Unintentional NYC Icons

New York City has many icons, buildings and structures and places that define the city's image to the world. Think the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Flatiron Building, Times Square, Central Park, Radio City Music Hall -- the list is endless. Elsewhere there's the Colloseum in Rome, the Houses of Parliament in London, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, you get the idea -- iconography is just one of the things that makes great cities great.

But why? Why are they so important?

Because, in their way, they tell the story of the city, they define them -- and they link the past to the present, the present to the future. They endure -- for the most part. The destruction of the World Trade Centers and the burning down of Notre Dame in Paris were so tragic because these strong images of their respective cities were violently wiped away. It wasn't just the physical destruction and the awful deaths, it was that the sense of the cities and their identities had become unmoored, the cities' physic roots had been pulled out. 

Icons are not only part of their cities's identities but of their residents and visitors as well. 

And yet ... some icons are unintentional. Sometimes a store or something else becomes so beloved, so integral to the commmunity it exists in, that it takes on icon status. 

A few examples that have been in the news recently:

The Paris Movie theater, that elegant, wonderful little place right across from the Plaza Hotel and Central Park, recently closed -- an NYC icon that had vanished. But it's been saved -- thanks to Netflix! It's become so integral to the neighborhood, a small bastion of culture and respite in the middle of a busy commercial area, that its closure made many so sad that Netflix decided to ride to the rescue. So another NYC icon endures ... for now ...

Then there's the Astor Place K-Mart. Now Astor Place is about as funky downtown Manhattan as NYC gets and the K-Mart, which opened in 1996, was considered a square intruder into this land of the tragically hip. But overtime, as it usefulness to the neighborhood become apparent, it became a much-loved, much-frequented icon. The fact that K-Mart is so uncool is what made it cool. But sadly it's going away, soon to be replaced by a Wegmans. An icon, a very unintentional of sorts, fading away.

Fortunately there's something else nearby that's remaining -- the Ralph Lauren billboard on Houston Street. It's so huge, so in-your-face, and the designer's ads on it are so gorgeous and sexy, that it's become an icon all its own. Celebrities and models feel that they have "made it", not when their ads appear on TV or in magazines or online, but when their ads appear on this billboard. Its power is in its size and shamelessness, "the medium is the message." Its iconic status comes from its sheer boldness, about as NYC as trait as there is. 

So NYC icons aren't always pre-planned, carefully built structures -- sometimes they arise out of utility and the profit-motive, and yet, when they do, the joy they create makes them icons of the city, icons of our hearts.  

Delilah, NYC's Radio Love Guru

Ya' gotta love this broad. 

Every weeknight, for five straight hours, the radio DJ Delilah plays the world's sappiest and most popular love songs -- and she scores major ratings and makes tons of cash doing it.

Delilah isn't actually based in NYC -- she apparently does her show from a farm in the Pacific Northwest and is syndicated around the country -- but her nighttime show in NYC is so popular that it's been on the airwaves (on WLTF 106.7 Lite FM) for fifteen years.

In radio years, that's many eternities. 

The centerpiece of Deliah's show are the dedications -- people call in and ask Delilah to play a song for their love -- either the one in their life or a long lost one -- hoping, one assumes, that the l'object d'amour will actually hear it and be moved to tears. Other times, it's a dedication to a friend, a family member, someone who means or meant something to the person in the past or present. You get the drift -- it's about appreciation, caring, and a hope for comfort, and connection in a brutal, cruel world.

While it's easy to mock a show like Delilah's, think about this: it's been on the air for so long that it must mean something to a whole lot of people. Also, Delilah is one of the last big-time personality DJs, the kind who were actually celebrities in their own right, who have basically been wiped off the dial by podcasts and music streaming, etc.

She is the inheritor and practifcians of a great, fading tradition and, in many ways, I'm grateful that Delilah, the music she plays, and the audience that adores both are still around ... for now.  

Mayors Make Announcements -- De Blasio 2021, Lindsay 1971, La Guardia 1941

 

Thank You!

Over the last few weeks, readership of Mr NYC has spiked tremendously -- like exponentially. 

I know if it's bots or some kind of joke but, assuming real live human bein's are reading this here blog, all I gotta say is, to each and every one of youse, is THANK YOU! 

Eric Adams on The New Yorker Radio Hour

Brooklyn Borough President and NYC Mayor-presumptive Eric Adams just did a long interview with David Remnick of The New Yorker on the magazine's radio show/podcast. In this interview, Adams refers to the city as "dysfunctional" and how he plans to make it functional.

It's the kind of high-flying rhetoric, the kind of Ialonecanfixit braggadocio that all aspiring chief executives in government promise when on the cusp of power. They yammer on about how "the system is broken" but some way, some how, with some magical powers that only they possess, some great wisdom and superior skill inherent within their person, are going to change decades, if not centuries, of government "dysfunction" and incompetence and make everything perfect -- or at least what their idea of perfect is.

