Funky Town Redux

Over the years I've blogged a lot about how 1970's and '80s NYC was Funky Town. 

And Funky Town was a big, wild place! 

Here are some more examples of that time, that seems so far away and yet is right around (literally) the corner:

Back in those days trade school commercials were all over NYC television, like these for the Albert Merrill School and Apex Tech (that lovely set of tools is yours to keep after you graduate).

Then there's movies. A lot of great movies were shot on the streets of NYC back then -- The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Annie Hall, and Saturday Night Fever, just to name a few. As you might imagine, shooting them on location could be a challenge. Recently I read about the making of the 1974 original movie The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. You gotta love it -- it's an action movie that stars Walter Matthau and Jerry Stiller! It's a great NYC movie that mostly takes place on the subway movie but it was a tough movie to shoot in the fall of 1973 -- as this article points out. 

Talking about NYC movies of the 1970s, recently I was on the East Side and walked by The Copinette restaurant that has a plaque outside, commenterating its appearance in the 1971 Oscar Best Picture winner The French Connection.

And of course, there's The Sexy. 

Before AIDS closed them down, sex clubs were prominent around town. Here's previous Mr NYC interviewee and former adult film star Hyapatia Lee talking about her visits to Plato's Retreat and The Hellfire Club and the wild, sexy times she had in this town.

And talking about sexy clubs, one night in 1975 a young songwriter named Van McCoy went to the Apple's Apple nightclub and saw people dancing in an interesting way. He therefore decided to write a song called "The Hustle" and it became one of the most famous, beloved, and iconic disco songs of all time:

So there's just some more examples of Funky Town, a place long-gone but that will forever live in Mr NYC's heart. 

The Best of Mr NYC Years End

As the clock ticks down to 2022, something occurred to moi: some of my best, or at least my favorite, posts are ones that I wrote at the end of various years. They were, as you might imagine, posts full of ruminations of the year gone by and the one right over the horizon but not always -- sometimes they were interviews or reports of odd things.

So here are my favorite end of the year blog posts that you might enjoy going back and reading again:

On the last day of 2013, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg was leaving office and Mayor-Elect Bill De Blasio was preparing to assume it, I wrote a blog post about how the Bloomberg years had marked a "farewell to funky town", how the wild city of the 20th century had became the much tamer one of the 21st. I also wrote about the recent deaths of some prominent New Yorkers who, in their way, defined "funky town". Now Mayor De Blasio is leaving and Mayor-Elect Eric Adams will be taking over and, it's fair to say, funky town, especially in a COVID world, is well and truly gone forever. 

Then, in 2018, a strange event happened in NYC -- a huge blue burst of light exploded over the sky of NYC, literally electrifying it. It was a strange yet amazing thing to happen in those quiet days between Christmas and New Year's, a reminder that this city is always full of surprises. 

In 2019, in my last post of the year, I did an extensive interview with Hyapatia Lee, the former adult actress and current Native-American activist. She was, and remains, a fascinating person with an amazing life story. It was a real honor to interview her.

Finally, last year, after a year-from-hell and another year-from-hell coming up, I wrote about my distinct memories of December 31, 1986 which remains my favorite New Year's Eve ever.

And now 2021 is in the history books and 2022 beckons. Fingers crossed that things get better but, even if they do, we have a long way to go. 

Take Me Back to Funky Town

Mr NYC is nothing if not nostalgic. If you read this blog regularly then you know that plumbing the depths of New York's collective memory is one of my favorite things to do.

I'm not alone. For some reason, in the last few years, there's been a little boomlette of movies, TV shows, and other stuff that seeks to remember NYC back in what Tom Wolfe called the Me Decade -- the 1970s. Movies like 54, American Gangster, Summer of Sam, and the coming remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3; TV shows like Life on Mars and The Bronx is Burning (based on the book "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning"); and a new exhibit about John Lennon in NYC, all bring back memories of the city in that most of tumultuous of decades.

Call this anti-, or ironic, nostalgia.

NYC in the 1970s was supposedly not a pretty place. Literally and figuratively. According to history, the city was a horror show back then. You couldn't go outside without getting raped, mugged, molested, beaten up, or kept out of Studio 54. Robert Caro wrote in The Power Broker that the city was in "chaos and despair." Annie Hall in Annie Hall said it was "a dying city." That's when the city almost went bankrupt and President Ford told it to "drop dead" (he never actually said it but it made for one of the greatest headlines ever).

Apparently, NYC in the seventies just sucked.

Or maybe not. Maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe it was actually kinda great. Some people are looking back at this low, dishonest decade and thinking that for all the misery, there was something special about it. They want to go back to funky town.

One of these people is James Walcott of Vanity Fair. He has a great article and a slide show in this month's issue about NYC in the 1970s that remembers the city as a strange, exciting place. It hadn't totally and completely sold out to money like it would in the 80s, 90s, and the oughts. NYC back then was still a place that embraced funky people more so than now. This includes the band The New York Dolls and Walcott has another great short article about this band and the late, great CBGBs.

Reading this, I couldn't help but sigh a little. I don't remember NYC in the 1970s at all -- I spent the three years I was alive in it crawling and running around my parents apartment. All of the exciting stuff was happening downtown, far away. And while the city has in no doubt improved since then, for everything we've gained, no doubt, as Walcott says, we've lost something to.

So all we have now is nostalgia.

P.S. I managed to write two blog posts in a row with "funky" in the title. Good for me. Mr NYC vows to keep it (whatever "it" is, presumably this blog) quite funky indeed.

