Governor's Island

Dog Ear Tavern

Recently went to the Dog Ear Tavern at Hudson and Charlton Streets, just south of Houston Street on the far west side. It's a nice big place, with a pool table, and you can also sit and get food there. Unlike a lot of crowded noisy bars, this one is spacious and comfortable. Best of all, you don't have fight your way through the crowd at the bar to get a drink -- a friendly waiter comes up to you and takes your order wherever you may be sitting or standing. Very convenient.

There's a huge blackboard that lists an enormous selection of beers, categorized by country. The prices are a bit on the high side but the selections I had ('fraid to say I forgot the names) were excellent.

I must say that this bar has an AMAZING bathroom. It's huge. Most studio apartments in NYC aren't this big. It's cleanliness is immaculate, it has a post-modernistic bookshelf (!) across from the "terlet", and pictures on the wall. I can officially say that this is my favorite bathroom in NYC as of now. And that alone makes it worth checking this bar out.

Memo from NYC

Dear Republicans,

Congratulations on once again poisoning our body politic with lies, misinformation, distortions, cultural resentment, and racism. You guys may not know how to govern the country, but when it comes to scaring the hell out of people with good old fashioned fear tactics, no one does it better than you guys.

Bravo.

And if you guys kill health care reform for the umpteenth time, you can take a collective bow, safe in the knowledge that poor people will continue to die, thus maintaining the power structure which protects the (mostly white) healthy and wealthy.

See, you Republicans rant and rave about "death panels" but we already have death panels in this country -- they're called health insurance companies. They exist to make a profit, and they only make a profit if they don't cover a lot of sick people or pay out a lot of claims. And what happens when they don't cover people or pay out the claims of sick people? These. Sick. People. DIE!

But what's a few million dead people? At least we'll be saving our country from "socialism"!

And if you Republicans get back into power (shudder hack cough vomit), I'm sure you'll continue to roll back the frontiers of socialism. Why don't you start by getting rid of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, national parks, the national highway system, and the Federal Reserve? What about the EPA and Veterans Affairs Department? Who needs them?

Please Republicans, take this country back to the time before Roosevelt -- Theodore Roosevelt. After all, ever since he left office 100 years ago, America's just gone down hill.

It's not like we became the world's greatest superpower or something.

Alexander Hamilton Didn't Die There

202 years before former (love typing that word, former) Vice-President Dick Cheney blasted one of his hunting pals in the face with buckshot, one his his predecessors, Aaron Burr (VP to President Thomas Jefferson) infamously killed Alexander Hamilton -- our nation's first Secretary of the Treasury and the father of modern American capitalism.

Both were New Yorkers with big egos and got into a tiff and decided to settle the tiff with a duel. (Why they dueled is a long, long story involving politics, power, personalities, and peccadilloes. Sound familiar?). Anyhoo, they decided to their dirty business in a place where doing dirty business -- even 200 years later -- is most appropriate: New Jersey (Weehawken exactly).

So early on the morn' of July 11, 1804, these two titans of America fired upon each other with .56 caliber dueling pistol. Burr was fine. Hamilton ... not so much.

Now this is where the history gets screwy. Allegedly he was rushed to the home of William Bayard who lived at 82 Jane Street in Greenwich Village where he died the next. There's even a plaque, which I have seen, consecrating this fact.

But it's a lie! William Bayard's house was NOT at this location. His house, and Hamilton's deathbed, were elsewhere (nearby but not there) and the house was torn down a long, long time ago. This house belonged to someone else. Thus we do not actually know exactly AH died and this plaque is misleading.

So if you're walking on Jane Street (perhaps going to and fro from the Highline) and you pass this plaque, you can show off and say "Yeah, it's not true!"

NYC: Helicopter, Plane collide midair over Hudson River

"He fits no paradigm, sets no precedent"

As Mayor Bloomberg runs -- most would say cruises -- to a third term, it's fair to say that most New Yorkers know very little about the man who rules their city with almost dictatorial power. Joyce Purnick, a former reporter and columnist for The New York Times, has written the first comprehensive biography about our mayor called Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics.

I can't wait to read this book. Sounds fascinating. Purnick is a great writer and she has found a subject that offers to tell an amazing and mostly unknown story. How did a Jewish kid from suburban Boston, whose origins were very humble, become one of the richest and most powerful men in New York City -- and America? How did he accumulate his billions and then use them to shape the greatest city in the world? Truth be told, until know, we have known very little about this man and that's why this books is so important.

You can't compare Mike Bloomberg to most of our previous mayors because we've had so few mayors like him. Most mayors work their way up through the political process, serving in various elected and appointed posts in government before scoring the big chair in city hall. Not Bloomberg. He never served in government before shocking the political world and winning in 2001, right after 9/11. And he brought to this public position -- a job almost two hundred years older than the US presidency -- a totally different viewpoint and way of doing business that has revolutionized city government.

Nor can you even compare Bloomberg to people like the Rockefellers and Astors, etc., people who, like Bloomberg, built great fortunes and businesses. Unlike Bloomberg, these people never sullied themselves with the dirty business of politics and government. But Bloomberg has and has used his economic and political power to shape this city like no mayor before him.

Is Mike Bloomberg the greatest mayor this city has ever had? Only history will say. But it's clear he's very one of a kind. And as this upcoming book concludes, as far as our mayors go, Bloomberg "fits no paradigm, sets no precedent."

Moses v. Jacobs Redux

Very recently I wrote about the book Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City. Yesterday the author, Anthony Flint, did a really great interview about it on WNYC. Listen to it here.

Stuy Town Blues

If you want to read about a real life example, a textbook case, about the tyranny of money in NYC and how it's eviscerating the middle class in this town, read this article in this week's New York Press.

Written by an NYU junior, it describes how the once solidly middle class Stuyvesant Town -- which used to be a middle class enclave in Manhattan where people of modest means could live in spacious apartments and have a good quality of life -- has been wrecked by its sale to a big development and the encroachment of NYU. Not only are people getting priced out of their apartments but now that NYU students are moving in, these young'uns are doing things like blasting music, smoking weed, and making noise in the middle of the night. I can only imagine how the middle aged, normal residents of Stuy Town must feel.

That said, I congratulate Henry Melcher, the author of this article, on writing something so insightful and comprehensive. He gives me some hope for his generation.

Congrats Sonia, RIP John Hughes

Good news and sad news so often coincide, as shown here in NYC today.

The good news: Bronx gal Sonia Sotomayor has been confirmed as the newest Supreme Court Justice. The first Hispanic, the third woman, and latest New Yorker to join the high court, today she makes all New Yorkers proud. All of the Democratic Senators voted for her and so did some Republicans. Most of the Republicans voted against her but what do you expect of people who believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old? Sonia beat them -- by a 68-31 margin. You go girl -- to the Supreme Court.

But now the sad: remember Sixteen Candles? The Breakfast Club? Ferris Bueller's Day Off? John Hughes, the writer/director of those great 1980s teen comedies died today here in NYC. Apparently he was just walking down the street and died of a heart attack. He was 59. John Hughes' movies defined the 1980s and helped to liven up what was a very boring decade. He will be missed.

Odds and Ends

Mr NYC doesn't have a comprehensive post today, just some random interesting stuff.

First, there's a new book about the battle between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs called Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City by Anthony Flint. It's about how Jacobs mobilized grassroots support in opposition to Moses's proposed highways that would have destroyed Washington Square Park and whole parts of Soho, Greenwich Village and Chinatown. Ms. Jacobs succeeded and defeated these proposed highways which were, as the author of this review of the book indicates, "clearly insane."

That's putting it mildly. All New Yorkers owe Jane Jacobs a great debt of gratitude.

Moving on, I got an email from someone asking me to plug a new website called the New York Future Initiative that's sort of like a New York City version of Digg. It's a localized news aggragator and is associated with the Democracy Forum and the New York Observer. It's pretty cool, check it out. I've also added it to my NYC blog roll.

Finally, someone named Carrie sent me the following message:

Hi!

I was reading through your post about the Green Day show at MSG .. and it really sounded amazing! I've been a fan of Green Day, but wouldn't say that I am a fanatic .. but reading through your post made it sound like even I would've had an awesome time there. Definitely am going to have to check out their show, next time they're in town.

Anyway, I thought that you and your readers might be interested in the following Green Day content.

Think that you're the ultimate Green Day fan? Check out Alex Iglesias and the FanCam, as they hit up the Green Day concert to see just how poetic the fans can be. Check it out here: http://video.msg.com/Videos/MSG-Networks/7LvrHcj0JANB_367O95RvDat3vvxLXa_


Thanks, and please share with your readers!

Best,
Carrie

Done and done. Looks like Mr NYC is becoming an trend-maker. Ha!