Oct 22 2008
If you’re visiting New York City over the holidays, you might want to consider visiting some of the city’s historic and hauntingly beautiful churches and cathedrals, most of which encourage visits and tours. Many also offer stunning choirs and vocal performances, so check their websites for information about special events, particularly during the holidays. For more information, read my hub at Hubpages.
Oct 13 2008
If you’re heading to New York City for the holidays, be sure to add a visit to the famed Rockefeller Center to your travel itinerary. Located at 47th through 51st Streets between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, the world renown Art Deco complex consists of 19 buildings, upscale shops and restaurants connected by underground corridors, Radio City Music Hall, and NBC studios. Read more about visiting this legendary location, at my Hubpages article, here.
Oct 13 2008
The Associated Press is reporting that the National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of digits to record the country’s skyrocketing national debt.
The clock, located in Times Square and installed in 1989 by late Manhattan real estate developer Seymour Durst, has been changed on a short-term basis by the Durst Organization. What should be the digital dollar sign has been changed to a “1,” to accurately reflect the growing debt that currently stands at $10 trillion and change.
Next year, says the Durst Organization, the sign will be updated by adding two digits. Adding those extra digits means the National Debt Clock will be capable of tracking debt up to a quadrillion dollars.
When the sign went up 19 years ago, the national debt was $2.7 trillion. Talk about inflation.
Oct 12 2008
You Don’t Know What You’re MissingIf you live in New York or New Jersey, then you understand the title of this post. If not, read on and see what you’re missing. In October, we New Yorkers (and the lucky people in a few other parts of the country) know that means one thing: Mallomar season.
Even though Mallomars are very nearly impossible to describe, many writers have nevertheless tried.
The New York Times once devoted a feature story to Mallomars - “The Cookie That Comes Out in the Cold.” And King Kaufman of Salon, in an article titled “Mallomar Memories,” paid homage to the chocolate cookie this way:
“Mallomars. Say it with me: Mallomars. They sound exactly like they taste. Sweet, soft in the middle Mallomars, rolling on the Mallomars tongue Mallomars. All rounded corners and smooth glass brown chocolate Mallomars. Yes I said yes I will Yes Mallomars. Mmmm. Allomars.”
Mallomars appear magically each October and almost exclusively in New York. In fact, 70 percent of the Mallomars distributed by Nabisco end up in New York, because the cookie originated in the New York-New Jersey area. The yellow cellophane boxes begin appearing on the end-of-aisle displays in my neighborhood grocery store, piled high and setting my tummy aflutter and reminding me to make room in my freezer. My husband hoards them to get him (and me) through the long winter and even into spring.
Although the cookie was seasonal back in the early 1900s for good reason — the chocolate would melt in transit during warmer weather — modern-day manufacturing makes it possible for most chocolate items to stay on the shelf at any time of the year without melting. So what gives?
In a recent item celebrating the return of Mallomars, Newsday’s “Pet Rock: The Pop Culture Blog,” asked the same question, wondering out loud if the disppearance and reappearance of Mallomars is “a sneaky Nabisco marketing ploy — ratcheting up demand like a street dealer holding out on the goods until we return in September, scratching and drooling and oblivious to personal hygiene.”
In case you haven’t met one, Mallomars are about the size of a silver dollar, and are made up of a small marshmallow on top of a round graham cracker. Then the marshmallow and graham cracker are covered in a hard chocolate coating. Mallomars come 18 to a box (not enough, if you ask me), and each serving of two Mallomars has 110 calories, five grams of fat, and 12 grams of sugar. And they haven’t changed since 1913.
Mallomars lovers differ in how they eat the cookies. Mr. Kaufman of Salon wrote that there are only three “officially sanctioned” ways to eat Mallomars: “biting off the marshmallow part and saving the graham cracker for last (superior method); biting off the graham cracker and saving the marshmallow part for last (dorsal method); and biting into the cookie like regular food (lateral, or standard, method).”
Even though they’re not available everywhere, Mallomars are an important part of our culture. Among other things, they’re featured in Wally Lamb’s novel, “She’s Come Undone,” and in the Nora Ephron film “When Harry Met Sally.” Mallomars have also made appearances in episodes of “The Gilmore Girls”, “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons”. And who can forget the scene in “The Sopranos”, when mafia Don Tony Soprano scares the daylights out of friend Paulie after thinking he’s stolen from his box of Mallomars?
Oct 08 2008
The New York Daily News reports today that the Big Apple is likely to get hit with a hard, old-fashioned winter this year. Expect freezing temperatures and plenty of snow, says the Daily News.
