Could you imagine Pauline Kael‘s opinions of Netflix and Amazon growing influence over the motion picture industry? What would she say about watching The Irishman
— made by one of her favorite film directors — on an iPhone? Would she
be a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? (I think we can predict that
answer.)
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael Film Forum: Wednesday, December 25 – Tuesday, January 7
In the hugely entertaining new documentary What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael — now playing at the Film Forum,
a venue the legendary film critic probably popped into one or two
hundred times — the filmmaker Rob Garver invites the audience to imagine
the presence of Kael in our modern world.
It’s a fun thought experiment as there is nobody quite like Kael — in
film criticism or Twitter or any aspect of modern culture for that
matter.
Kael got her start in film criticism in San Francisco — her first published review trashed Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight. From that review:
“The Chaplin of Limelight is no irreverent little clown; his
reverence for his own ideas would be astonishing even if the ideas were
worth consideration. They are not — and the context of the film exposes
them at every turn.”
But it was her legendary run at The New Yorker magazine starting in 1967 that positioned her as the kingmaker of the modern American New Wave.
What She Said gives its audience a crash course in film
history; its dozens of licensed film clips are reason enough alone sink
back into your seat in pure delight. Kael celebrated both vanguard
directors and celebrated so-called ‘trash’ cinema.
“Seeing trash can liberate the spectator. I don’t trust anyone
who doesn’t admit having at some time in his life enjoyed trashy
American movies; I don’t trust any of the tastes of people who were born
with such high taste that they didn’t need to find their way through
trash.”
Garver deftly balances What She Said between a sequences of
nodding reverence (Kael would have had no problem with those, I suspect)
and doses of hard-spun reality.
Many filmmakers and critics hated Kael; they hate Kael — to this day.
And you hear from them. But nobody rejects her influence over the fate
of American films.
She elevated the entire medium at the exact moment when Americans
were finally responding the European New Wave. She championed the greats
and even a few not-so-greats. (As the film notes, sometimes even her
own taste was enigmatic.) She helped made American movies what they are
today — for better or worse.
PODCAST: The history of the Dyker Heights Christmas lighting extravaganza, Brooklyn’s fabulous and flashy celebration of the holiday season.
EPISODE 305 There’s a special kind of magic to Christmas in New York City. From that colossal Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center to the fanciful holiday displays in department store windows.
But in the past three decades, a new holiday tradition has grown in popularity and in a surprising quarter — the quiet residential neighborhood of Dyker Heights in Brooklyn.
Every December many residents of this area of southwestern Brooklyn ornament their homes in a wild and brilliant parade of Christmas lights and decorations. From gigantic animatronic Santas to armies of toy soldiers!
This electrical spectacle draws thousands of tourists this year, attracted to this imaginative mind-blowing display of Christmas spirit.
In this episode, we look at the lights of Dyker Heights from a few angles. First we explore the history of Christmas lighting in New York City and how such displays brought Christmas into the secular public sphere.
Then we look at the history of Dyker Heights, tracing back to one of the first Dutch settlements and a neighborhood which has developed into a stable Italian community.
Finally, we send our researcher and producer Julia Press on an excursion into Dyker Heights to reveal the origin of the Christmas display extravaganza. Featuring an interview with one of the residents who started it all!
LISTEN NOW — CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK: THE LIGHTS OF DYKER HEIGHTS
A bonus after-show podcast for those who support us on Patreon. Greg and Tom (and Julia) continue their conversation about the story of the Dyker Heights Christmas tradition.
A big thank you to Lucy Spata and Tony Muia of A Slice of Brooklyn Bus Tours for allowing us to record at the synagogue. And of course HUGE THANKS to Julia Press for contributing to this show and helping up over the past few months. Please check out her website for more links to her past work.
FURTHER LISTENING: This episode was partially inspired by Greg’s episode of The First podcast on the history of electric Christmas lighting. Makes great companion listening to this one:
The home of the Spatas, photo by Julia Press
It’s like Las Vegas and Christmas — but in Brooklyn! Photo by Julia Press
A few images from the 2017 extravaganza — when a nice layer of snow added to the festive spirit.
Further images from the podcast:
The marvelous rotating Christmas tree of Edward H. Johnson, the first tree with Christmas lights.
Thomas Edison Museum
The nation’s first ‘community Christmas tree’ in Madison Square in New York City. Read more about it here.
Ads from the early years of Dyker Heights development, Courtesy BrownstonerFrom April 1909 Brooklyn Daily EagleBrooklyn Daily Eagle, October 12, 1896
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Is it just me or was there more New York City than ever before in TV shows and movies in 2019? Granted, there is simply more of everything — more TV shows than ever, on a growing number of streaming platforms.
And generally speaking there were a lot of films released in 2019 — even it became more difficult to get audiences into seats. As a result, theaters can’t survive apparently unless they serve full-course meals and elaborate cocktails.
The entire changing landscape was embodied in this year’s real-life drama of the Paris Theatre.
