Ya'll go to Times Square now! Ya' hear?

How much is NYC changing? Here's one example of a change that's coming ... or, alternatively, a'comin': the Grand Old Opry, that venerable institution of country music and favorite of the Grand Old Party, is opening its first satellite in, you guessed it, NYC. 

Specifically, Times Square.

Next week the Nashville-based music mecca will open a restaurant/music hall in the former den of satan that is geared towards, you guessed it, tourists. A place created by outsiders for outsiders.

The world of The Deuce has never seemed more distant. 

I know ... I know ... we're not supposed to say we don't like this. We New Yorkers, after all, pride ourselves on our cultural diversity, we all started out as outsiders, and a honky tonk from Nashville setting up shop here is diversity ... sorta. To say you don't want the Grand Old Opry in NYC is ... elitist ... snobby ... looking down on the "good solid folks" of the South -- ya' know, God's Country. 

And hey, that Dolly Parton is sumpin'! She wrote that song from The Bodyguard after all, sung beautiful and made famous by one of ... those people (who's now deceased). 

So let's welcome the Grand Old Opry to NYC! 

But ... really? Really? The Grand Old Opry in NYC? Why here? Why not Vegas? Why not Hollywood? Those places seem more appropriate.

As if the fact that Trump is from NYC weren't bad enough! 

If this new Opry-land succeeds here than you'll know NYC has really changed. But if it fails, perhaps our city's spirit hasn't been totally bleached.

That said, the great 1975 movie Nashville, directed by Robert Altman, has many scenes at the Grand Old Opry -- and one of the greatest opening credit sequences of all time. 

Downton Abbey in NYC

Everyone's favorite British TV show went off the air almost two years ago but now you can re-live Downton Abbey in NYC.

I'm sure mega-fan P-Diddy would approve. 

The MTA: Decline and Fail

In the first chapter of his legendary biography of NYC master builder Robert Moses, Robert Caro quotes Sophocles: "One must wait until evening/To see how splendid the day has been."

Specifically, Caro wrote about how, in the evening of Moses's life and career, the  disastrous legacy of his transportation projects, housing initiatives, and various public works became clearer and clearer for all to see. It's a reminder that systemic failures take years, even decades, to become apparent and, once they do, they're almost impossible to correct.

This is especially true of the MTA.

This past summer in NYC was one of public transportation meltdown: stalled trains, signal malfunctions, derailments, and on and on. Governor Cuomo declared it an emergency ("the summer of hell!") and ordered massive improvements to the subways and trains. However, this is a Band Aid to a much larger wound. Well, not exactly a wound -- more like a starvation.

For the last twenty-five years, governors and mayors of both political parties have starved the MTA of billions of dollars in funds and much needed structural improvements. The result is the outdated, rickety system that's supposed to serve millions and millions of people every day. 

Why this starvation? Politics, naturally. These governors and mayors favored tax cuts or spending on other projects, including on opulent station makeovers that had nothing to do with improving service. It's a story of misplaced priorities, wasteful spending, and raw, short-term self-interest. 

The MTA is not of the cause of NYC's transportation woes -- it's the victim, as are all the rest of us.

You should read and listen to the authors of this exhaustive report on how the sorry state of the MTA came to be -- only twenty-five years in the making! 

Oh, and the MTA is bringing back "vintage" cars for the holidays -- 'cause, you know, that's worth spending money on! 

"... This has been one of them."

"There are eight million stories in the naked city ..."

If you ever wondered where that famous line comes from, it's from the 1948 movie The Naked City. It's about a murder and the detectives who solve it, a pretty simple story. 

It's a fascinating movie. As the narrator of the film indicates, it was shot in the streets and inside the buildings of NYC. If you want to get a sense of what day-to-day, on-the-street life was like  in the city back in 1948, this movie is a perfect guide. Not only is it a great NYC film but it's also really ahead of it's time: the story is told in a neo-realist, almost documentary style that was revolutionary at the time, and, if you ever wondered how procedurals like Law and Order and it's countless imitators came to be, this movie is the Rosetta Stone. 

