NYC Supports Ukraine

Reflections of, by, and for New Yorkers

To live in NYC is to ruminate about NYC.

To be a New Yorker is a state of mind as much as a way of life. 

If you've ever lived in NYC for any period of time, the city stamps itself on your soul, it lives inside you, for better or worse, forever, wherever you go. 

And this is true for New Yorkers past and present, especially for those New Yorkers who carry memories of, and hold deep feelings for, the city's past while existing in its present. 

I count myself as one such New Yorker.

Some recent developments has made me think a lot about how New Yorkers reflect upon their city -- past, present, and future -- and how New Yorkers reflect upon themselves. 

First, the past: there's a new documentary about the old-fasioned automats, the vast cafaterias around the city where you could get fast, quick meals. You would walk in and go up to an array of small windows, drop a few coins into slot, and the windows would open giving you a sandwhich, coffee, slice of cake, mac'n'chesse, juice, comfort food like that. There were a staple of the city for decades and many New Yorkers -- Mel  Brooks, Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, my mother -- were automat regulars. They gave New Yorkers a sense of community, a bond, even if the automat patrons didn't know or talk to each other. It became part of their souls and memories that they carried within themselves forever -- even when some of the automat regulars went on to fame and fortune. Obviously the advent of fast-food put the automats out of business (although the last one didn't close in NYC until 1991) but they remain a beloved part of the city's past.

Second, the present: in case you haven't read today's news (today being February 24, 2022, soon-to-be a date in the past), Russia is invading Ukraine. For most Americans, this is far-off event happening to a far-off people. But there is a huge Ukrainian community/diaspora in NYC, and this tragedy hits them personally, especially those with family back home. In fact, part of the East Village is called "Little Ukraine" and it includes one of my favorite hangout, Veselka, the great Ukrainian restaurant/dessert place. For these Ukrainian New Yorkers, this moment must make them reflect about their home country and their lives and families there vs. their lives in NYC. Because NYC has such a vibrant Ukrainian community, hopefully Ukrainians can get some comfort and strength from each other and fellow New Yorkers.

Third, the future: soon there will be a new Delta terminal at La Guarida airport. What will be special about it (besides it's flashy new 21st-century features) are the six permanent art installations by six NYC artists. The works will include lights, sculptures, tiles, and other artworks that reflect the diversity, vibrancy, and people of this city to the doubtless passengers who will pass through the terminal. It will be the city reflecting itself to the future citizens of, and visitors to, NYC, the past speaking to and educating the future about the people who live, work, and make this city such a special, unique place.

Mayor LaGuardia: The Greatest Drama

Stephanie Selby RIP

Over the years I've blogged about my childhood experiences in the world of professional ballet. Like much of what we might consider "showbiz", it's a rough, grown-up world for a young developing child to intersect with, a place where the innocence and vulnerability of youth smashes up against the brutal realities of an exacting, demanding profession.

So it was with some interest, and much sadness, that I read about the recent death of Stephanie Selby.

She played Marie in "The Nutcracker" at the New York City Ballet in 1976 (you can read her review here) and became the subject of a book that same year called A Very Young Dancer. It was a backstage collection of photographs showing her rehearsing for the famous ballet, a behind-the-scenes "making of" look at the magical production. (Remember, back then, we didn't have reality TV or social media or anything like that so the public rarely saw the behind the curtain of cultural touchstones.) The book became a surprise bestseller, inspired many young women to pursue dance, and Stephanie became a temporary celebrity. 

However, like in my experience, it turned sour when the teenage years arrived. She began to misbehave at the School of American Ballet (the feeder school for the New York City Ballet and where the kids for "The Nutcracker" come from), her dancing suffered, and eventually she was kicked out of the school. Her dreams of being a professional dancer were shattered and, it appears, she never got over it. This dissapointment was also exacerbated by clinical depression.

In her adult years, she migrated to Wyoming and she died there, from suicide apparently, at agae 56. She seems to have had a vagabond life but also had some good people in it and some love. It's a sad ending to her life. But I hope she had some happiness from time to time and that she's at peace now. 

The Legacy of Chess in NYC

I don't play chess.

To paraphrase Dr. Strangelove, I have neither the time nor the inclination for the strategic thought the game requires. Much like driving a truck, I have great admiration but not the skills to do it. Barring a late in life conversion to the game, I'll never get into the game of chess.

And yet, oddly enough, yours truly has written two blog posts about the game -- one in 2008 and another in 2021 -- and both are two of my favorite posts ever.

The 2008 post was about a bunch of NYC kids who won several national championships down in Florida. I was flattered enough to get a thankful comment from one of the championship chess coachs.

The 2021 post was an admittedly snarky look back at the musical Chess that had a short, infamous life on Broadway. 

But the legeacy of chess in NYC runs much deeper.

Never mind that Bobby Fischer, probably the greatest American chess player in history, grew up in Brooklyn (he wasn't born in NYC but moved to the city at age six) and trained here. All over the city you can walk in public parks and see people playing it on cement tables built for the game. There are chess clubs in public schools all over the city, with students winning (as previously indicated) at championships all over the country and world.