“It may be a shock to some when compared with the above-average temperatures of last year in the East,” said Joe Bastardi, the chief long-range forecaster at AccuWeather.com. “It will put some ‘brrrrrr’ in the saddle of folks who have not had to deal with such things for a while.”
Blame the brrrrrr on the core of cold that visited misery on the Midwest last year - and is now heading for our neck of America, Bastardi said.
We can expect a “brutal” December, followed by a January thaw, then a return to wintry weather during February. This is not good for Americans already feeling the pinch in their pocketbooks from the country’s economic problems. But now heating bills will be up as well.
Oct 07 2008
Some of the greatest films in cinema history have not only paid homage to New York City, but in some films, New York is one of the characters, beautiful and imperfect. It was tough whittling this list down to a handful of favorites, but I did so by choosing films in which New York plays a key role in the story, the cinematography and the development of characters. I chose films that, without New York as a backdrop, could not be made.
Woody Allen’s tour de force, “Manhattan,” was released in 1979 and is an extraordinarily funny film about the complicated love life of a New York comedy writer. “Manhattan” is Allen’s love story, though, to the city, with breathtaking cityscapes of Manhattan as the background and a score of George Gershwin music that somehow ties it all together.The film stars a hilarious Allen, Diane Keaton, and a sweet, heart-breaking Mariel Hemingway.
This film won 10 Academy Awards, and was groundbreaking. The 1961 musical by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise is still remarkable to watch, even if it is a bit dated. Who can resist the rooftop dance number, “America,” or Tony walking along the streets of the city, singing “Maria?” The film, of course, stars Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as star-crossed lovers from different New York neighborhoods who fight society and their families to be together. New York is an essential part of the film and the story, and composers Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim would have it no other way.
This wonderful 1961 film starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard is also a love story to New York City. Audrey Hepburn’s defining role was that of naive socialite Holly Golightly, based on the character from Truman Capote’s novella. An interesting side note — nearly all the exterior scenes were shot on location in New York, but almost all the interior scenes were filmed on a lot in Burbank, Calif. The Tiffany’s scene, of course, was shot in Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue.
The whole Godfather saga is inextricably intertwined with New York. In Part I, we see 1940s New York, and in the brilliant Part II, we watch the young Don Vito Corleone enter Ellis Island and struggle for survival on the mean streets of the city. Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro gave performances of their lives, with Brando and DeNiro winning Best Actor Oscars in 1972 and 1974. Both films also won the Academy Award for Best Film.
Believe it or not, “Midnight Cowboy” was once an X-rated film and won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1969. Although later reclassified with an R rating, “Cowboy” remains a gritty film that is as much about how a city like New York can swallow you up as anything else. Jon Voight plays a Texas boy who’s arrived to seek his fortune as a sexual hustler. But he becomes just another face in the crowd and befriends the thief/hustler Ratzo Rizzo, played by Dustin Hoffman in an unforgettable performance.This is a sad tale of friendship between two souls lost in a big, bad city. Check out the great trailer for the film, below.
How could we forget Popeye Doyle, the tough New York City narcotics detective played by Gene Hackman? This 1972 film directed by William Friedkin is a fast-paced crime story with seat-of-the-pants car chases on the streets of New York. It also won multiple Oscars. The film’s most famous chase takes place when a relentless Doyle uses a Pontiac LeMans to chase down an elevated train with a hitman aboard. The conductor and train operator aboard the train were actual NYC Transit Authority employees, and the chase was filmed in Brooklyn. The video below is the entire seven-minute chase scene.
Our tragic anti-hero, King Kong, met his demise, of course, in New York City. How appropriate. Kong, the fictional giant ape from Skull Island, made his first appearance on film in 1933. Since then, there have been two remakes, including my favorite — the 2005 version directed by Peter Jackson. As we all know, once Kong is captured at Skull and taken to the Big Apple to be exhibited as the Eighth Wonder of the World, all hell breaks loose. Below is an awesome colorized scene from the original “King Kong.”
This hit romantic comedy, released in 1989, teamed up director Rob Reiner, actors Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, and the beautiful city of New York. Crystal and Ryan play platonic friends who keep avoiding their deeper feelings for each other. It’s a sweet, funny film with lots of scenes of two perfect young people strolling along the streets of New York. In the video below, Ryan enjoys her famous fake orgasm in a scene shot at New York’s Katz’s Deli.
When “Saturday Night Fever” was released in 1977, it was a phenomenon. Soon, we were all flocking to the discos, trying to dance like John Travolta and buying polyester. In this conventional story, Tony Manero, a 19-year-old Italian-American from Brooklyn, becomes the hero of the local nightclub at night. Like Joe Buck of “Midnight Cowboy,” Tony is desperate to break out of his stifling surroundings. The Bee Gees soundtrack is a nice extra. New York, especially the divide between Brooklyn and Manhattan, is front and center in this film. Look for the harrowing Brooklyn Bridge scene.
