The Lady in Furs: "You don't need a million to look like a million"

Loved reading this obituary of a woman named Barbara Gould who was a fashion model back in the 1960s and 70s before starting a successful real estate career.

What's notable about her only-in-NYC life is that she starred in the longest running TV commercial in NYC history -- it ran for 14 years.

Here's Barbara's obit and here's the commercial. 

It's interesting the things we do in your life -- and what we get remembered for.

Primary Day

Today is primary date for all New York State elected offices. I'm not making an endorsements but I encourage all party-registered people to vote!

If you wan't more information about voting, here's the Board of Elections website.

New York By the Numbers - 10 Years Later

Ten years ago -- in fact, almost exactly ten years ago, back in September, 2008 -- I blogged about the various "metrics" of life in NYC. They were good! The city was getting wealthier, healthier, and safer. People felt good about the direction of the city, things were looking up -- and this was particularly notable because, at that time, the national economy was crashing and the Great Recession starting. NYC remained, then as now, a source of optimism. 

Now the recession is over and a decade has past. So where is NYC today?

Ten years later, these metrics have only gotten better. 

Over 4 million New Yorkers have jobs and there are half a million more jobs available.

The murder rate was roughly 400-something in 2008 (already an historic low); now it's 200-something, a super-historic low.

There were 3.3 housing units available in 2008 -- now there are 3.5. Not a huge increase but it's going in the right direction.

Life in NYC is good -- and it's longer!

A lot longer. The truly eye-popping, amazing statistic is that the average life expectancy for New Yorkers has increased by nearly a DECADE in the last 25 years. It used to be around 72.4 years -- now it's 81.1 (the available data is from 1990 to 2015). In the last decade alone, life expectancy has increased by 1.5 years. 

That's incredible!

Can you imagine? New Yorkers can expect to live nearly an entire decade longer than they used to. In the last decade we've added more than a year to our lives! 

It's easy, particularly these days, to wallow in bad news. It's easy to see everything -- and everyone -- that makes the world awful. But then you get information like this and you realize that it's truly a great time to be alive, that things are getting better even if it doesn't seem like it. 

In NYC, anything is possible -- even an extra decade of life. 

NYC: Capital of Shamelessness

One of the things that people both love and loathe about NYC is that we are a city of shameless people. We say what we think, do what we want, and to tell with everybody else. And even when we get in trouble, we go right back out and do it all over again.

People call NYC the capital of the world -- it's really the capital of shamelessness.

Donald Trump is easily the most shameless president we've ever had and, yes, he's from NYC (unfortunately). But his brand of shameless politics -- mean, aggressive, personal -- isn't anything new to New Yorkers. We produced, long before him, shameless politicians like Koch, Giuliani, D'Amato, and others. They were belligerent, loud, offensive -- and every popular until they were weren't. Belligerence is both the good and bad of NYC politics, as this article suggests.

But what if your shamelessness gets you into trouble -- and sends you to jail? Do you think we in NYC get "reformed" or "corrected" by being laid so low? No! Take, for example, this "madam" who ran an escort ring, went to jail for it, got out, do it all over again, went to jail again -- and has no regrets. That's a degrees of shamelessness even I can't comprehend.

Shamelessness isn't relegated simply to NYC but this town revels in it. And if you think of yourself as a real New Yorker, either your shameless or have reconciled yourself to live amongst the shameless. Either way, it's part of who we are. 

Henry Street Settlement @ 125

People who do bad make lots of noise. Just look at the news.

People who do good usually do it quietly. Just look on the Lower East Side. 

For 125 years the Henry Street Settlement has been going great things.

Founded by a New Yorker named Lillian Wald in 1893, the Henry Street Settlement is a living legacy of its founder and time. Before the New Deal, before the government thought that it had the moral obligation to take care of the less fortunate (at least in some capacity), settlement houses sprang up in the late 19th to serve the needs of their neighborhoods and communities. They were social service agencies before they ever existed. They helped the poor, immigrants, and others to get jobs, get medical care, get care for their children or elderly parents, resolve disputes with their landlords, learn to read and write English, help people negotiate life in this big and confusing city. They were a lifeline to those who desperately needed help and had nowhere else to turn.

