Remembering "Six Degrees" (2006-2007)

Twenty-years ago, before they'd be on Furious, Hope Davis and Campbell Scott appeared together on another show, the short-lived Six Degrees.

Based on the premise first introduced in Six Degrees of Seperation, it's about six different New Yorkers whose lives intersect in various odd ways. They are: Carlos, a public defender struggling with his job; Mae, a recent NYC-transplant with a mysterious past; Laura, an interior designer mourning her husband killed in Iraq (very 2006); Damien, a limo driver and ex-con, trying to live a straight-edge life; Whitney, a high-powered PR woman, Laura's best friend, and with a cheating finance; and Steven, a photographer who just came back to town and who is struggling to reestablish a relationship with his ex-wife and son.

If you're an NYC-junky, this show was for you. But with a premise like this, it needed to be great and it just ... wasn't. It was okay. The main problem is that for a show centered around six people, they needed to be more interesting and their problems needed to be more dramatic. They weren't. The premise was cool but sadly the show didn't really make it compelling. The characters and their storylines were rather boring.

So why am I remembering it?

Well, obviously, because it was a very intensely NYC-show and, naturally, it caught my interesting. Even though the show's drama was underwhelming, it was one of the few shows that really made you feel like you were in the city, and that was unusual (outside of the Law & Order franchise).

Also, it had a great cast: the aforementioned Campbell Scott, Hope Davis, along with Bridget Moynahan (someone also nice to look at) as well as Erika Christiansen (who had been really good in Traffic a few years earlier), and other. They'd all go on to do better stuff.

Another thing is a little more personal: first, one of the creators was a guy named Raven Metzner who I actually went to school with. I also remember one day, leaving my house and walking to work, when I walked by this show being shot on the street early one morning -- and I saw Hope Davis and Bridget drinking coffee and waiting to shoot between setups.

Finally, another reason I remember this odd, long-gone and forgotten show: besides the fact that this show came out preceisely 20 years go, but it was also on just before I started this blog and moved in with my girlfriend.

Six Degrees ran for a few episodes between September and November of 2006, then was pulled from ABC's schedule, then came back in March 2007 and was finally cancelled for good (in fact its last episode airs on March 30, 2007, three days after this blog began). So I remember it here not because it was a great show but because it was truly NYC show and that it was on during an inflection point in my life -- and this was a show all about that!

Tony Roberts RIP

Brilliant character actor Tony Roberts has died at 85.

Born, raised, and living his entire life in NYC, Tony Roberts was the quintessential New York actor -- he did theater, TV and movies, his characters always bringing the city to life. 

Tony made several movies with Woody Allen including two of his very best -- Annie Hall and Hannah & Her Sisters. And he made other classic NYC films like Serpico and The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3.

I also recall him being in an incredible episode of Law & Order back in the 1990s.

Most of all, Tony Roberts was a great Broadway actor, starring in over 20 shows over the decades. I saw him on Broadway twice -- in 1990 in Jerome Robbins' Broadway and in 2009 in The Royal Family which I reviewed here. 

He was also a delight to see, a cool, calm, reassuring prescence, and he was always very funny. His best line in Annie Hall: "Where I used to live is now a pornographic equipment store."

A legend. RIP.

Remembering Fernando Wood, NYC's "Scoundrel" Mayor

Imagine a politician who built his wealth in real estate, was a racist demagogue who supported the Confederacy, incited a riot, married and fathered multiple children with multiple women, tried to undermine democracy and the law to make himself a dictator, and used his executive public office to enrich himself ...

Of course I'm talking about the mid-19th Century NYC Mayor Fernando Wood.

Born in Philadelphia in 1812, Wood migrated to NYC and worked as a laborer, got involved in Tammany Hall politics, and was eventually elected to Congress in 1840. After one term he left and got into real estate, accumulating a fortune but remaining involved in politics until he finally was elected mayor in 1854.

His administration was basically a giant shakedown and bribery operation but he did notch some significant achievements: rebuilding the city harbor, overseeing the approval and eventual creation of Central Park, and implementing the grid system. He also attempted to change the city charter to essentially make the city government the extension of one man – him – so he could act as a dictator. When he ran for re-election in 1856, he furloughed the police department and got a band of thugs to menace and beat up voters in order to get reelected. He was never prosecuted for this. 

Defeated for a third-term, Wood eventually got elected mayor again in 1860 – just as the Civil War was breaking out. He supported slavery and the Confederacy, and called for NYC to secede from New York State so it could keep trading with the south.

So did Fernando Wood ever face public disgrace or jail for his corruption and crimes?

Oh no. In 1862, he returned to Congress and opposed abolition. And he remained in Congress, becoming chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, until he died in 1881, a very wealthy man with a mansion on West 77th Street.

He also had three wives and fathered 16 children. The man was forever busy.

Today we live in an era of aspiring dictators and corrupt chief executives with a love of racism and violence and money. So while history has not been kind to Fernando Wood's memory, in some ways, he'd be right at home in our era.

But he's been condemned, at least, by popular culture: see the 2012 Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln and listen to the 2011 Bowery Boys episode.

In many ways, Fernando Wood makes later NYC mayors Jimmy Walker and Eric Adams look like pillars of virtue.

Trump's "Bedtime for Bonzo": Remembering "I'll Take Manhattan" (1987)

Before the 21st century Golden Age of Television, the 1970s through the 1990s was the Golden Age of the Television Mini-Series.

Whenever regular TV shows went on vacation, the networks would broadcast these multi-episodes series that were a little less than a movie but a little more than a regular TV show. Some of these mini-series, like Roots from 1977 or the 1980s civil war drama North & South, were great, classic TV. But a lot of it was stuff like the 1987 soapy mini-series I'll Take Manhattan, based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Judith Krantz (who wrote a lot of these kinds of books that then became mini-series).

The show's IMDB description tells you everything you need to know about it: "Maxi Amberville tries to save the magazine empire her father built, but her treacherous uncle stands in the way." The Amberville's are supposed to be a Murdoch-like, more like Sy Hersch-like, family running a magazine company very much like Conde Nast. The spirit of this show -- family members battle for control of a media empire -- is basically Succession thiry-years earlier, although nowhere near as funny, well-written, well-acted or well ... everything ... as the HBO show. The story is formulaic, the acting hammy, the dialogue stupid, everything's predictable and dopey.

So why does Mr NYC choose to remember it?

Because it's a relic,a time-stamp, of its age -- the Go-Go 1980s Reagan-era business drama that was very popular at the time. And because it's a very NYC story -- Money! Sex! Publishing! Betrayal! Donald Trump! Lots of shots of the World Trade Centers! Lots of music with saxapohones! Secretative calls being made in phone booths in the pouring rain in at nighttime! It's all there.

