Museum, film composers, and many, many more. It's an audio feast of culture, a compendium of cultural essays from the cultural capital of the world.
Sarah Fishko has been producing these essays for WNYC for more than 20 years and you can listen to them all now -- whenever, wherever, however you want.
There's lots to do on any given Saturday night in New York City but it's not every Saturday night in NYC where you can go to "A Prairie Home Companion." But last night a bunch of us went to the 1174th live broadcast of Garrison Keillor's radio variety program at Town Hall.
It was a great show and hopefully you'll hear it this weekend on your local public radio station. Wearing his trademark suite and red sneakers, Keillor was hilarious and quick-witted as always (best joke of the night: when the Pope is in town this month he'll spend most of his time listening to confession from Elliot Spitzer). Keillor was joined by Scottish chanteuse Jean Redpath, who several beautiful songs, as well as by country music star Brad Paisley (who sang several HILARIOUS and naughty songs). Also, a local poet read several funny short poems and Keillor and the band sang several delightful songs.
Of course there was a Guy Noir mystery story (special guest: Kimberly Williams-Paisley, star of The Father of the Bridemovies and TV series According to Jim, also wife of Brad) that involved demolitions (gotta hear it to believe it) and, naturally, the News from Lake Wobegon.
I'm not able to hear "Prairie" every week but I do my best to. It's such an sweet, fun, innocent, old-fashioned show that it's almost hard to believe that such an uncool, thoroughly unhip thing could still exist in this deeply cynical age. But thankfully it does and, when it does to NYC, we should be grateful.
"A Prairie Home Companion" is broadcast locally on WNYC 93.9 FM, Saturday afternoons at 6 PM. It's rebroadcast on Sundays at 11 AM on WNYC 820 AM. Check out their website for more info.
New York City is, for the most part, a one-party city -- the Democrats control the three city-wide offices, four of the five borough presidencies, the vast majority of the City Council seats, and most of the city's state legislative and Congressional delegations.
But there are red dots in this blue mess, a handful of Republicans in the council and state/federal delegations -- and, of course, for 20 years, we had two Republican mayors.
One of those red dots was Eric Ulrich.
First elected to the City Council in 2009, representing Howard Beach way out in southeastern Queens, Eric was young, smart, fast-talking, and good on TV. He popped up on NY1 and WNYC radio a lot and he always seemed to know what he was talking about, always had a quick answer to whatever question he was asked, always was engaging. He was seemed like a bright-light of young Republican promise in a sea of dull Democratic hacks. His promise was strong, his future seemed golden.
Eric was supposedly that thing the media and too many Democrats wish existed but really doesn't -- the "good Republican", the "reasonable Republican", the Republican who is conservative, yes, okay, but who you could "work with", someone with whom you could "find common ground" with and come up with "common sense solutions."
That kind of crap.
During the De Blasio years, along with most of the media, Eric would rag on the mayor all the time, even though he voted for most of mayor's policy agenda. I remember seeing Eric on TV once complaining about how the sanitation department hadn't plowed his neighborhood fast enough after a snowstorm (because, you know, some people think their neighborhoods get plowed too quickly) and this was apparently proof-positive that De Blasio was a bad mayor. When pressed that crime was low and the city didn't appear to be in any kind of crises (this was pre-COVID), Eric blithered on about how the city was experiencing "a crises of confidence" which is the kind of thing that's obviously impossible to prove.
But Eric also wasn't a big Trump guy so that obviously made him a "good Republican" in so many people's eyes -- that mythical creature like the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
Eric Ulrich stayed in the council until 2021 when he was term-limited out. Then, Republican though he was, he joined the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, a supposed Democrat. At first Eric was a "special advisor", then he got a big job as the city's building commissioner. As you might imagine, in a city with LOTS of buildings, the building department is a very powerful, very important agency -- it has over 1700 employees.
Then, quite suddenly, after less than a year on the job, he resigned in late 2022.