In 2008, I wrote “The Paris Theatre, as eccentric as any film its ever played, has the benefit of having the Plaza Hotel and Central Park to ensure it never goes out of style.” Unfortunately it did go out of style.
In September the Paris seemed to close for good — until it was scooped up by Netflix, transforming it into a venue for its splashier feature film launches. Today you catch the Noah Baumbach movie Marriage Story within one of New York’s most historic film venues. Or you can watch it on your couch. It’s your choice!
It’s a pretty good venue for Marriage Story, a drama couched in tropes from old Woody Allen movies — important theater people involved in rocky relationships.
Other movies this year used New York City’s recent past to illustrate the nation’s economic desperation and the changing dynamics of men and women. A short cab ride will take you to all the major cinematic stops this year — the Manhattan strip club Scores (Hustlers), the Diamond District (Uncut Gems), the Sixth Avenue offices of Fox News (Bombshell).
Going back to New York’s recent past was so trendy this year that even the Avengers, in the year’s highest grossing film, took a literal time machine to 2012 to witness younger versions of themselves protecting Grand Central Terminal from attack by aliens. (You think that vision of New York City is bleak? You should see what happened to New York City in HBO’s Watchmen series.)
But it was a good year for seeing old New York City in the movies this year too — whether that be the Gilded Age or the grimy streets of 70s Times Square. Here are six scenes from six films which used the history of New York City in interesting ways:
Little Italy (The Irishman)
Martin Scorsese‘s epic tale of the mob spends most of its time outside of New York City — a rarity for the city’s greatest director — but that’s only a well-dressed illusion; most of the film was shot here and in Long Island, its exceptional production design transforming New York streets into those of other American cities.
But we do get an extremely vivid depiction of the assassination of real-life gangster Joe Gallo.
Today the restaurant Da Gennaro (129 Mulberry Street) sits on the site of the infamous Umberto’s Clam House. On April 7, 1972, the mobster Joe Gallo was brutally gunned down here while celebrating his forty-third birthday with his family. The gruesome hit plays out — in real life and in The Irishman — something like a scene out of The Godfather, which, incidentally, was released just three weeks before Gallo’s death.
Should you wish to experience Umberto’s today, it’s located just down the street (132 Mulberry Street).
Penn Station as recreated in Warner Bros. Pictures’ drama “MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Penn Station (Motherless Brooklyn)
Motherless Brooklyn, a radical retro transformation of Jonathan Lethem’s book of the same name, refits the bright noir of the movie Chinatown into 1950s New York City. If you’re a history lover, any film with Alec Baldwin playing an even more ruthless version of Robert Moses asks to be watched. And you could not envision a better set piece than old Penn Station, lovingly recreated by director Edward Norton in all its dim and gritty detail. (I wrote about this film earlier this year.)
Pearl Street Station (The Current War)
You probably didn’t see The Current War — an illuminating drama about the battle of electric power — because it was barely in theaters, a victim of bad timing and publicity. (It was supposed to arrive in theaters in 2017, but its distributor was the Harvey Weinstein Company.)
But do seek it out when it arrives to video and streaming. The depictions of Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla are interesting, even if the central struggle is not well visualized. But the set pieces are wonderful — from the Chicago World’s Fair to the grand opening of Manhattan’s Pearl Street Station, the first electrical power plant in the world.
Riding the Subway (A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood)
Yes, Mr. Rogers actually wrote the New York City subway! Believe it or not, Fred Rogers got his start in New York City, working essentially as a NBC floor manager on early broadcast television shows.
The film A Beautiful Day In the Neighborhood, an adaptation of an 1998 Esquire Magazine article, reenacts a touching moment near the end of his career.
“Once upon a time, Mister Rogers went to New York City and got caught in the rain. He didn’t have an umbrella, and he couldn’t find a taxi, either, so he ducked with a friend into the subway and got on one of the trains.
It was late in the day, and the train was crowded with children who were going home from school. Though of all races, the schoolchildren were mostly black and Latino, and they didn’t even approach Mister Rogers and ask him for his autograph. They just sang. They sang, all at once, all together, the song he sings at the start of his program, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and turned the clattering train into a single soft, runaway choir.”
I wrote about Fred Rogers’s relationship with New York City in a 2018 article.
Pictured: Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss
Hell’s Kitchen Playground (The Kitchen)
The grimy streets of Hell’s Kitchen in the 1970s! The bloody battles of the Irish mob! A bold take on gender and organized crime! Unfortunately these juicy concepts couldn’t really save The Kitchen, nor could a brilliant quartet of actresses (Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elizabeth Moss and Margo Martindale).
The Kitchen delivers a pretty hot look at ’70s 42nd Street (although nothing near as good as the genius of HBO’s The Deuce, in its final season this year.) But if you’d like a pretty good look at the dreary grit of 70s Hell’s Kitchen, the film manages to capture some of the neighborhood’s ragged, pre-gentrified energy.