Classic Mr NYC

Ten years ago today I wrote one of my favorite blog posts -- Farewell to Funky Town.

It was the last day of the Bloomberg era, the end of a time of enormous change in the city. Mayor Bloomberg had taken office on January 1st, 2002, just months after 9/11, and the city was in full-recovery mode. By the end of his time in office, the look, feel, and life of the city had changed -- in many ways for the better -- but it had also become more expensive and difficult to live here, the city feeling more and more like any big international city around the world.

For the last ten years -- from December 31st, 2013 to December 31st, 2023 -- the city has been mostly the same as the Bloomberg era, except for the massive disruption and trauma of COVID.

In many ways, the last ten years can be divided into 2014-2020, and 2020 to 2024. COVID did something to the city's spirit, it enervated it, it seemed to bring up the decades of buried traumas of the past. Fear returned. Fears about crime, dislocation, seeing the city as failing. These fears are not in any ways borne out by reality -- NYC is booming more than ever. But these fears, exacerbated by the media and a new incompetent mayor, in this era of anti-progress, have had their impact. We haven't returned to "funky town", we've entered some new odd phase but I hope it ends soon -- and our city's great optimism returns.

Mr NYC Reviews the 20-Teens

Hard as it is to believe but, as the minutes tick down towards the end of the year, the second decade of the 21st century is ending and the third is about to begin. This very blog will also enter its third decade which, if you don't mind me saying, is something of an achievement.

So what happened in NYC during this past decade, the twenty-teens?

A bunch of stuff, some great, some awful. The New York Times has an interesting list of developments in NYC in the 20-teens that includes the following: the growth of ferry service around the city (good), the dramatic decline of retail stores and the preponderance of empty storefronts (bad), the phenomena of Hamilton that made Broadway relevant again (good), the rise of cashless businesses (neither good nor bad, just reality), the growth of massively tall, skyline-ruining "needle" buildings (bad), universal pre-K (great!), and others. 

One thing this list also includes is the sale of the Chrysler Building for $150 million after previously selling for $800 million. It's truly bizarre that a huge NYC iconic building could sell for less than the most expensive apartments in town and lots of other big name buildings. The reason? It's very old and has tons of structural problems, dramatically decreasing the value. This tracks another big-name purchase that was sold for way less money than one would expect -- the radio station WABC, which was sold for only $12.5, much much much much less than most buildings or apartments in this city. The reason? Very low ratings with an ossified, dying listenership, and practically zero growth potential in the age of podcasts and the Internet. The Chrysler Building and WABC, once mighty NYC institutions, were victims of the changes of this decade.

Another big-time radio station in NYC that wasn't just sold but vanished altogether was WPLJ, where I used to intern, another demographic/technology victim.

One thing about NYC in the 20-teens is that TV about this great city was better than ever: Mad Men, 30 Rock, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, and many others reflected the wild lifes and times, both past and present, of this town. 

New York City also lost of number of icons, some from death, some from infamy: Ed Koch, Lou Reed, Al Goldstein, and Stan Brooks all died during this decade, representatives, in their very different ways, of this city during the era I call "funky town." Of course, some other NYC icons are still alive but have fallen dramatically from grace: Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Weiner, Louis CK, and Charlie Rose all began the decade in great positions of power NYC only to end it in disgrace and irrelevance. 

The city also saw some physical transformations: Long Island City went from being a real estate desert to a real estate oasis. Hudson Yards opened, creating a brand new neighborhood in the heart of Manhattan. Pedestrian plazas and bike sharing exploded, literally changing the experience of the city streets. 

There were obviously political transformations: Occupy Wall Street (2001), a new mayor (2013), AOC and the Democratic takeover of the State Senate (largely due to elections in NYC in 2018), and naturally, a New Yorker was elected President of the United States but, instead of being a great thing, it was a national tragedy (2016). 

Sports: the Giants won the Superbowl (2012), and anyone remember "Linsanity" (also 2012)?

As always, a lot happened in NYC during the 20-teens -- some things historic, some things just moments in time. I have no doubt that NYC in the 2020s will be equally, if not more, memorable.

P.S. A couple of non end-of-the decade related stories you might find interesting: one is an obituary for an acclaimed activist-artist and another is a long story about how Robert Moses, in a rare feat of true public service, made the Met into the true "people's museum", marrying elite art with the masses, that it is today.

NYC on TV in the 2000s

This blog harps (perhaps too much) about the changing nature of NYC -- the gentrification and evolution of funky town into sterile city -- so I need not belabor that point ad infinitum. Yet as NYC has changed and evolved over the decades, popular TV shows have reflected this upheaval in numerous ways: think of the working class worlds of All in the Family and Night Court in the 1970s and 80s, to the more middle-class worlds of Seinfeld and Friends in the 1990s, to the luxe worlds of 30 Rock and Gossip Girl in the 2000s. Yes, TV has reflected the changing image of NYC back to ourselves for years and years, and we can't get enough of it.

And here is where I dare to be the contrarian to my usual feelings what's happening to NYC: TV shows about NYC have never been better. Certainly, they've never been this numerous (thanks generous tax credits!). Dare I sound a little too sanguine, just check out this list from Esquire magazine about the 20 best NYC shows from the aughts.

