"La Dolce Musto" Forever

In the very first year of this blog, back in 2007, I had the honor of interviewing legendary Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto. He gave me a funny, quirky interview, and I was very grateful for his time. The name of his long-running column was "La Dolce Musto."

Now, if you'd like, you can go back and read about Michael's memory of his first 1984 "La Dolce Musto" column in the Village Voice. 

Michael is an Only in NYC type, the kind whose likes we might never see again. 

The 60 Best Songs Ever Written About New York City ... Well, not really ...

Yours truly missed this back in 2014 when the Village Voice published this list of the 60 best NYC songs but better late than never.

I read it and had several thoughts.

First, sixty is a rather strange number to limit it too -- why not 50? Or 100? Sixty just seems so random.

Second, while a couple of these songs are obviousy, like "New York, New York" by John Kander or "New York State of Mind" by Billy Joel, the vast majority of them are obscure or more "meta" songs than heart and soul ones. 

Third, there are MANY glaring omissions. No "New York City" by They Might Be Giants. No "Empire State of Mind" by Jay Z. And while there are a few Lou Reed songs on the list, there's no or "New York City Man" and nothing, nothing at all, from Lou Reed's classic 1989 New York album, especially no "Dirty Boulevard"! And no show tunes, nothing from "Rent" or "On The Town" and many others.

This is a perfect example of a list created by people who want to seem "alternative" and "different" and super-hip. I guess I'm a big softy -- I like the fun NYC songs. But to each their own.

Making of the Mayor 2025

This blog has existed for two decades under three different NYC mayors. Unsurprisingly I have a blogged from time to time about the mayors and the elections that make them.

You can read that archive here. 

Currently there is a very crowded Democratic primary for mayor that includes a Muslim Socialist, a disgraced ex-Governor (and they're the frontrunners), yet another doomed Comptroller, and a bunch of Others. In some ways this primary resembles the 1977 mayoral election -- an unpopular, failed mayor who has become so irrelevant that the question isn't should he be replaced but by who, and lots of people are running to be that replacement.

And one of them might be a guy named Cuomo. 

Recently there was a contentious debate amongst the candidates, and it's clear how high the stakes are for each of them -- and the city.

But the bigger, more unanswerable question is "what makes a good mayor?" 

Elections and campaigns are all about who is the best, most appealing candidate but, sadly, that doesn't always translate into doing the best job. And as this article states, most of all, New Yorkers think being a good mayor means being a good manager. They think the mayor should essentially be a great COO, making sure that city services are delivered consistently and well, keeping the metaphorical trains running, supervising the machinery of government and ensuring its smooth operation.

Here's the dirty secret: managing the city isn't really the job of the mayor.

Part of the job of the mayor is appointing the people who manage the city, and then appointing the people who manage the managers. The real job of the mayor is to make policy, to sign or veto laws passed by the City Council, to work with the state and federal goverment to get the city money and laws favorable to it, to be the city's main cheerleader and public spokesperson -- and to handle all of the politics that flow from all that.

In short, the job of the mayor is not to manage the city on a daily basis -- it's to determine the course of its history for years and decades to come. Mayors need to be big picture thinkers, visionaries, conducting the great orchestra of city government, policy, politics, and media -- not just be its manager. 

Sadly whoever becomes the next mayor will be not have the same kind of robust local reporters covering them. For example, the great NYC muckraker Tom Robbins has died. He wrote, on and off, for the Village Voice for decades, and who lifted the stones and looked underneath what was going on in this city for decades. His kind are becoming obsolete and this city, no matter who runs it, will be all the poorer for it. 

 

Haunted Words

The definition of something being "haunted" means it's been "frequented by a ghost." What's a ghost? An apparition, a nebulous image of something or someone that used to exist, used to live, appears to still exist but is in fact dead.

In some ways, every word that has ever been written is a ghost -- each word is an imprint of someone's mind, someone's thought at the time it was written. The words might have been written a long time ago, the thought long dissipated, the writer might long be dead, but their words still live, the thought they were recording at the time still provoke.

The written word haunts us all.

Think about it. The phrase "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" still gives me chills even though its author has been dead for nearly a century. 

This idea of words being ghosts occurred to me recently when I read about a few perfect examples of their haunting power. 

As I wrote last summer, Quentin Tarantino was preparing a movie about an underground 1970s movie critic that sounded intriguing. I called the post The Romance of the Underground Writer and I expounded on the idea of writers (much like myself) whose words are read by few people but are beloved by those who do read them. Sadly it appears now that Quentin has dropped this movie and won't make it so this underground writer will truly remain underground. This unmade movie, like the writer and his words that it was about, will remain forever a ghost.  

Then there's a couple of Village Voice articles about music writers and their ghostly power.

Lester Bangs was a legendary rock critic who became nearly as famous as the singers and bands he reviewed. He was so influential and admired that Philip Seymour Hoffman played him in the 2000 movie Almost Famous. But even as brilliant as Lester was, he could get it wrong sometimes. In 1980, Lester wrote a long commentary about how the Rolling Stones 1978 album Some Girls wasn't that good and that, after almost two decades together, perhaps the Stones should break up. 

Just to give you an idea of how wrong Lester was, Some Girls contains, amongst other songs, "Beast of Burden" and "Shattered", brilliant, classic songs. And, of course, 44 years after this article was written, the Stones are still together, selling out shows. Even though Lester Bangs has been dead for more than 40 years, these words from this review still haunt him, even if his overall reputation remains deservedly undiminished.  

