Caput Mundi: Harry & Meghan at One World Trade Center

"Take On Me" by a-ha from the Brooklyn Duo at Carnegie Hall

Original Siskel & Ebert Review of "Saturday Night Fever" -- 1977

Willie Garson RIP -- "Sex and the City" & "Quantum Leap"

The brilliant, lovable character actor just died from cancer at the age of 57. For many, including yours truly, he will always been Standford from Sex and the City -- a real NYC icon.

But Willie had great range as an actor. In addition to numerous movies and other TV shows (including one that ran for a few years called White Collar), he appeared in two episodes of my favorite childhood show Quantum Leap -- one as a character named Seymour in an early episode set in NYC, and then another where he played Lee Harvey Oswald. His Oswald was an interesting one because Willia played Oswald "in the waiting room" set in the future, and he had to wear a white jump suit while being interrogated by Dean Stockwell. Great stuff!

RIP Willie -- you were the best!

Occupy Wall Street @ 10

Ten years ago this month the Occupy Wall Street movement began in Zuccotti Park. Here's some of Mr NYC's coverage of it at the time. 

Lisa Cintrice on Her Memories of the Persicos and the NYC Mob

New York City has changed so much in the last three decades that, whenever a story about the old-school mafia pops up in the news, it takes on a creepy zombie-like feel. It's like a piece of the past has jumped out of the shadows, a reminder that something we think of as dead is actually still around, lurking about, ready to strike when the opportunity presents itself. While the mob is NYC is nowhere near as powerful or prominent as it once was in the Joe Columbo-John Gotti heyday, it's still around, doing its organized crime thing as much as it can in the digital era. 

Recently there was a story about the remnants of the Columbo crime family, specifically dealing with a union exhortion scheme. One of the characters in this story is a man named Carmine Persico who was the boss of the Columbo family until his death in prison in 2019. His nephew Teddy is now, apparently, the heir aparent to the Columbo crown now that his uncle's successor, Andrew Russo, has been busted.

Previous Mr NYC interviewee Lisa Cintrice recently contacted me to tell me an incredible story about how, in her childhood, she was a step-sister to Teddy Perscio when her dad was married, for a few years, to Carmine's sister. It's an amazing story and, with her permission, Lisa tells us all about it to Mr NYC exclusively.

Here's Lisa: My connection to the Persico Family

"I was born in 1963, and my family is Italian American. My parents divorced when I was still a baby, I have no memories of a 2 parent household. My brother and I (he was born in 1962) thought everyone lived with their mom and saw their fathers on weekends.

My dad was a good looking guy, he was young, had money and he had lots of girlfriends. Again to us that was normal. Then one weekend when dad picked us up, out of the blue he introduced us to a woman that was living at his house named Patricia Persico. Pat was a beautiful red head who was also Italian American and made some mean sauce. She had 2 sons who were close in age to me and my brother so we were so happy that we had kids to play with when we would visit dad.

Her sons were name Danny Persico and Teddy Persico Jr. During that time we would go to Brooklyn often for Sunday dinner with Pats mom and I would often hear the adults talking about people named Allie Boy, Uncle Carmine and Teddy Persico Sr. (who was Pats ex-husband). We lived a charmed life, vacationed in Puerto Rico, and trips to Italy. All 4 of use kids were pretty close.

My older brother and Danny bonded close as did Teddy and myself. Eddie and Danny were the "good" kids and Teddy and me, well we had spunk and nothing scared us. Teddy and me were always getting yelled at for not doing what we were told. We would just laugh when we got in trouble. I have no bad memories of Teddy or Danny.

After a few years I knew my dad and Pat were fighting alot. Looking back I can say they had a love hate relationship. Thru it all, Pat was always nice to me and my brother. Then one weekend dad picked us up and they were gone. Pat Teddy and Danny, no good bys no hugs nothing they were gone and I was told I could not contact them, which really upset me because I was close to all of them. I was so upset that people who I thought were family were suddenly gone and I never got to say goodbye. Dad moved on and got remarried.

I always wondered what happened to Pat Teddy and Danny. Even as I became a young adult, I still wondered about them. I still missed them. One day in the late 1980's I remember hearing on the news that a Colombo family member named Teddy Persico Jr was arrested for being a king pin in a cocaine trafficking ring I was like WTF? So I looked into it more and realized that was Teddy the Teddy who was my step brother for about 7 years.

I asked my dad about it and he didn’t say much. Keep in mind, although my dad was not a "made" man he was definitely a wise guy and never talked about certain things and Teddy Persico was one of the things he was not going to talk to me about. At that point things from my child hood started making sense. Uncle Carmine was Carmine the "snake" Persico, the head of the Columbo Family. Teddy Persico Sr and Allie Boy were Carmines brothers and also part of the Columbo Crime Family. I still didn’t understand the level of violence they were capable of until I saw a documentary on TV about Carmine and how he was the former leader of Murder Inc., and was running the family from a prison cell. All of this was mind blowing to me.

