Tales of the NYC Underground

Over the years I've blogged a lot about the NYC underground or underworld that I've called the underwelt -- the hidden city, the worlds within worlds of the world's greatest city that we don't see or hear about but that exists all around us.

Here are few stories told by the denizens of the NYC underwelt:

Notes from Undervelt

Like many who lived through the twenty-teens, I was a huge Game of Thrones fan.

Set in a fictional world of seven kingdoms living tenuously under one ruler, the entire premise of the show was that a once great family, a once powerful dynasty (the Targaryens) that had united the kingdoms and ruled for 300 years, have been overthrown -- and the new rulers are still grappling with the problems left in its wake. While the various remaining would-be kings are battling it out for power, the last Targaryen left alive is prowling around distant lands, scheming to return.

The prequel show, House of the Dragon, flashes back to a time when the Targaryens were in power, fighting amongst themselves, their fall distant yet becoming more and more inevitable.

What's brilliant about each show, what draws so many people in, is that both shows are haunted. Both series have a shadow over them, an extra dimension of drama and meaning. In one we are haunted by the now-gone years of power; in the other, we see their power, knowing that it's going away. 

The Targaryens are ghosts as much as people -- and they live forever in a kind of mythical world inside a mythical world.

In GOT, even though the Targaryens are almost completely gone, they haunt the show -- people keep talking about them and obsessing over their impact on the seven kingdoms (gone but not forgotten). They may no longer have literal power but they still have power over the minds and souls of the people. And in House, we can't help but watch with a sense of dread that this family, this dynasty, at the height of its power, no matter what's going on or what they're doing, is inevitably doomeed, destined for ignominy.

In short, the Targaryens are doomed but they are forever present in peoples' minds and still meddling, in one way or another, in the kingdoms' business -- even after their doom. 

Doom seems to be on a lot of people's minds these days. Our democracy and our environment are in a precarious place, a downward slide. But doom is not final -- it is simply, in many respects, a new way of being, a new normal called the "undervelt." 

The "undervelt": an undergroud or underworld where (if I can be gauche enough to quote myself), "defines itself in opposition to the above ground, the outside world. It is in constant friction, a perennial resistance. Like ... trash -- we want to forget it, we want it out of our lives, but it never goes away."

Woody Allen used to be one of America, and especially NYC's, most acclaimed filmmakers. For over fifty years, he made fifty movies, some much more successful than others, many getting nominated for and winning multiple Academy Awards (Woody himself won four). But he's been dogged by controversy about his personal life. In the USA and NYC, he's been "cancelled" -- actors won't work with him, financiers won't pay for his movies, and he can't (or barely can) get them distributed in this country. He's been making his last several movies in Europe but in America and NYC he's a pariah.

And yet ...

He's not gone. And even though his latest movie, Coupe de Chance, hasn't been released in NYC or elsewhere in America (at least not yet), apparently there are secret screenings of it around town that have become quite popular. 

In short, Woody's career now exists in the "undervelt."

Woody is no longer a mighty, acclaimed filmmaker. He's fallen hard. But now he's a figure of rebellion, someone people want to ignore but can't -- a perfect denizen of the undervelt. And it shows that his impact and his importance to cinema is so profound that, even though everyone in respectable society says they hate him, they obviously still care enough about his work to go see it -- albeit in secret.

Woody's work is now like the last Targaryen, rattling around in exile but forever messing with the heads of its antagonists.   

I know there are many who bemoan "cancel culture" (I've done so myself in the past). Reading about how the work of a decades-long, Oscar-winning auteur is now being consumed like Western media in North Korea or pre-Internet porn is sad, whatever you think about him. 

However, I view this whole "cancel culture" thing in another perspective.

First, no filmmaker is guarenteed or promised massive distribution. Most movies never get seen, many directors get their movies dumped into barely enough theaters to cover the movie's catering bill. No director, not even a formerly big-time one like Woody, is promised a big audience. A big career is not a right -- it's a privilege, a privilege few get and most eventually lose, one way or another. I really don't feel sorry for him or any of these "cancelled" people. 