Turns out, Eric was under investigation for participating in a gambling ring. Okay, that's not great -- but it turns out there was more. Eric apparently used his city elected and administrative offices to help himself get a steep discount on an apartment, Mets tickets, art, and repayment of his gambling debts. He's just been indicted for corruption and is looking at jail time.
I love a good Latin turn-of-phrase. Thinking about, and planning, this blog post, my first substantial one in several weeks, I thought about not only what I'd write but about what its theme would be. You see, living in NYC during this pandemic, it feels like the city we love is so close and yet so far. It's there, right out our windows, the concrete and steel and parks and everything we love exists but ... not really. We're here, it's there, we live in it and we love it, but so many of the things we love to do and enjoy in NYC are either closed, cancelled, or, if they are open, extrememly burdensome, not to mention potentially dangerous, to enjoy. So much of NYC right now feels in absentia -- its there but not here, its in our minds and memories and hopes and dreams but currently unavailable in our reality, our daily lives. Scanning the media these last several weeks, these stories defined for me this peculiar sense of absence. What makes it peculiar is that some of these absences are most definately permament but others either aren't permament but ... they might be ... we don't know ... they exist in a kind of purgatory ... in absentia ... forever for or (at least) for now. But some of these things also give me hope that a better day, Annie's "Tomorrow", is only a day (or few) away. Here goes, Mr NYC's peculiar feelings about COVID-19 in NYC, the feeling of being "in absentia": - There's the great musician Johnny Mandel, a child of NYC, who wrote many great songs including "Suicide is Painless" from the classic movie MASH. He died last month at the age of 94. - There's the memory of the legendary "Black and White Ball" that occurred on November 28, 1966 at the Plaza Hotel. This was the party of the century thrown by the great writer Truman Capote for Katherine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post. It was also Capote's re-entry into New York society after he had spent years researching and writing his masterpiece In Cold Blood, living mostly in the mid-west. Everyone who was anyone went to this party, a list of legends. This oral history gives a full account of what was, in many ways, the last time high society was openly celebrated by the world. In captured a moment in time before the horrors of Vietnam, riots, Watergate, and so many other body blows would hit the American spirit and psyche -- the legacies of which we still grapple with today. - Then there's the funky world of NYC theater. Who knows when it will ever live again? Live performances will be the last thing that can "reopen" for obvious reasons, so it may be a year or more before not only Broadway but theaters and shows and performance spaces of all stripes will be able to come back. That's why this other oral history, written in 1985 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Off-Broadway, is both a joy and also sad a thing to read. It reminds you of another NYC, a NYC that lives and breathes and performs and explores creativity. That NYC is on hold for the moment but we can always remember and honor it -- and that it returns ASAP. - And then we come to the present moment. Many New Yorkers have left the city, quarantining in the country. An estimated 400,000 plus people fled. Some have already returned, some hope to soon -- but others think they might never come back. Others did stay (like yours truly) because the idea of abandoning their city in its deepest moment of need felt wrong. But I shall not cast any stones. In a difficult situation like COVID-19, there's no right answer to any of this, no right thing to do, no perfect solution to a problem that persists and endures for the world. Should I stay or should I go? That's a question in a time and situation like this that only individuals can answer for themselves -- and we should all reserve our judgements of whatever decisions others have made. - And yet ... whatever you're doing during this pandemic, wherever you are, it's probably involving a lot of TV, particularly streaming shows. The wife got me watching this ridiculous show on Netflix called The Politician about a young man who aspires to one day become president and plots out his climb. In the first season he ran and (sorta) won the student presidency of his high school in California. In the second season, he and his friends move to NYC and take aim