Reggie, Ed, Steve, Rupert, the Blackout, and Son of Sam: New York City in 1977

New York is a forward-thinking city, but in 2007 many a New Yorker's mind is turning backwards. Nostalgia is taking hold for the year 1977 - perhaps the most seminal year in the city's almost 400 year history. In life, sometimes everything happens at once: in 1977, so many things were happening, so many social, cultural and political events were occurring - that the city is still catching its breath today. Even those not yet alive or (like yours truly) not old enough to remember, will recognize what the New York of 1977 wrought. If you want the full, in-depth story, I highly recommend the excellent 2005 book Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning by Jonathan Mahler (now showing as a mini-series on ESPN called "The Bronx is Burning"). Here at Mr NYC, we'll give you a thumbnail of that remarkable year:

• Long before he created the Fox network, and three decades before he tried to buy The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch bought The New York Post. The Aussie enfant terrible acquired the old liberal broadsheet from long-time owner Dorothy Schiff and turned the paper founded by Alexander Hamilton into a conservative tabloid. The Murdoch effect still resonates today: he went on to create Fox News and helped to make American journalism more sensationalistic and openly partisan.
  

• In 1977, little known Congressman Ed Koch stunned the city's political establishment by defeating Mayor Abe Beame and future New York State Governor Mario Cuomo in the Democratic primary. Koch would then serve as Mayor for the next twelve years.
  

• Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager emerged from the outer boroughs to create the now legendary Studio 54 in April, 1977. The nightclub became synonymous with 1970s club culture and disco decadence - it was the place to be seen, the place no one could get into, the place where anything and everything was permitted. Today, every hot club in New York or anywhere else exists in the shadow of "54."

• In 2003, New York and the entire eastern United States suffered a blackout. But it was mild in duration and chaos compared to the blackout of '77. In the broiling July of that year, riots and lootings and mayhem raged, and it looked like the world's greatest city was literally and figuratively melting. It stands in stark contrast to the relatively peaceful New York of today.
  

• If New York City is remembered for one thing in 1977, it's the Son of Sam murders. The deranged David Berkowitz stalked women and couples at night and senselessly murdered them. He taunted the police with notes he left behind and he became the city's first serial killer in decades. Columnist Jimmy Breslin made his reputation with his breathless coverage of the Son of Sam case, and like the blackout riots, it became symbolic of a city literally destroying itself.
  

• Two classic New York City movies were released in 1977. Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" transformed and defined the urban romantic comedy for the rest of the 20th century and also managed to win a few Oscars (including Best Picture). Also, "Saturday Night Fever" came out, capping the zenith of the disco craze, and making John Travolta a movie star and the Bee Gees chart-toppers.
  

• Finally, in 1977, slugger Reggie Jackson joined the Yankees and gave the city its first World Series win since the Mets in 1969.
  
  It marked a glorious end to a rough but historic year in NYC. And the city hasn't been the same since.
  

The History and the Power of 1977

Almost fifty years ago, the journalist Gay Talese published an explosive book about The New York Times called The Kingdom and the Power: The Story of The Men Who Influence The Institution That Influences the World. It was an expose about the people behind the mighty newspaper, the power behind the power, the rulers of this informational kingdom. Who were these people? Where did they come from? What did they do? How did it affect us?

In the mid-aughts, another journalist named Jonathan Mahler published a book about New York City in the pivotal year of 1977 called Ladies and Gentleman, the Bronx is Burning. It summed up how, in that one year, Rupert Murdoch took over the New York Post, Ed Koch got elected mayor, the cultural powerhouse Studio 54 opened, the Son of Sam killer was caught, the quintessential New York movies Annie Hall and Saturday Night Fever were released, and the Yankees capped the year by winning the World Series. It was an amazing year, the first full years of my life, and it profoundly affected how NYC was governed and perceived in the decades ahead. I blogged about it extensively here in 2007. 

But that year, and that time, was even more extraordinary than we realized even as late as 2007. Because back then the seeds that would come to rule not only NYC but our entire country were being planted.

