Clifford Browder's Blog, page 22

358. P.T. Barnum, the Prince of Humbug

For my other books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.





A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.

To be published July 26.  You can order it here from the publisher and get a discounted price (plus postage), but it won't be shipped before that date.  Also available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, minus the discount but with the delay.  Signed copies are available now from the author (i.e., me) for $20.00 (plus postage, if needed), though in limited numbers.  


SMALL  TALK


Recently I lunched again at an Indian restaurant on Bleecker Street between Seventh and Sixth Avenues.  Luckily, I got the table by the front window, and since that window had been opened, I felt close to the people passing on the street outside.  Being in a good mood, I thought I'd try the forbidden: to make innocent eye contact with the passersby, well aware that they might think I had a commercial or sexual purpose in mind.  But how could I, when I was inside and they were outside, with many witnesses on hand?  So I smiled benignly at the passing throng.  The result, after doing this for an hour: two contacts.  Most of the passersby were immersed in talk with friends, or involved with their smart phone or tablet, but a few noticed me briefly.  One older woman, passing with her spouse, smiled back, and one young girl, passing with her family, waved to me, and I waved back.  And that was it.  In New York, you don't make innocent eye contact with strangers.  Any attempt to do so implies an ulterior motive.  People assume you want something from them -- something more than a fleeting smile -- are they are on the defensive.  Worse still, they may think you're one of those guys.

But my time at the window wasn't wasted.  When not consuming my chana saag and mango lassi, I could once again view the enterprises on the other side of the street.  Right across Bleecker was the sign Caliente Cab Co., which, as I knew from previous visits, has nothing to do with cabs, as is made clear by a vertical sign below: TEQUILA BAR.  Inside, I could see people lunching and, I'm sure, imbibing.

Just to the left of this came a series of signs: KUMO SUSHI, FISH RESTAURANT / SEA FOOD, and then on an awning, JOHNS OF BLEECKER STREET / since 1929.  This last baffled me, until I finally saw a small neon sign: pizzeria.  So there it is: Mexican, then Japanese, then American, and then Italian/American.  And this while sitting In an Indian restaurant, with a big photo on the wall opposite of a huge elephant with its calf (if that's what young elephants are called).  Once again, the diversity of New York.


P. T.  BARNUM,  THE  PRINCE  OF HUMBUG


         Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891) perfected the gentle art of humbug.  (Humbug, verb: to willfully deceive or trick.)  Born and raised in Connecticut, then a stronghold of strict Protestantism, he was convinced that Americans could be entertained only if the entertainment was presented as serious and educational.  His whole eventful career, much of it based in sinful and fun-loving New York City, was devoted to “educating” the American public -- amusing and hoaxing them -- so as to “put money in my own coffers.”  The saying “There’s a sucker born every minute” has long been attributed to him, but the “Prince of Humbug” probably never said it.  But as regards his coffers, he started early: by age 12 he was peddling molasses candy, gingerbread, and homemade cherry rum.  Not humbug – not yet – but a prime example of what was then called “Yankee push.”