Of course, today there are now 8.5 million stories in this town so it's a tad outdated. And talking about NYC stories, here's one more. 

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Their Stories

If you've seen (probably more likely heard the soundtrack to) the musical Hamilton, then you know the song that concludes it: "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Stories."

We all live, we'll all die, and, if we're lucky, our life stories will be told -- by our children, our families, our friends, anyone who thinks our life story is worth passing on to future generations. No, we won't all have great musicals (like Hamilton) or movies (like Goodfellas) made about us that enshrine us in cultural legend -- but, if we're lucky, someone who thinks we're worthy of being remembered will talk about us. I think about my great-grandmother, dirt-poor immigrant from Ireland who raised eight kids and managed to give them good enough lives that one of them graduated from college and now her grandchildren and great-grandchildren have achieved the American dream. Her story was worth learning for me and, in my opinion, she'll live forever (even though she died in 1959).

There are 8.5 million people in NYC and all them have great stories. We can't know all of them but these two articles, one about an artist, another about a young man killed in the recent Halloween terrorist attack, tell the stories of interesting lives. We should remember them because, in many ways, they were just like us. Their stories were told and, more importantly, will hopefully be remembered.   

Big Town, Big Time

While I'm not the biggest fan of tabloids in general, the Daily News does have one big virtue: it is truly NYC-focused. More than that, it still practices hyper-local, on-the-ground, beat reporting, covering on what's happening on the streets as much as the halls of power. 

It understands that events, the daily grind (or the news) shapes our city and our lives.

That's why it's really cool that the Daily News has a continuing feature called Big Town, Big Time: An Amazing History of NYC. It is a comprehensive index of some of the most famous and important events in the history of NYC. It's a collection of pivots points and it goes all the way back to the year 1600 to today.

Some of what's covered: how Brooklyn went from its own city to one of the five boroughs, the ticker tape parade for Charles Lindbergh, the Hoovervilles of Central Park -- and the death of former New York Governor and US Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller in 1979. 

His death was a scandal. The official report is that he had a heart-attack while working quietly on his memoirs. The real reason? He was a dirty-old man who was shagging his very young secretary and, uh ... got overwhelmed. The story of how this titanic figure -- one of the richest men in the world, scion of a legendary family, four-term governor, vice-president, you name it -- died while "doin' the nasty" is just too perfect. It also reveals how, once upon a time, the rich and powerful could keep their scandals, it not out of the press, then at least toned down. 

Today? Not so much.  

The times are always changing. 

Liz Smith RIP

Back when the world felt like a classier place (it wasn't really, but never mind) part of the reason was because of people like Liz Smith. She was the doyenne, the grand master of NYC gossip. Her brand of gossip wasn't scandalous rumor mongering, attacking or embarrassing people -- it was good old-fashioned "dish". She had the "inside scoop" or "the goods" on what was going on in this town, and she told everybody it first in her column. Before the Internet, before social media, columnists like Liz Smith were real sources of, as you might say, all the rest of the news that was fit to print.

Liz Smith came to NYC from Texas, a young woman who got on a bus with little more than a dream to her name. She could have made it anywhere but she made it here, the classic-up-from-your-bootstraps American dream, and she was the ears and eyes for NYC society for decades and decades. She knew everyone, everyone knew her, she was the pulse of what was going on. Like many a New Yorker, she was itinerant, working for the Daily News, Newsday, and the New York Post, and appearing on TV all the time. She was the brassy dame who could hold her own with any man -- and often got the better of them. 

I loved Liz Smith, what she represented, and what she meant to this town. I wrote about her several times on this blog and you can find those posts here. Liz Smith died yesterday at the age of 94. She was too young in my opinion. Doubtless she was dishing until the end. This city will be lesser place without her and her particular voice. 

Liz Smith loved NYC and NYC loved her.