As previously mentioned, the movie Annie Hall was released. The impact of that movie on our culture, the entire genre of late 20th and early 21st century romantic comedy -- ironic, revisionist, and sometimes even non-romantic -- was born. Who could have guessed, back then, the impact that movie would have on American culture? Who could have guessed that Woody Allen would still be making movies and winning Oscars 40 years later? And yet here we are.

This was also the year that a young radio DJ named Howard Stern began his broadcasting career. He wasn't in NYC yet, he was stuck at a little radio station in Westchester, but 40 years later he is the absolute King of All Media and one of the most powerful people in American culture.

But there was a dark side to accompany this cultural excitement. In 1977, NYC was still reeling from the 1975 fiscal crises when the city nearly went bankrupt. Never shy to seize an opportunity, this was the time when the rich took back control of NYC. No longer did the unions, the working people, and the political clubs run this town, at least not absolutely; instead, the financiers and the real estate developers asserted their clout, and austerity policies were forced upon the city's populace along with more lenient rules for the aforementioned financiers and real estate developers -- one of who was named Donald Trump. He was a product of that time, a time when the rich brushed away the impediments to their greed while the common people were trampled underneath it. Today, NYC and America are more economically unequal than ever -- and Donald Trump is, horrifyingly, president of the country.

The power of today started here in NYC in 1977. In many ways, that year, that time, has never ended. History is forever present. 

Remembering "79 Park Avenue" (1977)

The 1970s and '80s was the Golden Age of the TV mini-series, as I recently blogged about. In many ways, it started specifically in 1977 with the historic mini-series Roots, a powerful saga about the history of slavery in America. Later on there would be other big historical TV epics like North & South, AD, The Winds of War, and others.

Then there was stuff like 79 Park Avenue.

Debuting the same year as Roots, 79 Park Avenue does not get the same kind of cultural respect. It's about a young woman trying to "make it" in NYC and decides to do so by becoming a Madam. It's a trashy story based on a trashy book. SEX! REAL ESTATE! NYC! SOFT-FOCUS PHOTOGRAPHY! 

All the feels. 

What's actually interesting about the series is that it was produced in the '70s but based on a novel published in the '50s about a story set in the '30s. It's a nostalgic-look at a nostalgic-look about a nostalgic-look of NYC.

It also stars the character actress Lesley Ann Warren and even Raymond Burr in a non-Perry Mason role. 

What's also fascinating to realize is that, even though this series is totally forgotten today, it scored an audience of between 16-20 million people on the nights in October, 1977 is was broadcast. Today a show that gets half that many viewers is considered a huge success -- so, by today's standard, this would be a blockbuster.

Ed Koch Governor Campaign Commercial

As everyone (ha!) knows, today is the run-off for the Democratic primary. And everyone (no, really) is talking about whether or not Governor David Paterson will or will not run next year for a full term. He may or may not and Andrew Cuomo may or may not challenge him in a primary.

Right now, talking is all people can do.

Thinking about a potentially contentious, history making primary involving a Cuomo for governor and a former Lt. Governor, I think back to the 1982 Democratic primary for governor between Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch.

Cuomo and Koch had run against each other for mayor in 1977 and Koch obviously won. In 1981, Koch was triumphantly re-elected and set his sights on the governorship (Governor Hugh Carey was retiring so the job was open). But Mario Cuomo had other ideas for Mr. Koch. After his defeat in 1977, Cuomo became Cary's Lt. Governor and decided he wanted the job for himself. He and Koch met again in a primary and this time Cuomo won. Like Koch, he went on to serve in the job he won for twelve years.

This is a 1982 commercial for Koch for Governor. It's kinda lousy so no wonder he didn't win.

Mae Brussell: Son of Sam and the Birth of Conspiracy Theories

One of the truly scary things about President Trump -- besides him being racist, sexist, gross, and a liar -- is that he apparently believes in wild conspiracy theories. He believes in the "deep state" that is somehow trying to undermine his presidency; he believed, during the 2016 Republican primaries, that Senator Ted Cruz's father was somehow involved in the Kennedy Assassination; he believes that massive voter fraud cost him the popular vote in the election. Trump is a Black Helicopter/New World Order/Illuminati-type nut job who, simply put, believes things that just aren't true. He's nuts. And he's the most powerful man in the world!