For instance, pay attention to a scene involving McCarthy on a playground with her daughter. There’s so much trash just randomly blowing around the asphalt that you might be forgiven if you thought a crew member accidentally knocked over a trash can. No that’s pre-90s New York!
and finally…..
The Staircase (Joker)
Joker is technically set in the fictional Gotham City. Except it’s totally and obviously 1970s New York City, a ridiculously over-the-top version of the New York City captured by filmmakers like Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Mean Streets), John Schesinger (Marathon Man) and Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon).
The scene with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker dancing down the Bronx staircase has already — weirdly — become an iconic film image. Located between Shakespeare and Anderson Avenues (at West 167th Street) in the Highbridge neighborhood, the staircase has already become a tourist destination.
As a heap of borrowed movie references from the 1970s, Joker is virtually willing itself into becoming a movie classic. Some may find its paranoid sentiments shallow and exploitative, but its use of New York’s darker days is apt.
As we explored in our podcast Super City: New York and the History of Comic Books, the fictional world of Batman has always been a stand-in for the Big Apple — although Chicago could also lay claim to some of its more atmospheric contours.
With Joker, director Todd Phillips has eliminated such ambiguity. As with the main character, this is a volatile New York City wearing a eerie cartoon face.
For the 1949 season, the caretakers of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree decided to go fantastically over the top.
Just a few years earlier, New Yorkers were served up a plainly
adorned tree with no electric lights, a reminder of the war in Europe
and a nod to energy preservation.
But the war was over now; it was time to get delightfully gaudy.
Perhaps knowing the mild temperatures that awaited that season — it
would only snow two inches between November 1949 and January 1950 — the
Rockefeller Center holiday designers decided to spray paint the gigantic
75-foot tree in hundreds of gallons of whimsical camouflage paint.
It was then engulfed in 7,500 electric lights in pastel colors — pink, blue, yellow, green and orange, described as “plucked from a sky in fairyland.”
The lighting of the tree on Dec. 9, 1949, was a truly hallucinogenic event.
This Easter-like hue, bouncing off the silver-painted branches,
reflected out from behind dozens of glass ornaments, leading up to the
brilliant white star on top, which, according to the New York Times, “seemed to send glints of fire almost to the top of the seventy-seventh floor RCA Building in back of the tree.”
As if that didn’t grab your attention, the promenade leading up to
the tree and the skating rink was adorned with a most dizzying
decoration — rapidly whirling plastic snowflakes, 576 of them, “each as big as a dinner plate,” illuminated for hypnotic effect.
The rapidly spinning snowflakes and flamboyant tree literally stopped traffic.
Due to shocked motorists trying to catch a glimpse at this electric
wonderland, Fifth Avenue became a rush hour nightmare for several hours.
“Cars were pinned bumper to bumper from 72nd south to 41st Street along
Fifth Avenue, making cross-traffic an impossibility and imprisoning
automobiles in side streets.”
Even through police were called out to enforce emergency traffic
rules, Midtown was essentially in a state of vehicular trauma until 10
pm that evening.
Below: During the day, the silver-painted branches, adorned with
heavy glass ornaments, cast a particular glow upon the ice skating pond
and the surrounding buildings. Picture courtesy Flickr/lighthousenewsus
For visitors to Rockefeller Center, if even that wasn’t enough bedazzlement, you could head inside into the forum to see the so-called Court of Jewels:
Then of course there was the annual Radio City Music Christmas
Spectacular which often prefaced a splashy film premiere. And for that
Christmas in 1949, audiences experienced a real treat (and a movie you know we love):
The Eldridge Street Synagogue is one of the most beautifully restored places in the United States, a testament to the value of preserving history when it seems all is lost to ruin.
Today the Museum at Eldridge Street maintains the synagogue, built in 1887 as one of the first houses of worship in the country for Eastern European orthodox Jews. The Moorish revival synagogue, adorned in symbolic decoration and sumptuous stained glass, reflected the Gilded Age opulence of the day while keeping true to the spirit of the Jewish faith.
However, thanks to a handful of determined preservationists, this capsule of Jewish American life in the late 19th century has not only been restored, but even elevated to a new height. The Museum at Eldridge Street is not only a celebration of Jewish American culture, but a breathtaking tribute to the power of preservation.
The most enduring landmark on the Bowery isn’t a tavern or a bawdy theater, a restaurant or even an old punk club.
It’s the Bowery Mission, a rescue mission and shelter which has cared for thousands since it opened its doors 140 years ago this month — on November 7, 1879.
Despite moving to a few locations along the Bowery during its history, it has remained a constant — a savior for many during the Bowery’s Skid Row period and now a ragged survivor within an upscale neighborhood. And we know that long after the boutique hotels close, the Bowery Mission will surely remain.
Bowery Mission
Grit and Grace on Manhattan’s Oldest Street
Jason Storbakken
Plough Publishing House
In a touching and amiably written tribute, Jason Storbakken, former director of the chapel, presents both the Mission’s historical canvas and spiritual journey, outlining an unwavering calling withing an ever-changing metropolis.