And then there's the Marshall Chess Club in Greenwich Village.

It's over 100 years old and is as New York an institution as has ever existed. The club has members who have been playing there since there were children and are now quite elderly. It has had some famous members over the decades too, including Dada/Cubist French artist Marcel Duchamp, a young boy named Stanley Kubrick who would gone on to direct classic films (including the aforementioned Dr. Strangelove), and, more recently, radio legend Howard Stern. 

More amazingly, it has survived COVID and keeps going. This has been in part because of the popularity of last year's The Queen's Gambit on Netflix but chess is one of those games who popularity is perennial, whose practioners are devoted, no matter if the game has moments of fadishness.

The players at the Marshall Chess Club are the hardcore devotees who keep the game going no matter what -- and keep its proud legacy in NYC alive. 

Sunday Morning in Seneca Village

 

The Future Face of NYC

In the almost fifteen years of this blog's existence, I've written a lot about how the "face" of NYC keeps changing, transforming, evolving. It's inevitable that in a city of almost nine-million people that the physical, economic, political, and cultural infrustructure of it will forever alter itself.

Old buildings will be torn down, new ones raised. Some businesses will close, new ones will open. Politicians of various stripes will leave office, new ones will replace them. Shows and cultural institutions will dissapear, new ones will appear. It's a cycle, the constant churn of the city, the forever changing face of NYC.

Recently -- talking about a cultural institution that vanished and reappeared -- the sequel series to Sex and the City, And Just Like That, has inspired writers to look at how different NYC has become in 2021-2022 compared to the show's original run from 1998-2004. As this article indicates, the show feels less inspiring, less fun, in part, because the city of today feels less inspiring and fun than the one in the original show. It's vastly more gentrified, sleek, overbuilt, and boring -- plus it's been dealing with a pandemic. A young colleague of mine who recently discovered the original show has told me about her fascination of the NYC portrayed in Sex and the City -- it seems like another, wilder, funner, cheaper world. Even though the first show ended less than twenty-years ago, it feel literally like a whole different planet. It's amazing to contrast the NYC of And Just Like That to the 1950s, 1960s city of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. That city feels not only like another world, but another universe. 

But that's just the NYC of the popular imagination, popular culture, as re-interpreted by TV. The future of NYC is always, always determined by it's phyiscal shape, economy, and politics. And that's changing, big time.

Within the next fifteen years, by the time this blog celebrates its 30th (!) anniversary, the following developments will have profoundly altered the face and life of NYC:

First, there's the Interborough Express, a reconstituted freight train line that will be turned into rapid transit connecting Brooklyn and Queens. Until now, there has never been any good public transportation between the city's two biggest (by far) boroughs, and this be a big change. It will originate at Woodside, snake through Maspeth, Middle Village and Ridgewood, then curl into Bushwick, Brownsville, Flatbush, Borough Park, and terminate at Bayridge. It will connect to the 2, 3, 5, 7, B, D, F, Q, and R subway lines, plus various bus lines. It will be the most massive expansion of public transporation in this city in a century, make commuting to and from and between those neighborhoods and boroughs much easier, dramatically lower car and subway congestion, and its impact on housing values and businesses in the areas it serves will be immense. 

Second, casinos -- they're coming to NYC. There's the Racino way out in Queens but there are plans -- and new laws supporting them -- that will allow the construction of casinos all over the city. This city is, not suprisingly, the nation's biggest untapped casino market, and the city loses huge amounts of tax revenue that goes to Atlantic City and casinos out on Native American reservations. A whole new industry, a whole new tourist and cultural magnet, will have a massive impact on the cultural and economic life of NYC. No longer will people be coming here just for culture and history -- they'll be coming here to drop their kids college funds into slot machines, to "let it ride." 

Third, and final (for now), is the political map of NYC and the whole state. For decades and decades, the New York State Legislature had divided political control -- Democrats controlled the Assembly, Republicans controlled the State Senate. This wasn't an accident. When both parties got control of the respective chambers, they made a deal to gerrymander their districts, their political maps, basically guarenteeing each party control for each chamber. This lasted from the 1970s to the 2010s. It was unnatural, ridiculous, corrupt. But a few years ago the Democrats got control of the State Senate and now -- with a Democratic Assembly and Governor -- they are gerrymandering the state so that Democrats will control the New York State Legislature for the rest of the decade.

Also, and most controversially, for the first time in over a century, Democrats are able to gerrymander the state's Congressional Districts which could shrink the number of Republican representatives from 7 or 8 to 3 or 4. This means, at a national level, there could be up to four new Democrats in Congress and could, potentially (although not certainly), determine control of the US Congress. 

Needless to say, Republicans in New York and nation-wide are howling, yelling and screaming that Democrats are abusing their power in order to protect and consolidate their power. Obviously the Republicans are hypocrites and liars (what else is new?) because not only are they viciously gerrymandering the numerous states that they control but they engaged in gerrymandering for decades in New York to keep control of the State Senate -- not to mention creating a whole new State Senate district (did you know we have 63? Insane!) and engaging in outright bribery (remember the IDC?) to stay in power. The fact that this state had divided control of the State Senate for so long was because of gerrymandering, it just happened to be bipartisan gerrymandering. Now the state is being re-gerrymandered for Democrats, and there's nothing the Republicans can do about it. It's also a rare display of raw power, a power play, by Democrats and obviously Republicans don't like having to take their own medicine.