Another writer whose gone but whose words having staying power was and is Greg Tate. Another rock critic, he wrote about (mostly) African-American music and culture, and was one of the first critics to write about rap music seriously. He was so respected that he even became a professor at Columbia University.

Sadly Tate died in 2021 but he was just given a posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize and his words still inspire other writers and creative people to this day. He's a ghost who still makes our culture more alive.

The Other NYC Hamilton

I always love reading about New Yorkers who captured the city -- or people of and about the city -- in unique ways (hmmm wonder why?).

Anyway, one such person was a photographer named James Hamilton who worked for the Village Voice and other publications from the 1960s through the 2000s. He took pictures of the rich and famous as well as people on the streets (including the Tompkins Square riots in the late 1980s -- I remember that), always managing to capture his subjects' humanity.

Hamilton is the subject of a new Apple TV documentary, produced by Wes Anderson, called Uncropped that covers his life and career, and his unique views of NYC. I can't wait to see it! 

Old Downtown Lives Again

There are fewer stars that shine brighter -- and here on Earth -- than Barbara Streisand. One of the most famous, beloved, and acclaimed singer and actresses (and even director) of all time, she has blazed a glorious trail, a Jewish girl from Brooklyn who conquered showbusiness and Hollywood in the 1960s -- and continues to reign to this day. 

Movies like Funny Girl, The Way We Were, A Star is Born, Yentl, The Prince of Tides, The Mirror Has Two Faces and others have burnished her in cinematic history. Her songs -- and that voice! -- are instantly recognizable. She is one of the most famous entertainers who ever lived.

So now, after more than 60 years in showbusiness, Barbara is going back to the beggining. She has a released a new album, Live At the Bon Soir, that is a recording of performances she gave at the funky Greenwich Village basement nightclub in early November 1962 when she was just starting out. She croons old-timey songs, her voice so young and energetic, and there is such a confidence, such a pure beauty in her voice that it's no surprise that she became a huge star in the years right after. This album has apparently been sitting in Barbara's vault for more than half-a-century and only now is she giving it to the world. The world of old downtown Manhattan, of the early 1960s Greenwich Village arts scene, is long gone but these recordings, and Barbra's talent, are perennial -- a reminder that great work leaves an lasting legacy. 

But not all of old Downtown is gone -- on Elizabeth Street, in what is today called NoLita, is a butcher shop that's been in business since 1923 and is still going strong: Albanese Meats and Poultry. It's now being run by the 4th generation of the Albanese family, its super-old fashioned meat story in one of the city's trendiest neighborhoods. Everything about this place is old school and yet it's not old school -- it is a living, breathing part of Downtown, old but not out. 

Downtown, like NYC as a whole, is always alive -- even in the past.

Culture Shock NYC

Bemoaning about gentrification in NYC has become a constant for New Yorkers -- and yours truly is no different. "This city ain't what it used to be" has probably been a refrain since Colonial times. Twenty, thirty years ago it was all about how the city was falling apart and raging with crime. Today it's about how the city is too expensive and how neighborhoods are being taken over by high-rises and chain stores.

Whatever's going on in NYC, its citizens will complain about it.

So that's what makes this article by Village Voice columnist, and early Mr NYC interviewee, Michael Musto so interesting -- he doesn't complain about gentrification, instead he looks at it from an historical perspective. Basically, he posits that the city is always changing, has always been changing, and businesses and buildings are always coming and going -- at first we hate them, then we fall in love with them, then we weep at their demise.

For example, as Michael writes about, the Astor Place K-Mart. When it opened in the 1990s, it was a hated example of encroaching corporatism, a vile chain store in the middle of the hipster community. But over the years it became a very convienent, and beloved, neighborhood staple. Now it's gone -- and Astor Place denizens are bummed.

Michael perfectly captures the feelings we have about the constant churn of NYC -- what was once new becomes old, what was once viewed with suspicion finally get embraced, and when it vanishes we get sad. 

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

But one place that has remained strong in NYC for the last 50 years, and shows no signs of vanishing, is Film Forum. The downtown revival movie house is deeply beloved by many New Yorkers, and its survival and resilience in an era of streaming and COVID is all the more impressive. Prior to having kids, I went there all the time with friends and loved ones, and saw old movies by Goddard and Orson Welles, and many others. I even spent my 30th birthday there for a Woody Allen festival -- it's such a great place and, in a midst of constant economic and cultural change in NYC, it's still going strong.

In fact, my most popular blog post ever is about Film Forum -- this over 13-year old post has been viewed over 17,500 times! I can't explain it or understand why but, for me at least and in so many ways, Film Forum is the gift that keeps on giving!

So the culture is always changing in NYC -- and sometimes we experience culture shock -- but some culture remains the same ... which is somewhat shocking in and of itself.

Magic & Loss: Bob Fass RIP and City COVID Stories and ... Start the Presses!

One of Lou Reed's great songs is called "Magic & Loss." He croons:

There's a bit of magic in everything

And some loss to even things out ...

Those words, to me, sum up life: life is magical, people are magical, nature and the world around us are magical, our creations our magical, everything and everyone contains magic ... but loss is magic's constant companion, it's sorrowful sidekick. And the best way to negotiate life is to love both -- the magic of everything and the loss that accompanies. They are both inevitable. If you can appreciate this paradoxical beauty of life, I believe, than you have achieved a simple yet greater kind of wisdom. 