The Bowery Mission was founded by Albert and Ellen Ruliffson, early proponents of the social gospel movement, bringing care and comfort directly to those in need. Within a few years of opening their doors at their first location (14 Bowery), the first settlement houses would open in the neighborhood.
Inside the Bowery Mission 1897. Courtesy Byron Company/Museum of the City of New York
While early rescue organizations formed near overcrowded neighborhoods, the Ruliffson’s were actually caring for the homeless and the hungry on the Bowery itself, next to some of the most rowdy and disreputable spots in New York City. And sometimes even in disreputable spots; in 1887 the Mission moved into 105 Bowery, the former dive of Owney Geoghegan once known as the Bastille of the Bowery.
The Mission assisted those on the Bowery in the 19th century. By the 20th century, you can fairly say it outright saved the Bowery, a lighthouse by which thousands of homeless men found shelter, food and care.
Storbakken ties both past and present together in a uniquely profound and impassioned way. The latter half of the book becomes both a memoir and a Mission statement, creating a continuum of purpose — a link of compassion tied to the Ruliffsons — while highlighting the many ways the Bowery Mission has matured.
The work of the Bowery Mission remains unchanged today, its striking placement along a street of trendy shops and expensive hotels today only highlighting its singular importance in a city that is outpricing its inhabitants. The Bowery Mission is no longer assisting those on the Bowery; it is the anchor of the Bowery itself.
Picture at top — Bowery Mission Bread Line 1906 / taken by Lewis Hine
EPISODE 303: Building Stuyvesant Town, A Mid-Century Controversy
The residential complexes Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, built in the late 1940s, incorporating thousands of apartments within a manicured “campus” on the east side, seemed to provide the perfect solution for New York City’s 20th-century housing woes.
For Robert Moses, it provided a reason to clear out an unpleasant neighborhood of dilapidated tenements and filthy gas tanks. For the insurance company Metropolitan Life, the city’s partner in constructing these complexes, it represented both a profit opportunity and a way to improve the lives of middle-class New Yorkers. It would be a home for returning World War II veterans and a new mode of living for young families.
As long as you were white.
In the spring of 1943, just a day before the project was approved by the city, Met Life’s president Frederick H. Ecker brazenly declared their housing policy: “Negros and whites don’t mix. Perhaps they will in a hundred years, but not now.”
What followed was a nine-year battle, centered in the ‘walled fortress’ of Stuy Town, against deeply ingrained housing discrimination policies in New York City. African-American activists waged a legal battle against Met Life, representing veterans returning from the battlefields of World War II.
But some of the loudest cries of resistance came from the residents of Stuy Town itself, waging a war from their very homes against racial discrimination.
Penn Station as recreated in Warner Bros. Pictures’ drama “MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Motherless Brooklyn, a radical retro transformation of Jonathan Lethem’s book of the same name, refits the bright noir of the movie Chinatown into 1950s New York City. Edward Norton, who wrote and directed this adaptation, also stars as its central figure — Lionel Essrog or simply Brooklyn, a detective with Tourette syndrome and a photographic memory.
The film is a lot. Its success for you will depend on your tolerance for Norton’s performance as Brooklyn, who explodes with spontaneous verbal tics while on a labyrinthine case nodding (often blatantly, sometimes brilliantly) to dozens of classic detective tropes.
I saw it a week ago and I’m still not sure whether I loved it or detested it. It’s a movie full of wonderful concepts, fascinating history and a few failed ideas.
But if you’ve ever listened to our podcast — or spent more than five minutes on this website — then I’m pretty sure you’ll find something to admire in Motherless Brooklyn.
The list below contains no big spoilers pertaining to the film’s plot, but prepare to recognize the following historical figures and concepts. In fact you might like to listen to a podcast or two before or after you view the film. Some listening suggestions are below:
THE POWER BROKER
In many ways Motherless Brooklyn is as much an adaptation of The Power Broker as it is Lethem’s detective novel. (There are at least three character monologues that feel like information dumps from the book.)
The central antagonist Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin) stands in for Robert Moses, the unelected city official who amassed great power during the 1940s and 50s, shaping the city to his whims. By the ’50s, Moses has collected several job titles, lording over weak mayors and determining the city’s fate — with little consideration for individual community needs.
Warner Bros
TRIBOROUGH BRIDGE AND TUNNEL AUTHORITY
In Motherless Brooklyn, Moses’ instrument for change is actually called the Borough Authority, but its headquarters are located in the same place as Moses’ — Randall’s Island. Originally commissioned by the state to construct the Triborough Bridge, the authority’s merged with other city agencies under Moses.
THE GREAT MIGRATION
Thousands of African-Americans moved out of the South in the first half of the 20th century — escaping the dominance of Jim Crow laws — and many came to New York City, only to find a familiar tenor of discrimination here. By the 1940s, housing shortages in black communities like Harlem vexed African-Americans who were unable to rent from many landlords in mostly white neighborhoods.
