Maurice Bernstein moved to New York City in 1987 from Manchester, England with $300 in his pocket. In 1990 he co-founded Giant Step, a Tribeca-based concert promotor, record label and marketing company. Since then, he has organized the New York debuts of artists such as The Roots and Fatboy Slim. He has been credited with breaking pop star Amy Winehouse after being hired by her label to mail samples of her music to young music fans and get her music played in clubs. I spoke to Maurice Bernstein about his company, the Tribeca neighborhood he works in, and the future of the New York arts scene.
Can you tell me a little about the company?
We’re a marketing company. We do events. We have a very big database of [people] who have been following what we have done for almost 20 years and they come to our events. What we do is of very high quality. So, we bring people, high quality people.
How long has the company been in Tribeca?
The company’s been in Tribeca for 14 years. We’ve seen it go through a few ups and downs. When we first moved in here, we were the first actual company to come into the building. We renovated a loft. The neighborhood was just beginning to grow as a neighborhood. Then it really started booming. Then Sept. 11 happened and no one wanted to move downtown. We were being encouraged to stay when before our landlord was definitely encouraging us to leave, because they wanted to get higher rent. Then a few years after Sept. 11 we had the boom again. And, again, no one doing us any favors by letting us stay in Tribeca. And just recently the recession happened and all of a sudden we’re welcome again.
What are some of the hot areas in Tribeca?
I don’t know. I mean, hot areas?
Sorry, hot clubs.
I don’t know.
What about the Canal Room?
I mean, I’ve been doing stuff in that venue for almost 20 years when it was the New Music Cafe and Shine. I don’t know what you mean by “hot” venue. I don’t think there are any hot nightclubs in Tribeca. There are some great restaurants. It’s not really a nightclub area.
Lots of nightclubs in the area are closing down -- Deco, The Knitting Factory. Why?
The people who originally moved into Tribeca were creative and artists. They were moving into affordable properties in an expensive city. Then those people developed into famous artists and actors. More recently, over the last 10 years, the people that have moved into this neighborhood are stockbrokers, wall street bankers. They have no sense of the charm or the reality of what this neighborhood is.
Will it continue to go that way?
There’s ups and downs. The city’s changed. Not just Tribeca.
So where are the artists now?
Brooklyn. Brooklyn and the Bronx. They’ve moved out of the city.
Will New York City have an arts scene in 10 years?
I don't know. Manhattan's changed. In some ways for the good, some ways for the bad.
Where do you live in the city?
Brooklyn. Crown Heights.
What do you do on the weekends when you aren’t working?
I hang out with my kids.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Pete Hamill visits my NYU class
Legendary old-school newspaperman Pete Hamill visited my Downtown class at NYU today. Hamill is a former editor of the New York Daily News and author of books such as “Why Sinatra Matters” and “A Drinking Life,” his story of overcoming alcoholism.
Hamill, who is 73 years old, walked in around 10 a.m. and stayed until 11:30. He wore a black sweater and had beard stubble. The class was watching a video about Twitter and, surprisingly, he seemed to know all about it.
He began discussing his own past, from growing up in Brooklyn, walking on the Brooklyn Bridge with his mother after seeing “The Wizard of Oz,”
“New York is about the remaking of the self,” he said. “You are not a prisoner of where you are born.”
He told us he moved to Mexico in 1955 with hopes of being a painter. Instead he became a writer. He mentioned his first marriage. “Almost all journalists have a marriage that’s sort of like spring training,” he said.
Hamill seemed bored talking about his personal life. He half-joked “I don’t know what this has to do with journalism,” when he was asked about his first marriage. His face lit up, though, when he discussing historical figures and his history in journalism.
He gave advice to young journalists in the digital age, telling us to “Professionalize the internet. Make sure it’s not therapy – not a hobby.”
Hamill told the class the best way to be successful is to pick one thing you love and develop it furiously. “You have to recognize that you can’t be everything,” he said.
Hamill said his most fascinating interview was jazz drummer Max Roach. “He came out of the block power revolt more human, not less,” he said.
I didn’t realize from Hamill’s writing how funny the man is. Our professor, Betty Ming Liu, asked him for 5 things he hates about New York. He gave us six:
1. Starbucks, especially the two one block from one another near Cooper Union.
2. People talking on cell phones in restaurants
3. Women who say “’like’ six or seven times in the same sentence.”
4. Kids who aren’t playing in the streets in Brooklyn, instead having a “digital childhood.”
5. Women with strollers rolling around kids who are “about 9 years old.”
6. The disappearance of bookstores.
Hamill, who is 73 years old, walked in around 10 a.m. and stayed until 11:30. He wore a black sweater and had beard stubble. The class was watching a video about Twitter and, surprisingly, he seemed to know all about it.
He began discussing his own past, from growing up in Brooklyn, walking on the Brooklyn Bridge with his mother after seeing “The Wizard of Oz,”
“New York is about the remaking of the self,” he said. “You are not a prisoner of where you are born.”
He told us he moved to Mexico in 1955 with hopes of being a painter. Instead he became a writer. He mentioned his first marriage. “Almost all journalists have a marriage that’s sort of like spring training,” he said.
Hamill seemed bored talking about his personal life. He half-joked “I don’t know what this has to do with journalism,” when he was asked about his first marriage. His face lit up, though, when he discussing historical figures and his history in journalism.
He gave advice to young journalists in the digital age, telling us to “Professionalize the internet. Make sure it’s not therapy – not a hobby.”
Hamill told the class the best way to be successful is to pick one thing you love and develop it furiously. “You have to recognize that you can’t be everything,” he said.
Hamill said his most fascinating interview was jazz drummer Max Roach. “He came out of the block power revolt more human, not less,” he said.
I didn’t realize from Hamill’s writing how funny the man is. Our professor, Betty Ming Liu, asked him for 5 things he hates about New York. He gave us six:
1. Starbucks, especially the two one block from one another near Cooper Union.
2. People talking on cell phones in restaurants
3. Women who say “’like’ six or seven times in the same sentence.”
4. Kids who aren’t playing in the streets in Brooklyn, instead having a “digital childhood.”
5. Women with strollers rolling around kids who are “about 9 years old.”
6. The disappearance of bookstores.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Whatever Works at Tribeca Film Festival
About a month from now, the Tribeca Film Festival will begin on April 22. I’ve never been to the famed event, founded by Robert De Niro, but I am planning on attempting to make it into a few showings. It will have 86 feature length films and 46 short films from 33 different countries.
High on everyone’s list is the new Woody Allen film, “Whatever Works,” starring Larry David. The film is billed as Allen’s Big Return To New York after years of shooting in exotic places. I’m not trying to knock David (he created Seinfeld and stars in HBO’s hilarious “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), but the idea sounds stale as the English Muffins in my cupboard. Larry took his whole onscreen persona from Allen, and to great effect. But the two teeming up seems far too obvious, and Allen’s most recent film, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” wasn’t exactly a winner.
And neither are the quotes in the ABC news story about “Whatever Works:”
"A lovely idea of showing my film in a film festival in my own city. It's very exciting," Allen said.
Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal describes Whatever Works as a "uniquely funny addition to his body of work".
Read more about the film here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/03/2505927.htm
P.S. I just looked up ticket prices for the Tribeca Film Festival, and packages range from $225.00 to $425.00. And those aren’t even VIP packages. Unless I get a press pass, I’m going to have to pass. See ticket prices at: http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival/tickets/packages.html
High on everyone’s list is the new Woody Allen film, “Whatever Works,” starring Larry David. The film is billed as Allen’s Big Return To New York after years of shooting in exotic places. I’m not trying to knock David (he created Seinfeld and stars in HBO’s hilarious “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), but the idea sounds stale as the English Muffins in my cupboard. Larry took his whole onscreen persona from Allen, and to great effect. But the two teeming up seems far too obvious, and Allen’s most recent film, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” wasn’t exactly a winner.
And neither are the quotes in the ABC news story about “Whatever Works:”
"A lovely idea of showing my film in a film festival in my own city. It's very exciting," Allen said.
Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal describes Whatever Works as a "uniquely funny addition to his body of work".
Read more about the film here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/03/2505927.htm
P.S. I just looked up ticket prices for the Tribeca Film Festival, and packages range from $225.00 to $425.00. And those aren’t even VIP packages. Unless I get a press pass, I’m going to have to pass. See ticket prices at: http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival/tickets/packages.html
Bank Robbers and Dye Packs
So a bank robber is at large, having robbed 10 banks in Manhattan and Queens, including Sovereign Bank on Gold Street on March 7.
According to the Tribeca News, the fool wore a dark jacket into the Sovereign Bank with a handkerchief on the lower part of his face around 9:15 A.M He pulled a gun out, and demanded “No dye packs.”
While reading this, I asked myself, “What is a dye pack?”
I went to Wikipedia, the only reliable source I could think to find out such a thing. Turns out a dye pack is something straight out of “Oceans Eleven.” Banks usually have several of them on hand, and they put them in bags of stolen money to fool bank robbers. The devices have small radio signals built in. When they receive a signal sent by a transmitter at the bank, a timer on the device begins. When it goes off, the pack explodes in a sea of red ink all over stolen cash. Read more about them here: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question671.htm
The Gold Street Robbery was the only one the suspect has done in the 1st Precinct. Five took place in Midtown and the rest were in Gramercy, East Village, Lower East Side and Sunnyside, Queens. He’s apparently in his mid thirties, 6’3 and 200 pounds.
You can see pictures here: http://www.tribecatrib.com/news/newsmarch09/0309009robbery.html
Also, all info about the robber should be reported to the FBI/NYPD Joint Bank Robbery Task Force at 212-384-5000, 212-384-2818 or 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).
According to the Tribeca News, the fool wore a dark jacket into the Sovereign Bank with a handkerchief on the lower part of his face around 9:15 A.M He pulled a gun out, and demanded “No dye packs.”
While reading this, I asked myself, “What is a dye pack?”
I went to Wikipedia, the only reliable source I could think to find out such a thing. Turns out a dye pack is something straight out of “Oceans Eleven.” Banks usually have several of them on hand, and they put them in bags of stolen money to fool bank robbers. The devices have small radio signals built in. When they receive a signal sent by a transmitter at the bank, a timer on the device begins. When it goes off, the pack explodes in a sea of red ink all over stolen cash. Read more about them here: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question671.htm
The Gold Street Robbery was the only one the suspect has done in the 1st Precinct. Five took place in Midtown and the rest were in Gramercy, East Village, Lower East Side and Sunnyside, Queens. He’s apparently in his mid thirties, 6’3 and 200 pounds.
You can see pictures here: http://www.tribecatrib.com/news/newsmarch09/0309009robbery.html
Also, all info about the robber should be reported to the FBI/NYPD Joint Bank Robbery Task Force at 212-384-5000, 212-384-2818 or 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).
Levon Helm at the Beacon
A few weeks ago I attended Levon Helm at the Beacon Theatre. I wrote a review and haven't decided to post it til now. But here it is:
Levon Helm Beacon Theatre Review Thursday March 5
Levon Helm has experienced a triumphant comeback over the past five years. In the late nineties, Helm, the legendary drummer of The Band – the voice behind “The Weight” and “Ophelia” -- received the news he had throat cancer. He lost his voice after surgery and to pay medical bills he began staging “The Midnight Ramble,” a weekly jamboree at his barn-studio in Woodstock, N.Y., He invited willing admirers like Elvis Costello and Emmylou Harris to jam along.
Helm’s voice improved in 2004 and he began singing again. The Rambles still occur most Saturday’s. They aren’t college student-friendly ( $150 a ticket), but seeing Helm belting classics like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is one of the most intimate concert experiences imaginable. In 2007 he released “Dirt Farmer,” a roots record with fantastic covers by Steve Earle and A.P. Carter. The record received a Grammy award for “Best Contemporary Folk Album.”
Helm stepped onstage at The Beacon Theatre on Thursday night for the first of two shows (the second took place Friday). He was grinning, wearing a button-up shirt and wind pants. He’s tiny and gray, looking work-worn like any man who has been on the road since the 1950s would. His band includes Larry Campbell, formerly of Bob Dylan’s band, and Jimmy Vivino of the L.A.-bound The Max Weinberg 7. There were also two keyboards for organ piano and a large R&B horn section. An early highlight was “The Same Thing,” a groovy number in which the band jammed taking solos between Helm’s funky verses.
Helm’s voice is now a rugged howl, hardly the slick Arkansan tone found on The Band classics. But it added a new authenticity to his songs. When Helm sang the refrain the rollicking “Ophelia” (“Ophelia, where have you gone?”) it sounded as though the song’s character left him not last week, but decades ago. Helm later spellbindingly covered Dylan’s 1965 number “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry.”
The first part of the set was heavy on new numbers, at times slowing down the show’s momentum. I’m all for Levon playing “Dirt Farmer” material, but the boomer-dominated crowd seemed bored with them. An exception later in the show was “Anna Lee” in which Helm sat in the middle of the stage harmonizing with his female band mates around subtle acoustic guitar. After finishing, he opened his eyes and smiled at his daughter, Amy Lee, as if surprised they pulled it off.
Helm let others onstage take the microphone regularly. The first guest was Joe Louis Walker, a San Francisco-born bluesman who performed two blissful boogie numbers full of call-and-response that earned him a standing ovation. Bandmate Teresa Williams took the microphone for a mournful “Long Black Veil.” Amy Helm sang a couple country-tinged numbers, though those were less impressive.
Veteran soul singer Phoebe Snow was invited out and received the greatest reception of the night. She belted “Save the Last Dance For Me,” popularized by Ben E. King and Tina Turner, and R&B boogie number “Workout.” Snow is a heavy and commanding presence. When Helm was bantering with a band mate between songs, she gave him grief, saying she would start when he finished his “conference.”
The crowd came alive when Helm played the classics. There was the explosive violin riff in “Rag Mama Rag.” “Across the Great Divide” soared when sung by keyboardist Brian Mitchell.
Jimmy Vivino took over vocals on a respectable take on “Makes No Difference.” Wary of being compared to Band bassist Rick Danko’s vocals, he preceded the song by saying, “I’m going to sing a song that could never belong to me.”
The end was like a scene out of The Band’s breakup film “The Last Waltz.” Helm invited everyone on stage for “The Weight,” with Snow taking one verse. They encored with a spellbinding extended take on Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released,” each horn player taking a solo. Helm stood onstage triumphant, shaking the hands of musicians and pointing to the crowd.
Levon Helm Beacon Theatre Review Thursday March 5
Levon Helm has experienced a triumphant comeback over the past five years. In the late nineties, Helm, the legendary drummer of The Band – the voice behind “The Weight” and “Ophelia” -- received the news he had throat cancer. He lost his voice after surgery and to pay medical bills he began staging “The Midnight Ramble,” a weekly jamboree at his barn-studio in Woodstock, N.Y., He invited willing admirers like Elvis Costello and Emmylou Harris to jam along.
Helm’s voice improved in 2004 and he began singing again. The Rambles still occur most Saturday’s. They aren’t college student-friendly ( $150 a ticket), but seeing Helm belting classics like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is one of the most intimate concert experiences imaginable. In 2007 he released “Dirt Farmer,” a roots record with fantastic covers by Steve Earle and A.P. Carter. The record received a Grammy award for “Best Contemporary Folk Album.”
Helm stepped onstage at The Beacon Theatre on Thursday night for the first of two shows (the second took place Friday). He was grinning, wearing a button-up shirt and wind pants. He’s tiny and gray, looking work-worn like any man who has been on the road since the 1950s would. His band includes Larry Campbell, formerly of Bob Dylan’s band, and Jimmy Vivino of the L.A.-bound The Max Weinberg 7. There were also two keyboards for organ piano and a large R&B horn section. An early highlight was “The Same Thing,” a groovy number in which the band jammed taking solos between Helm’s funky verses.
Helm’s voice is now a rugged howl, hardly the slick Arkansan tone found on The Band classics. But it added a new authenticity to his songs. When Helm sang the refrain the rollicking “Ophelia” (“Ophelia, where have you gone?”) it sounded as though the song’s character left him not last week, but decades ago. Helm later spellbindingly covered Dylan’s 1965 number “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry.”
The first part of the set was heavy on new numbers, at times slowing down the show’s momentum. I’m all for Levon playing “Dirt Farmer” material, but the boomer-dominated crowd seemed bored with them. An exception later in the show was “Anna Lee” in which Helm sat in the middle of the stage harmonizing with his female band mates around subtle acoustic guitar. After finishing, he opened his eyes and smiled at his daughter, Amy Lee, as if surprised they pulled it off.
Helm let others onstage take the microphone regularly. The first guest was Joe Louis Walker, a San Francisco-born bluesman who performed two blissful boogie numbers full of call-and-response that earned him a standing ovation. Bandmate Teresa Williams took the microphone for a mournful “Long Black Veil.” Amy Helm sang a couple country-tinged numbers, though those were less impressive.
Veteran soul singer Phoebe Snow was invited out and received the greatest reception of the night. She belted “Save the Last Dance For Me,” popularized by Ben E. King and Tina Turner, and R&B boogie number “Workout.” Snow is a heavy and commanding presence. When Helm was bantering with a band mate between songs, she gave him grief, saying she would start when he finished his “conference.”
The crowd came alive when Helm played the classics. There was the explosive violin riff in “Rag Mama Rag.” “Across the Great Divide” soared when sung by keyboardist Brian Mitchell.
Jimmy Vivino took over vocals on a respectable take on “Makes No Difference.” Wary of being compared to Band bassist Rick Danko’s vocals, he preceded the song by saying, “I’m going to sing a song that could never belong to me.”
The end was like a scene out of The Band’s breakup film “The Last Waltz.” Helm invited everyone on stage for “The Weight,” with Snow taking one verse. They encored with a spellbinding extended take on Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released,” each horn player taking a solo. Helm stood onstage triumphant, shaking the hands of musicians and pointing to the crowd.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
I sat in a windowless classroom on a sunny fall morning at Falmouth Middle School in my hometown, Falmouth, Maine. It was a science class, taught by the salt-and-pepper stalwart Mr. Plummer. I stared at the clock, anticipating morning break, when Mrs. Girard, the school’s vice principal, walked in. When Mrs. Girard visited, someone was in trouble. They’d be brought to her office. Interrogations would be mad. Parents would be called. She brought kids into her office like she collected them.
But today Mrs. Girard did not do that. Interrupting the class, she asked Mr. Plummer, “May I have a minute of your time?”
The morning was September 11, 2001. When Mr. Plummer returned, he looked uncharacteristically white and stricken. He tightened his belt and returned to teaching.
During morning break, my friends and I began hearing hints of trouble in the cafeteria. Josh Parks, a fellow student, told my group of friends of a cataclysmic world end that sounded straight out of the new superhero films so popular at the time. But everything became clear when I went home and turned on the television. It did look like one of those high-tech superhero films. Manhattan was covered in smoke and thousands were dead.
Through the years, I forgot the initial impact of the tragedies of September 11. The date almost became a cliché to me. Over the years I started looking at it as less of a tragedy and more an excuse for the Bush administration to invade Iraq where thousands of soldiers were killed.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum at The World Trade Center helped put those feeling back in place. I attended Thursday for Betty Ming Liu’s “Downtown” class at New York University.
Ground Zero feels like an industrial graveyard. Once entering the doors on Liberty Street, the staff gives you a pair of headphones for a guided audio tour. The tour, hosted by the father of a firefighter victim, segues between horror stories.
The tour gives many amazing facts. 50,000 people worked at the buildings, giving it a reputation as a “city within a city.” The buildings lightning-speed elevators were reiterated.
The planes hit between floors 93 and 99 at about 400 m.p.h. One woman spoke of climbing down stairs, and the comfort she felt when she saw firefighters on the 28th floor. “If they could go up, I knew I could go down,” she said.
One survivor described, “I was standing in the middle of a snowstorm late at night.”
Looking at the site, the stories were hard to hear. A firefighters’ widow spoke of not finding her husbands remains, and burying a helmet instead. This fact caused me to hide my teary eyes from nearby note-taking classmates.
After the tour we entered the museum. Most striking were the “Missing” signs from those who were frantically searching for lost loved ones. The photos featured victims’ happy faces with nicknames and family contact information. We learned that 19,938 body parts were found, and only 200 complete bodies.
John Henderson, who works in admissions at New York University’s graduate school, spoke our class. He said he began giving tours to make his own contribution to the city after watching the attacks from Washington Square Park. “I remember thinking ‘A lot of people are going to die today,’” he said.
Henderson said he is most irritated when he hears the term “victims’ lost” when describing those killed in the attacks.
“’Lost’ is when you lose your car keys, your student ID,” he said. “These people were mudered. It’s the same thing as putting a gun to their heads and pulling the trigger.”
I walked back to the Subway on the narrow streets of the financial district, imagining what it must have felt like when terror struck it on that sunny fall morning.
But today Mrs. Girard did not do that. Interrupting the class, she asked Mr. Plummer, “May I have a minute of your time?”
The morning was September 11, 2001. When Mr. Plummer returned, he looked uncharacteristically white and stricken. He tightened his belt and returned to teaching.
During morning break, my friends and I began hearing hints of trouble in the cafeteria. Josh Parks, a fellow student, told my group of friends of a cataclysmic world end that sounded straight out of the new superhero films so popular at the time. But everything became clear when I went home and turned on the television. It did look like one of those high-tech superhero films. Manhattan was covered in smoke and thousands were dead.
Through the years, I forgot the initial impact of the tragedies of September 11. The date almost became a cliché to me. Over the years I started looking at it as less of a tragedy and more an excuse for the Bush administration to invade Iraq where thousands of soldiers were killed.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum at The World Trade Center helped put those feeling back in place. I attended Thursday for Betty Ming Liu’s “Downtown” class at New York University.
Ground Zero feels like an industrial graveyard. Once entering the doors on Liberty Street, the staff gives you a pair of headphones for a guided audio tour. The tour, hosted by the father of a firefighter victim, segues between horror stories.
The tour gives many amazing facts. 50,000 people worked at the buildings, giving it a reputation as a “city within a city.” The buildings lightning-speed elevators were reiterated.
The planes hit between floors 93 and 99 at about 400 m.p.h. One woman spoke of climbing down stairs, and the comfort she felt when she saw firefighters on the 28th floor. “If they could go up, I knew I could go down,” she said.
One survivor described, “I was standing in the middle of a snowstorm late at night.”
Looking at the site, the stories were hard to hear. A firefighters’ widow spoke of not finding her husbands remains, and burying a helmet instead. This fact caused me to hide my teary eyes from nearby note-taking classmates.
After the tour we entered the museum. Most striking were the “Missing” signs from those who were frantically searching for lost loved ones. The photos featured victims’ happy faces with nicknames and family contact information. We learned that 19,938 body parts were found, and only 200 complete bodies.
John Henderson, who works in admissions at New York University’s graduate school, spoke our class. He said he began giving tours to make his own contribution to the city after watching the attacks from Washington Square Park. “I remember thinking ‘A lot of people are going to die today,’” he said.
Henderson said he is most irritated when he hears the term “victims’ lost” when describing those killed in the attacks.
“’Lost’ is when you lose your car keys, your student ID,” he said. “These people were mudered. It’s the same thing as putting a gun to their heads and pulling the trigger.”
I walked back to the Subway on the narrow streets of the financial district, imagining what it must have felt like when terror struck it on that sunny fall morning.
Review of Pete Hamill's Downtown
In “Downtown,” Pete Hamill, former New York Post editor, presents New York City through the eyes of one of the city’s last old-school journalists.
“Broadway exists as a concrete place and as an idea,” he writes. Hamill holds this philosophy for the entire city. To Hamill, born to Irish Immigrants in 1935 in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, “downtown” is any nostalgia-evoking place. It ranges from Tribeca to Rockefeller Center, from St. Mark’s Place to 125th Street in Harlem.
Hamill takes on the role of a grandfatherly Irish storyteller. He writes of being five years old, skipping down Brooklyn cobblestones with his mother after first seeing “The Wizard of Oz.” He recalls his twenties, regularly running into Allen Ginsberg on St. Marks Place. He also recalls smelling the vile odor that filled the streets on September 11, 2001.
Hamill’s remembrances are relatable for any old time New Yorker, and informative for new ones. He works in facts like the Commissioners’ Plan of the early 1800s, which gave birth to the cities grid system still used today.
The book often gets bogged-down when it relies on too much historical information – Hamill writes at length on the history of the Trinity Church. But the book remains an honest account of a man who has lived through seven decades in the city and still remains astonished at its ability to resurrect itself.
“Broadway exists as a concrete place and as an idea,” he writes. Hamill holds this philosophy for the entire city. To Hamill, born to Irish Immigrants in 1935 in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, “downtown” is any nostalgia-evoking place. It ranges from Tribeca to Rockefeller Center, from St. Mark’s Place to 125th Street in Harlem.
Hamill takes on the role of a grandfatherly Irish storyteller. He writes of being five years old, skipping down Brooklyn cobblestones with his mother after first seeing “The Wizard of Oz.” He recalls his twenties, regularly running into Allen Ginsberg on St. Marks Place. He also recalls smelling the vile odor that filled the streets on September 11, 2001.
Hamill’s remembrances are relatable for any old time New Yorker, and informative for new ones. He works in facts like the Commissioners’ Plan of the early 1800s, which gave birth to the cities grid system still used today.
The book often gets bogged-down when it relies on too much historical information – Hamill writes at length on the history of the Trinity Church. But the book remains an honest account of a man who has lived through seven decades in the city and still remains astonished at its ability to resurrect itself.
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