This concept of "magic and loss" occurred to me recently when I read several disparate articles about occurences that, more than anything, have impacted the soul of New York City. As you read and think about them, you appreciate the magic of the people we have in this city, the loss of many of them that this last year has inflicted, while also feeling somewhat optimistic about our future.

There is the loss of the legendary NYC radio host Bob Fass. His show "Radio Unknowable" was broadcast on WBAI for 50 years, where he interviewed Bob Dylan and many other brilliant artists, thinkers, and public figures. He was the closest thing that NYC had to an "underground radio host", as his obituary describes him. His show was part of the gritty Bohemian spirit of the city, the subconscious turned into radio signals. As someone who writes an "underground blog" about NYC, Bob Fass was a weird kind of soul brother for me, a fellow restless spirit who never lost his fascination for the city, its people, and all its crazy undercurrents. Magic & Loss. 

Then there are these individual stories of New Yorkers who have been impacted by COVID-19 over the last year. These are the stories you don't see in the news but they are the quiet stories, the unique experiences, of people in NYC dealing with this global pandemic. It involves illness, death, misery but also survival and hope. It's about as clear an example of the Magic & Loss of and in life that I can think of. 

But then, in the midst of all this, a miracle! Something has come back to life! Specifically the Village Voice. Four years ago it went out of business, totally shuttered. Now it's back and even in print! This long history of the notorious free rag and how it came back to life is worth a read. It's a story of the city, of the press, and how the two inform and shape NYC. The Voice coming back to life after it seemed dead and gone forever is miraculous. It's a bit of magic after the loss that proves how Magic & Loss are forever intertwined, constant companions, and never predictable. 

The Village Voice Lives!

Two years ago The Village Voice went out of business, a depressingly familiar victim of technological change and indifferent nouveau ownership. Since its demise, the website has been publishing old articles from its massive print and digital archives, a living memory of NYC's past.

Now The Voice has been sold again, this time to a guy who owns a bunch of small news sites, and plans to relaunch not only the news site but also publish quarterly print issues -- and, down the road, even a podcast.

What kind of Voice will arise from its ashes remains to be seen -- a lot of these smaller city newspapers that turned into news sites have become vanity projects for its owners, vehicles for their business and political interests, not worth reading. What's clear is that the new owners thinks of The Voice as a powerful NYC brand and wants to extend it so hopefully it will become a worthy successor/continuation of the old newspaper, a real voice of downtown and offbeat NYC.

Welcome back! 

Le Freak So Chic

In the 1970s, there was a moment when it seemed like adult moves and mainstream movies might merge -- where actual hardcore sex movies would go mainstream. Much of this had to do with the twin successes of Deepthroat and Last Tango in Paris, both of which not only hit at the box office but became popular amongst the "beautiful people", the trendsetters, known as "porno chic."

In NYC, these movies were very popular, and the Village Voice even wrote an article about this supposedly burgeoning "movement" in 1973. It seemed to be the dawn of a new era, a whole new culture, a truly liberated world. 

Nope.

If you've has seen Boogie Nights or The Deuce, you know that the concept of "porno chic", of adult and mainstream movies merging, of the freaks and the squares combining, died a quick death with the rise of videotape and Ronald Reagan in 1980s. So that's why it's fascinating to read about the height of this moment back in the 1970s when being freaky was very chic -- and when NYC was still a freaky place. 

The Velvet Underground @ Max's Kansas City @ 50

In the summer of 1970 the Velvet Underground made its last hurrah in NYC. From June to August, for nine weeks, the band played two shows a night at the now vanished club Max's Kansas City on Park Avenue South. One of their shows, on August 23, 1970, was recorded and later released in 1972 as Live at Max's Kansas City.

The Velvets had a short and tumultuous existence. Formed in the mid-1960s, under the guidance of Lou Reed and John Cale, they produced four albums in almost as many years. But only a couple of years in, Cale left the band. The albums didn't sell. Their original partnership with Andy Warhol ended after their first album. So, by 1970, the band was on the verge of collapse. This nine-week gig turned out to be a finale (of sorts). Lou Reed would leave the band afterwards. Their final album, Loaded, would come out in November 1970 to little interest. And that, it would seem, would render the band to history -- forgotten, a failure, a footnote.

Instead, the Velvet Underground made history. It wrote volumes in the history of rock'n'roll. It will be remembered forever. 

Generations of musicians and songwriters would cite the band as an influence -- including U2, Joy Division, Sonic Youth, REM, Talking Heads, and David Bowie. When the band re-united for a European tour in 1993, it was a sensation. They were inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. They've been included on soundtracks for movies like Juno and Orange is the New Black. They've even inspired museum exhibits. To paraphrase, anyone would bought a Velvet Underground album back in the day probably ended up starting a rock'n'roll band.

But history is only understood in hindsight -- it's made in the (then) present, forever grinding forward. In July 1970, before the famous recording was made, the Village Voice wrote a short article about this now legendary gig, about how the band sounded as good as it ever did, and that playing in NYC again after three years meant that they were "back where they belong."

P.S. The Velvets gig at Max's KC ended on August 28, 1970. Five days later my parents got married in NYC. History is funky like that sometimes. 

A Great Strange Dream

Vivian Gornick is a legend in NYC writing circles, having published numerous memories and books of essays about her life and times -- coming of age during the eras of Civil Rights, the Women's Movement, Vietnam, Stagflation, and many other such delights. She blazed the trail in crafting "the confessional" long before it became a mainstay of the publishing world.

She was also a reporter, who wrote for the Village Voice from 1969 to 1977.