Norton with Willem Dafoe in a stand-out performance. Courtesy Warner Bros
REDLINING
The process by which banks and insurance companies, with de facto approval by the city, denied loans and mortgages to residents in predominantly minority neighborhoods, leading to the deterioration of those neighborhoods, leading them to be labeled ‘slums’. When then led to….
SLUM CLEARANCE
An urban renewal strategy popular in the mid-20th century — Robert Moses was its maestro — involving the complete demolition of neighborhoods labeled slums and relocating its displaced residents to public housing in far off (less valuable) quadrants of the city. In many cases, those neighborhoods were not ‘slums’ at all; that is, they were thriving places that just happened to be homes to black, Hispanic or Jewish residents.
EAST TREMONT
A neighborhood in the South Bronx, largely populated with working class Jewish residents, decimated by the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway in the 1940s and 50s. From The Power Broker: “The one mile of the Cross-Bronx Expressway through East Tremont was completed in 1960. By 1965, the community’s “very good, solid housing stock,” the apartments that had been so precious to the people who had lived in them, were ravaged hulks.
Glen Wilson/Warner Bros.
JANE JACOBS
Cherry Jones plays Gabby Horowitz, a community activist very much in the mold of Greenwich Village crusader Jane Jacobs. There’s even an interesting nod to her work in Washington Square and a notable rally which took place there in 1958.
HARLEM JAZZ
Harlem’s glorious jazz-club tradition is vividly illustrated in one set piece — a smoky club called the King Rooster. The film used the actual St. Nick’s Pub (St. Nicholas Avenue at West 149th Street) which dated back to the 1930s. Sadly the club burned down in 2018 in a tragic blaze which killed a firefighter.
THE ORIGINAL PENNSYLVANIA STATION
By the 1950s, the first Pennsylvania Station — above ground, designed by McKim, Meade and White — was just a few years away from demolition. It was deteriorating and not very clean by then, but Norton thankfully recreates a fantasy, photo-perfect version of Penn Station. It’s genuinely breathtaking.
SWIMMING
Robert Moses was a champion swimmer and even let his hobby influence early policy, constructing ten massive swimming pools during the 1930s with Work Progress Administration funding. Quoting Caro: “Moses gave each of his pools … his personal attention. Under his prodding, his architects adorned them with masterful little touches; over the entrance which divided men from women as they entered the bathhouse at the Corona Pool complex sat a stork wearing an expression that made him look as if he were puzzling over the physical differences in the creatures he had brought into the world.”
As a celebration of filmmaker Martin Scorsese (whose film The Irishman opens this month), we’ve just released an episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Clubto the general Bowery Boys: New York City History audience. This is an exclusive podcast for those who support us on Patreon.
For current patrons, we’ve also just released a brand new episode of the Movie Club, looking at the 1987 film Moonstruck. To listen to that episode and the past Movie Club episodes (discussing Midnight Cowboy, On The Town, Eyes of Laura Mars and many other films) become a Patreon supporter today!
Gangs of New York is a one-of-a-kind film, a Martin Scorsese 2002 epic based on a 1927 history anthology by Herbert Asbury that celebrates the grit and grime of Old New York.
Its fictional story line uses a mix of real-life and imagined characters, summoned from a grab bag of historical anecdotes from the gutters of the 19th century and poured out into a setting known as New York City’s most notorious neighborhood — Five Points.
Listen in as Greg and Tom discuss the film’s unique blend of fact and fiction, taking Asbury’s already distorted view of life in the mid 19th century and reviving it with extraordinary set design and art direction. The film itself, released a year after September 11, 2001, had dated itself in some interesting ways.
And unfortunately some elements of the film are more relevant in 2019 than ever.
How do I get regular episodes of the Bowery Boys Movie Club? Simply support the Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast at any levelon Patreon.
Once you’re signed on, you’ll see a private RSS link that can be put directly into your favorite podcast player. It can also be played directly from the Patreon app once you’re signed in. Your support of the Bowery Boys podcast on Patreon assists us in producing our podcast and this website and it helps as we endeavor to share our love of New York City history with the world!
Should you watch the movie before you listen to this episode? This podcast can be enjoyed both by those who have seen the film and those who’ve never even heard of it.
We think our take on Gangs of New York might inspire you to look for the film’s many fascinating (but easy to overlook) historical details, so if you don’t mind being spoiled on the plot, give it a listen first, then watch the movie! Otherwise, come back to the show after you’ve watched it.
If you’d like to watch the movie first, it’s currently streaming on iTunes and Amazon. Or rent it from your local library.
The Current War, an epic detailing the battle for electrical power in the 19th century, was supposed hit theaters in the fall of 2017. But its distributor was the Harvey Weinstein Company and its release date was delayed by more important matters.
The film depicts the technological and financial war between Thomas Edison (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) to power the United States with electricity — Edison championing direct current (DC) while Westinghouse promoted alternating current (AC).
Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) lights up Menlo Park / Lantern Entertaiment
The film is a bonanza for history lovers — and a bit of a bust for regular film goes and probably an offense to fans of real science on the screen. Gomez-Rejon presents a series of sumptuous, even breathtaking historical recreations — from Menlo Park to Niagara Falls — with a sharp visual style.
Many scenes reminded me of Steven Soderbergh’s The Knick; at its most ambitious, it was Eduard Muybridge by-way-of Brian DePalma.
The Current War gives us images we’ve rarely seen in cinema before — the lighting of lower Manhattan via the Pearl Street Station, the hauntingly lit grounds of Menlo Park, the triumph of the Chicago World’s Fair. (Obviously, at the Ferris Wheel, I gasped aloud.)
Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) in the corridors of Pittsburgh high society / Lantern Entertaiment
The film is so busy checking off the boxes of actual history that it sometimes forgets to make its principal characters interesting. To be fair, there’s so much going on. But Cumberbatch’s Edison hangs from bullet points about Edison’s life that never feel like they add up to the actual man. Shannon provides Westinghouse with more contemplation and carriage.
Tom Holland‘s hanging around too as Edison’s young assistant Samuel Insull. Comic book movie fans, if you’re keeping track — that’s Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, the Beast and General Zod in one movie.
The film’s fatal flaw is its failure to adequately visualize the core conflict — the battle of direct current vs alternating current. You know, the war of The Current War.
If you didn’t know what distinguished these two forms of electrical delivery before the film, it’s doubtful you’ll understand them afterwards. Scientific concepts can be difficult to translate onto film — finance shares the same problem — but the movie doesn’t really try.
Okay, but after all that — history buffs, please seek out this film! The worlds it creates are ravishing, often thrilling. The sense of gaslit rooms, the wonder of Victorian decor drenched in electric light. THE FERRIS WHEEL.
We have spoken about this subject many times on our podcasts. In fact, you can stitch the film’s screenplay together from listening to these past episodes of the Bowery Boys and The First:
PODCAST Welcome to the unlucky 13th Annual Bowery Boys ghost stories podcast, where history combines with folklore for a bone-chilling listening experience.
In this year’s Halloween-themed special, Greg and Tom take you into some truly haunted private residences from throughout New York City history. These rowhouses, brownstones and mansion all have one thing in common — stories of restless spirits who refuse to leave.
— Near Madison Square Park, an eccentric writer posts a classified ad, hoping to rent out an attic room to a prospective subletter. Unfortunately the room already an occupant — a greenish ghost with a troubling Civil War history.
— The Conference House in Staten Island played an interesting role in the Revolutionary War, and some residents from that period may still wander its ancient hallways.
— On the Upper East Side, a lavish penthouse ballroom may be permanently vexed with the ghost of a testy spirit named Mrs. Spencer. Can a legendary funny lady and a Vodou priestess manage to keep the ghoul under control?
And for the first time in Bowery Boys ghost-stories history, Greg and Tom record a segment of the show — from within an actual haunted house. Merchant’s House docent Carl Raymond joins them for a close look at the life of Gertrude Tredwell and the rooms where she lived and died — and may, to this very day, haunt.
LISTEN NOW — HAUNTED HOUSES OF OLD NEW YORK
A very special thanks to Carl Raymond, docent at the Merchant’s House Museum, for guiding us through the museum as they prepare for their October programming. You can find out more about the Merchant’s House by visiting their website. Book a candlelight ghost tour and check out their exhibition “Death, Mourning, and the Hereafter in Mid-19th Century New York.”
Thursday, October 17 – Saturday, October 19
Wednesday, October 23 – Saturday, October 26
Monday, October 28 – Wednesday, October 30
60-minute tours begin on the half hour, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every other week. We’re also looking to improve and expand the show in other ways — publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!
We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators.
Please visit our page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are six different pledge levels. Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
And join us for the next episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club, an exclusive podcast provided to our supporters on Patreon. This month’s film — Moonstruck starring Cher and Nicholas Cage.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
This smart, frugal and unassuming bachelor, an attorney and financial whiz, was critical in taking down William Tweedand the Tweed Ring during the early 1870s, helping to bail out a financially strapped government.
Kenneth T. Jackson, editor of the Encyclopedia of
New York, called Green “arguably the most important leader in Gotham’s
long history, more important than Peter Stuyvesant, Alexander Hamilton, Frederick Law Olmsted, Robert Moses and Fiorello La Guardia.”
So why is he virtually forgotten today?
“Today not one New York in 10,000 has heard of Andrew Haswell Green,” wrote the New York Daily News in 2003.
In our 300th episode, we’re delighted to bring you the story of Mr.
Green, a public servant who worked to improve the city for over five
decades. And we’ll be joined by an ardent Green advocate — former
Manhattan Borough Historian Michael Miscione.
LISTEN NOW — THE FORGOTTEN FATHER OF NEW YORK CITY
Andrew H. Green sits for a family photo, 1873. He would remain a bachelor his entire life.
Martin
Green, Mary Ruggles Green Knudsen, Andrew Haswell Green, Julia E.