         Some of his most famous shows and humbugs:
·      Joyce Heth, an aged negress, a blind and almost paralyzed slave whom he leased and then presented as George Washington’s nurse, 161 years old, with yellowed documents to prove her authenticity.  In 1836, after being worked 10 to 12 hours a day spinning tales about “dear little George,” she inconvenienced him by dying.  Barnum then had a doctor do an autopsy in a New York saloon and charged admission.  When the autopsy revealed that Heth was only about 80, Barnum claimed that the corpse was a fake, and that the real Joyce Heth was alive and performing elsewhere – a maneuver that maintained public interest in the hoax.  This ethically questionable enterprise launched his career.  (Later he distanced himself from the hoax and even became an abolitionist.)·      The “Egress” in his American Museum in New York.  A sign that read “This way to the egress” encouraged museumgoers to go through a door and exit the museum, so that they had to pay again to enter.  Which may help explain why the museum drew some 4,000 visitors a day, some of them being repeats.·      A wild buffalo hunt in Hoboken, with strong fences to protect the public from the savage beasts, which in fact were quite feeble and docile, and barely capable of movement.·      The Feejee Mermaid, the body of a fish sewn to the head and hands of a monkey, a puny, dried-up thing with two chests and two bellies that by provoking a controversy sparked the interest of the public. ·      General Tom Thumb, a genuine dwarf whom he ballyhooed into an international celebrity and exhibited to Queen Victoria in England and the royal court in France.  Later he had him marry a female midget and sponsored their honeymoon tour.
Barnum and Tom Thumb, circa 1850.·      Jenny Lind, the Swedish coloratura soprano whom he likewise ballyhooed into a celebrity, making the public desperately eager to hear her warbling notes.  The Lind mania was such that items were named for her: women’s hats, opera glasses, paper dolls, sheet music, and even chewing tobacco.  Her nine-month tour in America grossed, in today’s dollars, the astonishing amount of $21 million.  Fictionalized accounts of Barnum’s life have him and Lind at least somewhat in love, but this is fiction; theirs was a business relationship and nothing more.·      His three-ring circus in New York, whose initial lack of a giraffe was explained by a sad tale of feeding one to the lions to keep them alive during the hard voyage across the Atlantic.  ·      200 educated rats that performed amusing tricks in his museum.·      The giant six-ton African elephant Jumbo, which he bought in London in 1881 and brought to this country, to the outrage and dismay of all of England.  Here he advertised it as “The Only Mastodon on Earth,” and advertised it in pictures vastly exaggerating its size.  When Jumbo, touring by rail, was killed by a freight train in Canada, Barnum had the animal stuffed and mounted, and presented his remains, and a female elephant labeled his widow, to the public.
Jumbo.  A sheet music cover, 1882.
         Americans were hardheaded, shrewd, and suspicious, but pseudoscientific explanations could win them over, and Barnum offered plenty of those.  And if one of his hoaxes was exposed, many of the public admired the cleverness of the hoax, noting that Barnum was a very “smart” man, meaning clever to the point of duplicity.  And if controversy resulted, so much the better; it was all part of the show. 
Iranistan
         Always the showman, he created Iranistan, a country estate in Connecticut with a “Moorish” mansion topped by onion-shaped domes, then had an elephant pulling a plow in sight of passenger trains passing on the tracks of a nearby railroad.  Meanwhile he got involved in local politics in Connecticut, promoted minstrel shows, and in 1870, at age 60, went into the circus business, founding P.T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome.  This in time became Barnum & Bailey’s Circus, the “Greatest Show on Earth,” which in later years merged with Ringling Brothers and toured the world, closing its doors only in 2017 because of high operating costs and declining ticket sales.
The Barnum Museum at Broadway and Ann Street, 1855.  Dioramas, panoramas, scientific instruments, a flea circus, the Feejee Mermaid, the Siamese Twins, trained bears, freaks, a rifle range, glass blowers, waxworks, an oyster bar, and magicians, and all for twenty-five cents.
         Barnum had a colorful career with many ups and downs, including defecating animals; a fat boy who lost weight; fires that reduced Iranistan and his museums to ashes; near bankruptcy; and a train wreck that killed 33 horses and 2 camels.  Not to mention occasional exposures.  “Some skunk,” he wrote a colleague, “saw the Mermaid box on the top shelf in my office, so that’s been tattled out.”  Ever resourceful, he survived every setback and went on to even greater displays that would “kill the public dead.”  His autobiography, first published in 1854, became a bestseller; by the end of the century, its North American sales were surpassed only by the New Testament.  Also of interest is his 1880 book, The Art of Money-Getting, which to my ear has a distinctly contemporary ring. 
         Other tidbits from his life:
·      Before becoming a showman, in his early years in Connecticut he was in turn a peddler, clerk, porter house keeper, village store proprietor, country newspaper editor, boarding house keeper, and lottery operator.·      An impoverished country boy, he helped a cattle drover drive a herd of cattle to New York and immediately saw the vast prospects for making money that the city offered.  In time, New York would become his base for the rest of his money-making life.·      He published a newspaper, the Herald of Freedom, and spent 60 days in jail in Danbury, Connecticut, when convicted of libel.  There he decorated his cell, continued to publish his paper, and at his release threw a party and parade to celebrate.·      To present his circus, he created the 10,000-seat New York Hippodrome, which opened in 1874.  He had his office there until his death in 1891.  Its later name: Madison Square Garden.·      He is said to have had correspondence with Mark Twain, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Queen Victoria (to whom he presented Tom Thumb), Abraham Lincoln (at least he voted for him), Ulysses Grant, and Thomas Edison, who recorded his voice.
         If I have lingered over Barnum, it’s because he raised the art of humbugging to a new level and made a fortune – in fact, several – in the process.  He claimed to educate and edify, but mostly he was letting his audience have a vast amount of fun.  Which, in Victorian times, was no small feat.  And he’s still with us today.  A film entitled “The Greatest Showman” opened last winter and gave a splashy version of his career. Simultaneously, a cartoon in the Times of December 20, 2017, showed Barnum gesturing grandly toward THE GREATEST HUMBUG OF THEM ALL, whose face was unmistakably that of the present occupant of the White House.  And right below the cartoon was a column by history professor Stephen Mihm with the caption No, Trump Is Not P.T. Barnum. 
         So what does Professor Mihm profess?  First, he grants that there are certain similarities:
·      A willingness to bend the truth.·      Artful manipulation of the press.·      Self-promotion.·      Tremendous energy.·      Hyperbole.·      A fondness for living large (Iranistan, Mar-a-Lago).·      Bankruptcy, followed by recovery.
         But there the similarities end.  Unlike Trump, Barnum was a devoted husband, and a scrupulous businessman who paid his debts in full and on time, and worked hard and made personal sacrifices to get out of bankruptcy.  Visitors to his exhibits might dispute their authenticity, Barnum argued, but rarely felt shortchanged or cheated.  Though he shared the casual racism of his time and profited from it, he became a progressive who voted for Lincoln in 1860 and advocated voting rights for blacks.  If Barnum were alive today, Professor Mihm suggests, he would want to exhibit the Donald as an extreme embodiment of humbug – worthy of a sideshow, but nothing more.

Coming soon: BookCon 2018: How I Survived Pop Culture, Bill Clinton, the Grim Reaper, and Grinning Pink-Nosed Trolls.



BROWDERBOOKS  

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 
The back cover summary:

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
New release; available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


©   2018   Clifford Browder

357. West 11th and Hudson: Romance, Mystery, Spuntino, and the Commies

For my other books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.





A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.

To be published July 26.  You can order it here from Black Rose Writing, the publisher, and get a discounted price (plus postage), but it won't be shipped before that date.  Also available fromAmazon and Barnes & Noble, minus the discount but with the delay.  Signed copies are available now from the author (i.e., me) for $20.00 (plus postage, if needed), though in limited numbers.  


