It feels like forever ago but, earlier this year, as COVID-19 bore down on NYC and the world, medical professionals of all stripes were trying to figure out what this virus exactly was and how to treat it. One of them was Dr. Mary Fowkes of Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. She performed autopsies on COVID-19 victimes, examined their damaged organs, and figured out that using blood thinners could help treat the disease.
Dr. Fowkes' conclusions were correct, and many COVID-19 patients were helped as a result of her work. She had a long career in medicine but this was probably her biggest achievement.
Sadly Dr. Fowkes died very recently of a heart attack (and not, mercifully, COVID-19). The city and the world is better off for her work.
The holidays are now upon us, and this bizarre year begins to wind its way to its bizarre conclusion. After 2001 I hoped we'd never have to live through another year like that but 2016 and 2020 have given that long ago year a run for its figurative money.
COVID-19 in 2020 turned the world upside down and, hopefully, fingers crossed, deep breath, a Trumpless/vaccinated 2021 will start the process of turning it right side up.
New York City got hit real hard with infections, death, people fleeing, and businesses closing in 2020. But NYC has gotten hit hard a lot in the last 50 years -- bankruptcy, the crack & crime epidemic, 9/11, the financial crises -- and its always come back better than ever. This will happen again because this city never quits, never stops trying to better itself, no matter what obstacles are thrown its way.
Choose your cliche -- that's the truth.
Recently the hoity-toity magazine Town & Country ran a series of articles by and about a series of high profile New Yorkers about why they still love NYC in this time of trouble -- and will love it forever. It's fun to read the thoughts of people like Sarah Jessica Parker, Branford & Wynton Marsalis, Rosie Perez, Jay McInerney and others about how COVID-19 has made their love for this city stronger than ever.
This city, despite what some might say, is not done yet.
The 1980s remains the Golden Age of "teen flicks" -- movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 16 Candles, The Breakfast Club, Back to the Future, Weird Science,Pretty in Pink,Heathers, Say Anything ... and many others defined what it meant to be a teenager in the Age of Reagan. These movies remain classics for those of us kids raised in that decade, time capsules of youth in a time before the Internet, smartphones, and social media.
My personal favorite is Pump Up the Volume which came out in 1990. The story of an angry, depressed teen who broadcasts a pirate radio show from his bedroom was, in many ways, a perfect ending, a coda, for the '80s teen flicks era. Ironically Pump Up the Volume was directed by Allan Moyle who, in many ways, kicked off the decade of teen flicks ten years earlier with Times Square, his 1980 debut about two teenage runaways in NYC.
Starring Trini Alvarado and an actress named Robin Johnson (who had a brief career in the '80s before vanishing completely), Times Square is about a rebellious teenager named Nicky (Johnson) who winds up in a mental hospital with another teenager girl named Pamela (Alvarado). Nicky appears to be an orphan but Pamela is the daughter of a wealthy commissioner who is trying to gentrify Times Square. Together they escape the hospital and begin raising hell around the city, calling themselves the Sleaze Sisters. They throw TVs out of windows onto the the street, they steal, they work and perform music in a strip club, and they just act crazy. A nighttime DJ named Johnny LaGuardia, played by the brilliant Tim Curry, follows their exploits on air and discovers that one of them is the same person, Zombie Girl, who used to send him letters about how miserable she was. Johnny tracks them down, as Pamela's father desperately tries to find his daughter as well. Eventually, after several twists and turns, the Sleaze Sisters wind up performing a concert above a marquee in Times Square for their fellow teenage misfits, their rebellion embraced by the whole city.
Times Square is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a great movie. It's not even really a good one. But it has a great spirit, a lot of life to it. The performances are raw, intense, the characters believable. Johnson is really good, and Alvarado is good as a good girl gone bad. The biggest problem is Tim Curry as the DJ -- he's not in a lot of the movie which is a shame since Curry is such a great actor, and LaGuardia is a compelling character.
Also, as you might imagine, it's a lot of fun to see a movie set largely on the street of NYC forty years ago. It really was a different city back then -- it looked different, it felt different, it's totally uncognizable from today.
But the angst, the emotion, the rebelliousness of Times Square -- and what it means to be a teenager -- remains quite relevant today.
David Dinkins, the 106th and first black mayor of New York City, has died at the age of 93. He led an amazing life of service to this city, rising from the black power politics of Harlem to the steps of City Hall.
He presided over the city from 1990 to 1993, during a time of both great strife and great change in the city. Crime was high (thanks to the crack epidemic) and Dinkins expanded the police force. Racial tensions were much higher than they are today -- Dinkins did his best to alleviate them but the task was perhaps too big for one mayor during one term. And he also started the revitlization of Times Square, helping to transform the city into the glistening jewel box it is today. He was a transitional figure in many ways, a bridge between the rough and tumble days of the old city and its sleeker, more polished future.
Dinkins was a trailblazer, a gentleman, and a true servant of the city he loved and governed. RIP
Season four of The Crown has dropped on Netflix and much of the focus is on the doomed and beloved Princess Diana. She married Prince Charles in 1981, divorced him in the early 1990s, and then died tragically in 1997.
Dead for almost a quarter century, so famous that she's known simply by her first name, Diana still fascinates.
Diana was more than just the Princess of Wales and future Queen of the United Kingdom. She was an icon for compassion, for humanity, for the fragility of the human condition -- she was the princess of the world, the "princess of people's hearts" as she called herself, the "people's princess" as Prime Minister Tony Blair called her right after her death. The warmth and compassion Diana emanated made the world love her and she loved the world back -- her only problem was that the one person who didn't love her was her husband.