Much has changed in the world of social services and philanthropy in the last century, but the Henry Street Settlement endures. It continue serving the Lower East Side and helping its citizens improve their lives (although there are probably less poor people there than back in the day). 

In a city where things change every day, where old institutions vanish all the time, it's great to know that the Henry Street Settlement has stuck around -- and hopefully will for another 125 years. 

Gawker is Back!

Or it will be, in 2019.

Details here.

Howard Stern: September 12, 2001

What we were thinking 17 years ago ...

Bartending Blues

I recently read this interesting profile of Dale DeGroff, considered by toute le monde to be the best living bartender in NYC. He's a legend in the field, a man who can make any cocktail sing, and he's more than just a great mixologist -- he's a beverage innovator, a man who'll take a variety of ingredients and invent a brilliant drink on the fly.

And it got me depressed.

Years ago I took a bartending class -- actually, the bartending class at Columbia University. It was, as you might imagine, a lot of fun, learning how to mix a variety of drinks, how to stock a basic bar, how to shake and stir properly, how to interact with customers. It was great, I loved it ...

... and then I never worked as a bartender. I actually had a good job (still do) and a busy life and a bartending gig just didn't fit in. Besides, I had no idea how I'd get one in the first place!

Still, I adore the mystique of the bartender, the creator of beverage bliss, the temporary friend who makes drinks and conversation, who becomes the recipient of secrets and stories, who sees people at their worst or  their most honest, who becomes, at least for a little while, a port in the storm of life, a helper in a world of hurters (I think I just invented a word). For some reason, I never made this work in my life and it bums me out. 

That's why I envy guys like Dale DeGroff -- they had the courage to go into a tough, not necessarily lucrative field, like bartending and make a big career out of it.

I have, on my bucket list, the goal to one day work as a bartender. And there's lots of bars in this town! So one day, here in the wilds of NYC, you may get a drink served to you by yours truly. I hope it'll be tasty ...

UPDATE: Did you know that, among his many other sins, Donald Trump destroyed the legendary tiki bar Trader Vics and basically destroyed tiki bar culture in NYC? Many of his supporters like to brandish tiki torches when they chant about how much they hate black and Jews. That's some kinf of messed up Jungian synchronicity right there! 

Miss New York is Miss America!

And Miss Michigan is pretty awesome too!

SHSAT Stories

As a parent, I obviously want my kids to get the best education possible. 

In NYC, we have lots of great schools but, when it comes to the public school system, it's a very mixed bag.

Some schools are amazing, better than any private ones, while others are little more than participants in the "school-to-prison-pipeline". Race, class, politics, funding formulas, geography, and so many other factors play into this horribly inequitable, separate but unequal, modern day apartheid educational system we have both in NYC and around the country.

Educational inequality and the myriad controversies of how to end it is one of the great issues of our time.

Because of this system, one escape hatch for families who live in bad school districts is for their kids to take the SHSAT, the entrance exam to the city's prestigious magnet schools like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, and others. This one test can determine if a kid gets into one of these schools, gets a great education, and is able to get into college while others, who don't, are stuck at lousy schools with environments not conducive to learning and end up with dead-end lives.

These stories from the New York Times chronicle the lives of kids who did (and in some cases) did not get into these schools after they took the SHSAT. All agree, however, that this test is life-changing, and that it's a LOT of pressure to put on a young person. 

Now that Mayor DeBlasio and others want to change the requirements for getting into these schools, which would phase out the SHSAT, debate is ranging between those people who feel their families benefit from the test and those that don't. Obviously, race and culture are clashing and, however it ends, it will have big repercussions on the future of our city.