It's a pretty amazing bevy of quality (not that I've seen them all): think Mad Men, think Louie, think Girls, think the aforementioned 30 Rock, even think How I Met Your Mother (or, as New Yorkers might have said in the past, "Your Muddah'). Pretty great shows. And shows that bring to life the struggle and the promise of living and working in NYC, the glamour and the indignities, the valleys and the peaks. This list has some of my personal favorites, like Bored to Death and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. They keep a little funk alive.

If you haven't caught up this any of these shows, and you love NYC, you must watch them. They prove that while NYC might not quite be the town it used to be, the creativity and vitality of NYC is still very much alive.

NYC Cacophony: The Voices that Command Us

When you have a city of more than 8.5 million people, you're going to have a lot of different voices speaking in a lot of different languages. (In fact there are 637 languages spoken in NYC, as blogged about here). Anywho, for all the different tongues and babble that occurs simultaneously every day in this town, very few voices get the honor of being amplified above the din, of being given the chance to rise and communicate with the rest of the city.

Those voices are the few, the happy few.

Some of these chosen voices are obvious: politicians get a big public voice, as do radio and TV broadcasters, as well as rich and famous and notable people around town. They get the honor and the rare chance to talk directly to us, to share their ideas and opinions to the rest of us, to influence how this town thinks and feels about things, to permeate the consciousness of the city.

A few offbeat exampples:

It was just announced by the MTA that a variety of NYC celebrities like Jerry Seinfeld, Whoopi Goldberg, Awkwafina, even Judakiss (!) and several others will start making the routine announcements you hear on the subways and buses every day -- but with a funky, distinct, NYC personality-driven twist. This is a big, new, fun project to lighten up and uplift the citizens of NYC as they commute from place to place. These are a bunch of creative NYC voices that will be telling us to do routine things like watch our step, stand clear of the closing doors, socially distance, etc. 

Then there are the politicians: did you know that NYC has a cable channel and livestream devoted to the City Council? You can watch Councilmembers speak on the floor of the Council at City Hall or watch their hearings all day, every day. These are the voices that make the laws that we all live under, the voices that decide how much and on what the city's monies get spent. These are the real voices that command us -- and, if you so choose, you can listen in.

But not all the voices that command us do so to tell us what to do or what they are going to do to us. Sometimes the voices that command us do so by moving our spirit, inspiring our souls. For example, Allison Steele, the late great briliant radio DJ that I've blogged about several times. You can just go and listen to some of her old clips, from back in the days when she ruled the overnight NYC airwaves, and her gorgeous voices married to her kind words and gentle messages, forced people, in a good way, to feel better about themselves and their fellow human beings. Now that is a part of the NYC cacophony that we should cherish, always and forever. 

These are but a very select few examples of the NYC cacophony, the voices that command us but that can also inform, help, educate, and sometimes even soothe us.

Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, "Perchance to dream." In NYC there is no greater honor than "Perchance to speak, perchance to be heard."

P.S. I'm not really using the word "cacophony" correctly here (it means a mixture of harsh, discordant sounds) but it's one of those fancy sounding SAT words that I learned in days of yore so I'm shamelessly using it here. 

I like to watch ...

Tonight at 10 PM on PBS is a program (a repeat actually) of something called Dutch New York. As the title suggests, it's about life in our city when old New York was once New Amsterdam. It's also about how the Dutch influence on this city remains to this day. Even if you don't get to see the show, you should check out the website which has more info and interactive maps showcasing in detail what this city was like more than four hundred years ago.

Also, upcoming this Friday night on IFC is a new show called Portlandia, about a life in that lovely, quirky city in the Northwest. It stars Fred Armisen of SNL (seen below portraying out Mayor Mike) and Carrie Brownstein of the old band Sleater-Keanie. Last year I visited Portland and had a great time, blogging about it here. I hope this show captures the town's funky "alterna" spirit. As some have said, this is a town where the 1990s will never die and, as someone I know who lives there, it's the town where young people go to retire. Today Armisen and Brownstein did an interview on WNYC and they actually relayed my "retire" comment to them. Check it out! 

Interview: Lisa Cintrice on Her Adventures in Early ‘80s NYC

Forty years ago, New York City was a very different place. Dirty, dangerous, crazy, and too much fun for anyone’s good, this city was a cauldron of depravity, culture, and craziness. You didn’t live in NYC back then, you survived it – and no one survived it or had more fun in it than Lisa Cintrice.

A great beauty from Long Island and Queens, Lisa endured a rough childhood and made it to NYC, falling quickly into the adult film and club scene. She lived in the heart of Funky Town, a sexy and wild Bohemia, a time and place that has become mythic – although, as she makes clear, it came at a price.

Eventually, Lisa moved away and changed her life.

Lisa was kind enough to answer some questions about her life in early 1980s NYC, and she has some wild stories! She tells us about her early life, a memorable stunt she pulled off in Times Square, a unique record she holds, why she eventually left NYC – and also gives us the best advice about what all of us should do to get a great workout.

Briefly, tell us about your life. Who is Lisa Cintrice?

So Lisa Cintrice was an 18-year old adult actress who worked on 9 adult films and got a lot of publicity from how I got out of the army. I led a sheltered life as Lisa Vanasco and I ended up living the high life in NYC as a young adult actress known as Lisa Cintrice.

In 1981, still a very young woman, you enlisted in the Army but then, before shipping off, managed to get out of it in a way that literally made headlines - and got you TV. It’s a great “Only in New York” story. Even though I’m sure you’ve told it many times, please do share it here if you don’t mind.

So when I was 16 my dad went to federal prison and I got pregnant and married a man that was 26. I was very sheltered and naive. He became abusive very quickly so I left when I was 17.