Second, even if you become hated, even if you're "cancelled" or ignored, if you do good work, no matter under what conditions or in what environment, it will last. People can try to "cancel" it, suppress it, censor it, belittle it, ignore it, whatever -- but it doesn't matter. It stands firm like the rock of Gibralter. It leaves the haters in the dust. It cannot be erased or ignored. It lives. It thrives. It stands the test of time and, eventually, inevitably, leaves the haters in the dust. The work rides high, even if its creator does not. 

Third, I know what it's like to labor in the shadows, to have your work ignored, to live in the undervelt. But I persist. Because my work has impact and, most importantly, exists. This blog has been read nearly a million times. It's never gotten any kind of big outside attention or attention from the media, but it gets readers -- and always will. 

Thus my message from the undervelt -- don't worry, don't get crazy about "cancel culture". Just do the work. Do it well. No matter what happens to you, good or bad, whether you deserve it or not, your work will last. The impact of your work and your life will outlast everyone and everything else.

So get to work -- there's no time to lose. And, hey, I can tell you first hand, the undervelt ain't that bad.

The Romance of the Underground Writer

The idea of an underground, an underworld or, as I once blogged about, the underwelt, is something I'm constantly fascinated by. This blog is an underground blog if there ever was one -- totally outside the gaze of, and unconnected from, the mainstream media, the square world.

This makes me an underground blogger -- an underground NYC blogger to be precise.

The idea of an underground writer, someone's whose work is mostly unknown and whose readership is small but passionate, is certainly something I can relate to. Many of them write about subjects that don't interest most people (like this blog) even if they're about some universal like sex and politics -- or the world's greatest city.

So it's with great interest to read that the brilliant filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is currently making a movie (possibly his last) about an underground writer from the 1970s. Few details about this movie are known except that it's tentatively called The Movie Critic, takes place in 1977, and is based on the life of a movie critic named William Mangold nom de plume Jim Sheldon who wrote movie reviews for a porn mag. Making a movie about an underground critic is certainly bold, the kind of unexpected story that Tarantino usually tells and that makes his movies so great and different. 

And if any other movie director, especially one as good as Tarantino, wants to make a movie about an underground NYC blogger, i.e. me nom de plume Mr NYC, I'm is happy to serve as the inspiration for such a project. Get in touch! 

25 NYC Novels in 100 Years

The New York Times has recently published a list of 25 novels set in NYC, published within the last 100 years, where the city is more than just a backdrop or even a "character" in the story -- it is the story, NYC is intertwined with the plot.

These are books that, simply put, couldn't have taken place anywhere else. 

Believe it or not, some big titles are missing -- no Gatsby, nothing by Edith Wharton. Sadly Slaves of New York was not included either but the author, Tama Janowitz (a previous Mr NYC interviewee) was mentioned (with a photo) since her 1980s Brat Pack colleagues Jay McInery's 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City was included (my review of the movie version of it can be found here). 

This list is very interesting, and it includes commentary by the various critics who chose the titles. Lists like this are inherently flawed and infuriating, but at least they remind you that there are lots of good books about NYC that you should put on your shelf -- or load onto your Kindle. 

One big inclusion is Don DeLillo's 1997 masterpiece Underworld. That is a great NYC novel but so much more -- its an epic sweep of an Everyman living through the second half of the 20th century while history unfolds around him and occasionally touches him. For me, it's not just a novel, or a great novel, or a great NYC novel -- it's a state of mind, a raising of consciousness, a story that makes you look at the world and history differently. I'm glad to see it on this list but Underworld is sui generis, like all great work. The same way that NYC is a city bigger than its population and its borders, Underworld extends beyond the story on its pages.

The NYC Underground

Read more about the NYC underground, underworld, underwelt here. 