The most interesting thing about it is the cast -- it's truly a time capsule of actors and actresses whose careers were either on the way up or on the way down. 

Valerie Bertinelli plays the heroic Maxi. She had just finished her long run on the hit TV show One Day At A Time and this show, one gueses, was supposed to demonstrate her great acting chops. She is a great actress but this show was clearly not the right vehicle in which to do so.

The always wonderful Barry Bostwick plays her father, the company's founder, and he's probably the best thing in it. A just-about-to-be James Bond Timothy Dalton is in it as are veteran TV actors Jack Scalia and Perry King who plays the no-good rotten scheming villanous uncle as a no-good rotten scheming villanous uncle.

There's also a few actors who went on to greatness: Jane Kaczmarek, thirteen years before Macolm in the Middle, Chris Noth a few years before Law & Order and Sex and the City, a pre-My Two Dads/Step-by-Step Staci Keanan, and, most notably, future Oscar-winner Julianne Moore ten years before Boogie Nights. 

Also, future President and aspiring fascist dictator Donald Trump has a cameo because they filmed some of it at Trump Tower and gave him an obligatory cameo. You might otherwise call this show Trump's Bedtime for Bonzo. 

It has to be seen to believed. But I'll give this show credit -- 1987 was the era of Bonfire of the Vanities NYC, the start of the crack epidemic, when people loved to hate this city -- and this show, at that time, dared to celebrate it. 

Here are a couple of episodes (you can find the rest on YouTube) as well as some clips and promos. It was truly part of a TV era we probably will never see again. 

Remembering "Caroline in the City"

In the mid-to-late 1990s the NBC television network was riding high with shows like Friends, Seinfeld, Mad About You, Frasier, ER, Law & Order and others. In an era before streaming and cable "prestige TV", before YouTube and social media, when hit TV shows accumulated literally tens of millions of viewers, NBC was the highest rated network with its Must See TV lineups. 

One of those shows was Caroline in the City.

A sitcom about a cartoonist (Caroline) living in NYC with a wacky next door neighbor, an on-again/off-again boyfriend, a wacky assistant who's secretly in love with her, and various other wacky people who drop in and out of her life, the show ran for four seasons from 1995 to 1999. It was kind of like Sex & the City before that show ever aired -- but much, much more sanitized. Often squeezed between airings of ratings juggernaughts Seinfeld and ER, Caroline in the City was the classic "time slot" hit -- a show that got big ratings because the shows before and after it got even bigger ratings.

Unlike several of the aforementioned shows that remain beloved classics today, constantly in reruns or on streaming, or that have even been rebooted (like Law & Order and Frasier), Caroline in the City is completely forgotten today. Set in a fantasy-land NYC about white people obsessing about their love lives, it's the kind of show that, today, most people probably askance at. 

Yet I remember the show, somewhat fondly, for a couple of reasons.

First, it starred the wonderful Lea Thompson who a decade earlier had been in the Back to the Future movies (as well as other '80s classics like Some Kind of Wonderful and Howard the Duck). While the show wasn't great, she was ... some kind of wonderful in this show. Second, the show aired during my college years -- in fact, interestingly enough, it premiered a month after I started college and went off the air a month before I graduated. So, for me at least, it's a kind of time-capsule of a very special, very specific time in my life -- even though I didn't watch the show regularly. 

So today I remember a show that, while not great, while it might not "totally hold up", hold a weirdly special place in my heart. 

Review: "Leopoldstadt"

The madness of the Holocaust -- the Nazi's mass extermination of millions of European Jews during the Second World War -- remains one of history's greatest crimes. Grappling with it has confounded humanity ever since. Numerous artists have tried to make sense of something that is fundamentally insane -- most famously by Steven Spielberg in the 1993 movie Schindler's List. 

The brilliant playwright Tom Stoppard, himself a refugee of WWII, makes his own attempt in his new play Leopoldstadt which I recently saw on Broadway.

Whereas other Holocaust stories brood on the horror of the camps and the brutality of the Nazis, Stoppard does something different but, in some ways, even more devastating -- he tells the story of a Jewish Viennese family from 1899 to 1955 and how their safe, beautiful, sometime scandalous life is upended and destroyed by genocide. It's an intimate story of the fabric of family being torn apart, rendered asunder, only leaving lonely strands behind. In the play this is literally symbolized by the string game cat's cradle -- the strings are pulled apart but still connected, forever bound together.

The plot concerns the Merz family, a wealthy family of factory owners. At the turn-of-the-century, the family is happy and thriving, although not all is clockwork harmony. Some of the family members have converted to Christianity in order to blend into Viennese society while others have held steadfast to their Jewish faith and identity. Their existence in precarious -- in some ways they are respected citizens of the then-Austro-Hungarian empire, protected by and pledging fealty to the Emperor Franz Joseph, living freely and enjoying their hard-earned success. But as Jews (or former Jews), they are still held suspect by society, kept at arms lengths -- as shown when one of them is denied membership in an exclusive Viennese club. Clandestine love affairs and old family squabbles are upended by the First World War. By the 1920s some family members have been killed and maimed by the war, several relationships are strained, and the mighty diversified empire they belonged to, that gave them safe (if sometimes sneering) harbor, is now gone -- replaced by a weakened republic. Eventually, in 1938, the Nazis come, annexing Austria with the "Anschluss" and literally beating down their doors, hauling many of them off to the camps. A decade after WW2, in the mid-1950s, only three of them are left alive, living in different countries, forever haunted and distraught at the lost lives -- some of which they aren't even old enough to remember. This is an intimate story of a massive crime, where we see the almost complete erasure of a family -- a tradition, a way of life, a whole world -- as the actors literally vacate the stage. We see it in the void, the absences of the people who are not there but should be. It hits home in a way that only great drama, great storytelling can do.

Haunting.

Leopoldstadt is the name of a largely Jewish neighborhood in Vienna but, in this play, it becomes something more -- the place in memory where family happiness and acceptance thrived before horror invaded it. As always, Stoppard's scenes and dialogues are superlative but unlike some of his past plays (like the Jumpers, The Invention of Love or Arcadia), it's less intensely intellectual and dense or more emotional and free flowing. Unlike most plays these days which have small casts, this one has a huge cast of 39, that fill the stage before, as indicated, they gradually vanish. Amongst the large cast, Josh Malina plays Hermann, the family patriarch, heading a great cast including Brandon Uranowitz as Ludwig, his brother-in-law and intellectual sparring partner, and Faye Castelow as Gretl, Hermann's unfaithful wife. All of the performances are excellent.