In late October 1969 Gornick went to Jack Kerouac's funeral up in Massachusetts. The already-legendary Beat writer, scribe of the classic On the Road, had recently died from alcoholism at the age of 47. Gornick reported on it, seeing people like Alan Ginsberg and Jimmy Breslin there, and there was definitely a sense at this funeral that only had a man but an entire way of life had passed with him. By 1969, the Jazz loving, "hip-cat, groovy man", scatting don't-have-a-care-in-the-world world of the Beat generation had already become passe; now was the time of the Hippy, the protester -- and, more ominously, the Silent Majority. 

I'm a huge fan of Kerouac's work, so much so that I even wrote a novel in the vein of On the Road. For me, Kerouac was about freedom, about the wildness of America, about celebrating everything great about being alive and about America.

Right now we're living in another dark time, at a time when it's easy to be scared about the possibility of the American idea. A lot of people aren't happy (and you can include me, mostly, amongst them). But Kerouac had an answer for that, of sorts, probably knowing that his death was imminent and his life a short one: "Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream." 

Is Mr NYC Rude Enough?

These days, thanks to the Internet, newstands don't sell that many newspapers anymore, they're mainly just places to get soda, gum, candy, or water. But when I was a kid, on the streets of NYC, there were myriad newstands bursting with piles and piles of the big daily periodicals, practically falling onto the  sidewalks -- The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post, Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today. There were even foreign-language newspapers -- Chinese, Russian, Arabic. This is where you went to buy "serious" papers for "serious news" but, if you wanted to read something that spit in the face of serious news and contained articles that were unapologetically nasty and controversial, you could, for free, get the "alt-weekly" like the Village Voice or New York Press in the single-standing kiosks on the streets.

Then the Internet came along and the alt-weeklies went into sharp decline as the "alt-press" went online. The most infamous of these online "rude" new sites was Gawker followed by other such sites as Vice, Deadspin, and others. For them, no one and nothing was precious, they didn't play the "inside game" of mainstream news reporting, they published the real dirt on politicians and celebrities, their "news" content was unabashedly voyeuristic, trashy, and mean. And, of course, there were blogs, where ordinary schmoes like yours truly could type away with giddy abandonment, being as rude and insulting to anyone and everyone as they wished.

But now these online sites are vanishing, either through declining readership, mismanagement, or lawsuits. And, according to some, so are blogs -- because social media rules our world now and is where all the "rude" content now lives, blogs have become passe, they are a relic of the mid-2000s. Blogs, apparently, aren't rude enough to exist.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

That got me thinking. Would this blog get more traffic, get more hits, be more popular, even get some kind of media attention, if it was really really mean? If, instead blogging about the spirit and psyche of this town, I "went medieval" of people and said nasty stuff about them and just became, quite frankly, another digital prick? Or, as Mick Jagger might croon: "Ain't I hot enough? Ain't I rough enough? Ain't I rich enough?"

Well, I can answer the last one - I ain't rich enough but, for the last two, I'll let you, the dear readers, to decide.

Lenny Letter RIP

Lena Dunham, she of Girls and much social/gender/racial/political/you-name-it controversy, has shut down her media company Lenny Letter. 

It was a "female-empowerment" online magazine that published articles be celebrities and various prominent women thinkers about the challenges of being a successful woman in this male dominated culture. 

The reason is clear: lack of money, lack of advertisers, and, presumably, lack of readers.

It's too bad that this didn't succeed and it's just another depressing reminder that it's very hard to do work that promotes social justice while also being profitable.

Along with the closing of the Village Voice, more and more important voices are being drowned out by the digital mob. 

"Around the Town in 26 Hours and 36 Minutes"

In 1974 a very brave Daily News reporter took a marathon ride across the NYC subway system -- and wrote about the entire journey.

Reprinted here for the first time anywhere, go back in time and take the trip of a lifetime around a very different NYC.
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AROUND THE TOWN IN 26 HOURS AND 36 MINUTES 

New York Sunday News March 31, 1974 

The Lefferts Blvd. Station at four in the morning could be the loneliest place in New York. Or maybe just the coldest. Wind blows across the elevated tracks. I look out the train – suspended here – waiting for the return runs to Manhattan. Outside the night is dark except for some metal lamps on the deserted platform. Bare light bulbs form little circles of heat in the cold air. I am absolutely alone. Reflected in the train windows are its baby-blue walls splashed magenta and orange with graffiti. Beyond them I can see the black tops of trees, the low buildings of Queens stretching west toward Brooklyn. Far off, a yellow glow indicates Manhattan. Shivering, I cross to the open door and step out onto the platform. It is very still. A quarter moon hangs over Ozone Park, where all sensible people are asleep.

It might be warmer below near the token booth. Perhaps there is even a candy machine. But if the train should suddenly pull away…? No, I decide. Even if there is a machine, it won’t be working. There are some 6,600 vending machines in the New York Subway System. I know of four that work. The Interborough News Co. owes me eighty-five cents. Dear Sirs … I begin composing a letter in my head – then stop. If I give the locations of all the stations where I lost coins yesterday, they’ll think I’m mad. Some of those stations are 50 miles apart!

It seems to me that I have been here an eternity. I look at my watch: 20 minutes. This wait could ruin my chance at the world record. It stands at 21 hours and 8 minutes.