SMALL  TALK


A Browderboost: 237 West 11th Street, West Village

A Browderboost is simply a brief recognition of a local residence or enterprise that has done something to enhance the beauty of my neighborhood, the West Village.  Walking along West 11th Street between West 4th and Waverly Place, I recently noticed two flower boxes at 237 West 11th crammed with black-splotched yellow pansies.  Not only were they beautiful enough to make me linger there a moment, but in the two ground-floor windows to the right of the handsome entrance there were lighted lamps as well, adding to the building's attractiveness.  Real estate listings online describe this as a six-floor coop building dating from 1904 or 1915, though to my eye it looks older (real estate dates are notoriously inaccurate, often dating a building from the most recent renovation), and the prices mentioned are depressingly high, though nothing seems to be available at the moment.  All of which is, for my purposes, irrelevant, since a Browderboost is simply a congrats to a neighbor for making their property attractive to the eye.  Bravo, 237 West 11th, and especially the ground-floor resident responsible for the lights in the windows.


*                  *                 *                *                *                *                *               *               *


WEST  11th  and  HUDSON

Just one block from me is the intersection of West 11th Street and Hudson Street.  On this corner are four buildings: the Philip Marie restaurant, a branch of the HSBC bank, the Frankies 570 Spuntino restaurant, and the White Horse Tavern.  Four enterprises, four stories.  Let's have a look.  

         I have often lunched at Philip Marie's, and did a whole post on it: #319: "569 Hudson: Buddha, a Speakeasy, Greek Yogurt and Romance."  Having bought the building in 1998, the present owner broke down a brick wall in the basement to get more space.  Behind the wall he found a small room with a trap door to a sub-basement, where he found the remains of a 1920s warehouse that once housed barrels of illicit alcohol meant for the lusty gullets of Villagers during Prohibition.  And when the new owner broke down another wall, he found the remains of an eighteenth-century farmhouse kitchen, with fireplaces in whose ashes he discovered oyster shells and clay pipes once smoked by the farmers. (For the full history, see post #319.)  Today the basement one level down is the Wine Room, a private dining room for intimate dining for two, with romantic music, flowers, and wine.

         The HSBC bank branch is, for me, a mystery.  I have walked by it many times and can see the interior through the big street-front windows.  But even though the entrance has a big sign OPEN, inside I see almost no one.  Sometimes perhaps a teller, and sometimes perhaps one patron, just one.  What gives?  The local branch of my own beloved bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, is always thronged with patrons, plus a diligent staff of employees.  But in HSBC, no one, or almost no one.  Yet in the Times of December 11, 2017, I saw a full-page ad with white lettering on red: "Proud to be the World's Best Bank.  HSBC."  Something called the Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2017 had evidently bestowed this award.  

          Ah, but in the Times just one day later was an article reporting that the U.S. was dismissing criminal charges against HSBC, a London-based bank with a U.S. subsidiary, five years after the bank reached an agreement to avoid prosecution for lapses in its money-laundering controls.  Aha, another naughty big bank being spanked.  Which has nothing to do with its branch on West 11th at Hudson, which for me remains a mystery.  I may not want HSBC, but it wants me, for I just got in the mail an invitation to open an account, in return for which I would get a "welcome deposit" of $750.  Think of it -- 750 smackeroonies just for joining their club!  For mazuma like that, shouldn't I go in there and gladden things up for the teller?  Nope.  Maybe for $7,500, but not for a mere $750.  No dice.

          Frankies 570 Spuntino, where I have often lunched, offers Italian food with what is described as a "light" touch.  The two chefs behind it, Italian Americans who grew up in Queens, are named Frank, and the address is 570 Hudson Street, which explains the name.  Except for "Spuntino," which, they inform me, is Italian for an informal meal or snack, or a casual Italian restaurant.  I can vouch for the butternut squash soup, and the meatballs with pine nuts and raisins.  Also, they have a delightful custom of bringing you fresh bread and a saucer of olive oil, while you wait for your main dish to arrive.  But about the building itself, a handsome three-story structure with elegant simplicity, I have been able to learn nothing.  But when Frankies moved in, they stripped away the walls, revealing century-old brickwork, which does suggest a story.  But as of now the building's secrets remain secret.

          Finally, the legendary White Horse Tavern, its windows crowded with any number of carved white horses.  Legendary, because it was here that the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas staged his last binge in 1953, boasting of downing eighteen whiskeys (it was probably only nine) before staggering back to the Chelsea Hotel, where he soon collapsed and was rushed by ambulance to St. Vincent's Hospital, where he died.  

          But there is more to the White Horse legend than that.  Built in 1880, it began as a bar serving the longshoremen working on the nearby Hudson River piers.  If it became a speakeasy during Prohibition in the 1920s, maybe it got booze from the warehouse across the street.  In the 1930s and 1940s leftist union men hung out there, singing "The Internationale," and the bar was labeled a Communist hangout.  In the 1950s, when Senator Joe McCarthy sparked an anti-Communist crusade throughout the country, Irish working-class kids from the neighborhood would invade the tavern, swinging their fists, hurling chairs, and shouting "Communist!" and "Faggot" at the patrons.  But soon it became a gathering place for writers and jazz musicians.  Among the habitués were Jack Kerouac, who was bounced from there more than once.  Also imbibing there were movie actor Charles Laughton, the poet Delmore Schwartz, a less-than-sober Norman Mailer, Bob Dylan, urban activist Jane Jacobs, and the editors of the Village Voice.  Not welcome, on the other hand, were gay people, as friends of mine can testify.  And today? Tourists, New York University students, and locals, and to judge from what I've seen at the sidewalk tables in mild weather, even families.  I doubt if they sing "The Internationale."