At that point I had no direction in my life so I joined the army. I had 10 months before I shipped out. My husband's sister knew what happened, actually, she saw him punch me and pulled him off me. 

She asked if she could photograph me to send to her friend who worked with Oui magazine. I ended up getting a layout in Oui, and Peter Wolf took me under his wing and I ended up doing an adult film.

I went to my recruiter to tell him I was doing porn and wanted out of the army. I was told I had to go and I was also told not to link the army to my porn career.

Well, once I told Peter what the army said, he came up with an idea to get me out. Peter Wolf and Richard Milner did a press release where I was going to strip out of an army uniform in front of the army recruiting station in Times Square so that’s what I did.

I also was in every newspaper and magazine in NYC. I was going to be discharged but then I went on the Tom Snyder show. After Tom Snyder the army said if I stopped doing talk shows I would get a general discharge that turned honorable so I got out.

Truly, “Only in New York!” What was early 1980s NYC like for you? Did you find it scary, exciting, both?

I grew up in Queens and Levittown so the city was fascinating to me. I went to the city to shoot the Oui layout and literally never went home.

I ended up moving in with Tiffany Clark, Fred Lincoln, and Jean Silver. It was one big party to me intertwined with filming adult films. I honestly don't know how I survived.

Keep in mind I had just turned 18. Clubbing, coke, dancing at the Melody Burlesque, hanging out at Bernard’s which was across the street. Partied at Studio 54 and other clubs I don’t even remember. I had no fear. I would walk all over the city at all hours of the night not even thinking maybe it wasn't safe to be out alone at 3 AM.

I would end up in gossip columns because I was always taking my clothes off in clubs. Also spent a lot of time at Plato’s Retreat and the Hellfire Club which was an on-premise S&M club.

Those were the days!

Sounds like fun! I’m curious about two movies you made at that time: Mascara, about as NYC as any movie gets (it even has scenes on the subway), and Debbie Does Dallas 2 (a sequel to one of the most famous adult films ever). What are your memories of making those films?

I don’t remember much about Mascara. I remember I worked with Ken Yontz. He was Seka’s ex. I remember Lee Carroll and Tiffany Clark were in it. I haven't watched that one.

However, I do remember Debbie Does Dallas 2. I actually watched one scene and I will get to that.

So Bambi Woods clearly was only doing the film ‘cuz she needed money so it was obvious she didn't want to be there. I did a scene with her in a bath tub and Jean Silver and I bathed her with penis shaped glycerine soap so just imagine what we did with that soap LOL! I got the vibe that Bambi hated every minute of it.

I also had a scene with Ron Jeremy where I was supposed to give him a blow job. I told him I was going to deep throat him and he said not to do that because it was not possible and my teeth my hurt him.

Well, telling me I can’t do something is a sure way for me to do it. So I did it and that blowjob ended up in the book Only the Best by Jim Holliday which rates the best scenes in adult film. I was number 4 of the 5 best blowjobs. Number 5 was Marilyn Chambers and Ron Jeremy.

Now that is a very cool record to have! What made you move out of NYC?

I left NYC to tour with one of my movies and I was doing a lot of coke back then. I had a moment of clarity and chose to not go back to NY because I felt like it was too easy to score coke in NYC. I cut all contact with everybody I knew. I got sober, went to college, got married. I have grown kids, and I reconnected with my old crew a few months ago.

Was is hard leaving the city and the business?

It was hard at first because I didn't have job skills and I didn't want to call my family till I got my shit together which I did. Got sober, went to college, got married, had kids, and life is good.

It was difficult because of the publicity about the army and porn. The only time in my life that I was fired was from a bartending job where someone saw me in Debbie Does Dallas 2. I kept that part of my life private until recently when I finally felt ok to talk about it.

Do you ever visit the city and, if so, what do you think of NYC today? Do you miss anything about it? 

My dad died in 2016 but even though my dad moved to Los Angeles he kept a place in NY so I would go back every so often and see friends and family. I miss New York food the most.

You have a great Twitter account where you mostly chronicle your physical fitness regime. As someone who needs to get in shape, how do you get and stay motivated to exercise regularly – and what do you think makes for a great workout?

I have been lifting weights since I was 19 and I am 58 now. I posted my workouts to keep me accountable and, if it motivates someone, that's even better.

One thing about working out is the adrenaline you feel when your done training. I am addicted to how good I feel after. That feeling motivates me. I plan my workouts a week in advance so I don’t even have to figure out what I am going to do, it’s all on a list  I have good and bad days at the gym. Some days I am stronger than others.

You know you had a good workout when you feel energized. What I tell friends who want to be active is do it for 90 days and stick to the goals you choose. After 90 days it will become like brushing your teeth it will be habit. Think of it this way: there are 24 hours in a day so anyone can spare even 30 minutes to take a daily walk. Start slow and do what you like.

I love running, my husband swims, some friends bike. Do what you like so you look forward to working out. I need to follow this advice!

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about Lisa Cintrice?

I am finally at a place where can embrace my past and my future. I outed myself to most of my friends that had no idea. I have no regrets. I lived an interesting life, and if no one likes it then, oh well, life goes on.

Back in 1981 there were only about 200 people who did adult films. Now it’s really evolved where anybody can be a webcam girl. I am glad it’s getting to be more accepted. 

Lisa, you will always be accepted! Congratulations on surving so much so well, having so much fun, and creating a great life for yourself. You are truly an inspiration.