at unseating a powerful New York State Senator (most of which involves this young man giving speeches next to bridges in freezing cold weather). The plot is absurd but the acting, the writing, and the production values are first-rate (it also has Gwenyth Paltrow). It's a total guilty pleasure. Also, it's a total NYC love-fest, with numerous scenes filmed in restaurants and places that we love -- the kind of places that we can't go to right now. If you've seen or plan to see the second season of this show, you can find more about the glorious places where they filmed it in NYC here. - And yet, into the absence, into the void, comes some pure joy: a new show called Central Park on Apple TV. It's an animated musical show, pure fantasy, about a family that lives in Central Park and is trying to savev their home from a developer. The voice talent on this show is insane: Kirsten Bell, Daveed Diggs, Tony Shalhoub, Fred Armisen, even Ed Asner! And so many more! It's a wonderful new edition to the culture, an act of creation in a time of so much loss, that reminds us of why we eternally love NYC, even in the worst of times. - Finally, there are the saviors. There are the front line workers healing the sick and keeping our city running at a time when it feels like it's frozen. They are saviors all. These saviors include the people at The Public Theater and WNYC radio who, for four nights, broadcast Shakespeare's Richard II in lieu of Shakespeare in the Park that was obviously cancelled. It's an amazing, beautiful experience hearing this great old play read by today's top talent. My family and I listened to it every night and loved it. You can listen to it here. Hopefully, in this time of destruction, Shakespeare on the radio becomes a new creation, a new light in the darkness, that lasts and shines on brightly. NYC is in absentia for now ... but never forever, and never totally.
As 2013 ticks away into 2014, our city is poised to get its first new
mayor in over a decade. At the stroke of midnight, the Bloomberg
era ends and the De Blasio era begins.
WNYC radio has had a
great series of reports called New York Remade: Before and After
Bloomberg. A lot has happened, both in the city and beyond, during these
past 12 years. As the series' website explains:
On Jan. 1, 2002, when Michael
Bloomberg was sworn into office, these things barely existed: iPods,
Blackberries, pocket digital cameras. These things didn't exist at all:
the Barclays Center, Citi Field, One World Trade, or the Gehry NY
building.
People smoked, all the time, in
restaurants and bars. Almost no one rode bikes, and T.V.-less yellow
cabs drove down Broadway right through Times Square. Back then, a market
rate apartment in Harlem was about $1,200 — about half of what it is
today. Pizza was $1.50 a slice, same price as a subway token.
Carrie
Bradshaw lived in a Manhattan brownstone, drank cosmopolitans and typed
onto a black and white computer screen. The High Line was a rusted and
weedy hulk, not the locale for furtive kisses for the "Girls" crew
before they head home to Brooklyn. Adlai Stevenson High School still
existed. The Success Academy and six hundred other schools did not.
You could be anonymous in 2001. Now, not so much. We are watched, everywhere, if not by security cameras, then by each other.
New York has been transformed in the last 12 years, in ways that are wrenching and huge and intimate.
Might I add: the city was also still
reeling from 9/11. Ground Zero was a smoking hole with clean-up
crews moving away the rubble of the old World Trade Centers and still
finding bodies.
Back then, our city's biggest fear was getting hit by another terrorist attack. Now it's being able to afford to live here.
The
first decade of the 21st century has been a profound transitory time
for our city. I don't recognize the town I was born in the 1970s, and
grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. The 20th century is but a faint memory
now, another time that is both feared and fetishized in our collective
memory. If you go back and watch movies made in NYC back then, movies
like "Taxi Driver", "Do the Right Thing" and "Bad Lieutenant", it
made NYC look like a nightmare. Now we go to movies like the recently
released "American Hustle", set in the late 1970s, and you'd think the
city was simply "funkytown" back then.
Perhaps it was better,
perhaps it was worse. Perhaps what we've gained in public safety,
health, and schools has been lost in a sky-high cost of living, a
bleaching of the culture, and a loss of communal spirit. The debate
rages endlessly on. But one thing is clear: maybe we don't actually want
to live in Funkytown anymore but we still want to talk about it.
