Our golden city’s tarnished
Back maybe 75 years when NYC was 18-karat gold in the USA:
Stores had shoppers on all floors. Tiny TV sets presented “Juvenile Jury” followed by Steve Allen with Guy Lombardo. And Barbara Walters’ showbiz father Lou’s B’way nightclub the Latin Quarter opened his new Parisian revue, “The Loveliest Girls in the World.” Jackie Gleason was hustling Capitol Records’ “Music to Make You Misty.” Greta Garbo was moving into her East 52nd Street apartment. Yul Brynner did a stop-in at the Waldorf barber shop. Sutton Place’s Anne Baxter watched the boats and barges trafficking the East River. Rosalind Russell, after starring in B’way’s “Wonderful Town,” was shopping in Saks.
Fly back to 1940s
My own old notes turned up notes about Sonja Henie’s ice show at the Garden, Louis Prima and Keely Smith headlining the Paramount and thriving hotels like the Astor, Biltmore, Savoy-Plaza. Today, they’re office buildings. And scratching through an old 1941 magazine cover flashed Mickey Rooney and Norma Shearer plus TWA’s full page boasting “five daily fast flights to LA — only 13 hours and 40 minutes.”
Two cents on taxes
Today, I’m asking: This New York to Jersey tunnel costing a fortune to dredge? How will NYC recoup that money?
Also asking, to fund the previously freezing homeless who refused shelters, an idea to help might be the maybes that Crapdammy will triple-tax New Yorkers who own sweaters.
Why sweaters? He could then subsidize his large staff’s wardrobe so he could manage to subsidize those free buses.
To scrape up more money to help the homeless, our mayor will find that even secondhand has upped prices.
A 1980 Sammy Davis Jr. puppet once cost $25. Now, sporting a tuxedo and wearing his Star of David pendant, Sammy is maybe $50.
So now, if Crapdammy were to exit City Hall, he could almost be worth even more possibly than a 1980 Sammy Davis Jr. puppet.
Miracle workers wanted
Anyone else know “Project Hail Mary” has Ryan Gosling playing a science teacher orbiting a space mission? He received his script during COVID-19. Ryan: “An opportunity to make my life’s most epic theatrical experience — and everything including theaters were closed. The film’s about the sun dying but shows we’re capable of solving impossible problems. If we don’t give up, miracles are possible.” Yeah, right. Fake the sun. For a miracle let’s try finding work for Meghan Markle’s unemployed prince whose sole occupation is spearing the family. And while you’re at it, find work for Meghan. Nobody’s hungering after her. Even CNN might turn her down.
So when smart-ass Jasper married lovesick Theresa they moved into an old uptown flat. First furniture the husband brought home? A sewing machine and a full-length mirror. Lovingly, he said: “Your choice. Take the sewing machine and go to work — or take the mirror and sit down to watch yourself starve.”
Definitely not only in New York, kids . . . not only in New York.