Thanks so much for talking to Mr NYC!

Mr NYC in Denver

It's been a while since yours truly hit the road -- working full time and raising two kids will cramp your wanderlust -- but last month some friends and I did just that and headed west. We ventured to the capital of the Rocky Mountain region, the Mile High City, better known as Denver, Colorado.

Despite traveling a lot in my younger days, including living in the Midwest for college and going to the West Coast several times in my teens and twenties, I'd never been to the Central Time Zone region of these United States. We settled on Denver because most of us had either never been there or hadn't gone for a long time. Denver reminded me of two other cities I've blogged about on here: the hipster-ish Portland, OR and the industrial Kansas City, MO. Like those cities, Denver is a repository for a certain kind of person, someone with ambition but someone who also values beauty and fun. People from all over the country settle in Denver. At one point, someone overhead me speaking and asked if I was from the East Coast. When I confirmed that I was, he said he was a transplant from Boston -- so there you go.

On our first night, we went to the Fillmore Auditorium and saw a great, rocking Irish band called Flogging Molly. This was one of the most crazy, out of control shows I've ever seen. Just as impressive was the Fillmore itself. It's a massive concert venue like the Bowery Ballroom or Irving Plaza but even bigger.  The only word to describe it is cavernous. There are maybe half a dozen bars (or more) inside the hall and there are big chandeliers that hang from the ceiling. If you ever get to Denver, I strongly suggest seeing a show there -- it's quite a scene.

Next day, after beating jet lag, we saw a baseball game at Coors Field in downtown Denver. There's nothing particularly special or distinct about this stadium but, when you're used to seeing baseball games either in the Bronx or Flushing, there's something very cool about seeing the Rocky Mountains right beyond the bleachers. After the game, we strolled along the main street (I believe it was called Market) and went to Union Station. Unlike train stations in other cities (the Union Station in DC comes to mind) this one is very small. However, if you sneak upstairs, there's an almost secret bar area where you can get some amazingly good cocktails. If you're ever in Denver, and want to find a nice quiet spot to hang, this one is perfect. More strolling followed, where went walked around Confluence Park. It's a not a particularly beautiful park but there are two small rivers that merge here -- hence the "confluence." This area is where, if the signs are to be believed, the city of Denver was founded.

The next day consisted mostly of strolling. Denver is the capital of the state of Colorado so we walked around the impressive capitol building. The seat of Colorado government borders the main downtown area and another neighborhood that can only be called "funky" -- lots of bars, restaurants, bookstores, and people walking around with long hair, ripped jeans, and tattoos. The capitol is right across the street from city hall, the two buildings almost in a face off, as these two photos taken from each vantage point will attest. Nearby are some contemporary art museums and the massive public library. On the streets are some quite interesting public art displays. 

A few blocks away is the American Museum of Western Art. From the outside, it looks quite small, basically a converted townhouse. But inside it's a multiple story museum with an incredible array of paintings by Western artists both past and present. Western art is true genre unto itself and, not surprisingly, it's highly influenced by the Renaissance and Hudson River styles. There are paintings of cowboys, Native Americans, settlers, land wars, even people making movies in the desert. Again, this is a place I highly recommend if you ever get to Denver.

We spent most of our final full day out of town in Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm not much of an outdoors/hiking/nature type but, I must say, venturing around this gorgeous preserve was a religious experience pour moi. The mountains and valleys, the glaciers, the lakes and forests combine to create an milieu and experience where you see and feel the true beauty of this world, God's handiwork (if you believe in God), the veil between heaven and earth worn thin. I've never felt more at peace, more mellow, than seeing this place. I hope these photos due it some justice. One day I hope to go back.

 

Finally, on our way to the airport, we checked out the Molly Brown Museum. If you ever saw Titanic or The Unsinkable Molly Brown, you know the story of this woman who married money and made something of it. Unlike the vulgarian in the aforementioned movie or the singing/dancing lady in the latter, Molly Brown was a woman ahead of her time: a feminist, a humanitarian, a passionate believer in education and civil rights; she was a pioneer woman with a pioneer spirit. Her house, located in a residential downtown neighborhood, is a tasteful and elegantly preserved home. It was one of the first historic houses that I've seen that had "modern" features i.e. a telephone, electricity, refrigeration.  Like its namesake, the Molly Brown house is a link from the past that stretches into our present and future.

One more thing about Denver that some of you might be curious about: I can confirm that, as one of our cab drivers said, people in this town "Love dat weed!" Colorado is one of a small handful of states in the union where recreational marijuana is legal and, as you might imagine, it's quite popular. There are dispensaries all over and the smell of "dat weed" is all over the city. Go to Denver and, if you wish, go get yourself some legal pot -- and realize why it's so dumb that it's still illegal in most of the rest of the country, including here in NY.

I enjoyed Denver and hope to return one day. We ate in lots of great restaurants and did lots of walking. If you're a New Yorker, that makes it an especially great town to visit.

Farewell to Funkytown: A Tribute to Ed, Lou, Al and Stan

As 2013 ticks away into 2014, our city is poised to get its first new mayor in over a decade. At the stroke of midnight, the Bloomberg era ends and the De Blasio era begins.

WNYC radio has had a great series of reports called New York Remade: Before and After Bloomberg. A lot has happened, both in the city and beyond, during these past 12 years. As the series' website explains:

On Jan. 1, 2002, when Michael Bloomberg was sworn into office, these things barely existed: iPods, Blackberries, pocket digital cameras. These things didn't exist at all: the Barclays Center, Citi Field, One World Trade, or the Gehry NY building.

