NYC Has a New Neighborhood!

NYPD Gala Day -- It's More than We Can Handle!

Oh yes, it truly is a "gala day" for the NYPD -- both in the metaphorical and Grouch Marx sense of the term.

First, some NYPD members have been naughty -- one ex-cop and his wife got busted for dealing drugs and another was allegedly caught being frisky with her male partner until, we found out, it was a hoax (it would've given new meaning to NYPD ... Blue). 

Second -- and this is big -- the boss of the Gambino crime family was just gunned down in Staten Island. This is the first "whacking" of a Gambino (or any) crime boss since 1985, when Paul Castellano got hit outside Sparks Steakhouse (this was, of course, engineered by John Gotti who  then took over as boss). This hit must have been ordered by some very high-ups (probably in Sicily) because, as Goodfellas taught us, you don't whack a made guy (let alone a boss!) unless you "have a sit down and get the okay" or else you're the one who's gonna get whacked. The NYPD is going to have a big job ahead investigating this hit and it'll probably make someone's career. 

Third, there's Rudy Giuliani -- the former mayor/Trump lawyer who's going through a nasty divorce. Twenty years ago he was a powerful and popular mayor beloved by the NYPD and all of law enforcement. Now he's a cartoon villain, a sneering buffoon, and he and his ex-wife literally are being ordered not to be in the same room together. How the mighty have fallen.

Fourth -- this is an uplifting one - I just read a great story about a lady named Isabella Goodwin who was the first undercover female cop in the history of the NYPD. She brought down bank robbers and earned a shield through undercover work for over a decade. Truly an inspiring, groundbreaking woman.

The NYPD is a never-ending source of interest. I got one story coming up that'll fascinate you. Stay tuned.

Memo from NYC

The following are my incredibly deep & brilliant thoughts on this whole college admissions scandal which is ballooning from a news story into a dialogue on socioeconomic inequities:

Basically, trying to get a kid into college is like trying to get laid, you have one of two options: 1)  do it honestly by being, as they said on Seinfeld, "sponge worthy" i.e. woo the person, work hard to prove your physical and emotional attractiveness by fitting your l'object d'amour's idea of a good partner and hope you efforts are rewarded; or 2) demonstrate your power, your status, your strength, your awesomeness by buying him or her expensive gifts, taking them to fancy restaurants, sending bouquets and candy to their homes or places of business, introducing them to your big shot friends and co-workers, you know, showing what a "Mr Big" (or, to be PC, "Mrs Big") you are, and, again, hoping your efforts are rewarded. 

The analogy to college admissions: 1) your kid gets in on their merit i.e. test scores, grades, recommendations, extracurriculars, essays, the whole merit-worthy package but the competition is fierce and admission is not guaranteed; or 2) you donate massive sums of money to the school over the course of years, making the school's decision to admit your kid a smart, logical, and relatively easy business decision.

What you don't do, in either case, is engage in a quid-pro-quo, a blatant "this-for-that" transaction. You don't directly buy your admission into either a college or another person's body. Society has deemed that illegal -- "getting in" via merit is legal and "getting in" via status is too, but putting an exact amount on it, turning it into just another things to buy, is not. 

Perhaps this shouldn't be illegal or perhaps we should try to have 100% merit based "admissions" and status-driven "admissions" should be outlawed too -- but human beings are flawed and therefore our systems are too.  

Coming ... Soon

Huge news! Good news! Huge good news in an age of nothing but bad news!

Howard Stern has a new book! For the first time in almost 25 years! 

It's called "Howard Stern Comes Again" and, from what he's saying about, it's based on the wisdom he has learned over the years as well as from the numerous high-profile interviews he's done.

I'm sure it'll be hilarious and it's incentivized me to get a new Kindle ASAP. 

I can't wait to read it! Howard Stern can't come fast or soon enough for me! 

The Lou Reed Compendium

If you've read Mr NYC for any legnth of time, you know how much I love the music of Lou Reed, and how romantic I am for the 1960s NYC that birthed his band The Velvet Underground.

This month also marks the 30th anniversary of one of his greatest solo albums, New York. While the album is certainly a love letter to the city, it's more complicated than that -- it's a cry of emotion about the complex feelings any New Yorker has for this place. Nothing about Lou Reed's music is easy or simple, and this album is no different. When it came out in 1989, New York explored a city that seemed to be in crises, that was dying, but that still contained a wondrous  and inspiring spirit. And this album is as inspired as any that Lou Reed wrote.

So here is my little compedium to all things Lou Reed & NYC:

- My collection of blog posts about Lou Reed and The Velvet Undergroud.

- A review of the New York album.
- How Lou Reed and NYC are inseperable, both in music and soul, and are practically addictive.
- And a guide to NYC per Lou Reed's music.

If you like Lou, this post is ... for you ...