How did we get here? 

Well, believing in crazy conspiracy theories is nothing new in American life. There are media people (Art Bell, Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, the entirety of Fox News) who have for years peddled insane conspiracy theories to the public in order to goose up ratings and profits. What's horrifying about Trump is that he's the first to do so to win votes to the world's highest office. But literally the mother of all conspiracy theorist, the one who started it all, was a woman named Mae Brussell. 

An otherwise undistinguished housewife from Southern California, Brussell became unhinged by the JFK Assassination of November 22, 1963. She read over all 26 volumes of the Warren Commission and, by 1971, she was hosting a radio show in Southern California that was all about unwrapping government conspiracies.

Her timing, it goes without saying, was fortuitous. A few genuine conspiracies were about to hit. In 1971 the Pentagon Papers were released, shedding light on government lies about Vietnam. In 1972, the Watergate Scandal broke, leading to the first presidential resignation in history in 1974. In 1975 the Church Committee revealed decades of CIA "black bag jobs" and sordid operations that only heightened the people's distrust of their government. And, in this fetid environment, conspiracy fetishists like Brussell thrived.   

And it hit close to home. 

From 1976 to 1977, a serial killed dubbed Son of Sam terrorized NYC. He was eventually caught on August 10, 1977. Five days later Brussell offered her own conspiracies about what caused David Berkowitz aka Son of Sam to murder people: in short, Son of Sam was, in fact, part of a program of government assassinations, a "test tube baby out on the streets", who was practicing new and better ways to kill people for nefarious government ends. And she does the usual conspiracy theorist things: she talks about how many things attributed to Son of Sam were "impossible", how isn't it suspicious that there other slayings around the same time as Son of Sam, and on and on and on. You should listen to the whole thing here. It's off the wall! 

Interestingly, Brussell was a left-wing conspiracy theorist and, today, the most potent conspiracy theorists are on the right. I say, crazy and crazy. People like Brusell preyed on people's fears and made people (like the Son of Sam's victims) feel even more pain. And now this type of mindset is running the country! 

So, the more things change, the more they stay the same or, to put it simply, the crazier things get, the crazy stays the same.  

Brooklyn is Still Not Expanding: "Annie Hall" at 30

This past week will go down in history as one of the most awful in recent memory - campus and work-place shootings, an exploding death toll in a misbegotten war, a lying attorney general, an out of control celebrity - oy vey! as we say here. Madone. However, on a more pleasant note, this week also brings us the 30th anniversary of Woody Allen's masterwork "Annie Hall" -- winner of the 1977 Academy Award for Best Picture and an-all time classic.

It's the ultimate New York movie, and a flick that helps us appreciate the perpetual madness of relationships. Why do we keep entering into them when we know we are just setting ourselves up for heartbreak And what is it about the city that's so enduringly romantic? Woody doesn't give us any answers, and he doesn't claim to understand why. Instead, the brilliance of the movie is its appreciation of a part of human nature that we will never understand but will always keep trying to. "Annie Hall" is truly timeless, a movie that makes us love being in love.

Of course, the New York of 2007 is a much different place than that of 1977. We are no longer, as Diane Keaton said in the movie, "a dying city", but instead a thriving metropolis. Crime is way down and real estate prices are way up. We've gone from Democratic unionists Mayors to Republican billionaire Mayors. People are no longer fleeing New York but arriving in their millions. Much has improved but also some things have been lost. We've gone from rent-controlled apartments, mom-and-pop stores, and automats to Starbucks and Duane Reads on every corner and "Got Milk?" ad campaigns in the subways.

Got eggs?

