Condolences to New York's Greatest Reporter

Jimmy Breslin's daughter, Kelly, dies at 44

Apparently she was having dinner with friends last week when she suddenly collapsed. Last night, after almost a week in critical condition, she passed away.

I can only imagine the grief and acute feelings of loss that Jimmy Breslin and his wife, former City Councilwoman Ronnie Eldridge, must be feeling right now. Losing a child must be the hardest, most excruciating experience in the world. Kelly was one of Jimmy Breslin's six children. He had another daughter who passed away in 2004 so to go through this twice must be unbearable. My heart and greatest sympathies go out to them.

Kelly's father, of course, is a legend in the New York news world. He's written for almost every paper in town, a real shoe-leather, on the beat reporter. He covered the Mob and literally has the scars to the prove it (apparently Henry Hill, he of Goodfellas fame, beat him up at the same bar where they also killed Billy Bats in the movie. Of course Henry Hill eventually went into witness protection and Jimmy got the Pulitzer Prize). Most famously Jimmy Breslin broke open the Son of Sam case back in 1977.

Jimmy Breslin RIP

Jimmy Breslin, the famous newspaper columnist and quintessential New Yorker, died this past weekend. His regular Daily News column reigned like a lion in the second half of 20th century NYC. 

Breslin wrote about everything and everyone, and he did what all great journalists should do: he afflicted the comfortable and comforted the afflicted. He tortured corrupt politicians and businessmen with withering words and he reported on the humanity of the common man, the regular Joe. He was a gumshoe reporter, a deadline hack, a chaser of headlines, a man of the newsprint that dirtied your hands while opening your mind and touching your heart. Sure, he won a Pulitzer Prize, hosted Saturday Night Live, and published books as well but that never changed him or the focus of his writing. He was a New Yorker and a writer through-and-through and that was probably enough for him.

Needless to say, for a reporter and a New Yorker who was so influential and popular, the tributes are pouring in. You can read some of them here and here and here. And in this age of social media and screaming heads on cable news, this city may never see the likes of reporters like Jimmy Breslin again.  

Where have you gone, Bloodgood Cutter?

Part of what makes NYC so great (besides, you know, everything) is that this is a city full of "characters" -- real life people who almost seem to have sprung from fiction. Teddy Roosevelt,  Jimmy Breslin, Woody Allen, Howard Stern, Ed Koch, John Gotti, Al Goldstein -- these are just some of the past and present "characters" who have defined the NYC sensibility (for better or worse).

But none of them were named Bloodgood Cutter -- and, if his name wasn't enough, he was a New York City character both in real life and fiction.   

Born in 1817, Bloodgood was something unimaginable in NYC today -- a "poet farmer". He came from a family of farmers on Long Island and eventually cultivated farmland in what today is Little Neck, the easternmost part of Queens. Very religious, he spent a lot of time in Queens, particularly in Flushing, where he would preach about living a virtuous life. And he loved poetry -- particularly his own -- and even self-published his own, apparently very bad, 500 page book of poems called "The Long Island Farmer's Poems." He was also ahead of his time -- apparently, he was very against smoking long before it was fashionable.

I'm sure if he was alive today, Bloodgood would have a lively social media presence.

But Bloodgood did have a "rendezvous with destiny" -- in 1876, he took a trip to the Middle East and one of his shipmates was a certain well-known writer named Mark Twain. The scribe of Huckleberry Finn became quite fond of Mr. Cutter and decided to base a character on him in his subsequent novel Innocents Abroad. And so the eccentric farmer-poet from Queens was enshrined in history.

Talking about being enshrined, Bloodgood Cutter's grave is quite a site to behold -- buried in Zion Episcopal Church in Douglaston, it's a fitting resting place for an NYC character in NYC.



By the way, talking about New York characters, there's currently a new documentary about the two great NYC reporters Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill now on HBO called "Deadline Artists."

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.
  

Ronnie Eldridge RIP

Ronnie Elgridge has died at the age of 95. She was a staple of Manhattan politics for decades as an activist, adviser, government staffer, broadcaster, and NYC Councilwoman for a dozen years. She was smart, tireless, and deeply beloved. Her career spanned decades and she never stopped caring about, or working for, her city.

Oh, and Ronnie was married to the brilliant columnist Jimmy Breslin for 25 years, a New York City legend in his own right. They were easily my favorite, and NYC's cutest and most admirabe, power couple. 

RIP.

Power in NYC

Due to life happenings, I haven't been able to blog much lately (in case you hadn't noticed) but I would be remiss if I didn't direct you to New York magazine's Who Runs New York? feature from last week (in case you missed it).