"Shields Up!": The Dome That Never Was

Once upon a time an eccentric architect, with the eccentric name of Buckminster Fuller, came up with an extremely eccentric idea to build a clear shatterproof dome over Mid-Town Manhattan.

Yes, decades before Donald Trump thought America needed a big useless wall across the southern border, this dude thought that a big dome over midtown would literally shield this most busy part of the city from the elements, from danger, and increase energy efficiency. It was a bold idea ...

... and, predictably, it went nowhere fast.

Fuller proposed his dome in the 1950s, in the years after the war, when there was lots of building going on in NYC and America, and the idea of protecting the city -- and the world -- from another catastrophe was certainly understandable.

And, crazy though Fuller's idea was, it wasn't nearly so bad as Robert Moses' idea of ramming a highway though lower Manhattan (which was, thanks to Jane Jacobs, mercifully killed). 

Personally, I don't think we should build a dome over NYC -- instead, we should develop the kinds of electromagnetic "Shields" like they have on Star Trek that protect the Enterprise. So whenever a storm or something threatening approaches NYC (and Lord knows that's happened!) the mayor could just yell "Shield's Up!" and we are thus protected. 

Nothin' Like an NYC Dame

Today is International Women's Day, a day where women and the movement for gender equality are celebrated.

All sorts of fascinating women come from NYC. There's no such thing as one type of proud NYC woman -- there many of them.

Here's a few impressive NYC ladies -- they couldn't be more different but they come from all walks of NYC life and each one is (or was, in one case) amazing:

There's Real Housewife Sonja Morgan, a glamorous NYC lady whose turned her socialite life into an art form.

There's Audrey Sanders, a legendary bartender and club founder.

There's the recently deceased Lois Carl, a Bronx girl who moved to LA and became a beloved on set tutor for the child stars.

And there's Anna Shechtman, a young lady from Tribeca, who is re-inventing the crossword puzzle.

Reading about each woman I got a sense of their fearlessness, their determination, their grit -- these are tough NYC negotiating a man's world and the exigencies of life. Whether you have sons or daughters (and I got two) they are role models for everyone.

Why You Should Follow Mr NYC on Twitter

Okay, so here's the deal -- I really, really, really, really, really, really want you to follow @MrNYCBlog on Twitter.

I post links to all the blog posts on there as well as constantly re-Tweet interesting, funny, informative, and sometimes just downright strange stuff about NYC. 

It's a real-time, non-stop New York City's junkie's delight! Make it part of your regular Twitter diet and you'll feel nourished. 

So please follow Mr NYC on Twitter and help fill that bottomless pit of need within me. 

Thanks for reading. 

NYC Kids

Wherever you grow up, wherever you spend your formative years from birth to adulthood, it stamps you forever -- no matter how far you may run away from it. 

Think of Gatsby. The Long Island millionaire bootlegger is revealed to be, at the end of The Great Gatsby, what he always really was -- a poor boy from North Dakota trying to make good. Think of Ronald Reagan -- yes, he was a Hollywood movie star and US President but he never really stopped being the poor boy from small town Illinois whose dad was a drunk. It haunted him and his years in power, informing his dark view of the world. 

You might not be able to "go home again" but your childhood home never leaves you -- no matter how old you get, no matter where you move to.

Being a kid in New York City is something special -- this city is so unique, so weird, so crazy, that growing up here defines you forever. You may move far away, you may grow old -- but NYC kids are always NYC kids no matter where they live or whatever age they are.

Here are two amazing examples of kids from NYC who grew up to define the culture: the movie director and author Peter Bogdanovich and the writer Diane di Prima. 

Bogdanovich grew up on Riverside Drive (like me), fell in love with the movies as a kid and spent his childhood and young adulthood in the NYC art house movie scene. Eventually he moved to Hollywood and became a successful (and then not so successful) director of movies like The Last Picture Show and Mask. He had a wild life, dating Cybill Shepherd and Playboy playmates, being best buddies with Orson Welles, acting on The Sopranos -- just an amazing ride. He's an old man now but, as this big interview shows, despite all his successes and failures, despite all his adventures, he's still just the kid from NYC who wanted to be in the movies. And he did it.

I had never heard of Diane di Prima until now but I wish I had: she was the leading female member of the Beat generation. A child of Greenwich Village, she wrote books and poems, taught school and college, and was an innovator in what today we'd call "confessional memoir." She's over 80 now and has had a crazy life but, you get the sense from this article, that Diane is still a young girl from the Village who just wanted to write.

And here's something that all kids in NYC and their parents have to struggle with: at what age can they be allowed to ride the subway alone? Believe it or not, this is a matter of great debate. Honestly, I don't recall how old I was when I started riding the subway by myself (I was 10 when  I started riding the bus by myself) but it's one of the "only in NYC" things that defines being a kid in NYC.

John Mulaney on SNL - March 2, 2019

The opening monologue about the subway is absolutely brilliant.