Like the New Look?

After more than a decade, I decided to give Mr NYC an upgrade and give the blog a hotter, bolder, more colorful vibe. I hope it meets with your approval.

Re-Elect De Blasio as Mayor in 2017

He gave my family and tons of others Pre-K. Crime is low. It still costs too damn much to live here but he knows that and is trying to do something about it. That's enough for me. Onto victory in November!

About Queens

If you like tennis, and are a US Open devotee, you'll enjoy this big article on the McEnroe brothers. Queens natives, they helped to redefine and popularize the game back in the day -- particularly John McEnroe, with his crazy on the court antics and outrageous personality ("YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS!" is now sports lore). Most of all, they helped to put Queens on the map, making it the de facto capital of tennis in America. 

And the face of Queens is changing too. If you commute through Long Island City everyday, as yours truly does, you're going through a construction site. High-rise buildings are going up en masse. People are moving in at a rapid clip and a once somewhat sleazy, industrial neighborhood is now the latest "discovery" for gentrifiers. For a long time LIC was "up and coming" but it never "up and came" until now. It's rather amazing that this neighborhood right across the river from Manhattan was such an urban desert of construction and people, you'd think lots of people would want to live there. The reasons for this delay in interest are various: there isn't great public transportation, crime was high, it was located near the Queensbridge Housing Projects (racism surely played a role), it doesn't have great park space, it didn't have great shopping districts, it didn't have great public schools, and it just seemed bleak. And, yes, it was sleazy: you could literally see strip clubs from the Queensborough Plaza subway station. But now that's all changed now. LIC is the latest hot neighborhood -- and, of course, it's getting very expensive.  

Of all the boroughs in NYC, Queens is the most diverse, both ethnically and geographically. It's full of dense, built up neighborhoods and suburbs. This is reflected not just by the buildings and houses but also by the food. Recently, food guru Anthony Bourdain toured the borough for his CNN show Parts Unknown. It's a great episode and very revealing of what a culinary marvel the Garden Borough is.

Like all of NYC, Queens has a proud history but it's also changing all the time -- making history every day. 

Classic Mr NYC

Today is 9/11, sixteen years since "the event" that changed our world forever. Obviously today is an important day of remembrance.

Of course, down in Florida, the honorary 6th borough of NYC, the people there are recovering from Hurricane Irene. Since today is 9/11, and hurricanes are in the news, I recall the last time a big storm hit our city and our populace endured its toughest test since 9/11 -- Hurricane Sandy.

During that big event, I blogged about it constantly and provided updates. If you'd like to take a stroll down memory lane (hard to believe it's nearly 5 years ago), please go here. 

The Nostalgia Heap

So the "big" news in NYC this week is that the Village Voice, that sixty-plus year old free weekly newspaper, will no longer put out a print edition. Like most publications these days, it'll be online only. 

To me, the newsworthiness of this story isn't that the Village Voice is going online only -- but that it took so long. The destruction of print publications has been happening for the better part of a decade now. Still, NYC will look a little bit different as the blue and white voice of progressive values vanishes from our streets and transfers to our "devices." 

Call it a sign of the times -- or a victim thereof. 

This change in the Village Voice is triggering the predictable nostalgia articles for the "good old days" by people who used to work there. As I've mentioned before, nostalgia is all the rage these dark Trumpian days, particularly in NYC.

To sling further items onto this nostalgia heap, it's worth remembering that this year marks the 40th anniversary of the opening of Studio 54, the hottest nightclub in history, the club that defined the disco era and the beautiful sleaze of the 1970s. It was the club everyone wanted to go to and that nobody could get into. It's the club that spawned movies and documentaries and a whole culture of chic. Predictably, the people who "remember it when" are writing about Studio 54 with affection and sadness. The most amazing thing about the Studio 54 era is how short it was -- roughly from the Spring of 1977 to early 1980 (when its owners got busted for tax evasion and went to jail). The club has become legendary -- probably because the Studio 54 era was so short lived that it never got old and lame. 


But the reality is that Studio 54's reign was probably destined to be brief, no matter how tricky the tax returns of its owners were. By 1980, Ronald Reagan was marching towards the White House, the economy was stuck in stagflation, American hostages were languishing in Iran, and the original cast of "Saturday Night Live" was departing. The mood of the country was changing, the culture getting more conservative. Even by 1980, Studio 54 seemed like an embarrassing relic of an embarrasing era. Like a great show that's been on the air one too many seasons, it probably would have suffered a backlash at some point. 


But once something is cancelled, once it goes away, the fond memories begin. The memories pile up -- thus, the nostalgia heap.  

Ah, nostalgia. I get it. Again, I'm as nostalgic as the most nostalgic person there is. But to my brothers and sisters in the nostalgia business, I plead to you: stop it. All of these articles, all of these "memories" ultimately just lead to depression. They don't do you or your readers any good. They make us  sad about the present and scared for the future, and risk giving us false feelings about a past that probably wasn't so great to begin with. "But," these nostalgia mongers might argue, "just look at the maniac in the White House -- can you blame us? Wasn't the past better?"
 
Maybe. 

Who cares? The future is here and always will be.  We're not going to make our futures better by crowing about how great the past was. NYC isn't going back -- and shouldn't. Let not us not remained trapped in a museum of memories. Let's go into the future and keep the nostalgia pile to a minimum. 