Here's the dirty little secret: most of the government is functional. It provides more services, does more stuff, than anyone can possibly conceive -- and, like plumbers, does it so well that we don't notice unless there's a problem somewehre. The problem is that governments are big institutions, and all big institutions possess a level of inherent dysfunction, or at least strategic incoherence, because you have literally thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands (like the NYC government) doing myriad things at once. It's impossible just to change of all that, easily, if at all. It's like trying to turn around an aircraft carrier -- but much, much harder.   

So good luck, Mr Adams. Assuming you're elected in November, we'll check in on how "functional" you've made the city in four years. 

Staten Island Stubborn

When the history of COVID-19 finally appears in the history books, the summer of 2021 will be seen as the time when the pandemic, which could already be 100% over, got stuck in the mud.

Nearly 200 million Americans are fully vaccinated but now -- with the nasty Delta variant out there and huge swaths of the population refusing to get a shot -- we are backsliding. The infection rate is rising and, in some places, restrictions are being reimposed. We were making great progress but it's being put at risk, again, by stupid people, by the COVID deniers and vaccine refuseniks.

In NYC nearly 60% of the population is either fully vaccinated or has had at least one dose. But here, like everywhere else, there are pockets of recalcitrants who won't get vaccinated -- and it's spreading to the rest of the city.

And the biggest pocket is Staten Island.

The "forgotten borough" is making its presence known this summer by having vastly higher rates of unvaccinated and new COVID cases than the rest of the city. The politically conservative borough, our very own Alabama, has an arrogant "Don't Tread On Me!" stubborness and meanspiritedness that's keeping the pandemic going. These folks on Staten Island would rather die in order to "own the libs" than stay healthy and end this nightmare. They like making everyone else as miserable as they are.

It's cruelty personified -- and for, these stubborn people on Staten Island, that's the whole point.

So when the history of COVID-19 in NYC is written, and people wonder why NYC fell off the vaccine wagon, the finger can and should be firmly pointed to the city's smallest and most stubborn borough. 

Melanie Safka: Astoria, Woodstock, & "Boogie Nights"

Astoria-native Melanie Safka is one of those under-the-radar singer-songwriters whose name you don't readily remember but whose songs you know -- especially her 1972 hit "Brand New Key."

Yet three years before that big success, Melanie played Woodstock, one of only three female solo acts to perform (the others were Janie Joplin and Joan Baez -- great company). 

Melanie didn't die young like Joplin or have quite as colorful a life as Baez -- she just wrote and performed great songs, and continues to do so to this day. 

"Brand New Key" appeared in a VERY MEMORABLE NSFW scene in the 1997 movie Boogie Nights -- and the song is even sexier than the scene, truly, the the most sexy song of all time. 

The Battle for Hart Island

Currently the most hotly debated development plan in NYC has nothing to do with new highrise buildings or stadiums or convention centers -- it has to do with that 1-mile long island off the coast of the Bronx called Hart Island.

Small and remote as it is, Hart Island has a storied history -- it was a training ground for black Union troops during the Civil War and, more recently, actual missilles were stored there during the Cold War. However, the island is best known as a potter's field where poor dead New Yorkers found their final rest. In addition, the island and its 19 buildings have been used for drug rehab, tuberculosis and psyche patients, prisoners, the homeless, and juvenile deliquents. 

Basically, the history of Hart Island is a history of a place that's out-of-sight and out-of-mind, just the kind of place where society likes to put people it wants to keep out-of-sight and out-of-mind.

It's those 19 buildings that are the subject of this controversy -- they are old, very historic, imbued with lots of architectural and actual history. But they're also decrepit, unused, and unsafe. Now the city wants to tear them all down and turn the island into a wildlife and graveyard preservation refuge, part of something called the Hart Island Project. Others want to retain the buildings and turn it into an historic attraction.

Both ideas would be noble uses of this oft-forgotten part of the city and, of course, only one vision can prevail. The controversy is currently bogged down in protracted arguments over process, public hearings, transparency rules, and lots of other boring legal stuff.

But the result will be fascinating -- either Hart Island will become a gorgeous natural habitat or an amazing site for previously unknown NYC history. 

For more Mr NYC coverage of Hart Island, go here. 

Skyline Haze: Western Wildfire Smoke Hits NYC

Gotta Love New Yorkers

Read this great story about a volunteer group of people bringing cheap, non-commercial Internet -- or "guerilla Wi-Fi" -- service to low-income residents of the city. 

People like this give me a shred of hope for humanity. Find out more about NYC MESH.