The New American Wing at the Met

Years in the making, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has finally unveiled its restored American Wing. Opened last month to great fanfare (our lovely First Lady Michelle Obama cut the ribbon), this new multistory exhibition is gorgeous and amazing.

You must, must go.

Run, don't walk.

It has been vastly improved since it's last incarnation, with more space and light, along with additional rooms and art on display. There is lots (and I mean lots) of Tiffany art, including beautiful stained glass windows, a fountain, paintings, and columns. The old courtyard has been leveled and contains several more sculptures, and there is more space to walk around comfortably.

Inside the old stone bank entrance facade, I lost count of how many beautiful period rooms we walked through. Most of them are replicas of rooms found in homes of the wealthy from the nineteenth century, and they are mind-blowingly ornate and luxurious. There is also a room designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and, on the third floor, there are rooms from Colonial America.

The improvements go beyond the aesthetic. Several of the rooms have electronic touch screens that contain silhouettes of the rooms and you can get more info on the various objects on display in the rooms.

One thing I really love (and the Met has this in the new Greek and Roman Galleries as well) is visible storage -- vast spaces with various objects stored in long glass cases. This is stuff that the museum owns, and are of the period, but that aren't part of any one particular exhibit. The visible storage area here includes a vast array of American decorative china, glass ware, tea and coffee services, tables, chairs, dressers, wardrobes, book cases, sofas, vases, etc. It's definitely worth checking out.

Mr NYC officially gives the new American wing a big thumbs up.

P.S. I have fond memories of going to the American wing as a child with my mother so it was like a rite of passage to go to the new and improved American wing with my wife. Plus ca change ...

The High Line Film

Food in NYC

NYC is a great food town, and I'm not just talking about the fact that this is probably the best restaurant city in the world (although citizens of Paris might claim their city is the best; let's call it a draw). Anyway, in the last few years, with the local grown/organic food movement taking shape, New Yorkers are getting more interested in doing such novel things as buying and cooking their own food -- and not always eating out and ordering in.

Increasingly, we Gothamites are interested in where our food comes from, how it's grown, and how we can prepare it ways that are both healthy and tasty for us. This goes beyond just going to the supermarket and cracking open a recipe book. I know some people who have compost heaps in their buildings' backyards and are growing their own fruits and vegetables. People are seeking out grocery stores that sell locally grown food. Greenmarkets and farmer markets are getting more popular (the one in Union Square is the best known; there's also one outside of Columbia University that is set up twice a week; there are others around the city). There are even now carts serving poor areas selling fresh fruits and vegetables -- and business is booming.

This is an encouraging development. You only have to look at the obesity epidemic to see why eating fast food and junk and prepared foods with lots of preservatives and fat isn't good. Also, in the last few years, grocery stores have been closing in poor neighborhoods, leaving the people who live there with little else but fast food -- and they've been suffering the resulting health problems. Not only that, but one of the downsides of gentrification has been that fruit and vegetable stores have been closing so there are fewer options for good, fresh fruits and vegetables (not that what you get in supermarkets is bad but there's better selection in these stores; fortunately, here in Queens, there are still some of these stores left).

This month the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC is doing a series called Food in the City about this very topic. He interviews NYC food experts and they examine "the different ways that food makes us New Yorkers." I heard the first segment of it today and it was great so I strongly suggest checking it out.

Basically where we live has a lot to do with what we eat. And if you are what you eat, and where you live has a lot to do with what you eat, then you eat where you live and you are where live.

Mr NYC, for one, has no problem consuming this great metropolis. It's quite yummy.

More Coup Crap

So this GOP power grab in the New York State Senate is still making news. This is really a comedy-tragedy, a hypocritical circus that shows you how ridiculous and depraved politics in this state has become -- and how our politicians have the tinniest of tin ears.

First, the indicated assaulter Hiram Monserrate, one of the traitorous Democrats who helped the Republicans engineer this coup, said this afternoon “I made a bold decision to support change and reform, but I also understand that that change and reform is only effective when we ensure participation by both parties ...”

Let's get this straight: this criminal is advocating reform and, after throwing the political balance in this state into disarray, is calling for unity? He's got some balls! I guess when you're a psychopath like this guy clearly is, being a hypocrite is no big deal. I'm sure he sleeps well at night though.

But Hiram is small change compared to this Pedro Espada guy. This other great "reformer" is the epitome of how corrupt and foul Albany is. Jim Dwyer in the New York Times today writes about how Espada has literally stolen food from poor people to give to his cronies, has been fined over $60,000 for campaign violations, and doesn't even live in the Bronx district he's suppose to represent! He doesn't even have an office in his own district!

And now he's the new State Senate President! That means if Paterson leaves the state or has a heart attack or something, this sleaze is the Governor!

Wow. You can't make this stuff up.