I think this film was Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece. “Goodfellas” is the story of real-life mobster Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, his rise to power in New York in the 1950s and his fall in the 1970s, thanks to cocaine and the FBI. The film also stars Joe Pesci, who won an Academy Award for his role, Lorraine Bracco and Robert DeNiro, and all turn in great performances. The film was shot in New York and takes place largely in Brooklyn. If you’ve never seen “Goodfellas,” the trailer below is a great way to start.
And here, in no particular order, are my runners-up:
“On the Town,” 1949.
“Barefoot in the Park,” 1967.
“Do the Right Thing,” 1989.
“The Out of Towners,” 1970.
“Sex and the City,” 2008.
“Wait Until Dark,” 1967.
“Guys and Dolls,” 1955.
The “Spiderman” films, 2002, 2004 and 2007.
“Dog Day Afternoon,” 1975.
“Wall Street,” 1987.
“Annie Hall,” 1977.
“Taxi Driver,” 1976.
“On the Waterfront,” 1954.
“Big,” 1988.
“The Apartment,” 1960.
“The Odd Couple,” 1968.
“Rear Window,” 1954.
“Gangs of New York,” 2002.
Oct 02 2008
New York Magazine’s Grub Street blog has a great idea for New Yorkers planning to watch the Vice Presidential debate between Sen. Joseph Biden and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
It seems that this week, Zaro’s in Grand Central Station has been selling black-and-white cookies bearing the faces of the presidential and the vice-presidential candidates — take a look at the picture. According to Grub Street, the photos are printed on rice paper using inkjet printer cartridges that have been loaded with food coloring. Is that possible?
Anyway, the Veep cookies sell for $3.25 each, in case you want to spend your tax dollars on a cookie bearing an uncanny likeness to Sarah Palin. Grub Street says some people have been buying the cookies just to spit on them and then trash them. Now there’s an idea.
This country never fails to amaze me.
Oct 01 2008
I don’t care what age you are, what religious persuasion, ethnic background, racial makeup or party you’re registered with. I have tried as hard as possible — and it hasn’t been easy! — to keep politics out of my blog. But Saturday is the deadline in many states to register to vote. This is a landmark, history-making presidential election. Exercise your rights as Americans and vote. Take a look at this cool video and remember to register. Go to the website – it’s easy.
Declare yourself — before it’s too late.
Oct 01 2008
If you’re planning a trip to New York City, you’re bound to spot or even meet celebrities if you play your cards right. There are ways to improve your chances to spot the rich and famous, by placing yourself where the celebrities hang out.
The hot eating spots for celebrities right now include Koi at 40 West 40th Street, Socialista at 505 West Street (where Ashton Kutcher’s birthday bash was held), Pastis at 9 Ninth Avenue (featured in “The Devil Wears Prada”), and Spice Market at West 13th Street. You can often see Broadway stars at midtown restaurants like Joe Allen’s and Sardi’s, but make your reservations late. Most stars don’t show up until after 11 p.m.
If you’re a Broadway fan, hang out after the shows by the theater stage doors. If you see a show, bring your playbill to be autographed and a camera. It often takes up to 30 minutes for cast members to exit the stage door, but most, even the big names, will graciously sign autographs, pose for pictures and chat with fans.
If you’re young and beautiful, there’s no reason not to find the hippest nighttime clubs that love celebrities. The most popular hangouts these days include Butter, at 415 Lafayette Street, which tends to attract the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, Bungalow 8, at 515 W 27th Street, a West Chelsea lounge where stars and supermodels love to drink, and the Rose Bar at 2 Lexington Avenue, a luxurious place that carefully chooses who gets in.
If you’re 18 to 24, reserve tickets to MTV’s “Total Request Live” at least a month in advance. The show, which airs live Monday through Thursday at MTV Studios in the heart of Times Square, features the hottest music celebrities who appear live on the show. Call the TRL hotline at (212) 398-8549 to inquire about tickets.
To get the hardest ticket in town — NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” — you have to enter a ticket lottery. The network asks that you to send an email only in the month of August to snltickets@nbcuni.com, and include all your contact information. If you’re selected, you receive two tickets to a random show date and time. You must be at least 16 to request tickets. In addition, standby tickets are given out at 7 a.m. on the 49th Street side of 30 Rockefeller Plaza on the mornings of SNL tapings, and you can choose a ticket for the 8 p.m. dress rehearsal or the 11:30 p.m. live taping. Bring everyone who wants to go, since stand-by tickets are limited to one per person.