Remembering Rocky

Wacky governors and Vice-Presidents have been in the news a lot lately -- including one particularly bizarre Governor who might have been Vice-President. We've heard all about the various financial, ethical, and zipper problems that Blagojevich, Palin, Sanford, and Spitzer have suffered in the last year. And whether its the sinister, creepy Dick Cheney or the gaffe-a-minute Joe Biden, our Vice-Presidents have been providing lots of comedic fodder to keep the American people amused. All this talk of Governors/Vice-Presidents got me thinking about the last New Yorker who ever served in high office. That would be Nelson Rockefeller, "Rocky" as he was known popularly known, who was Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 and then Vice-President under Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1977. His last name tells you everything you need to know about his background. Born to amazing wealth and privilege, Rocky was at the very top of the very top of the ruling class. Elected New York State Governor four times, he tightened drugs laws, created the SUNY system, conserved huge amounts of land, built massive construction projects, and took Robert Moses out of power in 1968. He ran for the Republican nomination for president three times but lost in 1960 and 1968 to Richard Nixon and in 1964 to Barry Goldwater. Just goes to show you that money can't quite buy everything. Rocky's private was also a bit ... rocky. While he was still governor in 1962, he divorced his first wife and then married his mistress Margaret "Happy" Murphy the next year. As you might imagine, this was a considered a huge scandal at the time. In an era when America was still very much in a conservative 1950s frame of mind, venerated politicians -- and a Rockefeller no less! -- simply did not dump their wives and marry younger women. It was considered quite gauche and had a lot to do with Rocky not getting the GOP nod in 1964 (which many people at the time felt he was owed since he didn't get it in 1960 and Nixon had then subsequently lost the general election to JFK). Rocky quit the Governorship in 1973, returning to his life of privilege and considering another run for president in 1976. But history came knocking on his mansion door. After Gerald Ford became president in 1974 when Nixon resigned because of Watergate, Ford tapped Rocky to be his Vice-President. Rocky was confirmed by the Congress in December 1974 and served until Ford left office in 1977. Sadly for Rocky, Ford dumped him from the GOP ticket in 1976, replacing him with Bob Dole and thus ending Rocky's political career. Rocky returned to NYC and lived here for the last two years of his life. The circumstances of his death have became somewhat legendary. The official version is that he was found dead in his office on January 24, 1979 slumped over his desk while working on a book. In reality, he died on that day in his townhouse while engaging in an ... amorous embrace ... with his 25 year old secretary. So here's to good ol' Rocky, the last New Yorker who served in national office. He political career was impressive, his service to our state and nation admirable, and his private life worthy of the tabloids. And compared to our modern day politicians, he was unquestionably a giant.

Alison Steele, the Nightbird, on February 14, 1977

Valentine's Day 1977 was a Monday.

I was a new born baby, six weeks old.

Jimmy Carter had been president for three weeks. Abe Beame was mayor. 

The #1 song in the country was Manfred Mann's cover of  Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light". 

New York City had just begun one of its most historically important, consequential year's ever. 

And Alison Steele, the Nightbird, was in all of her radio glory, broadcasting on WNEW FM ("in ... stereo ..."). On this night/morning, she had dubbed herself the "Lovebird" and played romantic songs upon request and recited poems about love. She was at the top of her game, her voice confident, smooth and soothing, the greatness of her "theater-of-the-mind" on full display. 

Even almost thirty years after her death, and fifty years after this specific broadcast, she sounds as fresh and wonderful as ever, her voice truly timeless.

And she really touches your heart when she talks and plays music about love. A classic. 

David Garth: New York's Boss

Anyone paying attention to presidential politics for the last twenty years has born witness to the rise of the political consultant as celebrity. These are the campaign strategists, the brains of the organization, the men behind the curtains, the power behind the thrones who have helped elect -- some may use the term "make" -- presidents. No longer do presidents win elections themselves -- they are "made" by people of mystical genius and scary powers to influence an entire nation.

Lee Atwater made George Bush Sr in 1988, James Carville and Dick Morris made Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Karl Rove made George Bush Jr in 2000 and 2004, and David Axelrod made Barack Obama in 2008.

Some young budding politicos no longer dream of becoming president -- they dream of "making" them.

In NYC, mayors used to be "made" by the clubhouse. Political bosses like the infamous William Tweed in the 19th century and Carmine De Sapio in the 20th ran Tammany Hall and hand-selected candidates for mayor, oversaw their campaigns, and the results of the elections were basically a fait accompli. Since the fall of Tammany in 1961, the rise of party primaries, and the all-consuming power of television advertising, no longer do political bosses run the city from behind the scenes. Instead, the campaign consultant dominates.