People smoked, all the time, in restaurants and bars. Almost no one rode bikes, and T.V.-less yellow cabs drove down Broadway right through Times Square. Back then, a market rate apartment in Harlem was about $1,200 — about half of what it is today. Pizza was $1.50 a slice, same price as a subway token.

Carrie Bradshaw lived in a Manhattan brownstone, drank cosmopolitans and typed onto a black and white computer screen. The High Line was a rusted and weedy hulk, not the locale for furtive kisses for the "Girls" crew before they head home to Brooklyn. Adlai Stevenson High School still existed. The Success Academy and six hundred other schools did not.

You could be anonymous in 2001. Now, not so much. We are watched, everywhere, if not by security cameras, then by each other.

New York has been transformed in the last 12 years, in ways that are wrenching and huge and intimate.

Might I add: the city was also still reeling from 9/11. Ground Zero was a smoking hole with clean-up crews moving away the rubble of the old World Trade Centers and still finding bodies.

Back then, our city's biggest fear was getting hit by another terrorist attack. Now it's being able to afford to live here.

The first decade of the 21st century has been a profound transitory time for our city. I don't recognize the town I was born in the 1970s, and grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. The 20th century is but a faint memory now, another time that is both feared and fetishized in our collective memory. If you go back and watch movies made in NYC back then, movies like "Taxi Driver", "Do the Right Thing" and "Bad Lieutenant", it made NYC look like a nightmare. Now we go to movies like the recently released "American Hustle", set in the late 1970s, and you'd think the city was simply "funkytown" back then.   

Perhaps it was better, perhaps it was worse. Perhaps what we've gained in public safety, health, and schools has been lost in a sky-high cost of living, a bleaching of the culture, and a loss of communal spirit. The debate rages endlessly on. But one thing is clear: maybe we don't actually want to live in Funkytown anymore but we still want to talk about it.

And in 2013, four notable New Yorkers died who lives embodied the late 20th century city, who rode high during the era of Funkytown: former mayor Ed Koch, rocker Lou Reed, pornographer Al Goldstein, and news reporter Stan Brooks. They were four very different men, occupying quite different spheres in this city's life and imagination, but their lives and careers are essential to understanding that time in our city's life that is now so definitely over.

Ed Koch was mayor from 1978 to 1989. In his time, he improved the city's disastrous finances and built affordable housing. He had a proud legacy but was also very divisive. He was famously irrascible, screaming at anyone who disagreed with him, and he seemed to relish conflict with anyone who wanted it. Koch's natural successor was not his actual successor, David Dinkins, but Rudy Giuliani: both men polarized the city, setting black against white, rich against poor. The Bloomberg era has been markedly different both in tone and governance: race relations have greatly improved and he has openly supported gay marriage. As for the poor, Bloomberg hasn't played rich against poor: he's simply forgotten about the poor and forced them out of the city. (Problem solved.) So a governing style of quiet ruthlessness and embracing diversity has replaced the divisive, rough-and-tumble governing style of Funkytown -- and the man who embodied its spirit left us in 2013.

Lou Reed made his musical career in the 1960s and 1970s writing songs about drugs, death, bondage, and drag. His music was about the dirty and dangerous city -- and it was brilliant. As NYC changed and Lou Reed got older, his music became legendary not only for its great experimentation but also for its memories of the vanished city. The city of "Sally Can't Dance" and "Dirty Boulevard" is gone and now, sadly in 2013, is Lou Reed. But we'll always listen to his music and remember that time and its poet, a man who made lyrical beauty out of the decay of Funkytown.

Today, anyone can get porn on the web. My generation was the last that had to work hard to get its porn (usually by begging an older friend to buy a magazine from a creepy vendor and then hiding it under the bedroom mattress, stressing out that mom would find it when making the bed or discover us reading it when she called us to dinner -- let me tell you, it was stressful) but today's "yutes" can simply go online, search vast amounts of naughty content, and then hit the "Clear History" tab on their browsers when mom calls. The man who represented the mattresses-hiding time of porn was Al Goldstein, the foulmouthed pornographer and provocateur and New Yorker extraordinaire, who founded "Screw" magazine in the 1960s and then, from 1974 to 2003, hosted the racy cable show "Midnight Blue" on Channel J. He was gross and offensive and wanted you to know it. He was "the man" during the time when Times Square was a bastion of porno theaters and drug dealers. Al Goldstein became the symbol (for many) of everything that was wrong with NYC back then, the filth that Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver" so desperately wanted to wash away. Giuliani started the scrubbing in the 1990s with raids and new blue laws but, in the Bloomberg era, it was washed away by the Internet and gentrification. Goldstein's magazine and TV show didn't survive, and he literally became homeless as a result. But his recent death is a reminder of that time, of the sleaze of Funkytown, when the city was a wild place -- fun for some, revolting for others -- that is now clean and, for many, very boring.

And finally, Stan Brooks. You might know his name: he was a reporter for 1010 WINS radio news for decades. He had a great voice, one that was born for radio, and he reported on everything from the 1971 Attica Prison riots to the recent election of Bill De Blasio as mayor. Any history that was made in NYC over the last 50 years, Stan Brooks reported it first. If you ever saw the movies "Goodfellas", it's his voice that reports on the Lufthansa heist made famous in that classic film. Stan Brooks was the memory bank of this city, the man who explained what was going on in Funkytown to its residents. Now Stan Brooks is gone, along with the city he reported about for so long. We've lost a great reporter, a great New York voice, and a living link to our city's past.