Interview: Lynn Paula Russell, Legendary Artist and Performer - An Englishwoman in NYC

New York City in the 1970s and ’80s has become almost mythical -- like Paris in the 1920s or London in the 1960s. It was an era of great danger and temptation as well as a period of artistic revolution.

Andy Warhol, Jean Michel-Basquiat, Julian Schnable, and others ruled the art world; Saturday Night Live and David Letterman were changing television comedy from the NBC Studios at Rockefeller Center; on Broadway, shows like Pippin, Evita, A Chorus Line, Cats, Lez Miz and the musicals of Stephen Sondheim were reinventing the American musical; Woody Allen was making classic films like Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah & Her Sisters, and Crimes and Misdemeanors; Studio 54 and disco culture captured the popular imagination; sex clubs like Plato’s Retreat and Hellfire were turning respectable middle-class couples into sexual adventurers; and the adult film scene in NYC still existed.

Lynn Paula Russell was part of it. 

Here Lynn tells us about her adventures with the Broadway theater and sexual underworld of NYC, and how her experiences in in the city changed her life.

You're an Englishwoman and, I assume, lived and worked in the UK most of your life. But you worked in NYC several times in the 1970s and 1980s. Tell us about your time as a children's theater actress in NYC in 1970 and as a painter of Broadway theater performers in 1979. What was it like, as an Englishwoman, to come to this big wild American city at such a crazy time in history? What do you remember most about the city back then?

Yes, let’s talk about NYC! My first visit in 1970 was really only a flying visit. As I mentioned earlier, I was part of a small troupe of actors who had been touring around England visiting schools and youth clubs. This group was part of a children’s theatre company that consisted of several groups so it was extremely exciting that ours was chosen for the first tour of the USA. And to add to this, it had been decided that the most economical way of transporting us, with all our props and costumes, was on the magnificent, newly built QE 2 liner. The fact that we travelled this way meant that I had one of the most memorable experiences of my young life, which has remained with me to this day. Sailing in to NYC past the famous Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty, I felt as if I were in a movie.

On that day in October 1970, the sky was unbelievably clear as the ship majestically made its way up the Hudson, sailing close to the West side of Manhattan. I had never seen such buildings before, and at that time the Twin Towers of World Trade Centre were just nearing completion. I couldn’t believe it! The height of it terrified me. It seemed to belong to another planet. We could even see the little figures walking around on scaffolding at the top. I felt dizzy just looking. That human beings could not only dream of creating such a building, but actually have the courage and skill to accomplish it, struck me as the big difference between my culture and the American way. Back home, everything was so much smaller and more tentative at that time. Whenever an ambitious idea was suggested, there would always be a hundred reasons why it couldn’t be done, whereas here in America, people would always find a way!

In 1979, I came with my partner to spend 2 months exploring and doing some painting. I had originally been encouraged to come by Martin Charnin, the director of Annie and through my connections with the production I was able to go backstage at the Alvin Theatre [now the Neil Simon Theater] where it was still playing. You asked about my observations of the city – well, here I have to say that there was a disappointment regarding the ‘Great White Way’ as portrayed in Hollywood movies. When we finally got to see it, it wasn’t very white at all! And when I was shown the slightly antiquated backstage equipment at the Alvin, I was amazed – compared to the lighting board I had operated for Annie, the American version looked utterly primitive!

But apart from this, we loved the city, it’s good humor, and the fact that everyone working in the service industry treated you to a broad smile and a sardonic quip. They were all entertainers! We had heard so many stories about NY being dangerous. There were dire warnings about going into Central Park after a certain hour, but nothing ever happened to us and we ignored the doom mongers.

How had the city changed, in your experience, between the 1970s and 1980s?