NYC Stands Up to Hate

Vanishing New York & Mr NYC -- Blogs of a Feather

Once upon a time (2007, actually), two New Yorkers got brilliant ideas for blogs about their favorite city ...  one was called Mr NYC; the other, Vanishing New York. 

Unlike Mr NYC, Vanishing New York hit the big time. The eponymous Jeremiah's blog about the demise of Old New York City has attracted vastly more readers than Mr NYC ever did (and now a legit book deal and lots of media attention too). 

I bear no umbrage; Vanishing New York deserves its success. Its single-minded, determined effort to chronicle the changes of the NYC landscape is impressive and, especially these days, badly needed. It's a beautifully presented and extremely well-written blog.

Mr NYC has always been more general-interest and ramshackle. It's about everything and anything NYC. It has no specific focus. It has no specific theme. That's both its virtue and, I suppose, its shortcoming. 

But both blogs were born of a love for NYC and everything it means to people.

I do take some pride, however, that, while both Vanishing New York and Mr NYC started in 2007, mine started in March of that year and Jeremiah's began in July -- so this blog, technically, has some seniority. 

And yet, to quote Christopher Walken in "True Romance", that's of minor importance. What's of major effing importance is that both blogs started within months of each other at what was, in retrospect, an inflection point in NYC's history. Back then, the city was still recovering from the trauma of 9/11, the psychological wounds still raw, a sense of inertia still intact. But things were changing -- slowly at first, then faster and faster. NYC was, to quote then-Mayor Bloomberg, going from "open to business" to "back in business." The buildings were getting bigger and glassier, the mom and pop stores and old neighborhood businesses were disappearing at a quicker rate, and the already hot real estate market was turbo-charging thanks to the influx of foreign money. It was, many of us felt at the time, going to be a very different city in the years ahead. 

How right (unfortunately) we were. 

NYC in 2017 looks quite different than 2007. There are more and more big buildings, more and more chain stores, and less and less neighborhoods that look and feel like actual neighborhoods. This is still a great city but its spirit has been enervated by gentrification. 

Still, that spirit has not died completely. That spirit is reflected, in part, by Mr NYC and Vanishing New York and the fact that both blogs have lasted more than a decade. That fact should be a point of pride for both of us. So kudos to to both of us. May both blogs last another decade -- and more.

P.S. Grubstreet has a good list of some old school bars and restaurants that have yet to vanish. Go before they do! http://www.grubstreet.com/2017/08/22-low-key-bars-and-restaurants-in-nyc.html

"Electric Car" - They Might Be Giants @ Central Park Summerstage 8/12/2017

Great family show this past weekend. When there's so much sadness in the world, it's important to remember that there's still lots of beauty and joy. 

Naughty Nostalgia: Robin and Al

My favorite new show of the summer is the Netflix series GLOW (a.k.a the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling), a fictional comedy/drama about the crazy, off-the-wall syndicated show of the same name that ran on Saturday mornings from 1986 to 1990. If you haven't seen GLOW, you must! It's really good nostalgia.

Shows that look back several decades, to a specific time/place/scene, appears to be a new trend. Hence, the new HBO show The Deuce that'll premiere in September, about the 1970s NYC porn scene. I blogged about this  show recently and can't wait to see it. 

I don't remember the 1970s, and I sure don't remember the porn scene, but (Mom - if you're reading this, STOP NOW), I do remember Channel 35, the nasty after midnight cable channel that showed, well ... not porn exactly but the next best thing.

Namely, Al Goldstein's Midnight Blue, the only "porn" news show that's ever existed, and The Robin Byrd Show, where the host would interview various strippers and porn stars and they'd dance. 

Both shows were very bizarre and lots of fun. If you were a teenager in NYC in the last 20th century, it was paradise.  

Of course, today, in the age of the Internet, they shows are long gone. Al Goldstein is dead and Robin Byrd is doing live shows (I've blogged about both Al and Robin in the past, go to a Search for more). But the ways in which NYC has changed isn't just in the buildings that've been built and torn downs or the stores and restaurants that have closed, it's also what's on TV or on the radio or in the newspapers (see Liz Smith). They exist today only in our memories.

P.S. Robin Byrd is on Facebook and I sent her a message, asking for an interview, but she still hasn't responded. Robin, if you're reading, or if you're someone who knows her, please tell her to respond. I REALLY want to interview her!

Where have you gone, Liz Smith?

One of the reasons Donald Trump is (ugh yak puke) the President of these United States is because he became a so-called "tabloid darling" in 1980s NYC. He was "good copy" and sold papers (today it would "get clicks") and the city tabloids couldn't get enough of him. He got publicity, the papers got sales, and The Donald rose to become a reality star and finally POTUS. (I'm not happy about, it's just what happened.)

Perhaps his biggest chronicler and cheerleader was Liz Smith whose column appeared in the New York Post and other tabloids for decades. Liz Smith was the gossip columnist in NYC, no name was bigger, no one else got the biggest scoops -- in a city of 8 million people, no one knew more than her.

Liz Smith is now 94 and hasn't had a regular column in a city paper since 2009. And, as this article makes clear, as she watches her Frankenstein monster wreck havoc on the whole country, Liz Smith realizes that she's a relic of a different time, another city and another country. She bemoans these changes and wishes she was still in the game.

Everything changes.

P.S. When I'm 94, if I'm lucky to live that long, I don't think I'm going to want to work so God Bless her.