As another great New Yorker, novelist Don DeLillo wrote: "It's all falling indelibly into the past."

The song "Funkytown" was a one-hit wonder released in 1980, a year when the city was deep in the era of Ed Koch, Lou Reed, Al Goldstein, and Stan Brooks, and when yours truly was just three years old. The song was written by a guy named Steven Greenberg for a band called Lipps, Inc who were all from Minneapolis and dreamed of moving to NYC. The song was an open love letter to the dream of this city, to its spirit and danger, to why people wanted to live here, even back then, the so-called bad old days. Just remember the first few lines:

Gotta make a move to a
Town that's right for me
Town to get me movin'
Keep me groovin' with some
Energy

You can't be funky without some energy, and energy was the essence of the Funkytown era -- the era that the Bloomberg years have so definitively vanquished

Now our city moves into a new era. Sadly, these four great New Yorkers won't be there to see it. But they made NYC an interesting place in the last decades of the 20th century, they gave the city its unique energy, and for that we thank them. 

Now, firmly in the second decade of the 21st century, and the dangerous energy of that time has been replaced by a safe apathy. We may not be going back to Funkytown anytime soon, but we need to shed the apathy and re-find its energy. That's the way we'll honor their legacies in the new era that's about to begin.

 

Funky Memorials in NYC

As works of art, memorials are usually very staid, conservative things. Since they are public exhibits and meant to remember the dead, obviously they need to be as tasteful as possible and offend no one. Thus most memorials, on strictly aesthetic grounds, are usually less than stunning l'objects art -- that is, of course, unless they are designed by someone like Maya Lin (who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC and the Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial in Atlanta).

New York City doesn't have a lot of memorials of note with the clear exception of the Soldier and Sailors Monument on 89th Street and Riverside Drive (I guess Grant's Tomb counts as a memorial, sort of). There's also the World War I memorial in Astoria Park and, of course, the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero is built slowly, slowly.

However, some regular people have taken it upon themselves to create their own memorials in NYC. In Bayridge, Brooklyn, there is a rather incredible memorial to 9/11 of Jesus cradling the Twin Towers. While one might question its artistic merit, there is no denying its sincerity.And if you look around town, on the streets, you might come across some bicycles spray painted in white. These are called Ghost Bikes and the are meant to remember cyclists and pedestrians who have been killed on the streets.

While some might consider these exotic types of memorials strange, in the end, aren't we kind of glad they're there? After all, who says you have to be boring when remembering the dead?

Where have you gone, LIC?

In NYC, real estate rules. How much space you have and how much you pay for it is the very essence of the Social Darwinism of this town. Forget the government - the real estate industry is the ultimate power here.

And its a maxim in the industry that real estate is all about location, location, location. Being the geographic and business center of the city, Manhattan is obviously the prime location. So you would think that a neighborhood that is only one subway stop away, literally right across the river from Manhattan, would be prime territory for people to live.

But it's not. Well, not until recently.

Long Island City is, as this article indicates, the "aging ingenue" of New York. It's been an up-and-coming neighborhood for thirty-years but has yet to attain the culture cache of neighborhoods like Park Slope. The reason is simple: it's largely an industrial wasteland. The streets are either cut up or overshadowed by the 59th street bridge, highways, and the Queensbridge housing project. There is no density in the neighborhood, no natural charm. It's stuck between Manhattan and the East River on one side and the more exciting, vibrant neighborhoods like Astoria and Sunnyside on the other.

However, as demand for apartments in NYC reaches peak demand, LIC is finally having it's moment.

Over the last decade, numerous high-rises have been constructed there and rich people are moving in, driving the prices up. The reason is simple: people want to live in NYC, people with lots of money in NYC want space, and LIC is there to service those needs. But the neighborhood still hasn't developed a real identity, it hasn't had the standard evolution of going from a neighborhood no one wanted to live in, to a cool neighborhood where hipsters, artists, and young people live, to a neighborhood invaded by wealthy Yuppies (think Soho, think Williamsburg). Instead, it's basically gone from poor to rich in less than six years. As the article says:

"All neighborhoods have that golden hour, a moment in time when they are poised between one incarnation and the next, a wild kind of adolescence when the possibilities are many and nothing is decided. This moment, of course, passes. The rents rise, and residents hunker down in their apartments, knowing they will never find such a good deal again; restaurants and shops stop experimenting. Caution prevails. People start to talk about how the neighborhood isn’t what it used to be, and change becomes an enemy.

Long Island City has never quite been able to achieve this moment—it has that sense of fleeting possibility, the last mad rush before the music stops, but it has remained forever on the cusp. Quite simply, it has never had the density, the busy sidewalks and cluttered cafés that make a neighborhood feel like it is the place to be at a particular moment. The party always seems to be happening somewhere else, where the people are.

Nor is it likely that Long Island City ever truly will, for the only means of achieving that density, building more high-end residential towers, is likely to wipe out that very wildness and sense of possibility. This may well be inevitable—a fate that was written by the neighborhood’s physical characteristics, the realities of the housing market and the larger economic forces that have pummeled the city. But it is, nonetheless, a loss."

I used to live near LIC and I can say, this is all true. And its sad, since LIC should be every bit as fun and funky as Williamsburg. This is one of the legacy's of Bloomberg's NYC: real estate ruling over community, money bludgeoning culture.