How did I not realize sooner what was going on? It all seemed so normal back then. Teddy has spent many many years in jail. Shortly after his 20-year drug sentence, he was arrested again for putting a hit on someone while at his grandmother’s funeral. He got 12 years for that and got out after 10 years or so. After that I didn’t see anything about him in the news, one mutual friend even thought maybe he was in witness protection. I thought anything is possible. That is until this week when I learned that the entire leadership of the Columbo family was arrested including Teddy Persico Jr, who was still on supervised release from his last jail stint. They wanted to take control of a labor union. WTF who does that? Oh yea they do! 

Danny did not follow in his family footsteps but he passed away at a young age and I am not sure what from. I often look back wondering how things would have been if my dad stayed married to Pat. Maybe it was for the best that they were no longer in my life.

I have decided I am going to write to Teddy since he will be a captive audience for my letters and I have a lot of questions for him. I am sure he knows about my past, (wonder what he thought of my army stunt) and he may even have some questions for me :)

That’s my story and I am sticking to it!"

Thanks Lisa! Here's a great picture that Lisa shared of herself as a child with the Persico siblings:

Simon & Garfunkel Sing "America" in Central Park -- September 19th, 1981

 

"Once Upon a Time in Queens" and the '86 Mets on ESPN

The Year of Our Lord 1986 A.D. was a memorable one in 1986 for NYC -- and for me personally.

The city was bursting with renewal. The Beastie Boys were reinventing rap music out of Brooklyn; in Manhattan, Woody Allen was at the height of his career with Hannah and Her Sisters while nightclubs likes Tunnel and Limelight were the hottest places in the world. And out in Queens the Mets played the most memorable season in its history. 

In 1986 NYC was in a period of transition -- from the dark days of the "Bronx is Burning" 1970s to the "luxury product" of the 21st century. A new documentary from ESPN called Once Upon a Time in Queens covers the '86 Mets on the way to their World Series victory -- and how the city embraced and related to the team. 

The players on the '86 Mets are on the tip of any New Yorker's tongue who was alive at the time -- Doc Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Lenny Dykstra, Gary Carter, and others. They played hard and, oh boy, they lived harder too! 

In between outings, they'd snork coke and bang chicks. They trashed hotel rooms and many of them got arrested. It's amazing that anyone playing on the '86 Mets was able even to swing a bat or throw or catch a ball, let alone win a World Series. The amount of wildness they engaged in, the all consuming debauchery -- the drugs, the booze, the broads, the fights, you name it -- must have exhausted them. And yet ... they played amazing baseball and achieved greatness. 

If you want to read more Mr NYC coverage about NYC in 1986, go here.

The NYC Waterfront

The most southern and northern tips of Manhattan ...

... and several points in between.

Grief and Grace @ Ground Zero: 9/11 @ 20

This past weekend was the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks -- the most tragic event in this city's history, a most solemn event. Grief, sadness, despair, anger -- the whole gamut of negative emotions -- New York City has experienced all of them, at every moment, since that day, and will forever. The sadness is as much a part of the city as its concrete, steel, and waterways.

And yet ...

For me, personally, as someone who saw the Twin Towers collapse from a window in the Flatiron Building ... for someone who felt the anger, the rage, the despair, the confusion on that day and those afterwards ... for me ... to paraphrase Evelyn Waugh, "something quite remote from anything" that the terrorists and the first-responders or anyone else ever intended came out of this tragedy that, collectively, we all suffered from, something that could never have been imagined at the time: a certain kind of grace, a strange, paradoxical enlivening of the spirit. It obviously didn't happen on 9/11 but a few short years aftewards.

Around 2 AM on January 1st, 2003, about 15 months after the tragedy, I found myself in Lower Manhattan on my way home from a New Year's Eve party. I walked by Ground Zero. This area, this sacred ground, which had become the center of the world for the last year plus change, was totally deserted, no one else there but me. The whole of Lower Manhattan was almost pitch black except for some low-lit street lamps and the floodlights around Ground Zero. I looked through a small window in the fencing and walls around Ground Zerp and saw the huge empty pit. My mind, obviously, leapt to the memory of 9/11/01, of the lives lost, of the chaos that had descended onto our world. But I also felt a certain kind of peace, a certain calm, a certain honor at being alone in the prescence of these departed lives, their spirits soaring about me. I knew, somehow, that they were okay. 

This might sound irrational but it's true. 

About a year-and-a-half later, I took my late aunt down to Ground Zero. Up until that time, we had never been close simply because I didn't know her very well and she lived out of town. But she really wanted to see Ground Zero so I took her. On the subway ride down, she told me all about her life, a fascinating story. And then, at Ground Zero, we walked around while she peppered me with questions about the speed of the recovery and everything that we going on down there -- and I answered her as best I could. Soon she burst into tears and I comforted her. After that, we became very close until her passing several years later. 

So, in a strange way, 9/11 and its legacy -- as awful and tragic as it's been -- provided me with as much grace as grief. And perhaps that's a perverse way to feel -- but it's the truth, a strange facet of what it means to be human.