Even though a Stoppard play is a feast of smart dialogue, there's one moment in Leopoldstadt that is purely visual and deeply powerful -- before the time-jump to 1924, at the end of the 19th -century fin-de-siecle part, Hermann has returned home to a family seder. While he knows his wife has been unfaithful, while he himself has converted to Christianity, he joins the seder and recites the prayers. He realizes he cannot run away from his roots or his family, he cannot deny who he is. Then he and his wife embrace while the other family members come together and dance, spinning around in joy while wearing their elegant clothes, purely happy. Its shows us the accomplishments and happiness of this family that will soon be destroyed -- a reminder that we should always hold onto the people and things we love, and be forever vigilant to those dark forces that seek to destroy them. 

In that Leopoldstadt is, sadly, more relevant than ever before.

Reform the NYPD? Read Machiavelli!

In any middle school social studies class you learn the basics of how American government works -- the three branches with their checks and balances, how a bill becomes law, the Constitution, all that good stuff.

The reality of American government, of course, is much different than what you read about in textbooks or learn about in childhood classrooms.  

And while we care immensely about what the US President does, and even somewhat Congress does, and even more these days about what the Supreme Court does, the reality is that, in our Federalized system, so much of the direct power over our lives comes from the state and local governments -- they can pass laws that decide how we live, and if we literally live or die at all. 

These days, across the country, a lot of this comes down to the radically different laws that different states have regarding abortion, guns, healthcare, and the death penalty. Closer to home, in every major municipality in the country, it comes down to the cops.

And in NYC, the New York Police Department is, essentially, an unelected, unaccountable government of its own. 

The NYPD is a huge, powerful, and deeply feared organization. Ostensibly it operates under the thumb of elected officials -- the mayor appoints the police commissioner and the city council provides oversight of its operations. But the reality is that the department largely runs itself, and any attempts to oversee and reform it are nearly impossible.

This lengthy article documents the numerous failures of police reform -- trying to make the oversight process more vigorous, curbing the cops tendency towards violence and unjust arrests of the vulnerable and mentally ill, creating more transparency about disciplinary records, etc.

The main reason is, as you might imagine, politics -- any attempt to reform or hold to the NYPD accountable for any abuses or failures gets the politicians who try to do it attacked in the media and by fellow politicians and police unions as "anti-cop, pro-criminal, pro-violence," etc. etc. etc. It's a miserable, lonely, and quixotic battle. Also, a lot of politicians, even those who say they are "pro-cops", don't really understand the complexities of policing and how the vast NYPD operates. So nothing really changes -- except for the department's budget constantly getting increased, no matter if crime goes up or down, no matter if its officers are abusing or killing people, no matter its performance, no matter what. The NYPD, along with its powerful unions and political allies, has made itself virtually unreformable, unaccountable, and unrepentant. 

And it will probably never change until, as the article points out, politicians become afraid not to reform it. Don't hold your breath. Which leads us to that Renaissance Florentine genius Machiavelli who said about the misery of political reform:

“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”

Preach. 

"Law & Order" Returns!

Eleven-years ago the TV show Law & Order was cancelled by NBC. It was a big surprise, especially since it had run for 20-years and had become a television and NYC institution. Of course the Law & Order "franchise" still went strong with spinoffs like L&O: SVU, L&O: Criminal Intent, and a new one called L&O: Organized Crime. But the mothership had sunk, the "one that started it all" was gone.

At the time I blogged a passionate screed about its cancellation, and how odd it was that there were all these spinoff shows while the original show had been killed (a murder mystery that an episode of Law & Order might have even solved).

Well, never mind. After eleven years, the OG Law & Order is back! The show is being officially revived or renewed -- whatever -- for a 21st season. When it will premiere, and who will be in it, remains to be seen (rumors abound that some of the old cast members might return but nothing is confirmed yet).

I'm generally not a big fan of all these reboots since they almost always fail to capture whatever magic existsed in the original versions. But L&O was and is different -- it was like an old fashioned newspaper serial or a folk song -- it was never young and never got old. The cast kept changing, each episode was a stand-alone story, each week it basically renewed itself, and it's something that can probably go on forever. 

Let's hope it does -- for the sake of television and NYC.

Review: "The Equalizer" Then & Now

In the late 1980s one of the more curious drama shows of the decade popped up on network TV: The Equalizer.

Set in modern-day NYC, it was a show about a mysterious person with a secretive past -- it is understood that he worked for the CIA or MI6, simply referred to as "the agency" or "the company", some kind of spooky blackbag-jobbing government outfit -- who is now trying to redeem himself by using his vaguely criminal skills to help out ordinary people who find themselves in difficult situations. It was basically a serial with lots of stand-alone episodes, one-and-done storylines, following this flawed hero helping flawed people find justice that would otherwise be denied to them by a corrupt system.

He was, basically, a classy, super-smart, and well-spoken vigilante.

The original Equalizer ran from 1985-1989 and starred a British actor named Edward Woodward whose career was mostly in theater. This show was one of his only American projects and it made him, for a while, an unlikely star. It was one of the only shows made in NYC during this time, a sort of precursor to the decades-long run of Law & Order shows -- fictional crimes being solved by great actors on the real-life streets of NYC. During its short run, a huge array of actors with big careers ahead of them appeared on the show: Macauley Culkin, Kevin Spacey, Steve Buscemi, JT Walsh, one of the Beastie Boys, William H. Macy, Stanley Tucci, Cynthia Nixon, Tony Shalhoub, Ving Rhames, Chris Cooper, Oliver Platt, Christine Baranski, and many more. The Equalizer was never a huge show, it was one of those quiet sleeper hits that ran for a few years before vanishing completely. But then ...

... it had a second act. In 2014 a movie version of The Equalizer starring Denzel Washington came out and was a big hit. A 2018 sequel was also a big hit. And now ... 

... The Equalizer is back on TV! Back to returning justice on the streets of modern-day NYC only this time, instead of being an old British guy, The Equalizer is ... drumroll ... Queen Latifah! Who doesn't love her?

So this moderately popular NYC show that went off the air in 1989 became a big hit movie 25 years later and now a new show. And went from being an old English white dude to a funky American black lady. How weird is that? How great is that? Only in NYC.

The Boulevards of Dreams

Broadway is easily the most famous thoroughfare in NYC. Overflowing from Westchester and running from the most northern spot of the Bronx to the most southern tip of Manhattan, Broadway ties Manhattan and the whole city together, giving all New Yorkers and visitors a sense of direction, a constant North Star.

But as important as Broadway is to the identity and movement of the city, it is not the most impressive artery in NYC. 

In the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, you can find major avenues that are more than roads but less than highways. They are marvels of city planning and building, amazing examples of NYC at its best -- places that belong not only to vehicles but also to people. 