Surprisingly, since 1965, one man has been responsible for helping to elect four of our city's last six mayors. Political strategist David Garth worked on the campaigns of Mayors John Lindsay (1966-1973), Ed Koch (1978-1989), Rudy Giuliani (1994-2001), and Mike Bloomberg (2001-2013). He has played a hand in determining who has run this town for 40 of the last 48 years.

Wow. Talking about reach. Eat your heart out Karl Rove (and company).

And not only that but Garth is responsible for not only making four of our last six mayors, he also helped to un-make the two others he didn't work for. Woe unto those mayors who ran against a Garth client: Mayor Abe Beam lost to Ed Koch in 1977 and Mayor Dinkins to Rudy Giuliani in 1993.

Put simply: the guy was good.

Why? Because he understood television and how to make his clients connect with voters and their concerns. He was a master of the sound-bite. He would create ads that summed up the problems the city's electorate faced and his potential mayor would offer a simple solution:

For example, in 1977, he had Ed Koch say in an ad: "Abe Beame says he wants four more years to finish the job. Finish the job? Hasn't he done enough?" In 1993, the Giuliani campaign slogan was "One City, One Standard."

Garth was something of a political chameleon for his entire career. He worked for both Republicans and Democrats and, for a man who dedicated his life to politics, his own political beliefs remained elusive. Unlike today's hot-shot political consultants who appear on TV and blab their mouths off, Garth shunned publicity, operated stealthily, and worked quietly to alter the course of the city's fate. And he did it for almost half a century.

Today David Garth is 80 years old and very ill. Although the mayors he worked for are known to every New Yorker, Garth is a mystery man to 99.9% of them. But his clients want that to change that: recently Giuliani, Bloomberg and Koch got together to start a fundraising drive to create a special professorship, a "chair" as it is known, at CUNY named after the man who made their careers (David Dinkins was noticeably absent for this event; Lindsay and Beame have been dead for years). I

If their plan works out, Garth will be remembered by our city's educational system for years to come. (Although why billionaire Bloomberg can't fund this chair himself is just strange.)

So know you know more about the man who made or unmade our city's last six mayors. If our city has had a political boss for the last forty-plus years, then it was him. You may hate or love the men he elected mayor but, whatever your feelings, you can't deny that David Garth made NYC what it is today.

Remembering Ben Gazzara

Almost all of my blog posts this week have been about actors so I think I'll end the week by writing about one more -- the late, great Ben Gazzara.

The quintessential character actor, Gazzara had a long and impressive career. A native of NYC, a child of Italian immigrants growing up in Kips Bay, Gazzara got his start in local theater and the Actors Studio before his big break, starring in the original production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955, directed by Elia Kazan.

Numerous plays, films and TV appearances followed through the 1950s, '60s, and 70s, including A Hatful of Rain and movies with the John Cassavettes including the classic Husbands in 1970 and Opening Night in 1977. 

Gazzara's brief flirtation with movie stardom happened in the 1970s when he starred as Al Capone in Capone (1975) and the Peter Bogdanovich classic Saint Jack in 1979, playing an American running a prostitution ring in Singapore -- a thriller about the depths of human greed and depravity. 

Gazzara continued to work into the 1980s and 1990s, and I became aware of him when he had another golden era in the late 1990s with such classics as David Mamet's brilliant thriller The Spanish Prisoner, the super dark comedy Happiness by Todd Solandz, and as the sleazy Jackie Treehorn in the The Big Lebowski.

Then in 2002 he won an Emmy for his role in the HBO movie Hysterical Blindness.

A few years later I saw him on the Broadway stage in a revival of the Clifford Odets play Awake and Sing! He was an adorable, charming presence in that first-class revival. 

Gazzara died in 2012, leaving behind an amazing body of work. A great NYC, the last of a great acting breed.

They Made the City a Better Place

Apologies if you are starting to think that Mr NYC is turning into some kind of extended obituary page but recently two New Yorkers died who certainly merit recognition -- two New Yorkers who made this city a better place.