Green, Dr. Samuel F. Green — courtesy Museum of the City of New York
The Greensward plan, by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, was
chosen as the winning design for the new ‘central park’ in 1857
New York Public Library
From the late 1870s, the solitary American Museum of Natural History building sits on the spot of Manhattan Square (land just to the west of Central Park granted to Green and the Central Park Commission).
Green in a couple 1870s political cartoon, lampooning his honesty and
austerity — in comparison to Boss Tweed and his Tammany Hall cronies.
New York Public Library
“Not a dollar, not a cent, is got from under his paw that is not wet
with his blood and sweat.” — Olmstead on Green’s legendary
money-managing reputation.
New York Public Library
Green, the ardent salesman of a consolidated metropolis.
Green on the island that was named for him near Niagara Falls in
1898. He chaired the Niagara Falls State Reservation Commission for
decades, helping to create the park and preserve the falls.
Andrew Haswell Green’s funeral procession leaving Brick Presbyterian Church, 1903
Museum of the City of New York
Temporary statue of Green created for the city’s Golden Jubilee
celebration in 1948, marking the 50-year anniversary of the consolidated
city. The men are sculptor Karl Gruppe and NYC Mayor William O’Dwyer.
Michael Miscione
Michael Miscione, Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, Pulitzer
Prize-winning historian Mike Wallace, and MCNY President Robert
Macdonald (left to right) planting five new symbolic trees —
representing the boroughs — at the AHG Memorial Bench in Central park in
1998 to replace the original ones that had died decades years earlier.
Michael Miscione
Tom and Greg with Michael Miscione at the Andrew Haswell Green Bench.
Courtesy Michael Miscione
FURTHER LISTENING:
So many of our past 299 shows touch upon landmarks and institutions mentioned in the show, but start with these five:
Andrew Haswell Green and Dorothy Catherine Draper courted for just a
few months and both would remain unmarried for their entire lives. Yet
both are critical figures in American history:
The Consolidation of Greater New York was Green’s grand vision, conceived of during his years on the Central Park Commission.
From way, way back in our back catalog, a two part show on the history of Central Park:
The Bronx Is Born: The magnificent idea of
consolidation was conceived from Green’s ideas of expansion into
Westchester County, into districts that would become known as the
Annexed District
FURTHER READING:
The American Museum of Natural History and How It Got That Way by Colin Davey
The Life and Public Services of Andrew Haswell Green by John Foord
The Greater New York Charter by Andrew Haswell Green
Capital City: New York City and the Men Behind America’s Rise to Economic Dominance, 1860-1900 by Thomas Kessner
The Once and Future New York: Historic Preservation and the Modern City by Randall Mason
Two Centuries of American Planning by Daniel Schaffer
The Father of Greater New York: Official Report of the
Presentation to Andrew Haswell Green of a Gold Medal Commemorating the
Creation of the Greater City of New York: with a Brief Biographical
Sketch
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every other
week. We’re also looking to improve and expand the show in other ways —
publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we
can only do this with your help!
We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators.
Please visit our page on Patreon
and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our
expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are six different
pledge levels. Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
And join us for the next episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club, an exclusive podcast provided to our supporters on Patreon.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
PODCAST (Episode 299): Part Two of our series on the history of Brooklyn Heights, one of New York City’s oldest neighborhoods.
By the 1880s, Brooklyn Heights had evolved from America’s first suburb into the City of Brooklyn’s most exclusive neighborhood, a tree-lined destination of fine architecture and glorious institutions.
The Heights would go on a roller-coaster ride with the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge and the transformation of Brooklyn into a borough of Greater New York. The old-money wealthy classes would leave, and the stately homes would be carved into multi-family dwellings and boarding houses.
The new subway would bring the bohemians of Greenwich Village into Brooklyn Heights, transforming it into an artist enclave for most of the century. But even with addition of trendy hotels and the Brooklyn Dodgers (whose front office was located here), the Heights faced an uncertain future.
When Robert Moses began planning his Brooklyn Queens Expressway in the 1940s, he planned a route that would sever Brooklyn Heights and obliterate many of its most spectacular homes. It would take a devoted community and some very clever ideas to re-route that highway and cover it with something extraordinary — a Promenade, allowing all New Yorkers to enjoy the exceptional views of New York Harbor.
This drama only served to highlight the value and unique nature of Brooklyn Heights and its extraordinary architecture, leading New York to designate the former tranquil suburb on a plateau into the city’s first historic district.
FEATURING: Truman Capote, Jackie Robinson, Gypsy Rose Lee, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Matt Damon and the Jehovah’s Witnesses!
LISTEN NOW — THE STORY OF THE BROOKLYN HEIGHTS PROMENADE AND NEW YORK’S FIRST HISTORIC DISTRICT
PODCAST: A history of all things trash in New York City.
Picture New York City under mountains of filth,
heaving from clogged gutters and overflowing from trash cans. Imagine
the unbearable smell rotting food and animal corpses left on the curb.