In the Bronx, the Grand Concourse traverses 5.2 miles of the borough running from 138th street in Mott Haven up to the Mosholu Parkway in Bedford. Sometimes called the "Park Avenue of the Bronx," it has also been compared to the Champs-Elysees in Paris -- a wide, long, beautiful street. It is populated with Art Deco buildings and other impressive structures, and was originally envisioned as a home for middle class NYC. It fell on hard times in the 1960s and '70s but has since had a rennaissance of new housing. The Grand Concourse is the glory of the city's most northern borough. 

In Queens, Northern Boulevard is not quite as gorgeous or symbolic but is impressive nonetheless. It is, in fact, a highway, but doesn't always look or feel like it. Northern Boulevard starts at the westernmost part of Queens, at the mouths of the Queens-Midtown tunnel and Queensboro Bridges, and cuts straight through the entire borough. While stretches of its resemble a highway, it also goes through many neighborhoods of the city -- like Long Island City, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Corona, Bayside, and others -- where apartment buildings, stores, subways stops, and all the signs of city life exist. Queens is a vast, unwieldy borough but Northern Boulevard gives it a sense of order. It runs for over 73 miles, out of Queens and through Nassau and into Suffolk counties. But it is in NYC that Northern Boulevard gets its character. 

You haven't really experienced Brooklyn, you can't really "know Brooklyn", until you've gone down Eastern Parkway. And the "park" part of "parkway" really is just that -- designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, they envisioned it as being an extension of Prospect Park, the park hitting the road (it was the first "parkway" in America, hence the name). It starts at Grand Army Plaza and runs through Crown Heights, ending in East New York near the Evergreens Cemetary. There are lots and lots of trees on the avenue, and many impressive buildings and structures along Eastern Parkway, including the Brooklyn Museum, the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. What's most amazing about it is whole massive and intimate it feels, how it is both at the heart of city life but also has a real park-like feel. It is Brooklyn's most amazing street. 

New York City was built by people who envisioned the city as a gift to itself, a place that its people would not only live in but also enjoy. These great thoroughfares live up to the promise of NYC, the city of dreams, and show how dreams can often be realized here -- literally, on the streets. 

Review: "Sea of Love" & "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989)

The fall of 1989 was an eventful time -- not unlike now. Communism in Eastern Europe and the Berlin Wall were collapsing. Apartheid was drawing to a close in South Africa. Here in NYC there was a legendary election raging between three men who had and would be Mayor -- Ed Koch, David Dinkins, and Rudy Giuliani. And our movie theaters saw the debut of two classic NYC crime thrillers: Sea of Love and Crimes and Misdemeanors. Watching them again after 30 years, they more than hold up -- they are examples of great storytelling, brilliant acting, peaks in the arcs of historic careers, and wonderful NYC movies. Despite being thrillers, and being very different movies, they have one big thing in common: they are studies in the trials and tribulations of becoming middle-aged.

Sea of Love: Al Pacino stars as a Manhattan cop named Frank Keller. He's a classic movie detective: getting older, divorced, drinking problem, wondering if he should "put in his papers" to retire at "his 20" (years on the force that is), and generally depressed about his life. Meanwhile he's investigating a series of murders -- men who had answered personal ads turning up dead, shot in the head. The latest victim had a 45 record playing when he was found -- "Sea of Love." Frank and his new partner Sherman (investigating a similar murder in Queens) start an undercover operation where they will place a personal ad in the paper, meet up with women at a restaurant, and then take the glasses from the dates to swab them for prints. They hope that this will link them with the killer. But then Frank meets a woman named Helen on one of these dates -- and they fall for each other, hard. Suddenly Frank finds a new unexpected love, a new joie de vivre, but there continue to be more murders and Helen starts to look more and more guilty -- until he finds out the truth and solves the case. (I remember the tagline for this movie: "He's found somone who's either the love of his life ... or the end of it!").

This movie was a big deal for Al Pacino -- his career had been in decline for most of the 1980s, after his triumphs of the 1970s and early '80s (think The Godfather to Scarface period). Sea of Love was his comeback, a big hit that started the next act of his career. Meanwhile John Goodman was breaking out from Roseanne and his performance as Sherman made him a big movie actor too. Ellen Barkin was a star then too, and few performances are as sexy and frightening as her's in this movie. What's fascinating about this movie is that, while it's certainly a sexy thriller, it's also a working class NYC movie, set largely on a still-then middle-class Upper West Side. It's both extremely familiar and also exotic -- it's about becoming middle age, trying to find a new happiness, figuring out life, working hard for a living while also trying to find excitement and thrills. 

Crimes and Misdeameanors: Woody Allen has made nearly 50 movies, many of them great. This may very well be his masterpiece. Woody has directed numerous comedies and a few dramas but this was his first movie to combine both comedy and drama. In fact, the movie contains two stories -- one comic, one tragic -- and the endings of each make them come together in a way you wouldn't expect. The drama centers around a man named Judah (played by Martin Landeau who got an Oscar nomination for it), an extremely successful eye doctor who has recently overseen the opening of a new opthalmology wing at a hospital. But Judah has a dark secret: he has been conducting an affair for a few years with a former airline stewardess (a scary Angelica Huston) who is making increasingly desperate demands that Judah leave his wife or else she'll confront his entire family about his adultery and also reveal his financial chicaneries. Judah calls up his brother Jack -- a dissolute character with underworld connections -- who sets up a hit to kill the mistress. Will Judah get caught and the scheme unravel? You need to see the movie to find out! Meanwhile, the comic story concerns a man named Cliff (played by Woody), a struggling documentary filmmaker who also has a failing marriage (although no mistress) who is making a TV special on his very successful brother-in-law, a pompous Harvey Weinstein-like producer named Lester. One of the producers on the TV special is a woman named Hailey who both Cliff and Lester fall for -- will she choose either man or reject both of them? Again, you need to see the movie to find out! And how do the stories relate, one makes them link-up? Again, only Woody Allen would make the connecting character a rabbi who's going blind ...

Woody Allen is not only one of our greatest directors -- he's also probably the most brilliant screenwriters of all time (he's been nominated for more screenplay Oscars than anyone in history). The Crimes and Misdemeanors script is perfect -- specifically the way that these seemingly unrelated stories are interrcut and made to relate to each other, the tightness and swiftness of the plots, the enormous amount of character development and emotional complexity in a few lines of dialogue, it is simply the best kind of storytelling you can ever encounter. The major overarching theme of this movie is seeing -- looking at what's in front of you and also trying to see something that may or may not be there. This is a movie, in some ways, about people who are looking not only for love but also for mercy and justice and order in the world -- a kind of God -- and not finding it. I remember reading that this is the movie where Woody looked for God and "found Him not there." This movie won't make you find God (in fact, his absence will only be confirmed) but you will certainly see a truly great movie by one of NYC's best filmmakers.

