WCBS Newsradio 880 AM Goes Off the Air

Classic Mr NYC

A few years ago Mr NYC interviewed two people who were involved in the 1980s NYC adult film scene -- Barbara Nitke, an on-set photographer, and Lynn Paula Russel (a.k.a. Paula Meadows), an English actress who appeared in several films before returning to England and starting a successful career as an artist.

Both ladies worked, in their very different capacities, with a big adult star of the time named Siobhan Hunter. A gorgeous young woman with long brunette hair, she was a mysterious, alluring, and absolutely gorgeous creature of 1980s NYC adult cinema. She appeared in several films from 1984 until the early 1990s, working with all the big names of the era (men and women), and developed a huge fanbase.

And then ... she vanished.

The rumor is that she went to medical school in Mexico and became a pediatrician, living a quiet life far from her days -- in mind, body, and spirit --  from her time as a big NYC adult star. 

Recently there was a short bio of her Siobhan posted to Youtube. You can watch it below and also read my interviews with Barbara and Lynn here.  

If you're out there Siobhan, Mr NYC would love to interview you!

Rainbow over Eastern NYC -- August 12, 2024, 7:29 PM

Keeping the Past Alive

I'm a lover of history, not just because it's the greatest story ever told, but because it links to and tells us so much about our present -- and where we're going in the future.

When you link past, present and future in something, you get a sense of timelessness, a touch of the infinite.

The ultimate links can be several things -- including documents or records of events created in real time in the past or of places where history has happened.

You might not think that a Greenwich Village political club would be a fascinating hub of history -- but it is. The Village Independent Democrats is more than 70 years old and has been responsible for producing very important New York politicians including Mayor Ed Koch. The club is now archiving its records, which include meetings with Jane Jacobs when she was fighting Robert Moses's Lower Manhattan Expressway and documents about other important political events both from Greenwich Village and NYC history. 

Also, a piece of NYC history that will hopefully see new life is the Metro movie theater on 100th street and Broadway. I remember this place as a kid and saw lots of movies there. It's a beautiful, unique, art deco theater with a beautiful stone insignia above it's huge marquee, the quintessential movie palace (it was even in a movie itself -- it's where Woody Allen goes to see a Marx Brothers movie at end of Hannah and Her Sisters, where he learns the meaning of life). Sadly the Metro has been closed since 2005 and multiple attempts to reopen it (including as an Alamo Drafthouse) have failed. However, there are currently negotiations to reopen it as a move theater/community space and it could be a great new addition to the Upper West Side which has, sadly, become something of a movie desert in the last several years. If it reopens, it will be a piece of NYC movie history living again. 

When past, present and future link together in NYC, you see and feel how truly timeless this city really is. 

Farewell, WCBS Newsradio 880 AM

Stranger Than Fiction

I know a lot of people think this story about Robert Kennedy Jr. dumping a dead bear in Central Park back in 2014 is funny ...

... but it's not. It's deeply disturbing and gross. 

He is a very sick man, a truly deranged individual, and to think that the scion of America's most famous political family would have done such a thing is mind boggling, truly stranger than fiction.

When this happened ten years ago it deeply confused and upset the city -- and this dude thinks it was a funny prank.

Now he wants to be president. Dear God. Here's the original story from 2014 -- ti wasn't funny then, and isn't now.

Mr NYC Ahead of His Time

Just last week I blogged about the difficulties that NYC Comptrollers face when they run for NYC mayor -- only one comptroller, Abe Beame, has gone to sleep in Gracie Mansion.

For more than half a century every subsequent comptroller has succumbed to the Curse of the Comptroller. 

Doubtless when each of these comptrollers were first elected they must have felt, elated with the flush of a great victory, that the mayoralty was their's for the taking (only to find, years later, that it was out of reach).

Well, the current comptroller Brad Lander must feel the same way because he's just announced that he's running for mayor in 2025. This is going to get nasty really quick -- and as unpopular and vulnerable as Mayor Eric Adams is, it could wind up with both guys heading to their political doom.