The first is a woman named Betty Corwin who, almost 50 years ago, came up a with a simple and brilliant idea -- record Broadway shows and put them into a catalogue at the New York Public Library. She spearheaded this program and ran it for years. Generations of theater fans and professionals were then able to go to the library and watch shows they would otherwise never had seen -- the lightening in a bottle that is great theater, captured forever thanks to her. Rest in peace.

The second is a man named John L. Keenan, a former soldier and NYPD police detective. If you made a movie about this guy's life (someone should) it would be easy to sell: he landed at Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion back in 1944, he was a lifelong buddy of JD Salinger's (fellow D-Day survivor), and then, in 1977, he caught Son of Sam -- he actually made the guy confess! What a life! What a legacy! 

WTF?!

So it just snowed in NYC -- in May, 2020. Snow. In May. That's normal, right?

Well, it hasn't snowed in May in NYC since 1977 -- 43 years ago. And it was the coldest day in record in NYC since 1947 -- 73 years ago.

Along with the COVID-19 crises, and the Donald Trump presidential nightmare,the snow in May makes it's easy to ask, "WTF is going on?!"

Right now life in NYC feels like the first few minutes of the 2001 Tom Cruise movie Vanilla Sky -- I think we'd all like to stand in the middle of an empty Times Square and yell.

Moses & Caro Speak!

This year marks the 50th anniversary of The Power Broker, Robert Caro's brilliant book about the career of NYC master builder Robert Moses. 

I've blogged A LOT about Robert Moses over the years and you can find it all, including my own review of The Power Broker, right here (there's also a big exhibition about it at the New-York Historical Society). 

When Caro wrote in the book in the last 1960s and early 1970s, he was a young man looking to reveal the story behind how Moses built NYC. By this time, Moses himself was an old man, looking back at his controversial legacy. 

Now, fifty years later, Moses is long dead and Caro himself is an old man, looking back on the legacy of his book about the man and what he did to NYC.

Below you can see a 1977 interview that Moses gave to publica television about his career and the book that made him infamous. And then you can watch a very recent 2024 interview with Care reflecting how his great book came to be. 

Original Siskel & Ebert Review of "Saturday Night Fever" -- 1977

Woody's Oscars

You know I love Woody Allen and his movies. As someone who pretentiously calls himself Mr NYC, it would be a crime not to.

So Penelope Cruz just won an Oscar for her turn in Woody's Vicky Christina Barcelona. She makes the sixth performance to win an Oscar in a Woody movie. The other winners?

Diane Keaton for Annie Hall (1977)
Michael Caine for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Dianne Wiest for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Mira Sorvino for Mighty Aphrodite (1995)

The number of actors and actresses nominated for Oscars in Woody movies is also huge. Woody himself for Annie Hall, Maureen Stapleton and Geraldine Page for Interiors (1978), Mariel Hemingway for Manhattan (1979), Martin Landau in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Judy Davis for Husbands and Wives (1992), Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly in Bullets Over Broadway, and Sean Penn and Samantha Morton in Sweet and Lowdown (1999).

If there are any others, I don't remember. But that's a hell of a list. (And that doesn't take into account all of Woody's writing and directing Oscars and nominations, which I certainly can't remember).

So that's six wins in thirty-one years, or a win roughly every 5.17 years. Considering that there are hundreds of movies released each year and a couple dozen nominated for Oscars every year, that makes his track record all that more impressive.

Making of the Mayor 2025

This blog has existed for two decades under three different NYC mayors. Unsurprisingly I have a blogged from time to time about the mayors and the elections that make them.

You can read that archive here. 

Currently there is a very crowded Democratic primary for mayor that includes a Muslim Socialist, a disgraced ex-Governor (and they're the frontrunners), yet another doomed Comptroller, and a bunch of Others. In some ways this primary resembles the 1977 mayoral election -- an unpopular, failed mayor who has become so irrelevant that the question isn't should he be replaced but by who, and lots of people are running to be that replacement.

And one of them might be a guy named Cuomo. 

Recently there was a contentious debate amongst the candidates, and it's clear how high the stakes are for each of them -- and the city.

But the bigger, more unanswerable question is "what makes a good mayor?" 