Review: Forgotten NYC Movies - "Welcome to New York" "Exiled" and "Parting Glances"

There are so many NYC movies that reviewing the famous ones is pointless because they've been written about ad nauseum (and much better) elsewhere. That's why I like, here at Mr NYC, to review some of the forgotten NYC films, as I've been doing recently. Here are three very, very different NYC movies that are probably forgotten but worth checking out:

Welcome to New York (2014): This movie is a collaboration between legendary NYC director Abel Ferrera and French superstar Gerard Depardieu. A chamberpiece of a film, it is based on the 2011 incident involving former World Bank head Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a black maid in a Manhattan hotel room. Depardieu plays a world famous economist who has just left his big job in DC and, before heading back to France to run for president in an election he seems certain to win, goes to NYC to visit his daughter. While staying at a fancy hotel, he rapes a black maid and is soon arrested and confined to imprisonment in a Greenwich Village townhouse with his wife. While there, he ponders his life, his ambitions, thinks about how no matter how powerful he has become he is actually quite miserable, and how life is meaningless and only lust seems real to him. Eventually the charges against him are dropped -- but his repuation and life are ruined.

Exiled: A Law & Order Movies (1998): This is an old TV movie from back in the day when the major networks still did TV movies. It stars Chris Noth (just before he became Mr Big) reprising his Law & Order character Mike Logan. Logan (and Noth) left the show in 1995 when, in the season finale, he hit a politician in the face on the steps of a courthouse. Logan isn't fired from the force but he exiled from detective work in Manhattan -- the patroling the streets of NYC's Sibera, Staten Island. The movie is about how Logan is trying to break a big case, while romancing a young lady, in the hopes that it will revive his career and bring him back into Manhattan. 

Parting Glances (1986): set over a 24-hour period, mostly at a farewell party, it was one of the first movies to directly address the AIDS crises. It stars Steven Buscemi in his first movie role as a gay man dying of AIDS. This movie was part of the rough and tumble independent NYC movie scene of the 1980s, before such movies became big business in the 1990s. The director, Bill Sherwood, never made another movie because, shortly after this movie was released, he also died of AIDS. But this movie was well ahead of its time and gave us one my generation's greatest actors -- recently profiled here for GQ.

NYC's Worst Bro-mance

Currently the greatest country in the world is being stunk up by Donald Trump, a wannabe presidential Lone Ranger, and his bizarro Tonto/lawyer, the former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani. They seem to be having American history's most destructive bro-mance -- a criminal president being aided by a pathetic has-been henchman.

How did this happen? How the hell did we get here?

In NYC, for decades, Trump was a goofy real estate guy and media character, Giuliani a respected "law and order" prosecutor and mayor. It was hard to think, back then, that they would transmogrify into a neo-fascist buddy horror show, threatening to undermine our democracy and national security, pushing us to the brink of the biggest Constitutional crises since Watergate. Oh no. It seemed unimaginable just a few short years ago.

But here we are, and America is reaping the foul whirlwind. You should read this massive article that explores the Donald/Rudy tango, going back decades. The truth is that they were never particularly close and never really liked each other very much. However, at this perilous moment, they seem to need each other -- Trump thinks Rudy will save him from impeachment and historical disgrace, and Rudy is just happy that Trump is giving him a great last gasp of relevance, keeping him in the public eye. 

Politics is a cruel business which is why so few decent people get into it. You have to fight like hell to get elected to office and, once you do, work like a dog just to keep it. All the while you have people actively conspiring to get you thrown out, you have the press breaking your balls, you have to spend lots of time raising money, and it's very hard to actually get anything in government done -- it's just part of the job. And what's worse is that once you do leave office, for whatever reason, you immediately become irrelevant, a nothing. As the saying goes, all political careers end in failure. 

So this whole nightmare with Trump and Rudy is about two old guys who have been around forever, who understand that their time on the public stage is coming to and end, fighting like hell to stave off irrelevancy, to ward off the inevitable failure. They are drowning, gasping men, trying not to get swallowed by the tides of time and history.

And it all started here in NYC more 40 years ago.

By the way, there's currently a proposal in Albany to end what's called fusion voting (candidates runing for office on multiple party lines). Without fusion voting, Rudy would never have even become mayor more than a quarter century ago. We are always living in interesting times. 

Tiffany Caban & The Changing Face of NYC

Last night, as the results were trickling in for the Queens DA primary and it became clear that Tiffany Caban was winning (although she's not the official winner yet since there are outstanding ballots left to count), I imagined what a great tabloid headline for her victory might be -- something like "Tiffany Takes Queens" or "Upset in Queens" or just "CaBAM!" I remember when Olympic skater Sarah Hughes won a gold medal in 2002, a tabloid headline was simple "Sarah!" -- so how about "Tiffany!" 

Sadly, I didn't see anything like that today -- probably because the tabloids aren't too happy about a social justice-minded Latina winning power -- so I've provided the headlines for you. 

Kidding aside, Tiffany Caban's primary victory is huge -- a very young queer Latina won a very competitive primary against the establishment favorite in a borough-wide race outside the Bronx. She will be, assuming she wins the November general election, the most powerful person in Queens and one of the most powerful in all of NYC. She will end cash bail, cease prosecute weed busts and sex workers, and seek compassionate solutions to crime, not the old shattering so-called "law and order" tactics of the past.

Tiffany's victory is a seismic generational and attitudinal change to law enforcement in NYC. The same multi-racial, multi-generational, multi-everything coalition that elected AOC last year came together again in this race -- and this is now the new normal, the new face of NYC. 

The future is here -- and it's not waiting its turn.

"When They See Us" on Netflix

If you remember the spring of 1989 in NYC, you remember the Central Park jogger case -- a young white woman who was raped and beaten into a coma, and the young black men accused of this crime called a "wilding."

I remember the case well -- the feverish media coverage, the trolling racism masking itself as law and order-minded public outrage, and how these young men were proclaimed guilty even before trial, turned into animals and not human beings, and how public opinion and the courts of law drove them into prison and infamy.

One problem: it was all a lie. 

They were totally innocent -- in 2002 they were released after DNA testing and another prisoner's confession exonerated them. But then they faced another kind of prison -- difficulties readjusting to society and the city government, then led by Mayor Bloomberg, refusing a financial settlement with these men. That didn't happen until 2014 when Mayor De Blasio finally gave them some kind of justice.

The Central Park Jogger case is coming to Netflix tomorrow in a new miniseries called When They See Us. It's a story of this case and of NYC at a moment in time when it was still Fear City and not the Oz we live in today.