And
in 2013, four notable New Yorkers died who lives embodied the late 20th
century city, who rode high during the era of Funkytown: former mayor
Ed Koch, rocker Lou Reed, pornographer Al Goldstein, and news reporter
Stan Brooks. They were four very different men,
occupying quite different spheres in this city's life and imagination,
but their lives and careers are essential to understanding that time in
our city's life that is now so definitely over.
Ed Koch was
mayor from 1978 to 1989. In his time, he improved the city's disastrous
finances and built affordable housing. He had a proud legacy but was
also very divisive. He was famously irrascible, screaming at
anyone who disagreed with him, and he seemed to relish conflict with
anyone who wanted it. Koch's natural successor was not his actual
successor, David Dinkins, but Rudy Giuliani: both men polarized the city,
setting black against white, rich against poor. The Bloomberg era has
been markedly different both in tone and governance: race relations have
greatly improved and he has openly supported gay marriage. As for the
poor, Bloomberg hasn't played rich against poor: he's simply forgotten
about the poor and forced them out of the city. (Problem solved.) So a
governing style of quiet ruthlessness and embracing diversity has
replaced the divisive, rough-and-tumble governing style of
Funkytown -- and the man who embodied its spirit left us in 2013.
Lou
Reed made his musical career in the 1960s and 1970s writing songs about
drugs, death, bondage, and drag. His music was about the dirty and
dangerous city -- and it was brilliant. As NYC changed and Lou Reed got
older, his music became legendary not only for its great experimentation
but also for its memories of the vanished city. The city of "Sally
Can't Dance" and "Dirty Boulevard" is gone and now, sadly in 2013, is Lou Reed.
But we'll always listen to his music and remember that time and its
poet, a man who made lyrical beauty out of the decay of Funkytown.
Today,
anyone can get porn on the web. My generation was the last that had to
work hard to get its porn (usually by begging an older friend to buy a
magazine from a creepy vendor and then hiding it under the bedroom mattress,
stressing out that mom would find it when making the bed or discover us
reading it when she called us to dinner -- let me tell you, it was
stressful) but today's "yutes" can simply go online, search vast amounts
of naughty content, and then hit the "Clear History" tab on their
browsers when mom calls. The man who represented
the mattresses-hiding time of porn was Al Goldstein, the foulmouthed
pornographer and provocateur and New Yorker extraordinaire, who founded
"Screw" magazine in the 1960s and then, from 1974 to 2003, hosted
the racy cable show "Midnight Blue" on Channel J. He was gross and
offensive and wanted you to know it. He was "the man" during the time
when Times Square was a bastion of porno theaters and drug dealers. Al
Goldstein became the symbol (for many) of everything that was wrong with
NYC back then, the filth that Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver" so
desperately wanted to wash away. Giuliani started the scrubbing in the
1990s with raids and new blue laws but, in the Bloomberg era, it was
washed away by the Internet and gentrification. Goldstein's magazine and
TV show didn't survive, and he literally became homeless as a result.
But his recent death is a reminder of that time, of the sleaze of
Funkytown, when the city was a wild place -- fun for some, revolting for
others -- that is now clean and, for many, very boring.
And finally, Stan
Brooks. You might know his name: he was a reporter for 1010 WINS radio
news for decades. He had a great voice, one that was born for radio, and he reported on everything from the 1971 Attica Prison riots to
the recent election of Bill De Blasio as mayor. Any history that was
made in NYC over the last 50 years, Stan Brooks reported it first. If
you ever saw the movies "Goodfellas", it's his voice that reports on the
Lufthansa heist made famous in that classic film. Stan Brooks was the
memory bank of this city, the man who explained what was going on in
Funkytown to its residents. Now Stan Brooks is gone, along with the city
he reported about for so long. We've lost a great reporter, a great New
York voice, and a living link to our city's past.
As another great New Yorker, novelist Don DeLillo wrote: "It's all falling indelibly into the past."