During her time as Princess of Wales and afterwards, Diana travelled the world constantly, meeting everyone and shaking lots of hands -- including those of AIDS patients which was something that a lot of people, let alone royals, didn't dare do back in the 1980s. And when she visited the USA, she often visited the most destitute and most vulnerable of our citizens, including those in NYC -- something that a lot of our own "royals" never did.
Diana came to NYC quite a lot during her life and it was always a big deal when she did. The city embraced her, she was always its most honored guest. One of the many tragedies of her early death and is that she was denied years and years of getting to come back her, to enjoy and watch the city change. Who knows, she might have even moved here at once point.
Of all her relationships, Diana and NYC made for a most glamorous pair.
Update from Momma NYC: "Dear [Mr NYC] - enjoyed your
Diana piece but I must be pedantic. A lot of articles and news stories referred
to "Princess Diana" but the real title is "Diana, Princess
of Wales"--she took her title from her husband. Only the children or royals
can be princesses, etc. It is rather complicated and I don't pretend to know
the details but it is definitely not "Princess Diana"--thought I
don't suppose it takes any difference now. Love your pedantic [mommy]"
Broadway is easily the most famous thoroughfare in NYC. Overflowing from Westchester and running from the most northern spot of the Bronx to the most southern tip of Manhattan, Broadway ties Manhattan and the whole city together, giving all New Yorkers and visitors a sense of direction, a constant North Star.
But as important as Broadway is to the identity and movement of the city, it is not the most impressive artery in NYC.
In the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, you can find major avenues that are more than roads but less than highways. They are marvels of city planning and building, amazing examples of NYC at its best -- places that belong not only to vehicles but also to people.
In the Bronx, the Grand Concourse traverses 5.2 miles of the borough running from 138th street in Mott Haven up to the Mosholu Parkway in Bedford. Sometimes called the "Park Avenue of the Bronx," it has also been compared to the Champs-Elysees in Paris -- a wide, long, beautiful street. It is populated with Art Deco buildings and other impressive structures, and was originally envisioned as a home for middle class NYC. It fell on hard times in the 1960s and '70s but has since had a rennaissance of new housing. The Grand Concourse is the glory of the city's most northern borough.
In Queens, Northern Boulevard is not quite as gorgeous or symbolic but is impressive nonetheless. It is, in fact, a highway, but doesn't always look or feel like it. Northern Boulevard starts at the westernmost part of Queens, at the mouths of the Queens-Midtown tunnel and Queensboro Bridges, and cuts straight through the entire borough. While stretches of its resemble a highway, it also goes through many neighborhoods of the city -- like Long Island City, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Corona, Bayside, and others -- where apartment buildings, stores, subways stops, and all the signs of city life exist. Queens is a vast, unwieldy borough but Northern Boulevard gives it a sense of order. It runs for over 73 miles, out of Queens and through Nassau and into Suffolk counties. But it is in NYC that Northern Boulevard gets its character.
You haven't really experienced Brooklyn, you can't really "know Brooklyn", until you've gone down Eastern Parkway. And the "park" part of "parkway" really is just that -- designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, they envisioned it as being an extension of Prospect Park, the park hitting the road (it was the first "parkway" in America, hence the name). It starts at Grand Army Plaza and runs through Crown Heights, ending in East New York near the Evergreens Cemetary. There are lots and lots of trees on the avenue, and many impressive buildings and structures along Eastern Parkway, including the Brooklyn Museum, the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. What's most amazing about it is whole massive and intimate it feels, how it is both at the heart of city life but also has a real park-like feel. It is Brooklyn's most amazing street.
New York City was built by people who envisioned the city as a gift to itself, a place that its people would not only live in but also enjoy. These great thoroughfares live up to the promise of NYC, the city of dreams, and show how dreams can often be realized here -- literally, on the streets.
A new addition to the category of NYC fantasia is the Netflix show Dash & Lily. I'm only blogging about it (briefly) because some people close to me really love it and it certainly is one of the odder entries into a long beloved genre of NYC as a magical playground.
The premise behind this show defies belief: two NYC teenagers meet -- but not really -- by entering "dares" into a red notebook that they leave on a stack of books at The Strand. This back-and-forth goes on a while, until, inevitably, they meet cute but with several twists along the way. It's whip cream for the soul, a vision of the city and its residents where everything and everyone is beautiful, beautifully lit, clean, caring, and just down right ... perfect.
The show takes place at Christmas time so it's even more idealic. Along the way, many NYC landmarks and vistas are lovingly exploited. What saves it from being totally silly is the quality of the acting and its wittiness. You should watch it if you want an NYC that will take you out of the COVID-19/Trump/economic depression horror show we're currently living in.
P.S. In case you didn't know, Dash and Lily are clear references to the late great writers Dashiell Hammet and Lillian Hellman who were lovers and partners for decades, both of whom were blacklisted back in the good bad old days. This Dash and Lily have it a littler easier.
Fascinating story about a former city councilman named Archie Spigner who had just died at age 92. Besides spending almost 30 years in the council, he was the great powerbroker in southeast Queens for decades -- making other council members, state legislators, and members of Congress along the way. He was also responsible for big projects getting done in the borough and for reshaping huge swaths of it. fa
Archie Spigner was the kind of power broker, the kind of power behind-the-throne, who fascinates me -- not famous or serving in high office but someone who those who do rely on, who knows where the power lies, and who make the city we all live in.