And what about snow, piled up and untouched, leaving roads entirely
impassable?
This was New York City in the mid 19th century, a place growing
faster than city officials could control. It seems impossible to keep
clean.
In this episode, we chart the course to a safer, healthier city
thanks to the men and women of the New York City Department of
Sanitation, which was formed in the 1880s to combat this challenging
humanitarian crisis.
And along the way, we’ll stop at some of the more, um, pungent landmarks of New York City history — the trash heaps of Rikers Island, the mountainous Corona Ash Dump, and the massive Fresh Kills Landfill.
PLUS: We’ll be joined by two special guests to help us understand the
issues surrounding New York City sanitation in the 21st century:
Robin Nagle is a Clinical Professor at NYU and the
Anthropologist in Residence for New York City’s Department of
Sanitation, and the author of Picking Up – On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City.
Maggie Lee is the records management officer in the
Sanitation Department, and also serves as the deputy director for Museum
Planning for the Foundation for New York’s Strongest.
New York Public Library1896 street cleaner and member of Waring’s ‘white wings’, photograph by Alice AustenColonel
George E. Waring Jr., who changed the course of New York City life with
the development of a rigorous new sanitation process in the city.The ‘White Wings’ on parade, 1903, filmed for the Edison Company.Photo
shows men in white uniforms and hats with brooms in the street to sweep
trash during the New York City garbage strike, Nov. 8-11, 1911.
(Source: Flickr Commons project.)[Garbage burning at East Broadway and Gouverneur Street, New York City]
Created / Published
1907 June 28. Courtesy Library of CongressIn
the distance you see the incinerator located on Governor’s Island,
operating at full capacity. Circa 1900. Photographer Robert Bracklow,
image courtesy Museum of the City of New York.A
sanitation worker carting carting away a full barrel of ash. The open
cart would be filled, taken to barges, then sent to far-away dumps. In
the 1910s, Brooklyn ash went to Corona. Rikers Island, 1915, a post-apocalyptic sea of trash. (Image courtesy the Museum of the City of New York)A fancy auto street cleaner, 1920. Photo courtesy Library of CongressThe
Corona Ash Dump as seen from overhead. Rikers, also a destination for
the city’s waste, can be seen in the bay. Courtesy CUNYView
of garbage disposal plant at the foot of 60th Street and the East
River, 1946. Photo by the Wurts Brothers, courtesy the Museum of the
City of New YorkFreshkills Landfill, 1973. Gary Miller photographerOur guest Robin Nagle giving a fascinating TED Talk on the subject!
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every other
week. We’re also looking to improve and expand the show in other ways —
publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we
can only do this with your help!
We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators.
Please visit our page on Patreon
and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our
expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are six different
pledge levels. Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
And join us for the next episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club, an exclusive podcast provided to our supporters on Patreon.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
The allure surrounding the building at 190 Bowery has captivated me from the first moment I laid eye upon it, a century-old bank sealed off from the trendy streets surrounding it. Very few people ever saw the interior. Nobody could have imagined the strange treasures which collected on every floor, in every room, of the building.
Jay Myself Directed by Stephen Wilkes Oscilloscope Laboratories Currently playing at the Film Forum
In the terrific documentary Jay Myself, the public is finally allowed in, at the very moment when its special charms are forced to vacate the building.
190 Bowery has been the home of renowned photographer Jay Maisel since 1966. During the period when artists began seeking unfinished lofts in the cast-iron districts that became SoHo and Tribeca, Maisel was instead made a most unusual offer — an empty six-story bank along a street famously known as ‘Skid Row’.
The Germania Bank Building in 1975. Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
For decades, Maisel filled each rooms with items he might use in his lush, colorful photographs. It wasn’t quite hoarding; rooms were meticulously arranged, lined with beautiful bottles, dye transfer prints and even a collection of porcelain hands from a rubber glove factory.
Few were allowed in to Maisel’s strange castle. Maisel’s former associate Stephen Wilkes, an acclaimed photographer in his own right and the director of Jay Myself, finally convinced Maisel to let him film the interiors of the home — but at a bittersweet moment.
An artist’s wonderland inside a former bank. Courtesy ISO1200
In 2015, Maisel sold the building due to mounting maintenance costs. (In 1966 he purchased the bank for $102,000; he sold it $55 million!) Jay Myself documents Maisel in the process of disentangling himself from an artist’s paradise.
If this were merely a film about mourning the past, it would work better as a photo essay. But almost immediately the film becomes a celebration of Maisel himself, both his incredible body of work — drenched in fascinating experiments in color — and his irascible personality.
Imagine the luxury of expanding yourself physically into a space, filling every corner with whims and potential visions. Then imagine dismantling it all, an era of imagination — if not quite over – at least reduced. (Even Maisel might admit that a healthy back account does offset the disappointment.)
It’s no surprise that he keeps working even as the final boxes were being removed. You’ll not want to leave either.
When Maisel still lived there, we took one of our old publicity photos on the steps of 190 Bowery!