Elections and campaigns are all about who is the best, most appealing candidate but, sadly, that doesn't always translate into doing the best job. And as this article states, most of all, New Yorkers think being a good mayor means being a good manager. They think the mayor should essentially be a great COO, making sure that city services are delivered consistently and well, keeping the metaphorical trains running, supervising the machinery of government and ensuring its smooth operation.

Here's the dirty secret: managing the city isn't really the job of the mayor.

Part of the job of the mayor is appointing the people who manage the city, and then appointing the people who manage the managers. The real job of the mayor is to make policy, to sign or veto laws passed by the City Council, to work with the state and federal goverment to get the city money and laws favorable to it, to be the city's main cheerleader and public spokesperson -- and to handle all of the politics that flow from all that.

In short, the job of the mayor is not to manage the city on a daily basis -- it's to determine the course of its history for years and decades to come. Mayors need to be big picture thinkers, visionaries, conducting the great orchestra of city government, policy, politics, and media -- not just be its manager. 

Sadly whoever becomes the next mayor will be not have the same kind of robust local reporters covering them. For example, the great NYC muckraker Tom Robbins has died. He wrote, on and off, for the Village Voice for decades, and who lifted the stones and looked underneath what was going on in this city for decades. His kind are becoming obsolete and this city, no matter who runs it, will be all the poorer for it. 

 

Henry In the Heights

Lin Manuel-Miranda is probably the most famous son of Washington Heights.

The other is Henry Kissinger.

The 1970s US Secretary of State, who died at age 100, was a refugee from Nazi Germany when his family settled in Washington Heights in 1938. Henry only lived there a few years, going to George Washington High School (other alumni include Alan Greenspan, Harry Belefonte, Maria Callas, Ronnie Spector, and Manny Ramirez) before heading off to Harvard and foreign policy fame and fortune.

Amazingly, Kissinger's mother lived in Washington Heights until she died in 1998!

After Kissinger's historic run as Presidents Nixon and Ford's National Security Advisor and Secretary of State from 1969 to 1977, Kissinger returned to NYC and lived in style as a foreign policy "consultant" and advisor, a sort of international wise man. He was capital-R Respectable, an icon of the high society circuit, and consulted by Presidents of both parties for his foreign policy wisdom -- mainly due to his role in opening US relations with China in 1972. 

Of course, during his time in power, Henry also oversaw the carpet bombing of Cambodia, the defeat in Vietnam, and encouraged right-wing coups in Chile and Argentina that led to decades of dictatorship -- he was responsible for an incalculable number of deaths. His fans say that he was simply a practitioner of realpolitick, seeing the world as it is, not as we want it to be, and acting accordingly. His detractors say he was a war criminal who should have stood trial.

Well, whatever his legacy, Henry Kissinger was a child of NYC who made good in order to do bad.

Memo from NYC

As this presidential campaign reaches its penultimate days, Mr NYC has been looking at election nights past. Thanks to the glories of YouTube, you can look back at history being made, as presidents are elected and, in the case of the below clip, unelected.

We looked at 1972, the night the soon-to-be-disgraced Richard Nixon won a second term as president. This clip is fascinating for a few reasons: 1) Nixon carried New York state, one of only three times after WWII that a Republican carried the Empire State; 2) there's a short interview with John Ehrlichman, a top Nixon aide, who laughed off the Watergate story as something that would soon be coming to an end; and 3) a brand new senator from Delaware is elected, a very young Joseph Biden who is, of course, the current vice-president and will be on the ballot again a week from tomorrow.

Then we looked at 1996, the night that Bill Clinton won a second term. This clip is also fascinating because you see Donald Rumsfeld, one of the worst people on the planet, talking about how Bob Dole is still planning to win the presidential election -- even after he's lost. Shortly thereafter you see Clinton's brother Roger pondering his sister-in-law's possible political future -- and, of course, we know that Hillary would eventually become a senator from New York and eventually the secretary of state.

