Nelson Rockefeller Sworn in as 41st Vice-President -- December 19, 1974

Before a certain orange failed businessman/reality show buffoon became President of these United States on January 20, 2017 (mercifully evicted from office on January 20, 2021), the last New Yorker to serve in high office was Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller -- or Rocky.

Scion of one of the richest and most famous families on Earth, Nelson Rockefeller was a four-term Governor of New York State, first elected in 1958 before resigning in late 1973. A year later, however, Rocky was "called to serve" as Vice-President by President Gerald Ford.

Rockefeller's journey to the Vice-Presidency remains the most dramatic in history. In the 1960s, while Governor, he ran for the Republican presidential nomination multiple-times -- and lost. His presidential dreams were squashed, in large part, by his divorce and subsequent re-marriage to "Happy", this at a time when divorce was more a political liability than it is now. Bored as Governor, his presidential dreams dashed, Rockefeller finally quit as Governor to return to a private and luxurious life.

But history wasn't done with him yet. The Watergate scandal subsumed the country and the presidency of Richard Nixon. In 1973, just a couple of months before Rockefeller quit as New York Governor, Nixon's Vice-President Spiro Agnew resigned in a bribery scandal. Agnew was replaced as VP by Gerald Ford, a genial Congressman from Michigan. And then, even more dramatically, in August 1974, Nixon quit as president under threat of impeachment and removal from office. Ford became president and, just like Nixon before, he needed a VP -- and so he called Rocky.

This special report of his swearing-in late 1974 is amazing, a glimpse at an extraordinary moment in time as the last New Yorker to become Vice-President takes office. Rocky's time at the top would be brief -- in 1976, Ford would dump him from the presidential ticket and Rocky would retire from politics completely. He returned to NYC, lived in his Upper East Side townhouse, and died in 1979 while banging his secretary -- oh, no, sorry, "working on his memoirs."

Enjoy.  

Ghosts of the NYPD Past

This blog, and others like it, love to reminisce about the old days in NYC, when the city was cheaper and funkier -- yes, it was much more dirty and dangerous but at least it was more accessible and more vibrant.

So often it feels, when you look at old movies, TV shows, and documentaries about NYC in decades past, that it's like looking through a fun-house mirror at a place that's both near and distance, familiar and foreign, so close and yet so far. And the feeling you get, or at least that I get, is that that NYC, that period in the city's life, whatever it is, whenever it was, is well and truly over -- buried if not forgotten. 

But what if the past isn't fully over, what if the ghosts of decades-old NYC are still haunting us?

Such is the case of a former NYPD cop named Bill Phillips who, in the early 1970s, testified for the Knapp Commission and helped to expose massive corruption in the department. Unlike his contemporary Frank Serpico, a truly honest cop who blew the whistle about his dirty colleagues, Phillips was as dirty as any of them -- but, when he got busted, he agreed to tell the commission everything he knew in exchange for immunity. Lots of corrupt cops got in trouble from his testimony -- and they got their revenge.

According to this fascinating article, a year after Phillips testified, he was charged with a double homicide. He was accused of bribing a hooker and her pimp who weren't, allegedly, paying him their shakedown money. He was convicted and went to prison for decades. But he has maintained his innocence and the evidence it making it clear that he was intentionally framed by his fellow cops. It's a heartbreaking story of an institution meant to protect us but that, like most, is only interested in protecting its own.

To this day, more than 50 years since the murders and more than 50 years since Phillips went to jail, he is fighting to clear to his name (he was released years ago but his conviction stands). He's a very old man now but he's adamant about fighting for his innocence. Even today, half-a-century later, the NYPD is resisting coming clean about this, delaying and denying him justice. Phillips may get exonerated eventually or not but it's reminder that some of the old problems of old NYC haven't gone away -- and that the present NYPD is still very much like the past NYPD.

And it's a reminder that the past in NYC is never fully gone. 

What if New York City was a Country?

A couple of interesting facts you'll discover among many others in this fascinating video: if NYC was it's own country, it would have 2 million more people than Singapore (a real city-state), and NYC would have the 19th biggest economy in the world.

In many ways, in terms of population and economics and cultural power, NYC really is its own country, a mini super-state all its own.  

Gotta Love New Yorkers

Recently, during an Uber ride, my driver's phone rang and up popped the picture of a pretty young lady with the name "Mybaby."

Awww. He didn't take the call but I should have told him to do so. I'm sure "Mybaby" would have appreciated it. 

Subway Series 2022 - Game 1

The Loeb Boathouse Restaurant Closes -- For Now

Sad news: the Loeb Boathouse Restaurant in Central Park is schedule to close in October.

Originally built by Calvert Vaux in the 19th century, the boathouse has been rebuilt a few times, most recently in the 1950s. The restaurant has been a favorite of New Yorkers and tourists, and there's nothing more enjoyable than having an admittedly high-priced meal on a beautiful day in front of the lake, the park and skyline of the city surrounding you. 

The restaurant, like all of them in NYC, got hit hard by COVID in 2020 but it recovered. However, rising costs have apparently hollowed out its finances, even with record patronage. The Parks Department, which leases out the restaurant space, is looking for another vendor but I don't know how any other vendor could make it profitable. It'll be interesting to see what replaces it -- if anything. It's an invaluable location and a great space. I could see it becoming some kind sandwich or grill stand with lots of tables, or maybe a bar. But a full service sit-down restaurant with a kitchen staff and waiters and bus boys everything might not be economically viable anymore. 