That's why its up to us to preserve and build our neighborhoods -- and not give into the powers that be. 

Never Sleeping ...

Several years ago I interviewed the authors of a book called Nightshift NYC about the city's overnight workers. This was in follow-up to another post I wrote about the romantic allure of NYC in the dead of night. It's such a beautiful idea: the big, crazy, multitudinous city becoming, for several hours, a kind of ghost town -- a calm, mysterious, lightly-populated dreamscape. 

New York City at night ... it's a subculture all its own. Not only was a book written about it but even the great Martin Scorsese himself made a movie about it! 

And speaking of movies, I recently recorded a movie off Turner Classic Movies that aired at four in the morning (having a full-time job and being a full-time dad makes staying up that late to watch a movie rather impossible). But while the movie itself was "eh" I LOVED the intro that TCM played just before it started. The intro even has a its own name: "Open All Night."

This intro perfectly captures what I love about NYC at night: the jazzy, funky, romantic, mellow vibe and mood; the soft visuals, the casual attitude -- everything about it is just right. If you want to know what NYC overnight feels like to me, this perfectly (in an almost cliched way) brings it to life:

Oh, and speaking about NYC at night, recently the Jimmy Kimmel show was taping in Brooklyn, and the always entertaining Howard Stern made a memorable appearance. Late night NYC isn't always so quiet:

NYC at night ... it's always interesting. 

A Great NYC Show: "Northern Exposure" at 20

It's so hard to believe but it was almost twenty years ago this summer when a funky little show called Northern Exposure premiered on CBS. Long before Sarah Palin, this was the thing that really put Alaska on the map (and was so much more appealing). And, ironically, it was also a great NYC show.

It was about a young Jewish doctor named Joel Fleishman who owes the State of Alaska several years of service in exchange for the state paying his medical school fees. At first he's going to be sent to Anchorage but then he's exiled to the tiny town of Cicely where he tends to the maladies of an eccentric bunch of people who wouldn't be out of place in NYC (take that, Wasilla). At its heart it was a New York Jew "fish out of water" story but it was also about how a bunch of people formed a special community and learn to love and depend on each other.

Northern Exposure was a funny, heartful show with razor sharp writing, great characterizations and, amazingly, it contained a lot of New York grit than most shows actually set here (take that, Friends). It lasted five years (1990-1995) and was really ahead of its time. Quirky shows like this were forerunners for later groundbreaking shows like The Sopranos, Lost and Mad Men and for that we owe it a debt.

Clocking the Passage of Time

 "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives ..."

Thus spake Saint Augustine. Or an old soap opera. Either way time has been passing quickly lately because life has been quite hectic lately and blogging has gotten away from me lately -- until now! 

But as I compose my first real post in over a month, the passage of time is very much on my mind -- and a couple recent events and remembrances have focused my mind on how people and things come and go, and either leave a lasting impression ... or don't. 

First, a passing: the brilliant screenwriter and movie director Robert Towne recently died at the age of 89. He wrote and directed several films but the movie that catapulted him to cinematic greatness was his script for the 1974 classic Chinatown (which I've blogged about here several times). Besides being the most perfect screenplay ever written, Chinatown is also probably the best American movie ever made about the dark soul of a city and the forces that shape it. While it's about LA and not NYC, the movie has echoes of the real-life works of Robert Moses in NYC and how, to quote Chinatown, "he made this city." Towne understood the giant, secretive, menacing forces that surround and suffocate us, how cities are largely the products of deeply corrupt and powerful men, and how all of us are subject to their will and live within their warped creations. Hence the movie's iconic final line "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown." But we'll never forget Robert Towne, his great legacy, and what "makes" our city. 

Second, another passing but one nowhere near as sad. As I've also blogged about several times, one of my favorite shows ever is the early 1990s sci-fic drama Quantum Leap -- about a brilliant scientist who travels back in time, "leaping" into the life of various people and "putting right where once went wrong," changing history "for the better." It had many great episodes, including several in NYC. A couple years ago it had a reboot that I had high hopes for -- only to see them dashed. The show was a mess. Instead of focusing on the humanity of the characters who were to be saved, it chose to be some kind of weird thriller with numerous and confusing storylines, too many poorly developed characters, and no real chemistry between the actors. It failed completely. Now it's been cancelled, put out of its misery, and hopefully it will be forgotten -- while the great original show will hopefully be remembered and rewatched for decades to come. 

Third, it's hard to believe but it's been over a quarter of a century since Sex and the City first hit our airwaves. It's now become a part of NYC's culture and identity but, back in 1998, it was just a little show struggling to find an audience. The pilot was directed by Susan Seidelman who also made the funky 1982 NYC movie Smithereens which I reviewed back in 2017. In this recent big interview, Seidelman remembers the making of Smithereens, the S&TC pilot as well as her classic 1985 movie Desperately Seeking Susan. In many ways these movies and TV shows define late 20th-century NYC -- and Susan Seidelman's vision made them happen.

Fourth, an anniversary, a big one: WNYC radio is 100 years old! Yes, broadcasting in this town has existed for more than a century. Probably the most powerful public radio station in the country, WNYC has had a tremendous legacy -- and present day relevance -- to the life of this city. Besides going back and reading my numerous posts about WNYC, you can also listen to a history of the station here and also a recreation of the station's first July 8th, 1924 broadcast here.

All things and people pass, come and go -- but so much else lasts (like this blog!). And, for that, yours truly is truly grateful.