Coming soon: P.T. Barnum, the Prince of Humbug.  And sooner or later (probably sooner), BookCon 2018, where storytelling and pop culture collide: notes of a survivor.



BROWDERBOOKS  

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way.  A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 
The back cover summary:
New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
New release; available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


©   2018   Clifford Browder

356. Gimmicky Appeals: How Even Good Guys Rip Us Off

For my other books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.





A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.

To be published July 26.  You can order it here from the publisher and get a discounted price (plus postage), but it won't be shipped before that date.  Also available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, minus the discount but with the delay.  Signed copies are available now from the author (i.e., me) for $20.00 (plus postage, if needed), though in limited numbers.  


SMALL  TALK

New Yorkers have a feeling about their city that visitors may not understand.  Dying in Vancouver, speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan said, "I would rather have a square inch of New York than all the rest of the world."  New York is unique.  It's where people can be themselves.  It's Diamond Jim Brady strutting his 12,000 diamonds on his buttons, watch, belt buckle, scarf pin, eyeglass case, rings, cane, and cuff links ("Them as has 'em wears 'em").  It's the newly arrived cosmetics queen Helena Rubinstein vowing to rescue the women of America from purple noses and gray lips.  And socialite/philanthropist Brooke Astor, the aristocrat of the people, zooming about the city in her chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz to bestow funds on needy tenements and playgrounds and schools.  (Yes, they're all in the book.)  When I wished a Facebook friend of mine, a New Yorker long exiled in London, a Happy Birthday, she e-mailed me back: "Once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker.  I miss New York!"  And another friend has told me of seeing, when she first arrived in New York, a big sign at the Staten Island ferry terminal: 


New York -- Is there anywhere else?
Is there indeed?