Mr NYC Just Keeps on Truckin'

It's been a crazy week in NYC and elsewhere. Lots of events -- some happy (like the elections), some sad (more great artists that I admire turning out to be dirty pervs). Lots to look forward to, other things to ... well, not fear exactly but not look forward to. 

Still, we go on. Like K-Billy of Super Sounds of the 70s ... we just keep on truckin'.

The Art of the Deal ... Sorta

Once upon a time, roughly 340 years ago, a business and a government got together to do a deal. The English East India Company controlled an island off the coast of Indonesia called Banda or Run -- and the Dutch government wanted it. 

Why? 

Because it had nutmeg, lots and lots of nutmeg. Nutmeg, and other yummy spices, could only be found here, and they were tres valuable. So much so that the Dutch sent ships to the other side of the world to try to get control of this and other "spice islands", and the British returned the favor by sending ships to take away the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in North America.

Deadlock. Stalemate. So they played let's make a deal.

In 1677, the British gave the Dutch control of Banda (Run) island and the Dutch gave the British control of New Amsterdam, an island otherwise known as Manhattan. 

Yeah ... that happened.

These days, of course, Banda is no longer controlled by the Dutch and Manhattan is no longer controlled by the British. Still, it's amazing to think that what is now the financial and cultural capital of the world was considered less valuable than a small (albeit gorgeous) Polynesian island. Once upon a time, such a world existed. Who thought it would ever change?  

It did, as it always does. But to think, if not for nutmeg -- nutmeg! of all the friggin' things! -- if not for that particular seasoning you can find on your spice rack, Manhattan would probably have remained under Dutch control and the course of American history would have been very different. It's crazy to think about. But of such trivial things are the pivots points of history made.

Oh, that reminds me, if you've ever heard the great song "Instanbul" but They Might Be Giants,  you know the lyric:

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

Well, now we know why they changed it: nutmeg.

Election 2017 Wrap-Up

If you want a comprehensive list of last night's NYC election results, the Daily News has a handy resource here.

The up-shot: almost all incumbents were re-elected (and the vast majority are Democrats) at all levels of government -- the one exception is a City Council race out in Queens that's probably going to go into a recount.

Thoughts?

Well, it was a good night for the status quo. Status quo is usually a pejorative but, if the status quo is low crime and improving schools, it's hard to argue that it's bad. Of course, the status quo also includes massive income inequality and the challenge of affordability, and that needs to change.

Mayor De Blasio promises it will, as he stated in his victory speech. He also wants to tax millionaires to improve transportation but that probably won't happen. We shall see.

Here's the real loser of this election: the NYC tabloids. Once upon a time tabloids like the Post and the Daily News were powerful enough to elect and defeat mayors. In 1977, the Post endorsed Ed Koch and he credited it with his election; in 1993, the constant negative coverage of David Dinkins certainly contributed to his defeat. Newspapers used to be so ubiquitous, their power so absolute, they made politicians quake and could sway elections.

No more. 

It's a new world. The decline of newspapers and tabloids and the rise of the Internet and social media have voided their power. We can go above and around them. Every single day for the last four years the NYC tabloids (mainly the Post, the News, and the Observer) have blasted Mayor De Blasio with relentless negative coverage. They've gone after everything, calling him a communist, an idiot, corrupt; criticizing his family, his punctuality, even his eating habits; smearing him with lies and half-truths and all sorts of nasty headlines, day after day. The tabloids did EVERYTHING they could to whip up an atmosphere of crises in this city and drag down the mayor's popularity, leading to his defeat. 

They tried. They tried hard. And they failed.

As the president would say, Bigly. 

The tabloids are now officially irrelevant. 

De Blasio won a landslide in spite of the tabloids and the negative coverage. The people are smart and they ignore the loudest voices in the room. There are otherwise to get the truth out. The nonsense the tabloids spewed about the city being in crises, about rampant corruption, about all sorts of mean nasty stuff, were at odds with the reality of a city that's thriving more than ever.

The truth will out or, in this case, win. Bigly. So what comes next? We have four years to find out.