It's also an indictment of our culture -- of then and now -- and how failed reporting, corrupt law enforcement, pure racism, and public hysteria led to this tragedy. (It was also a tragedy for the victim, who didn't get proper justice).

We should all watch this and learn.

Richard Brown and Weed

This past Saturday two things happened in NYC that are both completely unrelated and totally inextricable -- the death of longtime Queens DA Richard Brown and a big parade in support of marijuana legalization. 

Richard Brown was the last of the old-school NYC District Attorneys -- a "tough-on-crime", "law-and-order", "lock 'em-up-and-throw-away-the-keys" type. He became Queens DA in a time of high crime and the drug war, when a DA couldn't be tough enough on crime. Brown loved locking people up, he wanted to put as many people in jail as possible. He carried this kind of prosecutorial policy well into the 21st century, into the era of low crime and a re-thinking of the drug war and how the criminal justice system should operate. His successor will be elected this year (the primary is in June) and whoever succeeds him will probably have more evolved, more rehabilitation type policies.

Needless to say, DAs like Brown hated, hated, hated any kind of drug, even da' reefer. And the drive to legalize marijuana in New York is exactly the kind of thing that stands in diametric opposition to what he believed and how he worked. Hopefully, at some point, the legislature will get it together and actually pass a legal weed bill (considering that so many other states have already done this). But legal weed is coming whether we (or folks like Brown) like it or not.

It's just another reminder that NYC is forever at a crossroads.

To Rise & Fall in NYC

It's easy to look at the insanity that is Trump's America and to fear that it will always be like this.

It's easy to think that today will also be tomorrow somehow -- and the day after that, ad infinitum.

One of the flaws of the human mind, in my experience and observation, is that many people think that present circumstances will continue forever, that today's situations (whether good or bad) will last indefinitely. We know this isn't true but we feel it so often to be true.

Examples abound of why our feelings are wrong. 

Remember the Cold War? It lasted for almost 50 years, it defined America and the world. If you grew up during that time (I remember the end of it) it seemed permanent and unwinnable -- until, very suddenly, it wasn't. 

Remember the original Law & Order? It was on TV for decades -- until it was cancelled.

Bill Cosby was a respected comedian, actor, author, activist, and cultural icon for 50 years -- and now he's a disgraced prisoner.

Queen Elizabeth II is 92 years old and has ruled the UK for 67 years -- but, one day, she won't be, and in the 1000+ years of the British monarchy, her reign will be but a minuscule part of it.

I remember as a kid when George H.W. Bush was Vice-President and President, it seemed liked he would be in power forever -- until a young Arkansas Governor changed that quite suddenly.

Heck, Game of Thrones has been on for almost a decade and but very soon will be over. And talk about something that show us the precariousness of power and dominance!

That's why it's so important not only to study history but to have a sense of history -- to see how there were once mighty rulers and empires and "influencers" who commanded huge swaths of the world and public who are now only footnotes; how people and things we took for granted as always existing and presumably existing -- like Notre Dame or the old World Trade Centers -- vanished in an instant.

You get the point -- what's here today, who's powerful today, who and what rules and commands our world, who rose yesterday will one day fall tomorrow. It's always been like this. It always will be.

Nothing lasts forever. 

Two totally different but fascinating examples from downtown NYC.

The first is the story of Mary Boone, once the hottest and most important art dealer in town. She knew everyone, sold the work of many famous artists, and hobnobbed with the powerful for 40 years.  She helped build and defined the downtown art scene. Now she's headed to jail for tax evasion, her business gone.

The second is a great story about the Old St. Patrick's Cathedral and its catacombs. This used to be the seat of Catholic power in NYC and one of the most powerful churches in the country. Many once-famous, once-powerful people are buried there. Now it's a tourist attraction but it's days of power and influence are long, long gone.

In NYC and the world, people and things rise and fall all the time. We shouldn't be surprised by it. Everything changes -- and understanding that makes us wiser.

Interview: Michael Alig on Clubland, "Party Monster", and Building a New Life in NYC

The story of Michael Alig is complex. His life has been one that is amazing, tragic, and hopeful. He was the ultimate NYC “club kid” of the 1980s and 90’s, who made club and party promotion into a recognizable art, and he became famous for it. Then he became involved in a brutal crime and spent many years in prison (you can read more about that here).

Since his release, Michael has returned to NYC, adjusting to a life of rebuilding and redemption in a changed city.  He was kind enough to answer some of Mr NYC’s questions about his past, present and future. Whatever one’s feelings about Michael’s life, his story deserves to be heard.

Tell us a little bit about your background and what attracted you to the downtown club world/party scene of the 1980s and 1990s?

I grew up in Middle America, came to NYC on a scholarship to go to college and was fascinated with the amazing mix of different kinds of people, different races and sexual orientations, all living together in one city. Clubland offered for me a more concentrated version of this, with an even more extreme mix of people. 

You were known as the ultimate party promoter. What made you so good at it? What makes someone a good party promoter?

I think I am a good party promoter because I love doing it so much that I would do it even if no one paid me. Anyone who loves their job--I don’t care what kind of job it is, from being a bartender to a garbage man--if you love doing it, you're going to be successful at it. 

What were some of your favorite clubs and parties back in the day -- and what are some of your favorites now? 

Probably my all-time favorite club of all times was Area, a giant warehouse in lower Manhattan that changed themes every six weeks or so--a concept that was cool and exciting at the time because no one had really done it yet. This club also massified the idea of selecting people, one by one, to come into the club the way a florist chooses flowers while making a bouquet. I always had goose bumps when approaching this club, worried I'd never make it past the doorman. Danceteria, Palladium, Red Zone, The World: all super fab. Today there is nothing even remotely comparable to any of these spaces, but The Box, the House of Yes and a place in Brooklyn called Members Only are perhaps the closest thing you'll find to what once was.

What are some of your best memories of the club scene back in the 1980s and 1990s? 

My fondest memories of the club scene from back in the day mostly involve outlaw parties, after hours clubs and other events skirting the edges of what was legal or acceptable. There were clubs like the World that didn’t even have working electricity, we had to attach wiring to the electric poles in order to have lights and heat. Places like Save the Robots would serve alcohol to underage kids at all hours--in complete disregard of the law. You won’t find anything like this happening in today's NYC.

Personally, downtown NYC doesn't feel very "downtown" anymore. The funky, dirty, mysterious vibe of the Village, Soho, and the Lower East Side is gone. Do you agree?