If you ever saw that great show The Wire, you might remember the corrupt Senator Clay Davis. But truth is stranger than fiction and these two real life corrupt State Senators make the fictional Clay Davis look like a Boy Scout. At least Clay Davis was entertaining and wickedly smart -- these guys are just pure, miserable slime and, if you just hear what they say, are freaking stupid as well.

It's a shame that the greatest city in the world is forced to reside in one of the scummiest states in this fine Union. **Sigh**

City -- and State -- for Sale

Big news breaking in NYC and New York State tonight: a couple of super-opportunistic State Senate Democrats have made some kind of backroom deal and have given effective control back to the Republicans. This deal was apparently brokered by Tom Golisano, an upstate Republican billionaire who has run for Governor three times -- and lost each time.

The two sneaky Democrats who jumped shipped are Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate. They not only are self-serving opportunists but they're also ... well ... corrupt as hell. Espada is from the Bronx and apparently hasn't filed a campaign finance report in years. Monserrate is a former NYC councilman who was indicted recently for literally stabbing his girlfriend. Needless two say these are two really, really bad guys so you shouldn't be surprised that they did something nasty like this. The good news is, the maneuvering that took place might have been illegal and everyone agrees that this is going to court. Hopefully the law will subdue this little coup d'etat. We shall see.

In other news, another billionaire is actually having some problems. Most New Yorkers now think that Mayor Bloomberg doesn't deserve another term and that the city is moving in the wrong direction. Not good news for a Mayor who's been in office almost eight years and has already spent $30 million flooding the airwaves with campaign commercials. New Yorkers are getting restless and, in a fair fight, would like a change in leadership. But Bloomberg's money will probably make that impossible and it'll be more of the same for four more years.

It looks like government in New York City and New York State are very much for sale. Backroom power grabs financed by billionaires -- whether its overturning an election for the State Senate or a referendum for term limits -- is politics at its gutter worst. And it won't stop unless we the people punish their handpicked marionettes at the ballot box. Remember that in November.

Tony Awards

The Tony Awards -- the big celebrations where Broadway shows honor themselves -- are tonight. Here's a clip from the 2004 ceremony featuring a performance from Avenue Q which one the Tony for Best Musical that night. Enjoy!

NYC Law Firm Blues

If you want another piece of evidence to throw onto the pile that the economy is hemorrhaging, just read this article about what's going on at the top law firms in this town. They are shedding lawyers by the hundred -- and not just the young associates fresh out of the various legal mills, but well established partners, some of whom make well over a million dollars a years. Ouch.

It used to be that if you graduated from a top notch law school and worked hard, employment and riches where yours for the asking for the rest of your life. No longer. Lawyers are as vulnerable to the economic maelstrom as everyone else.

Needless to say this will make many non-lawyers quite happy. Unemployed lawyers? It's about down time! Make them work for a living! Ha ha.

And as a non-lawyer, I can understand the sentiment -- to a point. As someone who has family and friends in the legal profession, including some of the big time firms, I can't help feeling bad about this and a little scared. I don't anyone anywhere ever to lose a job. It's a nightmare. S

So I wish lawyers and non-lawyers alike all the best luck in keeping their heads above this economic quicksand. Peace.

Sexy or Ha Ha Sexy?

Mr NYC likes to keep it sexy and also keep it funny -- unfortunately, being funny and being sexy at the same time is a tough act to pull off. In case you hadn't noticed, this blog isn't all that funny or sexy. It just sorta is, you know, whatever ... strange. Like Mr NYC himself.

However, Sara Barron's column in this week's New York Press is both friggin' hilarious AND shockingly sexy. She writes about going home recently and, while rummaging around in a box of old stuff, discovering, of all things, an old porno script that she had written as a pubescent. The name of this never made dirty classic? The Porn!

It includes some really wonderful dialogue like:

“Take off that real sexy leather skirt,” he says in Scene 5, “We can get in my convertible. I got this Michael Bolton tape.” “OK,” answers Jenny. “I feel like some real wild humping anyway.”

You must read this. It will brighten your day.

(I just wish I had been cool enough to have done written something like this when I was that young. When I rummage through my childhood creations, it's all pictures of clouds and houses and stick figures and stuff like that. Super, super boring. But reading, this I realized that while you can't go home again, guess you can come home again. Get it? Okay ... that was bad. Sorry.)

God Bless the Waldorf-Astoria

Ever heard of the Waldorf-Astoria?

Sure you have. The Waldorf is, without question, the grand hotel in NYC. There's the Plaza, the Pierre, the Sherry-Netherland, the Carlyle -- but the Waldorf is the granddaddy of all the big name, luxury hotels in this town. It's the place where they invented the Waldorf salad. It's where the President of the USA stays when he's in town. It's where the UN Ambassador lives. It's where people like Hebert Hoover and Cole Porter and Bugsy Siegel have lived, and where celebs like Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe have stayed (and probably got laid). It's not just a hotel -- it's a legend, an institution, an icon.

Most memorably it's where Al Pacino threatened to blow his brains out in Scent of a Woman.