But remember, when pundits start talking about the difficulties comptrollers runnings for mayor have, remember Mr NYC wrote about it first!

The Bowery Boys Go to Holland

It's no surprise that I'm a big fan of the NYC podcast The Bowery Boys, blogging about episodes every so often and interviewing one of the co-hosts in 2018. 

Recently the boys did a series of episodes exploring NYC's Dutch roots by actually going to Holland and visiting the towns and areas where so much of this city's history began. It's a fascinating look at how much of the city we know today, the mightiest city in the world, came from this small European country -- and how this town was once a colony of a mighty overseas non-English speaking empire.  

America may have been born in the streets of NYC but, before NYC was NYC, it was a small Dutch town in the New World.  

After all, New York City used to be New Amsterdam, neighborhoods like Harlem came from  the Dutch town of Haarlam and the entire borough of Brooklyn came from a place called Breukelen.

And if you've ever read The Great Gatsby, it's famous last paragraphs, as Nick Carraway stares across Long Island Sound at the huge rich homes and the symbolic green light, he wonders about what it must have looked at, unmolested, for "Dutch sailors' eyes." 

I haven't listened to the entire series yet but plan to finish it soon -- and encourage you to do so!

Curse of the Comptroller

In the final season of The Crown, Prince Charles ruminates: "To be Prince of Wales is not a position -- it's a predicament." 

The same is true of the American Vice-Presidency. Much like the Prince of Wales, the job is mainly just to exist, to be ... there ... until the top job opens up ... or not.

Right now the American Vice-Presidency is under a microscope -- as President Biden steps aside, his Vice-President, Kamala Harris, is being vaulted to become the 2024 Democratic nominee for President (and, God willing, will be elected President in November). And President Biden, of course, was Vice-President just a few years ago.

And, yes, two years ago Prince Charles in real life became King Charles. 

Eventually the predicament of being #2, the understudy waiting in the wings, comes to an end, one way or another (for the previous Vice-President, Mike Pence, it almost ended when his President, Donald Trump, sent a violent mob to attack him).

As the 2024 presidential race gets hotter and wilder, the 2025 NYC Mayor's race is being quietly talked about. Mayor Eric Adams is not popular and several people are being spoken about challenging him next year. Amongst the rumored candidates are Scott Stringer and Brad Lander, the former and current Comptrollers of NYC. 

Much like the Prince of Wales or Vice-President, the NYC Comptroller is also a predicament. Now, unlike those jobs, it does have some real substance to it -- the Comptroller is the Chief Fiscal Officer of the city, overseeing the city's accounts, running audits of city agencies, managing the pension system, issuing bonds, reviewing and approving city contracts, etc. It's a very important position, and it's overall job is to make sure NYC tax dollars are spent legally, ethically, and transparently.

However, what makes the job a predicament is that it simply doesn't have the powers or glamour of the mayoralty -- the Comptroller is the CFO, not the CEO of the city, doesn't get to sign or veto legislation, doesn't get to set government policy, doesn't appoint agency heads, and doesn't get to live rent-free in a mansion. It's a job that's so close and yet so far from the top job, existing across a chasm that's a foot wide and a million feet deep.

On paper, the Comptrollership should be the perfect launching pad for the mayoralty. It's a citywide elected position, it has real power, and the comptroller's name is often in the media. And yet the last NYC Comptroller to be elected mayor was Abe Beame back in 1973 -- since then, almost every single Comptroller has run for mayor and lost, often badly. For more than half a century the #2 job, the job that seems like the perfect political stepping-stone to #1, has instead proven to be a political banana peal. 

Not for nothing, NYC political wags have come to believe in "the curse of the comptroller." 

Of course, in every election, there have been various, often forgotten reasons, why these Comptrollers have never become mayor. But it will very interesting to see if, next year, two Comptrollers run and if either of them can actually topple Adams and become mayor. 

If so, then the "curse of the comptroller" will be lifted. If not, it will be doubled. 

"Tonight Show" from 1968 in NYC