Obviously the most powerful people in NYC are Mayor Bloomberg and other politicians -- along with the powerful financial, real estate, and media interests that support them. But, as this insightful report indicates, it's more complicated than that. The days of the old moneyed Wall Street establishment are over, the days of The New York Times and their erstwhile newspaper competitors controlling the daily new agenda are waning, and there is a new generation of real estate moguls who have a different idea of what should and shouldn't be built in this town.

The power in NYC fragmented like never before. Chaos reigns.

For example, take the media. Those who own big the media in this town are no longer the most powerful people (think Sulzberger, Zuckerman and Murdoch). Instead, you have folks like Nick Denton, an irascible Brit, who founded the snarky Gawker site. Ten years ago this guy didn't even live here -- and now he's as important a media figure in this city as Jimmy Breslin ever was.

Or politics. Mayor Bloomberg still may run NYC with as close to absolute power as any mayor in history but his days in office are waning. Soon he'll be just a billionaire instead of the mayor/billionaire. So who will take his place? That will depend, largely, on the new political kingmakers in this town. We're a long way from the days of Tammany Hall bosses like Carmine De Sapio and from labor union leaders like Mike Quill and Albert Shanker. But if you want to find their successors, look no further than Dan Kantor of the Working Families Party, the third-party organization that has succeeded in getting lots of up-and-coming politicians like John Liu and Bill DeBlasio elected. The effectiveness of the WFP turn out operations on election day are becoming famous. In 2009, while Bloomberg spent $100 million on his third term, the WFP was able to get out enough voters to reduce Bloomberg's margin of victory to an embarrassing four points. Kantor may be the most powerful person in NYC you haven't heard of -- but you will.

And then there's the likes of Lauren Santo Domingo who may be in the running for become the city's new Social doyenne, the new Mrs. Astor.

As you can see, in this era of the niche, power in New York is getting more diffuse even as wealth is getting more concentrated. It's an interesting, almost absurd paradigm -- one that is powered as much by new technology as anything.

Even this blog could be considered, in it's small, small way, a part of the new power game in NYC. For example, here am I, a regular guy, a simple blogger, who has been able to publish interviews with the likes of Kurt Anderson and Michael Musto, who has been asked by various business to advertise and plug their products, who has been invited to parties and events because of this blog, and who has gotten more than one person (including a prominent newspaper editor) extremely angry by some of the stuff I published on here. None of this would have happened if not for this blog and the small, tiny bit of power it has in the huge NYC media universe. (By the way, with one exception, I've turned all the invites and requests to plug stuff down. I ain't that kinda guy.)

So who runs New York? Who has the power? We do, my friends, you and me.

Happy 40th Anniversary New York Magazine

New York magazine changed the publishing industry when it was founded by the late Clay Felker forty years ago. It was brash, funny, strange, and original. Home to the New Journalism of the 1960s, New York published a huge variety of authors including Tom Wolfe, Pete Hamill, Jimmy Breslin, and so many other great writers who are still around today.

More than any other publication before or since, New York was the city speaking to itself, encapsulating our urban neurosis, spotting every trend before it hit and predicting its demise before its fall, and keeping everyone up to date on what was going on in this town. New York was and is the "go-to" magazine for everyone who is anyone (or no one, like yours truly) in NYC and New Yorkers ignore it at their peril.

Check out New York's 40th Anniversary section and read some old stories that still read as fresh as if they were published today.

A Great Strange Dream

Vivian Gornick is a legend in NYC writing circles, having published numerous memories and books of essays about her life and times -- coming of age during the eras of Civil Rights, the Women's Movement, Vietnam, Stagflation, and many other such delights. She blazed the trail in crafting "the confessional" long before it became a mainstay of the publishing world.

She was also a reporter, who wrote for the Village Voice from 1969 to 1977.

In late October 1969 Gornick went to Jack Kerouac's funeral up in Massachusetts. The already-legendary Beat writer, scribe of the classic On the Road, had recently died from alcoholism at the age of 47. Gornick reported on it, seeing people like Alan Ginsberg and Jimmy Breslin there, and there was definitely a sense at this funeral that only had a man but an entire way of life had passed with him. By 1969, the Jazz loving, "hip-cat, groovy man", scatting don't-have-a-care-in-the-world world of the Beat generation had already become passe; now was the time of the Hippy, the protester -- and, more ominously, the Silent Majority. 

I'm a huge fan of Kerouac's work, so much so that I even wrote a novel in the vein of On the Road. For me, Kerouac was about freedom, about the wildness of America, about celebrating everything great about being alive and about America.

Right now we're living in another dark time, at a time when it's easy to be scared about the possibility of the American idea. A lot of people aren't happy (and you can include me, mostly, amongst them). But Kerouac had an answer for that, of sorts, probably knowing that his death was imminent and his life a short one: "Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream."