The Cool Engineer

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.

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.