Now we take our final look at election nights past -- 1976. This was the night that former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter defeated President Gerald Ford. Ford had become president only two years earlier after Nixon had resigned in disgrace because of Watergate -- the same story that John Ehrlichman had previously laughed off. Ford was the first incumbent president since Herbert Hoover in 1932 -- forty-four years! -- to lose. This clip is interesting because apparently, at this moment, Ford was fast asleep in the White House and didn't even know that he was out of a job. It's also interesting because there was some controversy about ballots being cast in New York that the Ford campaign was making some noise about having re-counted. This never happened, obviously, and the controversy died quickly. Carter became president in 1977 and lost re-election to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

And, of course, there's 2008, and this clip literally speaks for itself.

Now we look to the future. A week from tomorrow the country will be voting for president and, it goes without saying, that we must re-elect President Obama. The idea of Willard Romney as president is horrifying: he will destroy Medicare and Social Security, strip women of their reproductive freedom, probably start another war in the Middle East, and implement anti-union, ant-worker laws. His ridiculous tax policies will only make the deficit worse, and he will re-introduce the a level of government secrecy that is practically fascistic. 

If you liked George W Bush, you'll love Willard Romney.  

Of course, Willard doesn't want you to associate him with Bush -- who wants to be associated with the one of the worst presidents in American history? Willard would have you believe that, even though both he and Bush are Republicans, that they have very little in common.

Don't believe it.

As this article smartly indicates, Willard is running very much in Bush's shadow. Bush haunts him. Bush overwhelms him. And this isn't surprising. After all, Willard is basically promising to restore the Bush policies that did so much to damage this country while trying to distance himself from the man. It's a tightrope to the White House that Willard deserves to fall off of. Bush and Willard are two peas in the same political pod and that's why it's vital that Obama win. 

Why would this country want to go back to the horror that it's only now digging itself out of? 

Obama has restored the economy, saved the auto industry, endorsed gay marriage and repealed "Dont Ask Don't Tell", appointed two smart women to the Supreme Court, signed the pay equality bill, enacted historic health care reform, and ended the stupid war in Iraq.

And yes, he killed Osama Bin Laden.

That's a good record, worthy of a second term. Willard isn't worthy of a first. 

Let's hope America makes the right decision next week and that this will be an election night we can look back fondly at. 

Rock Rock Rockaway Beach

Mr NYC has never been much of a beach-goer, my preferred swimming venue generally being lakes. But now that summer humidity is choking the city, I thought it high time to check out one of our many local shoals and bake by salt water. A good friend directed us to Rockaway Beach on the south shore peninsula of Queens and off we went to the "Irish Riviera."

We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, the zenith time for beach crowds. Yet while the beach was heavily populated, it wasn't unbearably crowded. There was plenty of space for us to layout on our towels and lie down comfortably. Best of all, no one was blasting music or making a scene. Plus, the beach was clean, not much trash on the sand, so you don't always have to look under your feet.

And while you can wade in the water wherever you want, you can't swim everywhere on the beach -- just between certain sections divided by jetties, where lifeguards in bright orange outfits patrol the shore. If you are doing anything even the least bit dangerous, the lifeguards will loudly blow their whistles, keeping you safe. The waves and surf are intense so you need to be very careful when going in the water (make sure the "undertow" doesn't blow you off your feet). That said, once you do get in, the water is cold and refreshing.

We spent about three hours there and, man, it relaxed me. Although I still have some issues with sand (it really irritates my girlishly sensitive skin), consider me a beach convert.

A few things you should know about Rockaway Beach:

1. The lifeguard hours are from 10 AM-6 PM daily. The best way to get there is by car although you can also take the A train and walk a few blocks to the beach. If you do go by car, make sure to get there early -- while there's lots of free parking around, much of it is unavailable later in the day.

2. The neighborhood around the beach is not the best. Lots of people park around there so your car will be probably be safe but make sure you know where you're going, you don't want to get lost in this area.

3. Rockaway Beach has a rich history in books, TV, music and film: "Rockaway Beach" is classic 1977 song by the Ramones; Woody Allen's Radio Days is largely set near there; the classic Seinfeld episode "The Marine Biologist" episode centers on Rockaway beach; and the beach is cited in great American novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

4. There is another beach nearby called Jacob Riis Park. This is NYC's only beach with a topless/clothing optional space. If you're with a loved one or feeling naughty or just want to run free, you should check it out.

"Tomorrow" from "Annie", Original Production -- Andrea McArdle, 1977