GIMMICKY  APPEALS

Nonprofits and less worthy entities will stop at nothing to get you to open the mail they send you.  Knowing this, I am ruthless in discarding envelopes that come without any return address or other identification except the telltale postmark "Non Profit."  But a new twist came recently in an envelope lacking a return address but marked thus:
       CHECK ENCLOSED       POSTMASTER:       DELIVER TO ADDRESSEE ONLY 
In addition, it was marked DO NOT FOLD / DO NOT BEND, and bore a WARNING that anyone interfering with this letter could be fined or imprisoned.
         So did I open it?  Of course not.  The more tempting the offer, the more suspicious I become.  So into the waste basket it went.  Later I retrieved it, not out of curiosity but simply to make a note about something else on the back of it.  Then the idea of this post caused me to finally, and skeptically, open it.  And there it was: a real check for all of two dollars payable "to the bearer or Cliff Browder."  And then the spiel: a letter from the CEO of the American Parkinson Disease Association explaining that she was sending me this check -- even though she couldn't afford to -- so as to get my attention and persuade me to donate to APDA.  
         I have no reason to doubt the authenticity and worthiness of APDA, which gets a three-star rating from Charity Navigator, and I know what it is to live with someone afflicted with Parkinson's.  The Internet informed me that APDA’s former CEO once got 15 months in prison and an order to pay $877,442 in restitution for diverting into his own greedy pockets more than $1 million worth of contribution checks.  And whym did he do it?  Because his $109,000-a-year salary was half what other heads of nonprofits got and he wanted to live the high life.  Ominous, but that was back in 1996 and has no bearing on the charity’s operations now.  Still, I can only do so much and am amply committed elsewhere.  Also, my partner Bob gives substantial sums regularly to the Parkinson Research Foundation, another toiler in the vineyard, so I feel that our household is doing its share in this regard.  But will I cash that check?  I have already filled out a deposit slip but now am hesitating.  The appeal was just a bit duplicitous, yet the cause is seemingly legitimate.  To cash or not to cash?  In the past I have been petty enough to pocket even dimes and quarters in gimmicky solicitations – why toss coin in the trash?  But maybe this is different.  Maybe.  Stay tuned.
         Recently another suspect letter came to Bob.  Through a window in the envelope you could see
     DEPARTMENT OF AUTOMOBI     VEHICLE DOCUMENT / ALERT NO     PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL
Otherwise, no markings on the envelope.  With this potential post in mind, I opened it for Bob anyway and found a very official-looking notice requiring IMMEDIATE REPONSE TO THIS NOTICE.  And what followed?  “Our records indicate that your auto warranty is expired or may expire soon.  Please call [a phone number in bold print] today to confirm ongoing vehicle service coverage.  Se Habla Español.”  They even did the tilde – that wiggly mark over the n -- correctly, though only the first word (Se) needed to be capitalized.  And for a hint of a threat, the notice states: “Program Term Deadline: 04/18/18.”
         So what’s the problem?  Bob has never owned or driven a car and has never had a driver’s license.  A city boy from birth, he never needed to drive.  Is this a scam, a fraud?  Maybe not.  Maybe only a clever pitch to the unwary.  Maybe they provide authentic coverage, but their way of presenting it is deceitful; they want to strike fear into recipients and get them to sign up.  Caveat emptor.
          And now another gimmick that is constantly used, even by the worthiest of causes, to manipulate our feelings and nudge us toward transferring our hard-earned (or not-so-hard-earned) moola into their gaping coffers: music.  Yes, music.  Often when I get a spiel on the radio urging me to contribute to a worthy cause, there is background music meant to trigger appropriate emotions and thus motivate me to give.  I’m sure that this gimmick results from lengthy consultations by the charity or worthy cause in question, seasoned with costly studies from well-paid experts in the field.  Here are the kinds of music I have noticed:
1.    Tension or crisis music: something is terribly amiss.2.    Pathos music: terrible suffering results, worthy of our commiseration.3.    Challenge music: a call to arms, urging us to do something.4.    Martial music: fight the good fight, right this wrong.5.    Music of calm and resolution: do this and all will be well.
No. 5 is optional and certainly optimistic.  Often the pitch ends with no. 4, the resonant  call to arms. 
         I resent this musical pitch, for it seeks to manipulate my feelings.  I want only the verbal appeal, if brief.  But recently, several times when I encountered one of these approaches on the radio, the music was so loud that I couldn’t hear the words at all.  This is rare, but I derived great satisfaction from the botched performance, since the music completely nullified the spiel.  What worthy cause was being promoted, I have no idea, but they had better rethink the spiel.
         Of course one can get too skeptical.  On WBAI (where else?) I heard a talk by a mother who was warning us against vaccines for young children, a subject regarding which I remain open-minded.  She spoke with great fervor, but some kind of ominous background sound that wasn’t quite music grew louder and then softer at intervals, making me think the whole production was packaged and gimmicked.  And she spoke too well, without a single um, suggesting a professional performance.  As a result, I remained totally unconvinced.
         The desire to manipulate our fellow beings is age-old and universal, practiced by charities, retailers, candidates, demagogues, and evangelists the world over.  They want us to give, to buy, to vote, to follow, to be saved.  And in such operations this country is second to none.  Think of the dazzling neon signs of Times Square, which at least are entertaining, and the billboards along our highways.  And of course all those slick TV commercials and the maddening pop-up ads on the Internet.  We are a nation of hucksters.
         Long ago in my distant childhood my family’s excursions by car were gladdened at intervals by a series of small roadside Burma-Shave signs that rhymed:
A shaveThat’s realNo cuts to healA soothingVelvet after-feelBurma-Shave
They even advocated safe driving:
Hardly a driverIs now aliveWho passedOn hillsAt 75Burma-Shave
Did my father use Burma-Shave?  Of course not.  But the signs were fun; all the passengers except the driver would read them aloud in chorus.  Alas, they disappeared after 1963.
         Spiels of another kind, and very American, were … and are … the exhortations of evangelists (usually Protestant) out to win souls to salvation.  Traditionally, they triggered fear by presenting a vivid a picture of fiendish demons tormenting the damned in a fire-and-brimstone hell.  Scared to shivers, how could you not repent and embrace salvation?  I once heard Billy Graham, a modern and sophisticated practitioner, addressing a multitude in Madison Square Garden.  He went light on fire and brimstone and demons, but his appeal to the hesitant was smooth and forceful: “Thou fool!  This very day shall thy God demand of thee thy soul!”  And at the end, quite a bunch of the converted – or maybe re-converted – were led off for further guidance and instruction.  I, however, remained among the Great Unwashed.
         Perhaps the most memorable and effective U.S. political spiel was the Cross of Gold speech by William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896.  I grew up near Chicago before air-conditioning, so I know how the conventioneers must have sweltered and drowsed in the summer heat.  But Bryan, a superb orator, fired up their minds and set their souls ablaze.  The issue of free silver – whether or not to endorse the free coinage of silver – means little to us today, but back then it pitted the silver-advocating agricultural midlands against the gold-endorsing railroad tycoons and Wall Street money barons of the East.  Bryan spoke at length, and eloquently, on behalf of free silver and the “toiling masses.”  Having skillfully worked his audience up, he concluded passionately, “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns.  You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!” 
         Dead silence throughout the hall, then an explosion of cheers.  People waved their hats and canes and flung their coats and hats in the air in a frenzy that lasted one full hour.  The next day the convention nominated Bryan for president.  He ran against William McKinley, the darling of the Eastern moneyed interests, and lost, but came back twice again as the Democratic candidate and champion of the common man (and woman), and twice again lost.  But his 1896 speech is probably the most famous speech in American political history, and it made him famous.  Who today could speak like that?
         The master manipulator of the American public was the showman Phineas T.  Barnum, who allegedly said, “There’s a sucker born every minute” – true enough, though he probably never said it.  Be that as it may, Barnum is too colorful and too complex a figure to be discussed briefly here.   He merits – and will get – a whole post of his own.
         Now about that check for two dollars: after due consideration, I destroyed it.  Tempting as it was to deposit it, I decided that the duplicity didn’t quite reach that level, so I’m not donating but I’m wishing them well.  Still, be wary of letters with no return address but postmarked “Non Profit,” and still more, e-mails from strangers offering friendship or something else too good to be true.  Because it probably is.  And if you’re a grandparent, beware above all of e-mails from a grandchild begging for an emergency loan, or a phone call from a stranger on behalf of same.  It’s a notorious scam, but it still seems to fool the unwary; grandparents have a tender heart and can be milked accordingly.  Given the world we live in, there are times when one has to be, or at least feel like, a Scrooge. 
         A final note:  While planning this post I got a phone call.  A recorded voice announced in fearsome tones:  ”This is to inform you that you have just been indicted for …”  “Bullshit!” I yelled and hung up.  I sleep easy, having no fear of an indictment.  But some poor soul somewhere may panic and do whatever the recorded voice wants.  Yes, there’s one born every minute, and a fraudster as well.  Alas.

Coming soon: West 11th and Hudson: Romance, Mystery, Spuntino, and the Commies

BROWDERBOOKS  


All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 
The back cover summary:

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
New release; available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


©   2018   Clifford Browder

355. The Met Gala: High Fashion on Steroids

For my other books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.





A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some stuff that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.