I do agree, not only Downtown Manhattan but all of NYC has become more Normalized and has lost most of its edge. It’s something that's happening not only here but all over the world, as things like the rising cost of real estate causes edgier, mom and pop-type shops to close down and get replaced by big box/chain stores, and the Internet makes it impossible for there to be any real "Underground" scene. You were in prison for many years. What did you learn from that experience and how what kind of perspective on life did it give you? Probably the biggest thing I learned while away was patience. Before going to prison, I was impossibly spoiled and impatient. Demanding, even. If someone didn’t have what I wanted when I wanted it, I would find someone else who did. Spending time in solitary confinement had an amazing effect on this, in that nothing there happens very quickly or without waiting patiently. A book you might want from the library can be had--but only after writing letters to the library clerk--that may take ten days to get a response to. There is something about waiting ten days for a response about a book from the library that will tame even the most jaded and impatient club kid.

Has it been hard to re-enter life in NYC and the club world?

I feel actually very fortunate that people have made it so easy to re-enter both daily life and Clublland in NYC. Not that I have much desire to get back into clubbing--Keoki did ask me to help promote a weekly Monday night event, which I did as a favor for an old friend--and I have done one-off parties here and there. But for the most part I'd like to do daytime work. I have a clothing line called SkroddleFace I’d like to get started; I do a daily web show with Ernie Glam called The Peeew; I’ve been writing and painting. I feel extremely fortunate being given the opportunity to work on so many things, especially considering the difficulties some of my fellow recently released inmates face on a daily basis trying to find work or a place to live.

Can you tell us what you thought of the movie made about you, Party Monster?

I was surprisingly pleased with the way the movie Party Monster turned out. Given the circumstances, things could have turned out a lot worse. If I have any complaints at all I guess I'd say I wish the characters in the movie had been fleshed out a little more, as they seem sort of one-dimensional. It’s possible that my feelings are a result of being so close to the storyline, however, as many young people I speak to say they love Party Monster, that it’s one of their all-time favorite movies. I see that you're writing a book.

Tell us about your upcoming book Aligula.

I suppose the question I get asked the most is “When am I going to release my own version of the story?”, and my answer is always, "I’m working on it." Truth is, I’ve written my own book, the problem is, I tried telling too many stories in one book. Between my own story, the story of post-disco NYC Nightlife, of the introduction of ecstasy and techno music, the rise and fall of Peter Gatien, the Superstar DJ Keoki story, the rise of RuPaul, Moby, Chloe Sevigny and other Clubland Celebrities--there is way too much content here for one book. I need to separate my biography from the other things, and make it into two books. So far, I seem to have been too distracted to get this accomplished. Hopefully this year will be different, and I will get these books done. 

Thanks Michael.

Interview: Barbara Nitke, Legendary NYC Photographer

Great photographers don’t just take pictures – they capture the soul of their subjects, their pictures summon up emotions and thoughts, their lenses pierce into the fourth dimension. Photography is magic – it captures a physical moment in time but leaves a timeless, spiritual impression.

Barbara Nitke is one such magician, a New York-based fine arts photographer whose work concentrates on the sensual, the beautiful, the kinky, the romantic, and the unusual. She has photographed many human bodies in their most intimate, transitory of moments and has found, in her pictures, their deeper and perennial beauties. In addition to her amazing photographic projects, Barbara has worked as an on-set photographer for NYC TV shows and movies, and, most intriguingly, for the NYC adult movie and BDSM scenes. She has also taught at the School of Visual Arts and is a much accomplished, widely admired artist whose work is constantly in demand. She even took on the Attorney General of the United States in court over "indecency" -- and won!

Barbara was kind enough to answer some of Mr NYC’s questions about her love of photography and her career, and she shares her memories of being an on-set photographer during the last days of the NYC adult film world of the 1980s. She also gives some great advice for aspiring photographers, what she’s working on now, and why NYC will always be a great place to be a photographer.

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you became a photographer.

I had originally wanted to be a writer, but found that I don't like the process of it. Staring at a blank page, figuring out what I want to say, struggling to find the right words - all that. I was in my late twenties when I first picked up a camera and started taking pictures for fun. I loved it immediately. And I realized I could explore all the fascinating little nuances of people much better through pictures than I could ever do with words. So photography became my medium.

You worked as an on-set photographer during the last days of the Golden Age of Adult Film. How did you get involved in that business?

My ex-husband produced a famous porn movie called Devil in Miss Jones in the 1970’s. When he made the sequel in 1982, I had just taken up photography and asked for the on-set stills job. I was such a beginner that I’m sure no one else would have hired me. Fortunately the director, Henri Pachard, liked my work and started hiring me for all of his shoots. That was a great break because Henri was highly regarded in the industry and worked all the time. When I was working on my second movie, Nasty Girls, I saw the opportunity to do an art series of behind-the-scenes photos of that world. It totally ignited my passion, and that was what decided me to become a fine art photographer.

What was the adult business in NYC like back then? What made it a "golden age" – and why did it end?

It’s hard to imagine now, but back then we shot real 35mm film on big movie cameras. Home video cassette players had barely been invented. There were no DVD’s, no home computers, no Internet. People went out to old-fashioned downtown movie theaters and actually stood in line to watch sex movies. A lot of craftsmanship went into making the movies. There were scripts, script supervisors, lighting technicians, sound technicians, hair and makeup people and even wardrobe supervisors.

Looking back, that was pretty amazing! We made porn movies the same way that arty, independent features were made. All of that would be unheard of in today’s world, because now anybody with a GoPro or even an iPhone can make a porn movie. But at the time, that was all normal to us. We only realized it was a Golden Age later, when we looked back to how the industry had changed after cheap video productions took over.

What is the art of being a good adult photographer – and what was it like shooting people having sex right in front of you -- exciting, boring, weird, or something else?

Actually, I don’t think I ever was a good adult photographer. I’m a great observer of people, and I’ve been on a decades long mission to humanize what might be called the dark side of the sex world. But more on that in a later question. I always had a lot of mixed emotions working on the porn sets. The days were very long - often 12-16 hours - and at the end of a day I had experienced so many emotions that it would seem like a year had gone by. There were long boring stretches, followed by excruciating moments when I wanted to reach out and save someone from - I’m not sure what. From being exploited? From their drug habit? From their personal demons? The deeper I looked into that issue, the harder it was to define.

And then an hour later, someone like Miss Sharon K. Mitchell would sashay across the set, gloriously naked and unequivocally proud. Which would confuse me even more.

You memorialized a lot of your pictures from that era in your book American Ecstasy. Tell us about this book and why you wanted to publish it?

American Ecstasy is my personal memoir, in pictures and words, of the twelve years I spent working as a still photographer on porn sets in New York in the 1980’s. It was important to me to publish the work because of my conviction that porn stars, and all sex workers, should be valued and treated with respect. Our culture creates the need for them, and then trashes them for fulfilling that need. I think that’s wrong, especially having known so many of them, both men and women. They deserve a lot better from us.