Not easy for me to compare experiences of the city because in the 80s I was seeing a completely different side of it. In the earlier visit, we explored 42nd Street and marveled at its lights and adult movie houses, but in the 80s I remember actually going into one of them to meet Henri Pachard, who had his office in the backstage area. It was a curious experience. Back then 42nd Street was still alive with those same cinemas, but had I visited in the next decade, most of them would have vanished.

Interesting that London’s so called ‘Red Light’ district, Soho, began to be ‘cleaned up’ at about the same time. If you go to Soho now you won’t see a single strip joint, sex shop or prostitute. All consigned to the past. But back in 80s NYC, it was all still very much alive on the legendary 42nd Street. Also alive and flourishing, in another part of the city, were the offices of Screw magazine, which I visited on several occasions and met the editorial team. During the last of my visits I did a couple of illustrations for High Society and was able to glimpse the inside of a plush office on 5th Avenue. This was a much more up-market publication.

Now I am remembering visiting Plato’s Retreat – a large night club, designed especially for swingers. We had nowhere like this in London. I remember being invited to be part of a little cabaret there, but have to say that during the day, when we were rehearsing, and the interior was not seen in sexy subdued artificial light, it looked decidedly run down. The man who had started it, Larry Levinson, had just come out of prison so probably in his absence, the vitality had begun to drain out of the place.

Does anyone remember Plato’s Retreat now?

Oh, people remember it -- and miss it! 

Before I leave this subject, I must also mention The Hellfire Club. In this case, being run down was quite deliberate. This place specialized in being dark, grubby and un-salubrious. I was invited to go there by a couple who were fascinated by the S/M scene and knew that I had an interest at the time too. They collected me from my hotel in a huge stretch limo, in which champagne was served as we made our stately way to the Club. When the chauffeur drew up at a shabby address in the Meatpacking District, I was utterly horrified, and even more horrified by the club itself. But I was there to experience it, so experienced it I did – having got myself decked out in a skimpy leather outfit specially for the occasion. I was led around the dark dungeons on a lead, and we were able to watch all the other slaves with their masters and mistresses.

Apart from these outings, most of the time we were filming and I saw plenty of interiors of huge loft apartments in the city or beautiful houses with swimming pools out on Long Island. However, to sum up, I have to say that being in NYC filled me with such a special sort of energy. I cannot begin to express the difference it made to my personality. I became more confident and more extrovert as a person.

In the final part of our interview, Lynn tells about her time in the NYC adult film world at the end of its Golden Age and what she learned from it.

You can visit Lynn Paul Russell’s website and an exhibition of her work at:

www.lynnpaularussell.org
https://www.talismanfineart.com/product/cat/current-feature-4 

Born Back Ceaselessly Into the Indelible NYC Underwelt

I blogged once before that Mr NYC is an underworld, an underground, a secret thing all its own. This blog remains totally uncorrupted, pure and free from any ties that bind. It floats through time and space, hurtling like ... a basebell .. forever into the infinite. In my mind, I combine the notions of the underground and the underworld into the "underwelt."

Allow me to expound.

Recently I decided to re-read Don DeLillo's 1997 Underworld, a massive novel about the second half of 20th Century America. It follows two people, Nick and Klara, who used to live in the Bronx. After a short affair in 1952, their lives go in dramatically different directions until they meet again, briefly, in the Arizona dessert in 1992. As we follow their paths over five decades and 800+ pages, we also encounter their various friends, lovers, and family members, we hurtle through some of the most dramatic events of the Cold War, and we literally end inside the place that would come to rule the incipient millennium -- the Internet. The novel's various plots and touches with history are held together by one thing -- a baseball, the very homerun ball hit by Bobby Thomson on October 3rd, 1951, the "Shot Heard 'Round the World." Tracking that ball over these decades becomes the thread that holds the whole unwieldy empire of the novel together.

So what's the underworld part? How does that relate?