The first subway riding record – traveling the entire system of routes for a single fare – was set October 27, 1904: IRT Opening Day. The subway, an historic 9.1 miles, extended from City Hall to Grand Central, turning west across 42nd Street to Times Square, and then up Broadway to 145th St. After an official opening trip by city dignitaries – with Mayor McClellan holding a silver controller – followed by several hours of invitational rides, the subway was opened to the public at 7 p.m. 111,881 passengers paid a nickel each to ride that day. Scheduled time for an express was 26 minutes; the local took 46. Although those early riders were conscious of making history, it is doubtful that they had any thoughts of setting track records. It was just too simple.

The new subway generated appendages almost yearly. It reached Brooklyn via tunnel in 1908. The success of the IRT encouraged more construction. The Brooklyn Rapid Transit (after 1923, the BMT) began operations in August 1913, and the city-operated IND was opened Sept. 10, 1932. Under the dual contracts by which the city had financed construction of the privately operated IRT and BMT, it had also retained the right to purchase them. In 1940 both were acquired for $326,248,000. The three lines were unified under city control on June 12 of that year.

Two days before unification, Herman Rinke, a curious and still indefatigable electric railroad enthusiast, decided to tour the existing system for a single five-cent fare. He had no thought of setting a record. With unification, the IRT-operated 9th Ave. El was scheduled for demolition. His trip was a 25-hour sentimental gesture. It turned out to be the first recorded try. Since that day, 66 people have ridden the entire system in 24 recorded trips. These records are kept in an unofficial file at the TA Public Relations Dept. No one knows how may kids have done it just for fun. The 1961 subway map cited the example of a Flushing youth who had ridden all the routes in 25 hours and 36 minutes for a single token. The TA’s aim may have been to point out the scope or convenience of the subway, but that record – set Jan. 25, 1957, by Jerome Moses, 16 – instead seemed to invite competition. During the 1960s, subway derbies became a fad with urban students; 11 of them were completed during the peak years of 1966 and 1967. On April Fools Day of 1966, the M.I.T. Rapid Transit Club began a highly publicized ride. They had used a computer to route their attempt and informed the newspapers. On April 2, they were feeling foolish by 1 hour and 1 minute. And Geoffrey Arnold, who had held the 24 hour, 56 minute record since 1963 when he was 17, remarked “Pacific St. was a ridiculous place to start.” That June, nine boy scouts from Troop 290 in Queens further shamed the computer by logging 23 hours and 18 minutes. And on Aug. 3, 1967, 16-year-old James Law, with six buddies, rode from 168th St., Jamaica to Pelham Bay Park in 22 hours 11½ minutes; a time cited in the current Guinness Book of World Records.

When the Bronx Third Ave. El was closed in August 1973, subway route mileage was diminished 5.5 miles. On Oct. 8, Mayer Wiesen, 35, and Charles Emerson set a “modern record,” riding over 230.8 route miles, changing trains many times, and passing through the 462 operating stations, in 21 hours and 8 minutes. A record which looks as if it will stand unless I get out of the Lefferts Blvd. Station.

At 8 yesterday morning, I am just starting out, entering the 168th St. terminus of the Jamaica spur, an old elevated line taken over and extended by the BMT. The 1893 span between Alabama Ave. and Cypress Hills may be the oldest el track still in continuous use. The train I board is one of the oldest also: rolling stock built in the mid- 1930s. Sixty-watt bulbs light the cars. Hanging down from the ceiling are fans with black blades. I make my way to the front car, intending to ride looking out the window next to the motorman’s cab, but a handsome black kid, about 13, has got there first. He stands, hands in his pockets, nose to the glass, alert, ready to “drive the train.” At 8:03 we head toward Manhattan – looking down long streets of old houses, over expressways clogged with morning traffic, rattling past Cypress Hills Cemetery where miles of tombstones cast small, neat shadows in the early light. At Broadway-Myrtle, I change to the M train, yoyo-ing up and back to cover the Myrtle Line – past houses whose third-story windows, with pulled blinds, are often no more than six feet from the train.

9:15. Manhattan comes into view from the Williamsburg Bridge. The huge building blocks that pile its shore jut powerfully at the sky. Below, the East River is gray. It is a postcard approach. The train “zooms-in” like a 1940s movie – so familiar that I almost expect to see titles flash across. No matter. The Manhattan skyline still makes me gasp.

10:00. I am changing trains in Brooklyn when I see the kid from the Jamaica el again. We grin in recognition. “Hey,” I shout, “Are you doing the system too?” As the train doors shut, I see him nod. He swings off to Coney Island, while I race up in search of the Astoria train. On the DeKalb overpass I spot a snack bar and buy a Coke for breakfast. Aside from some coins in my jeans, a notebook and map, I have decided not to carry anything – sort of an urban Camp Fire Girl.

11:12 – En route to Flushing on a blue World’s Fair train. To my left Shea Stadium passes; while off to the right lies Flushing Meadow. The ribbed Unisphere and skeletal towers of the ’64 Fair rear up out of the flat landscape – fossilized like dinosaurs.

12:05. Returning to Manhattan, I change at Jackson Heights for the newer IND. On the underpass is a Nedicks – coffee and a hot dog – breakfast is shaping up. I am wiping mustard off my fingers when I reach the underground Roosevelt Ave. platform. On May 2, 1970, this was the site of the first subway fatality due to collision or derailment, in 42 years; two GG trains collided during evening rush hour, killing two passengers and injuring 71.