The song "Funkytown" was a one-hit
wonder released in 1980, a year when the city was deep in the era of Ed
Koch, Lou Reed, Al Goldstein, and Stan Brooks, and when yours truly
was just three years old. The song was written by a guy named
Steven Greenberg for a band called Lipps, Inc who were all from
Minneapolis and dreamed of moving to NYC. The song was an open
love letter to the dream of this city, to its spirit and danger, to why
people wanted to live here, even back then, the so-called bad old days.
Just remember the first few lines:
Gotta make a move to a Town that's right for me Town to get me movin' Keep me groovin' with some Energy
You can't be funky without some energy, and energy was the essence of the Funkytown era -- the era that the Bloomberg years have so definitively vanquished
Now our city moves into a new era.
Sadly, these four great New Yorkers won't be there to see it. But they
made NYC an interesting place in the last decades of the 20th century,
they gave the city its unique energy, and for that we thank them.
Now,
firmly in the second decade of the 21st century, and the dangerous
energy of that time has been replaced by a safe apathy. We may not be
going back to Funkytown anytime soon, but we need to shed the apathy and
re-find its energy. That's the way we'll honor their legacies in the new era that's about to begin.
The great cultural radio show Studio 360 (hosted by Mr NYC interviewee Kurt Anderson) has a recurring segment called American Icons that reviews important works from our nation's culture. These include things like the classic novels The Great Gatsby and Moby Dick, special moments like Jimmy Hendrix's performance of the "Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, the Harley Davidson motorcycle, even the old TV soap Dallas. The segments look at why these various creations, from different points in American history and in radically different art forms, made a lasting impact on not only American culture but also the American psyche. These American Icon segments are some of my favorite things to listen to.
But wait, 'dere's more!
Recently Studio 360 launched a new New York Icons series that does the same thing for distinctly NYC-centric works. So far: the classic salsa album Siembra, Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar", and the musical West Side Story. There are lots of classic movies and books and shows that could qualify as New York Icons, as well as moments like 1951 "Shot Heard 'Round the World", or Mayor LaGuardia reading the comics on WNYC radio, or Studio 54. The possibilities are endless. May I make one suggestion to the creators of the New York Icons series? Maybe you should include blogs. And, if you're including blogs, maybe you could include, oh, I don't know, Mr NYC!
A couple of week ago, the always great WNYC interview Leonard Lopate had a surprise guest host -- legendary, Oscar-winning actor Christopher Walken. Walken needs no introduction: he is one of the most beloved, amazing actors of his generation. He has made many great movies (Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Catch Me If You Can), has had career on stage (he recently appeared on Broadway and, did you know that he started as song and dance man in musicals?), and even music videos. He is also a frequent guest host of Saturday Night Live and crafted a couple of great characters -- "the Continental" and the music producer always screaming "More cowbell!" Imitating Christopher Walken has practically become a cottage industry -- Kevin Spacey, Jay Mohr and others have received acclaim pretending to be him -- that he will be remembered forever.
By the way, did you know Walken has been married to the same woman for 40+, casting agent Georgianne who casted The Sopranos? And that his mother recently died at age 104? Pretty amazing.
Recently, during Walken's hosting gig he interviewed a bunch of people including restaurateur/TV cooking host Lidia Bastianich. Both grew up in Queens in the 1950s and have knew each other back then (Lidia actually worked in Walken's Bakery in Astoria, owned by Chris's family). In this wonderful interview, they talk about their families and lives growing up back then and Chris talks about his family's bakery and how he used to work in the back. Lidia talks a lot about her career and her memories of Chris's family and they are joined by Lidia's adorable mama who shares her memories of Chris's dad and what a great, hard-working man he man. You don't hear a lot of interviews like this so it's something really special. Enjoy.