Throughout the novel there is this recurrent theme of trash, of waste, of buried nuclear weapons and radioactive debris, of discarded objects and people, of loss. The threat of nuclear annihilation hangs over the novel, the Cold War ruling it completely, married to the irony that a baseball is roughly the same size as the uranium found inside a nuclear weapon. This is the "underworld" of the novel, the stuff we want to forget, the stuff that falls away (it is also literalized as an early 1930s German movie called Underwelt that, at one point, Klara watches -- as ominous a piece of media as ever existed). 

The underworld, the underground, the underwelt, defines itself in opposition to the above ground, outside world. It is a constant friction, a perennial resistance. Like the aforementioned trash -- we want to forget it, we want it out of our lives, but it never goes away.

Quite simply the underwelt is anything buried, anything like ...

... secret worlds, worlds within worlds, worlds not easily found or accessed, worlds that both tempt and repulse us, worlds that can trap or set us free, worlds with no rules, no laws, no obligations, no reason, no compromise, worlds of pleasure and pain and big messes and invisible orders, worlds free of logic or logics that exist on their own terms, worlds that only a chosen few can see, hear, feel, smell, touch, taste, worlds that we create, that belong to us, at odds with ... the outside world.

And what brings these underworlds above ground into the outside world? What makes the imperious ... pervious? What kills the resistance, ends the frictions?

The Media. The Law. Money. Time. Mother Nature. Death. 

They exist to root out anything buried, to burrow into these undergrounds, to conquer these underworlds -- to corrupt and change them, to make them public and own them, to put them on display, to disrupt the "underwelt."

So where does the underwelt exist? Where do we find it?

Some are literal, physical, or spiritual, or "other": travel, sex, crime, excitement, horror, secrets, memories, trash, fringe culture, back alleys/basements/attics/hallways. Any place where we believe we can go and do and see and feel and touch and taste and hear whatever we want, all personal inhibitions and societal strictures disregarded.

Now more than ever the Internet is the ultimate "underwelt" as well as the ultimate "underwelt" disruptor -- a paradox that our society struggles with every day and that rips it apart. But those are not the only underwelts we live in. There is one ultimate underwelt one we all wish we could travel to, one that is forever out of reach -- the past.

The final sentence to the prologue of DeLillo's masterpiece is, "It is all falling indelibly into the past." It can't help but remind me of the final sentence of another 20th century American masterpiece, The Great Gatsby: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." This underwelt exists everywhere, around us and inside us, and yet ... we can't go there. We want to, desperately, we all want to hide away inside it, we all want to, as vernacular of this particular present goes, "quarantine" there. 

Yet we can't. We try and fail constantly, it's the most quixotic of quixotic undertakings. Pointless. 

The past is everything and nothing, everywhere and nowhere. The past exists but we can't possess it. The past is forever conquered by the future. 

This blog explores the underwelt of NYC. It is both within and outside it, both its captor and its hostage. It's part of the present, even the future, and yet ... it is borne back ceaselessly into the indelible past, into the NYC underwelt, both drowning and unable to swim in this empty, overflowing pool.

If you want to explore the Mr NYC underwelt, what it means in general and what it means to me, go here.

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.

"The Power Broker" on TV!

Believe it or not, I haven't been watching much TV during this pandemic -- I spend so much time working at my job, taking care of my kids, keeping my house in order, cooking, and occasionally blogging, that my TV time is severely limited. When I do watch something, it's usually for only an hour or so before bed, usually some show that I've recorded or get off a streaming service.

But on the rare occasion when I do catch the news, I've noticed a trend: people who are broadcasting or being interviewed from home, a bookcase behind them, with a copy of Robert Caro's The Power Broker prominently displayed on a top shelf. Just last night I caught two minutes of Erroll Louis on NY1, and there was the mighty tome looming over his shoulder. 