1:55. The F train to Coney Island is one of the new, longer R-44 models: pristine and elegant, with seats of muted orange and yellow. Panels of fake wood are set into its walls and fluorescent lights line the ceiling. Just before the doors close, a chime sounds – rather like the Avon doorbell. The advertising cards, color transparencies lit from behind, glow. These are the poshest cars to travel the subways since No. 3344, “The Mineola,” rolled through in 1904. No. 3344 was the private coach of financier and IRT organizer August Belmont. His car had real wood, mahogany, with velvet-draped picture windows so that guests could enjoy the flashing signals while white-coated stewards broiled steaks in the galley and served iced champagne. Above them, Empire ceilings arched, pale green and gilt; the washroom windows were stained glass. If one cares to make a comparison, the Mineola can be found in the Branford Trolley Museum at East Haven, Connecticut.

I am about to succumb to the quiet style of these long, air-conditioned cars, when I notice that the doors between them are kept locked. Existing subway tunnels were built for 60-foot cars, more the size, if not the décor, of the Mineola. These new, 75-foot units do not mesh properly on curves; the space between cars becomes dangerous. Motormen, conductors, and presumably transit police, have keys, but New Yorkers are naturally leery. Many feel that being trapped in one car could become a risky situation.

The IND Coney Island line becomes elevated for a brief span entering Brooklyn; the highest point in the system, 87.5 feet above street level, is at the Smith and Ninth St. Station. Here the view is open in all directions: back toward postcard Manhattan, out into the harbor. Little automobiles crawl over the arched expressway ahead; below, the Gowanus Canal and Red Hook. Too soon, we are underground.

At Church St. the line ramps upward again, joining the 1919 BMT el track at Ditmas Ave., where it emerges and begins the long approach to the ocean. Coney Island, cold and closed, decorates our passage. Orange and green spokes of the Wonder Wheel circle blue sky; flags and bits of banner blow. A deserted but honky tonk air prevails. We pass the roller coaster, webbed and delicate in the afternoon light. The air is bracing.

2:54. The Brighton Line heads back to Manhattan, for a while paralleling the sea. Short views down streets end in ocean. The pastel acres of Brighton Beach Baths stretch, patterned, toward the sand. We stop at Sheepshead Bay before heading northwest, traveling over the old ground level tracks of the 1890s Brighton Railroad, widened in 1907 to cut through the tree-hung backyards of Victorian mansions facing Buckingham Road.

3:15. At the Prospect Park Station hundreds of high school kids mill, going home. Cops range the platform and one accompanies us onto the Franklin Shuttle. The kids are wonderfully natty; boys and girls stride aboard wearing platform shoes that defy balance, pants with big bells, hats, lots of jewelry, elaborate hair-dos. While I am aware that teenagers in groups are responsible for a fair amount of subway crime, I cannot imagine this stylish group doing anything to muss their clothes. Subway history is full of accounts of rampage and vandalism. Two days after the 1904 opening, eight youths armed with buckshot blowers boarded the new subway at 145th St. and proceeded to shoot out the electric lights while doing gymnastic stunts on the straps. Two were arrested at 96th St., the rest escaped. But this was not the first subway crime. That occurred opening night. During the crowded ride north from Brooklyn Bridge Station, someone lifted the $500 diamond stickpin that had been holding down the tie of Harry Barret of W. 46th St. When he reached Grand Central, his necktie was flapping.

3:50. The return shuttle is almost empty. As it approaches Prospect Park again, we pass near Empire Blvd. In November of 1918 it was still called Malbone St. The name was changed after the Brighton Beach Special, jammed with evening rush hour passengers, failed to make a curve at the tunnel there. Five wooden cars, taken over from the old Brooklyn Union Railroad, were dashed to bits, and passengers thrown rapidly along the tunnel walls, literally had their faces rubbed away. Ninety-seven lost their lives, 150 were injured, and for days the accident drove World War I right off the front pages, When motorman Edward A. Luciano gave himself up, he was found to have had only two hours of instruction before being given the controller at Park Row in Manhattan. Earlier that morning – before motormen walked out in a dispute over unionization – Luciano had been a yard switchman. His promotion was sudden – this was his first run. He was acquitted, and the union made its point.

5:02. I am picking up a few stray miles under Rockefeller Center when evening rush hour begins. While I know the total 3.8 million daily subway riders cannot all be taking the D train tonight – it feels as if they are. Jammed shoulder to shoulder, passengers have nowhere to look but up. Above our heads, “Miss Subways” stares out of her poster, giving us a strained smile, “hoping to do some modeling.” Since 1941, when the contest began, over 200 New York working girls have become “Miss Subways.” In the early years, a new face showed up every month. Currently, two winners, out of six finalists, are chosen every eight months by passenger vote. Miss Subways receives a $40.00 charm bracelet dangling silver tokens, and her picture decorates the 6,700 subway cards for a three-month period. I ride standing all the way to 205th St., Bronx. Sheer endurance does not win a girl the title.

6:10. At 168th St. and Broadway, I change trains again, and descend into the IRT on a hot automated elevator to ride the Seventh Ave. local to Van Cortlandt Park. The ride is through the deepest section of track in the whole system: 180 feet below street level at the 191st St. and St. Nicholas Ave. station.             

7:00. Moving under Harlem on the No. 3, a rather splashy train with big graffiti – mustard yellow and pink predominate. Despite $10 million spent to remove graffiti and 1,562 arrests in 1972, the TA is losing the “spray can war.” I read off the names: Supreme King 219, Snake II, Lopez 138, and amuse myself trying to think up my own subway logo – in case graffiti should become legal. Outside the stations pass, dingy, written all over. Two Black Muslims move in and out of the strap-hangers selling Mohammed Speaks. On this line, I am a “token white” – the pun lifts my spirits.

