Richard Nixon Talks Mets Baseball in 1987

Mr NYC in Disneyworld

In the Islamic religion, Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia to see the Dome of the Rock; in Catholicism, the devout go to Rome to see the Pope give his weekly blessings and audiences at the Vatican; Jews head to the Wailing Wall in Israel and stuff letters into it; and in China, citizens make a pilgrimage to Beijing, laying flowers before the open glass coffin in Tiananmen Square where Chairman Mao lies pickled and wrapped in the hammer & sickled Communist flag.

And in America, we all at some point either make a pilgrimage to Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida or act alternatively embarrassed or proud of the fact that we haven't.

Well, yours truly finally made that great pilgrimage with the family in tow, where we spent five days in the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, standing on very, very, very long lines, going on some fun rides, seeing some cool stuff, and soaking up the pure Americana of the place.

In the Magic Kingdom, we took the Walt Disney Railroad around the park, also going on the Jungle Cruise and the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, doing one rollercoaster on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, enjoying the privacy of Tom Sawyer Island, then seeing the Hall of Presidents show, taking another cruise on the Liberty Square Riverboat, getting spooked at the Haunted Mansion, spinning around on the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel and Dumbo the Flying Elephant and the Mad Tea Party teacups, taking more cruises on "it's a small world" and the Liberty Square Riverboat, then racing around the Tomorrowland Speedway (twice), and getting shuttled around the Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover.

Two highlights of our time in the Magic Kingdom: we saw the Monsters, Inc Laugh Floor where an audience is brought into a live animated show where the Monsters, Inc characters tell lots joke, some of them submitted by the audience. Two jokes were chosen from the audience and one of them was from my daughter! Her humor is now officially IP owned by the Disney Corporation. So proud! Then, one night for dinner, we ate on Easter Night at "Be Our Guest", a Beauty and the Beast themed restaurant which is a massive, cavernous space of four rooms made to look like the interiors of French palaces, and where the Beast walks around. It's totally surreal -- made even more surreal by the fact that we were still eating at 9 PM when the nightly fireworks show started and the restaurant was right next to ground zero for it and it sounded like we were being bombarded by artillery shells during dinner. The meals at "Be Our Guest" or prixe fix and comes with a very cool desert trio where you can paint your own cup (made out of white chocolate) and also "try the grey stuff" that, as the lyric goes, "is delicious."

We also saw the Carousel of Progress which was originally staged at the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing, Queens -- and my mother informs me that she originally saw it there too!

In EPCOT (which stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), we enjoyed seeing the various "nations" which usually consist of replicas of buildings from them like a Mexican Inca palace (that includes the Three Caballeros water ride), Reflection of China (a temple), and Canada Far and Wide (a 360 degrees show about how big and gorgeous Canada is), plus many others. Easily the best two rides we took were at EPCOT, and they couldn't have been more different: the first was Remy's Ratatouille Adventure which is an amazing 3D ride where you rush around the floor of the restaurant in the movie -- just like Remy! -- and people constantly try (and fail) to catch you; the ride includes changes in temperature (like when you're near a stove) as well as smellovision, where the delicious scent of baguettes hits your nostrils quite strongly. It's an amazing experience, well worth the 90 minute wait. The other was a much more genteel, but beautiful ride, called Living with the Land which is a tour through greenhouse and fish hacheries -- Disneyworld actually grows of a lot of their own herbs and veggies, as well their own fish, that's served in various Disneyworld restaurants. They even do work with the FDA that has a presence at EPCOT. Also, on our last night, we had another French-theme dinner at a place called Chefs de France that had very good food in "bistro."

And we went back and forth from our hotel and EPCOT via the Skyliner, a vast array of airborne cable cars that fly you over Disneyworld and provide you with spectacular views. Given how high up we were, and that these skyliners are pure glass, my kids handled our trips on them very well.

Disneyworld is so huge it's impossible to see all of it on one trip. In addition to the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, there's also the Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, as well as beaches and malls and yacht clubs. The best reason to visit Disneyworld is simply to marvel at the sheer audacity of the place, the fact that one company, lead by one man, dreamed this place up -- this artificial city that arose sphinxlike out of the Central Florida swampland almost 50 years ago. It's a pure American invention, a cathedral of entrepreneurial hutzpah -- a reminder of how Disney has impacted our culture to an incalculable degree and that Walt Disney is one of the most important Americans who ever lived.

And Disneyworld does provide a beautiful vision for American cities that I wish existed everywhere "across the the fruited plane": free public transportation, walkable streets, plentiful bathrooms and water fountains, no guns, and clean streets. Plus we got lucky -- despite the rain, it wasn't too hot.

So I suggest that all New Yorkers, like so many Americans, make the pilgrimage to Disneyworld to see something amazing.

 

Remembering Mario Biaggi

I'm currently watching the Paramount+ mini-series The Offer and it's ... highly mediocre.