I'm not the only one who's noticed this -- today there's a big article about how numerous politicians, journalists, and other assorted NYC bigwigs who appear on TV regularly are making sure that The Power Broker can be seen by the audience. Some politicians, like Congressman Max Rose of Staten Island, downright admit that they put it there just be seen. Displaying this book so clearly to the public is an perfect example of what we might call "intelligence signaling" -- it says, "look how smart, informed, sophisticated, and New York I am. Oh, and I really, really like to read." 

Unlike many of these people who've probably never actually read The Power Broker, yours truly has -- I even blogged about it twelve yearss ago. So there!

Other suggested big NYC books to have on your bookshelf to show what a super-sophisticated New Yorker you are: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, Underworld by Don DeLillo (might want to throw in White Noise or Mao ii for good measure), maybe some older books like The Great Gatsby, Sister Carrie, and The Age of Innocence, and anything by Vonnegut. 

And here's 1977 interview with the "power broker" himself, Robert Moses!

"The Deuce" - An Appreciation

Very soon the final episode of the three-season series The Deuce will air. Created by David Simon, whose previous shows The Wire and Treme examined the criminal underworld of early-2000s Baltimore and the cultural scene of post-Katrina New Orleans (respectively), The Deuce was about NYC. 

Unlike those shows, however, it was a period piece set in the 1970s and '80s. Ostensibly The Deuce was about the adult business and how it quickly rose into an almost respected art form ("porno chic") in the '70s until AIDS and videotape ruined it in the '80s. But The Deuce wasn't really about the adult business, it was about NYC -- specifically the Times Square area, and how it turned from a sleazy cease pool into a developer's wonderland. It's about how the forces of big money, real estate, law enforcement, and politicians came together to transform this part of NYC -- and, eventually, the city as a whole. In The Deuce, the adult business is an exemplar of this time in the city's history -- a beneficiary of the old NYC, a victim of the new NYC. It shows how, in detail, through the stories of its various interrelated characters, the city changed into the gentrified, clean-cut jewel-box it is today.

As I blogged about almost exactly two years ago -- two years before this show even hit the air! -- so goes Times Square, so goes NYC. The Deuce dramatized this fact brilliantly.

I'm sorry that The Deuce is going off the air after three great seasons -- each one jumped ahead several years from the previous season (1971 to 1978 to 1985) showing how the adult business and the city had changed in the interim. It'd be cool to see this show jump ahead to 2000 or 2001 -- just as the Internet was changing adult film yet again and 9/11 would change the city forever. Maybe one day David Simon will make a reunion movie.

Many thanks for this brilliant, one of a kind, only-in-NYC show!

Welcome to the Real Digital Underground

Fifteen years ago this week, the American army caught Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein hiding in an underground bunker -- also called a "spider hole." Nine months after the start of our ill-conceived invasion, the Butcher of Baghdad was still in hiding, moving around out of sight but not out of mind, staying underground as much as he could, and successfully evading capture -- until his luck ran out. Osama Bin Laden was a much more successful underground dweller, hiding out for almost a decade after 9/11 until he was found (not underground actually) and killed in Pakistan.

There's something scary but also exciting about the idea of an "underground" existence -- being  everywhere and nowhere, being alone but also free, being able to be who you want to be without anyone else rendering judgment. Being separated from a crazy, evil world, living on your own terms. Until, of course, your luck runs out. 

What does it mean to go "underground" or live in an "underworld"? How long can we do it -- before we get caught? 

My thoughts about what it means to be "underground" or in an "underworld" were further spurred when I read this article about a fellow NYC blogger who, for more than 25 years, has been producing a publication (first as a zine, then as a blog) about opera. He's a perfect example of someone who started out as an outsider, a troublemaker, an "underground" character, only to be embraced by the very people and world that, at first, would want nothing to do with him. The article says that his blog is still "underground" but, when you're featured in the Times and permitted access to a rarefied world, you are underground no longer. 

Except for once upon a time being linked to the New York Times now defunct City Room blog roll, Mr NYC has avoided any kind of mainstream, establishment attachment. Nary a magazine, a newspaper, an online publication, a TV or radio station, a podcast -- nothing! -- has corrupted this blog with any kind of attention. 