To be published July 26.  You can order it here from the publisher and get a discounted price (plus postage), but it won't be shipped before that date.  Also available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, minus the discount but with the delay.  Signed copies are available now from the author (i.e., me) for $20.00 (plus postage, if needed), though in limited numbers.

 THE  MET  GALA:  HIGH  FASHION  ON  STEROIDS

         What links Schwarzman (Stephen  A .), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lehman Brothers, bejeweled papal tiaras, the Blackstone Group, Anna Wintour, the Sistine Chapel Sacristy, Donatella Versace, $30,000 tickets, and President Trump?
         Wait a minute, Browder, who and what are all these items and where did you find them?  Fair enough; here are some thumbnail explanations:
Schwarzman, Stephen A.  A money baron and philanthropist whose name now graces the main building of the New York Public Library, that imposing Beaux Arts structure, fronted by two beloved and much-photographed stone lions, on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street.  More of him anon.The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  No identification needed; it’s world-famous.Lehman Brothers.  The huge U.S. investment bank whose collapse in 2008 unhinged the stock market and helped bring on the Great Recession.Papal tiaras.  Crowns worn by popes of the Catholic Church.The Blackstone Group.  A huge private equity firm founded by Stephen A. Schwarzman.  (Aha – a link!)Anna Wintour.  Editor-in-chief of the U.S. fashion magazine Vogue.The Sistine Chapel Sacristy.  The sacristy of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome, a hidden chamber closed to the public, where church vestments are stored and, behind secret doors, elderly nuns iron the pope’s white outfits.Donatella Versace.  A world-famous Italian fashion designer.$30,000 tickets.  To be explained below.  Hints of the moneyed elite. President Trump.  Alas, no explanation needed.
         So what brings all these items together?  The black-tie gala and benefit in May that marks the opening of the annual show of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, the only Met department that has to fund itself.  A gala, be it known, that is the undisputed highlight of the New York social calendar, much anticipated, much publicized, and much photographed.  Which explains items #2 and #9, but how about all the others?
         Stephen A. Schwarzman is a generous donor, but his gifts have strings attached.  A New York Times article about him is entitled, “Nice City You Got.  I’ll buy it.”  Ascending the red carpet up the Met’s front steps to the gala, he and his wife Christine entered inconspicuously, he in a simple black tux, she in a shimmering gray Versace gown.  Her gown was inconspicuous?  Yes, compared to other women in flashy designer outfits and flanked by the high priests of high fashion.  But he got plenty of media attention, for his $12.3 billion fortune let him help underwrite – to the tune of a rumored $5 million -- the Costume Institute’s exhibition, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” 
         “Catholic Imagination”?  Aha, here must be a link to papal tiaras (#4) and the Sistine Chapel Sacristy (#7).  The idea first hatched in the fertile brain of Andrew Bolton, curator of the Costume Institute and himself a Catholic, who thought of involving many religions, but soon found that enticing just one to cooperate was quite enough.  His exhibit would show how, over the centuries, the Catholic Church had inspired many fashion designers.  Bolton paid over forty visits to the Vatican, talked with various officials there, and gradually won them over to this most secular of projects, the biggest exhibit the Costume Institute has ever launched.  In the end the Sistine Chapel Sacristy, whose secret chambers he was finally allowed to penetrate, loaned forty items for the exhibit, including a tiara with 18,000 diamonds that was flown to New York with a bodyguard. 
         Would this exhibit prompt any blowback, given Pope Francis’s orientation toward a less ostentatious church?  Yes, Catholic officials have admitted, but they don’t think it would be significant.  Beauty, they insist, is part of the Catholic imagination.  And if some see this use of papal vestments as blasphemy, one cardinal has pointed out, it shows that these items still touch a nerve.
         Okay, but how about items #3, #5, and #10: Lehman Bothers, the Blackstone Group, and the Donald?  How do they fit in?  Early in his career the generous Mr. Schwarzman worked at Lehman Brothers, and with a colleague from there he later started the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm that grew and grew and grew, enabling Mr. Schwarzman to finance such cultural events as the Costume Institute’s “Heavenly Bodies.”  And the Donald?  Well, the Blackstone Group has loaned more than $400 million to the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and once the Donald was elected  President, Mr. Schwarzman became a financial adviser of his and began raising money for his re-election.  So there it is: Big Money, High Fashion, and politics, all tied up together.  Where but in New York?  Elsewhere too, some might insist.  Agreed, but not on this scale and at this level; as always, New York is BIG BIG BIG. 
         Mr. Schwarzman, by the way, has been described as a 5-foot-6-inch bundle of testosterone who describes his business philosophy as “war – not a series of skirmishes.”  In 2000 he bought a 17,000-square-foot three-floor penthouse apartment at 740 Park Avenue, which he altered so as to show off his Monets and Cy Twomblys.  His neighbors there theorize that the billionaire on the fourth floor, David H. Koch (yes, one of the Koch brothers so beloved of liberals), was trying to one-up the billionaire on the fifteenth floor.  Only a few months after Mr. Schwarzman spent $100 million to have his name plastered across the façade of the New York Public Library, Mr. Koch spent a like amount to have his name plastered across the façade of Lincoln Center. 
         The final to-do of all these machinations is the Costume Institute’s gala with its “Catholic Imagination” theme, prompting celebrities from far and wide to flock there and mount the carpeted front steps of the Met,  watched from behind barriers by throngs of onlookers and photographers.  Celebrities, yes, but it’s the female of the species whose togs, inspired by the exhibit’s theme, garnered the most attention.  As for instance:the singer Katy Perry with white angel’s wings stretching from head to toe (“Just a little understated thing,” she explained), and a glittery outfit that can only be described as slinkythe pop singer Ariana Grande in a dress the color of the Sistine Chapel’s back wallthe Barbadian singer Rihanna dressed in a gem-studded creation like a female Pope, with a towering miter on her head to matchthe model Bella Hadid with a veil sewn into her hair (“The things we do, darling”)the designer Ariana Rockefeller (yes, one of that clan) in a dress inspired by a tapestry at the Cloisters museumactress Olivia Munn sewn into a dress inspired by Crusades-era chain mail, and bleeding slightlythe fashion editor Eva Chen in a dress inspired by Joan of Arc the rap singer Cardi B with her abundant dark hair crowned by a spiky jeweled headdress, her pregnancy hidden under a voluminous 30-pound cream-colored, pearl-encrusted dress.
         Weighted with fabrics and jewels, the ladies needed ample room for their flaring skirts and floor-sweeping trains, so inside the Met the hoi polloi present were kept at a respectful distance.  How these costumed extravaganzas maneuvered during the cocktails and dinner that followed is hard to imagine, but if the hoopskirted matrons of the 1860s managed, these less than heavenly bodies must have managed, too.  And some of them may even have glanced at the display. 
         In vivid contrast were the gentlemen present, among them Mick Romney, a good Mormon who confessed to having bought his Brioni tux at deep discount on Amazon.  And why was he even here?  Invited by his friend, Mr. Schwarzman.  Also present, and giving rapt attention to some of the displays, was Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, another sober note to balance out – just a little – the heights and depths of high fashion disporting all around him.
         To get back to the ladies: with all this youthful glamour, so blatantly full of itself, on the prowl at the gala, Mesdames Donatella Versace (#8) and Anna Wintour (#6) might look to some like a pair of weathered harpies.  But they had much to do with putting the gala together, and it was under the dour scrutiny of Ms. Wintour that Andrew Bolton negotiated successfully with the Church Militant.  Make no mistake: if the glittery youngsters strut their youth, the weathered harpies strut their power. 
         Now about the items on display: if the Times’s Fashion section went gaga over the gala, the Weekend Arts section made up for it by featuring the exhibit under the headline “When Fabric Meets Faith.”  Delivered from the presence of celebrities, many items now on display have never before left the Vatican, including three jewel-encrusted tiaras and a cloak of Pius IX (who was a bit of a clothes hound, it seems), a miter of Leo XIII, and shoes and other items of John Paul II.  The Church insisted on its vestments being displayed separately from the secular fashion exhibit, and it is just as well, since the designer clothing inspired by ecclesiastical vestments is described as ranging from tastefully fashionable to gaudy.  What Luther would have thought of all this opulence needn’t be emphasized here, but if the Church survived him, it will certainly survive this juxtaposition of the sacred and secular, heralded though it was by a pageant of fashion on steroids.