One-hundred years ago tonight Prince Edward of the United Kingdom was honored with a big dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. He was concluding a long North American tour, previously visiting Canada and Washington DC, and was closing it out in grand style in NYC. At this moment in time, Edward was at the center of the world -- the handsome young star of the royal family, icon of the British Empire, and a future King. The world genuflected to him, he was beloved and feted everywhere he went -- and it was impossible to imagine on this night 100 years ago that, less than 20 years later, he would become one of the most famous exiles in history. 1919 was a turning point in world history -- a year after the end of the War to End All Wars, WWI, known then as the Great War. The world was putting itself back to together, trying to pick up the spiritual and literal rubble of the most useless, insane act of violence in world history. The culture was changing too, casting off the crusty old world Edwardian culture and embracing the world of Dadaism and post-structuralism. This brilliant podcast from WNYC is all about how the "shell shock" of the war changed the culture of the world forever.
As for Edward himself, he would return to the Waldorf many years after 1919. He had abdicated the throne, a fallen man, exiled from his country and family, shacking up with his twice-divorced American wife, uninvited to his niece's wedding and coronation. In the new season of The Crown, Edward is shown at the end of his life in 1972, still showing a great, almost masochistic love for the family and monarchy that had doomed him into exile. (Right now, 100 years later, that niece, Queen Elizabeth II, would surely love to exile her son Prince Andrew after his bizarre TV interview where he spoke, badly, about his friendship with the late NYC financier/predator Jeffrey Epstein. While he probably won't be forced into literal exile like Edward was, Andrew probably will be in a kind of functional exile from now on. He shamed himself, and now his family and his country want little to do with him. So into the wasteland of exile he goes.) But exile isn't just for royalty! In the era of #MeToo, any number of formerly prominent men are being exiled from their careers and social lives, banished from their professional circles and polite society. Liked Prince Edward 100 years, they used to exist at the center of things, they were the honored guests in powerful worlds -- only to be cast out, shunned, told to take a physical and reputational hike. What does it mean to be an exile? To be banished from a place or a group of people? It means, most simply, to occupy a negative space -- not to live but simply to exist in a place far away (literally and otherwise) from where you want to be. It means your invitation has been rescinded, your credentials revoked, your entry badge confiscated -- you're persona non grata in a place where you were once very ... persona grata. In short: it means you go from being wanted to unwanted. What's more painful than that?
Here's another great example of a famous exile. The great NYC journalist Pete Hamill, in late 1974, visited San Clemente, California in search of Richard Nixon. Two years earlier Nixon had won the biggest landslide in American presidential history -- he carried 49 states! -- and was as popular and powerful as any president had ever been. Nixon strode the world stage like a colossus, opening diplomatic relations with China, limiting nuclear weapons with the Soviet Union, and winding down the war in Vietnam. And then ... in 1973 and 1974, the Watergate scandal consumed him, forcing him to resign in August 1974 and into exile in California. In this article, Hamill roams around the area near Nixon's home, talking to people there about whether or not they have seen America's most famous exile (they hadn't), wondering about the state of mind of a man who very recently had not only lived in the White House but who also seemed to have the literal world at his feet -- and was now a hermit in a small Southern California town, hidden not only from the world he used to dominate but from his very own neighbors. Later on Nixon would move to NYC (he died here in 1994), not quite as reviled as he had once been but still an exile from the world -- the political world -- that he had once ruled. But being exile isn't just an existential state, it's more a state of mind. Being an exile is defined by a never-ending "wanting", a non-stop desire to have or be something you once had or were, now gone and locked away from you. It's defined by the aforementioned negative space, by a perennial emotional and mental sense of absence. Being an exile is like being a living void, a sort of real-life zombie. Right now, there are hearings going on in DC about whether or not Donald Trump, the most vile president in US history, should be impeached. Maybe he will be, maybe he won't. But we can only hope that this modern day monster will be one day become an exile too, banned not only from the White House and political world but from the America's consciousness. Hopefully he will suffer a poitical and reputional fate, a total and complete exile, as bad as the ones Edward VIII and Richard Nixon and many others have suffered.