Detractors might say, it's because the blog sucks. Fans might say it's because Mr NYC is too good for, you know, Da' Man, The Squares, the bourgeoisie.

Either way, Mr NYC remains very much an "underground" phenomenon, adrift in the vast sea of the Internet, a digital secret -- like that great out-of-the-way neighborhood, or downstairs restaurant, or hole-in-the-wall bar (pick your analogy) that few people know about but, for those who do, they love it, cherish it, and hold it close. 

Mr NYC is probably the only thing in this city that isn't being colonized by money and attention -- and, for that, I expect you all to be very grateful. 

So, if you're a Mr NYC reader/detractor/fan/whatever, you have discovered the real digital underground, a real Internet spider-hole, an underworld all its own.

Congratulations! Enjoy your stay! 

Sexy NYC

The sexual underworld of NYC has always held a certain intrigue. In this huge, dynamic, crazy town, there have always been sex clubs and swingers parties, orgies held in hotels and apartments, as well as good old fashioned prostitution rings (remember the Mayflower Madam?) and people hooking up in bars. Any proclivity was catered to. There used to be legendary bath houses like Plato's Retreat, plus gay bars like Stonewall and dance halls like the Roxy -- and there were also places like S&M "dungeons" and other creepy places where you could lie under glass and have people ... well, let's go no further down that road.

You can't have 8 million+ citizens and not have some kinky people in it.

But the composition of sexy NYC is changing. No, it's not that New Yorkers are any less horny than today, but the sexual life is the city is getting less, well, seamy. The gay clubs and dance halls are vanishing. Now gay New Yorkers are hooking up online. Sex clubs are getting busted. Gentrification and "niche" has also played a part.

In short, the sexual life in NYC is getting more introverted, less extroverted. And, as the 21st century grinds on, this will probably continue. 

"It's all falling indelibly into the past"

When I started this blog almost three years ago, it was never meant to be a nostalgia blog, a "those were the days" kinda thing. It was meant to be a dynamic forum capturing life in the world's most dynamic city. I still think it serves that purpose but, increasingly, it's turned more and more into a nostalgia blog.

Perhaps it was inevitable. And I'm the first one to dismiss people who carp about the old days being better than the present. But recent events make it seem like the city has accelerated in a direction that I don't recognize. And as a life-long New Yorker, I'm scared.

Last week I wrote multiple entries about how Old New York Charm (the closings of Tavern on the Green and Cafe des Artists, the ruination of the Plaza Hotel) and Old New York Grit (the cleaning out of Canal Street, Frank Serpico) are disappearing. Then this past week, JD Salinger died (a great NYC writer) and the sale of Stuy-Town officially became a debacle. Also, the great New York movie studio Miramax closed last week, now basically a studio in name only but not practice (remember the Miramax hey-dey of the 1990s? The Crying Game, The Piano, Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, Chicago. Gone now.).

I feel like I'm looking out the back window of a car gaining speed as the city I once knew and loved is shrinking and disappearing into invisibility.

And what are we heading to? A city of soulless wealth, boring glass buildings, bad Yuppie taste, super-expensive real estate prices, and pockets of poverty and despair. At this rate, in twenty years, New York will be like Cleveland. Egads.

"It's all falling indelibly into the past." Don Dellilo wrote this as the last sentence of the opening chapter of his 1997 book Underworld. Indelibly -- not easily moved or erased. But increasingly the past is being erased and replaced with a new scary future. Instead of "indelibly" I would say it's inevitable. It's all falling inevitably into the past. Where do we go from here?

Talking about NYC in the past, there's some new books about the city during WW2. They sound interesting.

The Shot Heard 'Round The World

This is considered the single greatest moment, not only in the history of New York City baseball, but in all of American sports: Bobby Thomson's come from behind home run that won the National League pennant for the New York Giants over the Brooklyn Dodgers.