Coming soon: Gimmicky Appeals: How Even Good Guys Rip Us Off

BROWDERBOOKS  


All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 
The back cover summary:

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
New release; available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


©   2018   Clifford Browder

354. The Oculus: Boondoggle or Architectural Wonder? And the 9/11 Memorial

For my other books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.





A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  All kinds of wild stuff, plus some that isn't quite wild but fascinating.  New York is a mecca for hustlers of every kind, some likable and some horrible, but they are never boring.
To be published July 26.  You can order it here from Black Rose Writing, the publisher, and get a discounted price (plus postage), but it won't be shipped before that date.  Also available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, minus the discount but with the delay.  Signed copies are available now from the author (i.e., me) for $20.00 (plus postage, if needed), though in limited numbers.  

SMALL  TALK

New architecture today in New York -- especially but not exclusively Manhattan -- is tall tall tall.  But a new twist is the appearance on the Far West Side of Manhattan of two twisting towers, and I do mean, quite literally, twisting.  For me and my dated perceptions, the Twist is, or rather was, a short-lived international dance craze of the early 1960s where the dancers, facing each other but not touching, swiveled their hips to jazzy music and tried to twist themselves into the floor.  But this is another kind of twist.  Known as the XI (The Eleventh), this mixed-use development involves a full block between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, and between West 17th and West 18th Streets, with two towers on the western portion of the site.  The westernmost tower, rising 36 floors or about 400 feet, offers 149 condos (just what the city needs more of), while the eastern tower rises 26 floors or about 300 feet, with a Six Senses Hotel on the lower floors and 87 condos from the 11th floor up.  

     By today's high-rise standards in the city, with 432 Park Avenue topping out at 1398 feet and 84 stories, these towers might both seem a bit puny and squat.  But as they rise they twist, and they change proportions as well.  I haven't seen them in the flesh (steel, concrete, or whatever), but photos show them and, at first glance you may think you're high on drugs, as the two things seem frozen in a wild shimmy as they twist and turn and change shape.  But no, they really are twisting and changing shape. The western tower has a base narrower than the top, but as it rises, it expands, till at the top it occupies the full western façade. Why the twist?  So it can peek around the other tower and nearby buildings and offer views in more directions.  The eastern tower twists in the opposite direction, first maximizing the views to the east and west, and then the views to the north and south.  So no matter which view you want, you can pick a condo that has it.  

     And inside?  "Natural" materials, to emphasize the natural elements embedded in the buildings: oak floors, larch wood kitchen cabinets, and eucalyptus wood vanities and Taj Mahal quartzite walls with a leather-textured finish in the bathrooms.  For these heart-warming effects, an undisclosed number of trees and creatures have been sacrificed.  The whole development, twists and all, is meant to create a resort environment in an urban setting, with water, park, and High Line handy.  Why go to the Catskills or wherever, when you can have it all right here?  Plus projected ground-level pavilions with restaurants and stores, and another building connected by an enclosed glass bridge.  I'll admit that the twists put me off, but an enclosed glass bridge sounds charming.