I have a special memory of the Loeb Boathouse Restaurant -- it's where my wife and I treated ourselves to lunch after learning that our first child would be a girl. It was a gorgeous summer day and we couldn't think of a more enjoyable place to celebrate this life-changing news.

The Loeb Boathouse Restaurant was also immortalized in popular culture in a scene from the 1989 classic movie When Harry Met Sally ... While not as notorious as the Katz's Deli scene, I can't think of a more beautiful restaurant scene set in NYC in any movie ever.

I hope the restaurant comes back one day but, for now, enjoy this clip from its glory years. Farewell for now: 

How to Survive an NYC Heatwave

Review: "The Minutes"

Fourteen years ago, in the first year of this blog, I reviewed August: Osage County, a brilliant epic Broadway play about a dysfunctional family in Oklahoma. It was a coup for its playwright, Tracy Letts, whose career subsequently exploded as a writer and actor -- he popped up on shows like Homeland and in other Broadway plays like Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? There was even a big movie version of August with Meryl Streep and Julian Roberts (and produced, darkly, by Harvey Weinstein). 

Now Letts is back on Broadway, as a playwright and actor, with The Minutes which I just saw this past weekend. 

Like August, The Minutes is an intense experience but it's not a family melodrama -- it's more in the vein of 12 Angry Men or God of Carnage where a bunch of people get together to resolve a simple problem and, before you know it, all hell breaks loose, derailing into insanity. The Minutes is about an otherwise routine council meeting in a mid-size town called Big Cherry (its location in the United States is left purposely unclear). The meeting goes sideways when a young, impressionable councilman asks about the disappearance of one of their colleagues who, we soon learn, dug into the history of Big Cherry and discovered, well, something unpalatable.  

I'll leave the plot at that -- you have to see it to experience its shocking revelations. But the play is a brilliant example of pure talent at work. The writing, acting, and stagecraft are perfect, making for an enthralling if quite disturbing experience.

Letts plays the frightening mayor of this town and his polar opposite is played by Noah Reid, recently seen in the show Schitt's Creek. Reid is excellent in what is arguably the toughest role in the show, and he makes for a great emotional entry point and center in a play that is about the savagery of human corruption. Also in the cast are Jessie Mueller (who mostly does musicals), the legendary Austin Pendleton, my personal favorite Blair Brown, and others. Everyone in the cast is giving a chance to shine but it's ultimately Letts and Reid's show -- they are the duality of humanity, the darkness and the light, and represent the competing forces that have shaped the country and society we live in today. 

I really want to read the text of The Minutes since its writing is quite intricate and brutal -- but, as a theatrical experience, you won't soon forget it.

PS. I was originally going to see this play when it was scheduled to open in April, 2020. Obviously events intervened so I was glad to finally see it two years and three months later.

PPS. The character played by Noah Reid was originally to be played, in April 2020, by Armie Hammer but he got into some personal trouble and was subsequently "cancelled" -- and obviously his role was recast.

PPPS. I saw this play at the Studio 54. Interestingly, I saw the revival of Cabaret  at Studio 54 in 1999 and that show also featured Blair Brown -- so, for me,  Studio 54 is now the Blair Brown Theater. 

Moody NYC

The New York Times recently published a big article about ... how people are feeling.

About how they feel about NYC and their lives in it.

The "paper of record" wanted to gauge the "mood" of a city of 8.8 million people by speaking to a number of folks you could literally count on your hands and, from their anecdotes, come to a striking broad-based conclusion about the "mood" of all the residents of the nation's biggest metropolis. (Oh, they spoke to people in each of the five boroughs so I guess that makes it more "broad-based.")

The "mood" appears to be that everyone is freaking out about crime, everything is terrible, and no one can afford to live here. This attitude is so completely at odds with the reality of the evidence and facts on the ground -- crime remains at historic lows and more people live here than ever before -- that I'm stumped at the most respected paper in the city and country passing this off as journalism.

This kind of journalism is weird -- you never saw it before until the age of the Internet and social media. But perhaps there is something in the air in NYC that's making everything feel a little ... off.

Take, for example, our wacky mayor.

It turns out that he has a secret office in Brooklyn, right across the bridge from City Hall in Manhattan. This is honestly no big deal, mayor's have had hideout offices before (heck, Nixon famously didn't work in the Oval Office but in a little one off the Old Executive Office Building), but for some reason Mayor Adams kept it a secret for reasons that make no sense at all. Adams does a lot of weird things like hiring ethically dubious people, insulting low-skilled workers, lying about being a vegan, not being clear about where he lives, reiterating that crime is at historic highs when it's NOT ... and now this.

Adams is just a very weird dude and the city must be feeling very weird to have elected him. When you're the mayor of New York City, you are one of the most covered and criticized public officials in the country but the reality of this part of the job seems to have caught him entirely be surprise. He's secretive and ellusive and, honestly, I have no problem with wanting to maintain your privacy but, well, when you decide you want to be the mayor this isn't really going to be possible. But don't tell him that. 

So the mood in NYC right now is, in my humble opinion, contradictory -- people hate it here but more people than ever want to live here, the mayor doesn't want the press to cover him but wants to be seen everywhere, and day is night, up is down, and left is right.

So, honestly, my mood, the mood of this particular New Yorker, is confused and exhausted.  

James Caan RIP

Son of the Bronx, actor extraordinaire, James Caan aka Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, has passed away at age 82.

Ironically, even though he's best known for playing an Italian mobster, Jimmy Caan was actually Jewish. He was also great in movies like Rollerball, Thief, Misery, Elf and many others. A great talent and a real legend. RIP.