8:02. TA police range the E. 180th St., Bronx platform where the No. 2 pauses. One boards, walkie-talkie mumbling at his waist. He will be riding until 4 a.m. Since May of 1965, a uniformed transit patrolman has been assigned to every train during these hours.

10:30. I stand in the first car, face pressed against the glass, speeding through a dark, underground world, the lighted coach behind me forgotten, as the black tunnel comes on. Tracks in perspective lines rush, disappearing under my feet, crossing, converging ahead. Signal lights change: yellow – “proceed with reduced speed,” green over yellow – “on diverging track.” Express lines mount, as local tracks sink in the dark. In the distance, tiny orange lights flicker above the tracks, then disappear where track-men carrying lanterns dive into the sidings. Now the square, metal-pillared cut rounds into a tube; we approach the old, 1908, Battery-Joralemon tunnel. Green lights signal us through. I make myself useful peering intently at the dark curved walls, checking for leaks.

1:12. The Wilson Ave. station on the Canarsie line is a narrow, double-decked curiosity: one track occupies each level – the eastbound track emerges, briefly elevated, traveling above the underground westbound span. We pass the deserted platform in half light. It faces – a single track away – the Cemetery of the Evergreens. No one in his right mind would get off at Wilson Ave. at 1:12 in the morning. No one did.

2:30. The A train heads out over the waters of Jamaica Bay, leaving behind the huge glow of JFK that arc-lights the eastern sky. I have made the Rockaway Round Robin on schedule and can relax. Only between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. is it possible to cover the entire Rockaway peninsula on a single train. This 19th century summer beach resort was linked to the L.I.R.R. until 1956, when service was transferred to the IND. The train moves further out across the vast, dark bay. Only feet below on either side, water laps the narrow trestle. Far out, a crescent of lights veers gently inward on the long railroad stem. Beyond that brilliant curve, the ocean pounds. For miles around the night is black and cold, the water deep. A strange place for a New York subway train.

4:00. And farewell to Lefferts Blvd.

5:30. Waits are long now. The work trains move slowly underground through nearly empty stations, picking up trash and cleaning out tunnels. The New York bars have closed, and some standees on the Hoyt St. platform bear witness to this fact. A heavy black woman joins me; she walks as if her feet hurt, and I suspect she has just got off work. The trains always take a while at this hour, she tells me. We stand together on the platform, unacknowledged sisters, re-enforcing each other. In 1907, the Hudson Tubes were still running Women Only Cars with guards aboard to insure protection. I guess we have come a long way.

At 6:26 the sun rises over Greenwood Cemetery where I am passing, for the second time, over an elderly bit of track known as the Culver Shuttle; 1.1 miles still bear tribute to Andrew Culver, who built a steam railroad to Coney Island that passed over this site in the 1880s.

7:00 – Coney Island for the second time in two days! Crossing the Stillwell Terminal overpass, I go by the employees cafeteria and smell breakfast. On the Sea Beach Line, morning rush hour is just beginning. This is the third rush hour I have ridden through without leaving the subway. The poignancy of that situation might be enough to make one who has dined off Zagnut bars, peanuts, and Lucy Ellen orange slices for two days, get a cramp. I try not to think of hot coffee.

8:10. Changing trains at Union Square I am especially careful, warned by history. The first subway passenger accident occurred here Opening Day, 1904. A Miss Sadie Lawson, 26, of Jersey City, who had been riding north and south for several hours, fell getting off the southbound train and broke her hip. I grab a metal strap and hang on tightly all the way to 42nd St. 

8:25. Times Square. The 42nd St. shuttle contains 2,700 feet of original 1904 IRT track, now isolated. In 1928, the second worst accident in New York subway history happened just south of here on the Seventh Ave. line. A defective switch broke as the ninth car of a 10-car theater rush-hour train was passing over it. The rear wheels switched to a diverging track and the ninth car, running suddenly at right angles to the others, was sheared in two by the steel pillars between tracks. This mechanical “crack the whip” killed 18 passengers and injured 100.

9:30. The Lexington Ave. Express emerges into bright sunlight just before the old Yankee Stadium. Once, under a glaring blue sky, its lacy wood trim gleamed white like decorative icing – a great hollow cake with a short right field. Now, under the ungentle touch of the renovators, the place is growing unrecognizable. At the Woodlawn terminus, the leaves have lost their Fall colors, but on the golf course below, lucky men tee off across rolling fairways. It is a splendid day for riding elevated trains.

10:39. Pelham Bay Park. I have made the trip – on 67 different trains – in only 26 hours and 36 minutes. 26 hours and 36 minutes! The thought that I may be the first woman to complete the ride does not console me at all. But the sun is shining. And I have my logo: Ms. Subways 114.
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You can read this essay and other great ones just like it in How the Camp Fire Girls Won World War II by Rebecca Morris. 

Also, read more 1970s subways coverage from the Village Voice here. 

Local Reporting in Winter

Newspapers are under attack -- and not just from the orange buffoon in the White House.

They're under attack from major forces, both technological and economic, from the Internet wiping out paid-for print publications and destroying classified ad revenue, to wealthy owners buying up newspapers and either turning them into vanity vehicles or shuttering them completely. Never before have newspapers been in such perilous decline.

That said, online news outlets are stepping into the breach, and some big name legacy papers  (The New York Times, The Washington Post, for example) have done a good job monetizing and re-inventing themselves online.