Whooaaa!

So on our wedding night, my lovely bride and I decided to splurge a little and get a room -- I repeat a room -- at the Waldorf-Astoria. And my wife and I, being modest New Yorkers of modest means, had never spent the night a big time New York hotel. But we thought that, for our wedding night, why not indulge a little?

And we did.

Get to the hotel around 8:30 on our wedding night. We check in. We're asked to wait. The extremely nice guy behind the desk says they're gonna give us a little upgrade to a suite. Nice! we think. Of course in my humble provincial mind, I'm picturing a suite at the Waldorf as being basically a slightly nicer version of an Embassy Suite -- you know, a small living room dominated by a TV and a couch with a small hallway leading to a bedroom and bathroom.

We're told that the suite is actually in the Waldorf Towers -- Suite 37A. We need to use a card to operate the elevator to get up there. Up we go and our ears pop as we get to the 37th floor. Exit into a very brightly lit, gorgeous hallway. Get to the door for 37A and open up ... and we walk into a FOYER!

And I'm not talking about some little foyer, I'm talking a foyer that's bigger than most people's studio apartments. And this foyer leads into the living room which is HUGE! And I don't mean it's huge, I mean it's friggin' HUUUUUUGE! It has three big couches plus a divan plus an enormous desk plus a fireplace plus a enormous glass bookcase plus a big flatscreen TV. One end of the living room leads into the dining room that has a long table that seats TEN people. This then leads into the kitchen and the first of this suite's three bathrooms.

The dining room leads back into the foyer and into the hallway that leads to the bedroom suite. Along the way is the second bathroom. Turn left and you hit the enormous bedroom with the king size bed. The hallway also leads into the dressing room and then into the bathroom with a gorgeous black and gold marble floor (it also had a bidet; can you believe those things still exist?). Oh, and it also has a whirlpool in the bathroom -- with room for two :)

This place was by far the biggest hotel "room" or apartment we've ever been in. It was beyond palatial, beyond amazing -- and this is where we spent the first night of our marriage! We spent almost two of our first hours as husband and wife running around this place screaming "This is insane!"

As were we.


At first I thought this was a mistake and I called the concierge to make sure that it wasn't and that I wasn't going to get a $6000 bill in the morning. Nope, he said, it was no mistake and the price we were going to pay for the single room was the price we would pay for this ... mansion in the sky. Then a few minutes later we got a call from housekeeping. Was everything satisfactory? I believe I replied "Hell yes!"

And we couldn't help thinking about our poor, hardscrabble immigrant grandparents and great-grandparents who slaved to make it here in NYC in America. What would we they have thought about this?

And considering that it had been my idea to stay at the Waldorf, my beautiful new wife said to me, "You done good babe."

Not a bad way to start a marriage!

So thank you -- and God bless you -- Waldorf Astoria! You made our first night of married bliss more blissful than we could ever have imagined.

Whooaaa!

P.S. If you'd like to read a little more about previous residents of suite 37A, here's one article from 1955 and another from 2004. Not bad company!

A Bronx Gal

And I ain't talking J-Lo!

The big news that broke last week, while I was off tanning, was the nomination by President Obama of Sonia Sotomayor (soto-mai-OR) to the US Supreme Court. The first Latina (or anyone of Hispanic origin) nominated to the Supreme Court, she is a New Yorker through-and-through.

Born in the Bronx, raised in public housing near Yankee Stadium by a single mother, she is an amazing American success story. She excelled at Princeton and Yale Law, served in the Manhattan DA's office, practiced corporate law, and has been a Federal judge for the last 17 years.

She will not only be the third woman on the court by the second woman from NYC on the court -- joining Brooklynite Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Isn't that cool?

What's most amazing is that, excepting her gender and race, her resume is quite ... conventional. In fact, beyond conventional, it's downright exception! Two Ivy League degrees, time in private practice, experience as a prosecutor, and almost two decades on "the bench." Believe it or not, she has MORE judicial experience than anyone currently on the court! Her qualifications are beyond reproach.

Of course try telling that to the withered pathetic miscreants who make up the withering Grand Old Party. They're already making noise. ACTIVIST! RACIST! MARXIST! UNQUALIFIED! Yada, yada, yada. These pricks are totally predictable.

Chris Smith, however, makes a great point in this week's New York magazine. He writes, "the Supreme Court has always been a weird place, the closest government institution to a mystic cult, and in recent years, thanks to Republican appointments, the atmosphere has grown even stranger, more academic and detached, dominated by “originalists” and paranoids who seem to hate the modern world as it actually exists and who want to take the country back to some idealized past, before all those whiny minorities spoiled things. With Sotomayor, for a change, the court would be getting someone more Williamsburg, Brooklyn, than Colonial Williamsburg."

I think Sonia will be a great Justice and I hope she drives Scalia and Roberts nuts. But I'm sure Ruth Bader will like her. And so will most of America.

You go girl!