I see that the introduction of your book was by the legendary art critic and "philosophical aesthete" Arthur C. Danto (who lived in the same building I grew up in!). Was he an influence on your work?

Wow, I can’t believe you lived in the same building! Arthur was not an influence on my work, but he should have been. He was a witness in a lawsuit a filed against Attorney General John Ashcroft back in 2001. I was incredibly honored when he agreed to write the introduction to American Ecstasy. A great man, and a great mind!

And talking about aesthetics, adult work is often accused as being "male-centric"? As a female photographer in that business, is this a fair accusation – and how was your work different?

I guess adult work is male-centric in that the intended customers are men. At least that was true back in the 80’s and 90’s when I worked in the industry. But I don’t think that’s because there’s any conspiracy against women or female sexuality - it’s just harder to figure out what visually turns women on, while making them feel safe at the same time. Women are a much more difficult audience to target. If someone could figure out how to make porn movies that turn women on, they’d probably make a fortune.

As a female working in the business, I realized from the beginning that my view was different from what was considered good porn photography. There was some cross over - some porn moments that I really did think were hot - but overall I thought the scenes were obviously fake and sophomoric. (Although I did get a big kick out of the really campy ones.)

I was much more interested in capturing the complex emotions both the male and female stars were experiencing than I was in making them look like heroic sex machines. I found that it was pretty easy to identify just the right angle that would work as a good porn shot. Once I had the shots the producers needed to sell their movie, I considered myself free to roam around and get the moments that I wanted for my art series. For example, I loved it when somebody would yawn and look at their watch during a lens change in the middle of an orgy scene.

How has the art of adult photography changed or evolved in the digital age?

I honestly haven’t kept up with pornography in the digital age. From the little I know, it’s a lot more niche oriented and features much more extreme acts. What we thought was really badass back in my day, would probably be considered quaint today.

You photographed some of the most intriguing NYC stars of that time like Ron Jeremy, Vanessa Del Rio, Jerry Butler, Siobhan Hunter, and others. What are your memories of them and who were some of your favorite stars to shoot?

I loved them all! I always thought Ron Jeremy was a lot more complex and a lot smarter that his public persona, but that’s true of a lot of public people. Vanessa was really, really a STAR. She was probably the last true big time porn star. What people probably don’t know is that she has always been extremely down to earth, and has a wonderful sense of humor about herself and her stardom. Truly refreshing. Jerry Butler was horribly conflicted about his choice to be a porn star, to the point that it was sometimes painful to watch him on the set. And Siobhan Hunter was a medical school student, and is now a practicing doctor. But it would take days to tell all the stories. Of course, there are some really good ones in my American Ecstasy book.

You were also the on-set photographer for the acclaimed film Three Daughters directed by the legendary Candida Royale. What are your memories of that movie and Candida?

Three Daughters was a milestone movie in the industry, and it was a great attempt by Candida to use porn in a very positive way. For one thing, she wanted to educate the viewers on better ways to have sex. She was a pioneer in exploring female sexuality from a porn perspective. My memories of working on the show, however, were conflicted.

Siobhan Hunter was cast in the lead role, and the role brought up a lot of bad memories from her childhood. Because we were friends, I was aware of the personal pain she was going through during the shoot. But in the end, I believe Three Daughters might have served as a catharsis for Siobhan, and I’ve always hoped it turned out as a positive experience for her. In mainstream movies, it feels like there are less and less "big stars".

It seems like in the Golden Age there used to be some big stars too (come to mind). Like the big movie star, is the "adult star" in decline today?

Yes absolutely! I’m not sure why, but that does seem to be the case.

Have you seen "The Deuce"? If so, any thoughts?

I could probably come up with little things to quibble about, but overall I LOVE The Deuce. Love Maggie Gyllenhaal, and have loved her all the way back to The Secretary. She is brilliant and utterly fearless!

You also used to photograph the BDSM scene in NYC. How did that differ from your earlier work -- and what did you learn about BDSM that "square" people don't understand?

What was really interesting for me was coming from the been-around-the-block, sex worker world of porn into the real BDSM scene, where people are inhabiting their own sex lives. They aren’t acting, they’re really falling in love and expressing their love for each other. It was so different to see, and I knew right away that I wanted to understand what they were feeling and express that in photographs. They taught me that everyone expresses love differently, but it’s all love, no matter what it looks like from the outside.

Do you feel like society has gotten less "prudish" -- and do you feel like your work contributed to that (or is it just the Internet's fault)?

Well, of course I would like to give myself lots of credit for changing society! But I think there’s really just a natural progression of people becoming more sophisticated as they are exposed to more imagery and different ways of thinking. Overall, I think that’s a good thing.

You also worked on mainstream movies and TV shows in NYC like Law & Order, The Producers and, a personal favorite, Slaves of New York. What are your memories of working on those and other mainstream projects?

When I worked in porn, the crews were made up of young people fresh out of film schools like NYU. It was the first jobs they could get, and they were all excited and eager to prove themselves. There was a great spirit of enthusiasm and pride in craft back then, which I hope still exists today in the porn world.

Slaves of New York was a lot of fun! And so was Law & Order and all the other shows that I currently work on. The work conditions are much better - union rules and all - but I do sometimes miss that youthful exuberance of the New York porn world back in the day!

You've also taught photography, including at the School of Visual Arts. What do you try to teach your students about photography and what are the best lessons an aspiring photographer can learn?

Here’s my biggest tip - take a lot of pictures. And I also think that boring as it is, you can’t avoid learning the nuts and bolts of f.stops and shutter speeds, lighting ratios, ISO and white balance, and all the other technical things that beginning photographers sometimes try to skip. Digital cameras make taking reasonably good pictures very easy, but to really be a photographer you have to know the craft. With your camera set in manual exposure mode!

As a professional woman, what do you think of the #MeToo movement? Considering your work, you must have an opinion!

It’s so hard to have an opinion on the #MeToo movement. Sometimes I think things have gone way too far, when anyone can be publicly called out for a bad date or a passing remark. And then I think of women being drugged and raped by guys who are powerful enough to get away with it, and I’m very glad for the brave women who have come forward.

Tell us a little bit about what you're working on today and your hopes for the future.

I moved up to Harlem four years ago and built a run down motel room set in my living room. I’m creating a series of work featuring all the different people who show up to stay in the room. We make up a character and a little story, and the people act it out. It’s been an amazing experience so far. Most of my characters are actually crew people who I’ve worked with for many years on the reality show, Project Runway. 

Finally, what makes you love NYC -- and is this still a sexy city worth photographing?

How can I count the ways that I love New York? It’s such a great city! I love all the tremendous energy, diversity and raw humanity that you can reach out and touch 24 hours a day. It really is the city that never sleeps, and always comes up with something new to inspire me.

Thanks Barbara!