But what's really being lost is super-local coverage, and high-quality "guerrilla" or "underground" journalism -- the kinds that the Village Voice produced. This kind of in-depth, on-the-ground, in-the-streets, down-the-back-alley reporting is vanishing -- and online coverage isn't replacing it.

NYC has always had great super local papers in every borough but, even though they still exist and have strong web presences, they have virtually no staff and money to do in-depth reporting. As this lengthy article points out, Brooklyn is a borough of 2.5 million people, bigger than most American cities, and the papers and news outlets that exist there have minute staffs and budgets, unable to cover the plethora of stories and controversies that occur in Brooklyn every day.

Reporting is not the same as writing, it's hard work -- interviewing people, looking over documents, making calls, piecing details together, etc. As much as I love blogging and aggregating and commentary, these things can't replace the importance and power -- not to mention  the democratic necessity -- of shoe-leather reporting. 

One such reporter was a guy named John Wilcock who was the ultimate New York "underground" journalist who did brilliant trailblazing work back in the 1960s and 1970s (he recently died at the age of 91. He was a journeyman reporter, a shoe-leather pioneer, and we'll probably never the likes of him or the papers he wrote for ever again.

Trash Tawkin'

Lifelong New Yorker though I may be, I was taught the golden rule as a child that, if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. At least not in public, and not to people that you don't know. Hold your tongue. Silence is golden -- and deafening. Let people hang themselves with their own words, and don't hang yourself. And on and on and on. 

Talk less, smile more.

Well, in the world of 2018, that golden rule is, as we might say in NYC, kaput.

And here some very dramatic, NYC-related examples:

Take Harry Siegel, the big-time city reporter, who trash talks the current owner of the Village Voice (you know, the guy who just destroyed it). Siegel talks about his encounters with this guy, about how's he's a complete liar. Trash talking, in-the-fray, at its finest.

Then there's the lady who might have been First Lady: Judith Giuliani who is currently in a nasty divorce battle with the ex-mayor. She talks about how he's changed, how he's become a worst man (not that he was ever that good to begin with). The thing about this particular trash talk is that it's less exciting gossip and more like depressing venting. It's sad -- sad trash.

And then there's the man we might call Deep Throat 2 or Deep Wrote -- the anonymous Trump White House official who trash talks the very man he works for in a recently published op-ed. It's amazing, mind-boggling stuff, and it makes you wonder what this country has come to. It's sickening, scary, and fascinating all at once.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of trash talking (perhaps I'm a victim of my breeding) because to me it seems like a lot of wasted energy. Ultimately, what does it achieve unless something tangible comes from it?

But in these divided, partisan, social-media times, trash talking is the only industry in this country that's thriving. 

P.S. Another word for trash talking is "jive talking" just like the Bee Gees told us back in 1977!

The Village Voice is No More

The last couple of weeks have been a parade of notable deaths -- Senator John McCain, Aretha Franklin, Robin Leach, and now the Village Voice.

Okay, so the Village Voice wasn't an actual person but, as a newspaper, it was a vibrant, living entity that covered the life of NYC in all its gory glory. It also colored the life of NYC, literally, the free weekly newspaper that any New Yorker could access in its trademark red and blue news boxes. It was part of the "New York alloy" (as Pete Hamill would call it), part of our city's spirit and psyche, and now, after 63 years, it's vanished.

The Village Voice was so many things -- investigative reporting, gossip, arts and culture coverage,  opinion, classified ads (including naughty ones), and lots and lots of info (want to find where the next poetry reading will be or where the newest indie movie was playing? -- the Village Voice would tell you). Obviously the Internet wrecked havoc on much of the Voice's raison d'etre (newspapers like the Voice were the Internet in many ways back in the day) but it had built lively website that was as good a news source as any. And now that's gone too.

What I'll miss most, what will be lost and never replaced, are the incredible writers who came from the Voice -- Wayne Barrett, Tom Robbins, Nat Hentoff, Micheal Musto, and countless others. Since the announcement of its closure, many of its former writers who went onto big careers have been waxing nostalgic about their time there, about how it made them into professional journalists and writers, and how the Voice's end is not only the end of a singular newspaper but the end of the kind of places where great writing can be cultivated. There's no web site, no app, nothing, that can replaced that. And that's the biggest loss of all.

NYC has always been, always prided itself, on being hive of opportunity, a place where people could come to discover and cultivate their talents. With the closure of the Village Voice, a distinct NYC resource like that made it only harder for such new voices to thrive, and it betrays, in its small way, what this city is supposed to be all about.  

Farewell Village Voice. You'll always be part of my NYC spirit. 

You should read this ...

... touching tribute to the recently deceased Village Voice photographer Robin Holland.

What I like about it is that it's a simple appreciation of someone who was good at her job and contributed, through her work, to the culture of our city. She wasn't famous and didn't need to be -- her work spoke for itself and life was better for it.

These are the kinds of New Yorkers were should venerate more often -- the people who make it, in ways large and small, a better place. 

We'll Take the Village

Newsflash: the city is changing ... Okay, that's not really news but sometimes it's interesting to see -- literally -- how it's changed.

That's why I love this Village Voice slideshow of Greenwich Village over the years. It's spans from the 1950s to today, and shows the fascinating people and places of that most mythic of neighborhoods of lower Manhattan. You'll see the famous and the not-so-famous and, most of all, you'll look at history as it happened.

Talking about the Village Voice, as it ceases print publication, the iconic red newspaper box that you could find on the street, and pick up an issue for free from, will soon be gone. This slideshow of the red box around town will make you sigh.