It's a 10-hour retelling about the making of the 1972 classic The Godfather, told mostly from the perspective of the producer Al Ruddy. Ruddy is played decently by Miles Teller and he's made out to be a hero, the genius behind ones of the greatest movies ever made (but my favorite performance is by Matthew Goode who does a great job portraying fellow Riverside Drive native Robert Evans, the flamboyant head of Paramount in the early 1970s who was responsible for overseeing the production of Love Story in 1970, The Godfather in 1972, and Chinatown in 1974 -- three movies in four years made that him a legend forever). The Offer would have you believe that somehow Ruddy is the reason for The Godfather's greatness, never mind that Francis Ford Coppola is the one who actually made it, and that Ruddy never produced another movie in his career that was anywhere near as good.

Also, The Offer is actually longer than all three Godfather movies combined!

Anyway, there's a minor character in The Offer that caught my interest -- the late Congressman Mario Biaggi who was the grandfather of Alessandra Biaggi, the former State Senator who destroyed the IDC in 2018.

Back in the early 1970s Biaggi was at the height of his prestige and power, a big-shot politician, a gregarious personality, and easily the best constituent-services Congressman NYC had the time. He was beloved, always won his elections easily, and seemed destined to become mayor. He also had strong connections to the real-life mafia, a "finger in every pie" kind of guy. 

And he hated The Godfather.

Biaggi thought that it demeaned Italians, made everyone think they were all gangsters,  and he did everything he could to stop it, including getting the movie's permits pulled so that the production couldn't shoot around NYC. Obviously he failed, but The Offer makes clear what a headache he was to Ruddy and Coppola, and how he was brought to heel by Joe Columbo, once he cut a deal with Ruddy to get the word "mafia" removed from the screenplay. 

This profile of Mario Biaggi ran in New York magazine in December 1972, the same year The Godfather was released and just before he ran for a mayor in 1973 -- a campaign he would ultimately lose to Abe Beame. Biaggi would continue in congress until 1988 when he resigned and was ultimately imprisoned for corruption. He died in 2015, still a beloved if somewhat controversial figure -- but he was the kind of old-school politician who was, at heart, a public servant, a man passionate about his community and city, a guy who did a lot of good -- even if he sometimes feathered his own nest and tried to derail a cinema classic.

Queens Man Arraigned

 

Mr NYC is Sweet 16 ...

 ... and one week old!

I missed this one because I've been doing this blog for so long but, yes, Mr NYC has now stalked the interwebs for sixteen years and is officially more than a year into the second half of its second decade.

This is CWAZY!

Anyway, since no one else will probably wish my happy birthday, I'll do it. Happy Sweet Sixteen!

Seymour Stein RIP

You may have never heard of Brooklyn-born Seymour Stein but, as the founder and head of Syre Records in the 1970s to '80s, you certainly heard of many of the bands and singers he discovered and signed to his label -- the Ramones, Talking Heads, Madonna -- MADONNA!, Ice-T, the Cure, Depeche Mode, and many more.

Without him, the history of late 20th century popular music would be very, very different.  

Stein has died at the age of 80, leaving behind an amazing legacy.

RIP

Queens Man in Trouble

Classic Mr NYC

It's hard to believe but it's already been two years since the COVID-19 vaccine began rolling out en masse. The world was still reeling although beginning, slowly but surely, to recover as millions of needles jabbed millions of arms.

This was before the dark anti-vax forces began to wield their disinformation weapons, aiming squarely at the ignorant. 

No, in this period of time two years ago, brief though it was, most (sane) people were scrambling to get an appointment to get the vaccine. This included, here in NYC, a mass vaccination site at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan.

Beth Fertig, then a reporter for WNYC radio, got her shot there and filed a radio story putting the vaccine and the vaccination effort into historical context, and what a great achievement it was. It was a simple but powerful story, and I blogged about it at the time -- and now, two years since the vaccination rollout and three years since the pandemic hit, it's amazing to see how right she was.  

Zoning Wars

Last week I blogged about the idea, proposed by Mayor Adams and others, that vacant office buildings in NYC that have lost tenants due to the rise of pandemic-related work-from-home be turned into apartments.

The cost of housing in NYC is still far too high, and the biggest reason is that for all of our city's density, it's actually not dense enough. People might think NYC is a place full of tall buildings  but most people don't live in them -- most people live in buildings less than 10 stories high or in single or two-family homes. NYC is highly "downzoned." 

So the other part of addressing the housing crises is "up-zoning" -- allowing for higher density housing development (especially near transit hubs). Governor Hochul has a proposal, as do others in the state legislature, that would include the building of more multi-family homes, apartment buildings, capping/reducing lot sizes, and just generally allowing more homes to be built (up to 3% every three years). This means that the NYC suburbs (and areas outside the city) could be dramatically changed over time, making this urban oasis even more urban.

It's a political minefield.  

The Not in My Backyard (NIMBY) folks believe up-zoning would reduce their property values, strain local services, schools, and transportation, and "change the character" of their neighborhoods (i.e. more non-white people). But the cost of housing in NYC is sky-high, it's out of control, and the city has built less housing in the last twenty years than Detroit (Detroit!). We've also built less than cities like Boston and Washington DC, other really expensive places. 

In NYC, everyone agrees we need more housing -- just not in their neighborhoods.

I doubt Hochul's plan will come to pass -- her proposals are modest but her critics are violently against it. And it just goes to show how and why it's nearly impossible to create more housing in this town. 

Farewell "Succession"!