October 3, 1951. At the bottom of the 9th inning, with all three bases loaded and the Giants losing 1-4, Thomson whacked the ball into the stands and the Giants overwhelmed the Dodgers to snag the game, 5-4. The crowd went wild (Dodgers fans, like my own grandfather, excepted). The city had shut down for this penultimate game of the series and, when it was over, nearly exploded from the emotion it unleashed.

The next day the newspapers declared this home run "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" - and it literally was, as serviceman fighting in Korea heard it on the radio.

On the same day as this historic game, the Soviet Union tested the first nuclear bomb - another metaphorical, much more ominous shot heard 'round the world.

For many Americans, these two events on the same day became the turning point for 20th century America -- the official end of the World War Two era, the beginning of the Cold War era, and the rise of American of dominance. The tour-de-force prologue of Don DeLillo's great 1997 novel Underworld is devoted to this game and moment, and the rest of this novel - part fiction, part fact - covers the next 50 years of turbulent history that unfurled afterwards.

DeLillo describes it best - the memories of great moments like this, the vicissitudes of history, and feelings they all inspire - when he writes at the end of the prologue: "It's all falling indelibly into the past,"

Here's a partial transcript of Russ Hodges calling the game (since the recording is a little hard to understand):

"There's a long drive... it's gonna be, I believe...THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! Bobby Thomson hits into the lower deck of the left-field stands! The Giants win the pennant and they're goin' crazy, they're goin' crazy! HEEEY-OH!!!'' [long pause for crowd noise]

I don't believe it! I don't believe it! I do not believe it! Bobby Thomson... hit a line drive... into the lower deck... of the left-field stands... and this blame place is goin' crazy! The Giants! Horace Stoneham has got a winner! The Giants won it... by a score of 5 to 4... and they're pickin' Bobby Thomson up... and carryin' him off the field!"

A Man Called Impy

NYC's Mayors are a ubiquitous bunch: Rudy's running for Prez ... Mike might run for Prez ... Ed Koch
still materializes wherever a live microphone or TV camera is present ... Dinkins gives the occasional interview. Some other Mayors still live in the popular imagination of New Yorkers: the forceful LaGuardia (who recently had a mailbox named after him - I kid), the sturdy Wagner, the dapper but ultimately tragic Lindsay, the good but overwhelmed Abe Beame. Yet one 20th century Mayor seems lost to history, destined to be remembered (if at all) as a fluke and a failure - Vincent Richard Impelliteri (1900-1987; Mayor: 1950-1953).

Call him the forgotten Mayor of memorable times. He came to power after Mayor O'Dwyer resigned in 1950 (under a legal cloud) to become Ambassador to Mexico. The City Council President, Impelliteri, became Acting Mayor and then won a special election to complete O'Dwyer's term. His time in office produced no great achievements and it is widely believed his adminstration was heavily Mobbed up. However, it was during this man's tenure - a man who called himself Impy - that Robert Moses, the great builder, began massive housing and highway projects that transformed this city into what she is today. It was during Impy's time that the United Nations opened for business in 1952; he was the first and only Mayor to address the UN General Assembly until Giuliani in 2001 (after the attacks on America). And it was during Impy's brief tenure that Bobby Thomson hit "the shot heard 'round the world", winning the NY Giants the National League Penant and making baseball history in 1951. (Read the first chapter of Don DeLillo's Underworld for more.) Impy was defeated for re-election in 1953 and disappeared. He died in 1987, and was not greatly mourned. However, he was a man whose moment was memorable indeed and perhaps he did a little good along the way.

Today, Mr NYC, doffs his hat and raises a carbonated beverage to his memory. At Sardi's, above the pictures of the Broadway stars, are pictures of the Mayors. And when I was there, I'm sure I was the only one who recognized Impy's mug, and was heartened to see him having the last smirk.

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