In NYC this means that the long-held Republican district in State Island will probably (although not certainly) flip to the Democrats, effectively ending any chance of a Republican representing any part of NYC in Congress. It's fun to watch the loathesome Republican representative bemoan her fate, accusing Democrats of trying to "steal" the seat. No, Democrats are simply using the power that the voters gave them and that's called democracy, something that, we know, Republicans actively want to overthrow.  

So, as you see, New York City is changing all around us and before our eyes. It's changing in our hearts and minds. It never stops and never stops evolving. The face of the city from yesterday, today, and tomorrow will always be diffferent. 

"Say what, Staten Island Chuck?" on 2/02/2022

Review: "The Gilded Age" (2022)

A decade ago the British TV show Downton Abbey took the world by storm. The tale of a noble family on a huge estate and their servants in the nineteen-teens and twenties -- think Upstairs, Downstairs meets Brideshead Revisited -- became everyone's favorite soap opera, a mix of historical grandeur combined with modern morality.

Downton Abbey was created by Julian Fellowes whose new show, much like his previous one, is a period piece set in the world of the rich and those who serve them. 

Set in New York City in 1882, The Gilded Age concerns two families who live across the street from each other (East 61st Street, precisely) but who live in totally different worlds -- the Old New York, Old Money Brooks vs. the social-climbing, New Money Russells. The story kicks off with Marian, the daughter of the sisters Ada and Agnes Brooks' estranged dead brother, coming to live with them in their NYC townhouse from Pennsylvania. On her way to the city, she meets Peggy who, for a variety of convenient reasons, moves in with Marian and her aunts. Peggy is a child of a black enclave in Brooklyn who wants to become a writer -- and who gets a job as a secretary to Agnes, and who must negotiate life as a black woman in white patriarchal world. Meanwhile, across the street, the railroad-rich but socially-poor Russells move into their newly constructed, Stanford B. White-designed, overly decorated mansion and throw a huge "mansion warming" party (the house is even derisively called "a folly"). It is their attempt to win over New York "society" and it fails completely -- almost no one comes. But when Marian meets Larry, the Russell's oldest son, well ... let's just say that things will get interesting.

I've only seen the pilot for this show so I can't tell if it'll be great or awful. So far the reviews of The Gilded Age have been mixed. It has the potential to be a beautiful, deeply-felt drama exploring the toxic mix of class and race, sex and society, power and submission. Fellowes is a very talented writer who creates great characters, snappy dialogue, and beautifully executed scenes. But, as in Downton, his observations about class and money and society are very heavy-handed and not subtle at all ("You're Old New York, don't forget it" is a real line -- okay then!). If it goes down that road, then the show will be a total bore.

However, what absolutely makes this show worth watching is the cast -- after all, Agnes and Ada are played by Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon and, honestly, I wish the show was just about them and no one else. Marian is played by someone named Louisa Jacobson who is very good (which is not surprising considering that she's Meryl Streep's daughter). The show is littered with Broadway actors like Donna Murphy and my personal favorite Audra McDonald and they are all great. And even Simon Jones, who forty-year ago this month was blazing the screens with Jeremy Irons in Brideshead Revisited, plays the Brooks' long-serving English butler. The cast along will keep me coming back. 

I just hope the storylines are as good as the actors. 

But it is wonderful to see a drama set during a fascinating period of New York City history that isn't often put on the screen. The Gilded Age reminds us that social striving, greed, lust, and all the attendant vagaries thereof, are nothing new. They are as old as Old New York.

And if you want to learn more about the real "gilded age" in NYC, go here and see below. 

James Joyce: Ulysses & NYC

Considered the greatest work of fiction in the English language of the 20th century, James Joyce's Ulysses was published almost exactly 100 years ago (February 2, 1922).

A retelling of Homer's Odyssey, the novel is set on June 16-17, 1904 following the doings-in-Dublin of writer Stephan Dedalus, advertiser Leopold Bloom, and his adulterous wife Molly. Their lives intersect in interesting ways over the course of this single day, 18 episodes corresponding to the 18 episodes of the Odyssey. The final episode is one of the most famous in literary history, a steam-of-consciousness interior monologue by Molly Bloom that runs for 50-pages but is in fact one long continuous sentence, ending with "and yes I said yes I will Yes."

The publication history of Ulysses is almost as complex as the novel itself. Deemed "obscene" by the moralist powers-that-be of the time, the book became the subject of an obscenity trial in NYC, and the book was initially pirated and published serially in magazines. It was published in NYC 1929 and the publisher's office was actually raided! Various censored and altered versions were published over the years before it was finally published in full, unchanged, many years later.

James Joyce never set foot in NYC in his lifetime but the story of his great novel in NYC is enthralling. Read all about it here. It's especially timely since, 100 years later, banning books is still happening in this country.

Plus ca change.