     Want to move in?  Sales began on May 7.  Half-floor penthouses go for $25 million, and one-bedroom digs for a mere $2.8 million and up.  

     Source note:  This Small Talk is indebted to Tim McKeogh's article, "Two Twisting Towers Come to the Far West Side," in the Real Estate section of the New York Times of Sunday, April 22, 2018.  I rarely read the Real Estate section, but the two twists caught my eye.  Now on to some inspiring architecture that doesn't twist at all.


THE  OCULUS  &  THE  9/11  MEMORIAL


        When I “did” the 9/11 Museum at Ground Zero, I promised myself to come back on a milder, less windy day to “do” †he 9/11 Memorial, the Freedom Tower, and the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the new PATH station that goes by the name of the Oculus.  So when a Thursday came with lots of sun forecast, I decided to seize the day.  No need to get a ticket this time; it’s all out in the open and free.  And so, anticipating architectural marvels, I went.
         Exiting the E train terminal at World Trade Center, I followed signs and entered the Oculus without seeing its controversial exterior.  Inside I found myself in the West Concourse, with a view of a vast amount of enclosed space that gave me the feeling of being inside the skeleton of a huge whale with his ribs soaring far above me.  (The ribs are in fact a skylight, as I learned later.)  Well below those ribs but above me were balconies, and above the balconies, a higher level still, with tourists looking down at me and other visitors on the building’s ground level.  I wanted architectural marvels, and I got one.  I had never been inside a building like this.


Anthony Quintano
         The concourse stretched distantly before me.  As I trekked onward – and all one does in the Oculus is trek – I passed pricey shops devoid of customers.  This was morning – between 10 and 11 a.m., so perhaps they get more customers later.  Otherwise, why be there, except for the prestige of having a pricey shop in this most avant-garde of venues?  But it was a strange atmosphere: space, a long corridor, emptiness, and silence.
         Coming at last to the entrance to the PATH trains to New Jersey – the pretext for this grandiose structure and its upscale shops – I took an escalator up to the balcony, encountered more fancy shops devoid of customers, but staffed by fashionably dressed young women.   One of the young women had dark hair hanging down before her face to the point of almost obscuring it: a trendy look, I assume.  Their offerings – clothing, bags, perfumes, and beauty aids – tempted me not a whit, though there were restaurants and snack bars as well where a few customers were eating.  Below me on the main floor I saw huge multicolored ads flashing on the high walls.
         Seeing nowhere else to go, at the end of my long trek I took an escalator down and found my self trudging alongside the high walls with the flashing ads, one image yielding immediately to another.  There were huge happy faces, then a great wash of orange, then notable names blazoned at intervals: CHASE, GOOGLE, TRIBECA, plus injunctions like LEAVE NO CONTINENT UNTURNED and LISTEN.  What they were selling I couldn’t tell.  But they engulfed me, almost swallowed me up.
         Coming once again to the PATH entrance and feeling no urge to travel to New Jersey, or for that matter to trek another lengthy concourse, I took an escalator up to a higher level, paid a quick visit to a rest room where the hand-dryer roared mightily – everything in the Oculus is avant-garde and extreme -- and with the help of an elevator finally reached a ground-level exit.
Matt Rice
         Outside at last, I saw the Millennium Hilton looming to the north on Vesey  Street, and behind me, the spiky glory of the west face of the Oculus.  Some have likened it to a white dove spreading its wings for flight, but to my eye it looked like a huge white mushroom, hopefully not poisonous.  Rising nearby was the Freedom Tower, which I see every night from my bedroom window.  Now at last I could see it close up, soaring like a glass arrow spiking high in the sky, and topped by an antenna that at night flashes a blinking red light.  At the tower’s base rose a huge red crane, a reminder, along with intermittent thumps and roars, that there is still much construction under way along the north edge of the site along Vesey Street, with busy forklifts and hard hats visible.  The whole site is far from completed.


Sarahkv
         Straight ahead was my other goal: the 9/11 Memorial, and more specifically, the North Pool, a large sunken rectangular pool ringed by a low wall bearing the names of the victims of 9/11.  Here now were hordes of tourists, clicking away with their cameras, but otherwise maintaining a respectful silence.  A sign announced that the waterfall was turned off because of high wind, so the rippling water looked dark and silent.  Another sign said that a rose was deposited on every victim’s name on their birthday, and I did indeed see one white rose.


Seen from above, with trees.
Paul Sableman
         Going south or downtown from there, I traversed the spacious plaza, whose full effect was lacking, since its planted trees had yet to bear leaves.  At the South Pool, similar in shape to the North Pool, the waterfall was working: all four walls of the pool were streaked with falling water that then filled a sunken basin and ran into a still deeper basin in the center.  And here too I saw a white rose attached to a name, one of many names on the pool’s encircling wall.  Finding a stone slab of a bench nearby, I snacked briefly to quench the pangs of hunger, wondering if in so doing I was desecrating the site.  Seeing others doing the same and incurring no admonishment, I decided I was not.  So ended my visit to the memorial.
         What is my take-away?  The Oculus is controversial.  It has been called a four-billion-dollar boondoggle, an example of taxpayer-financed governmental waste and architectural excess.  And where I see a huge white mushroom and the architect intends a dove, others see a beached whale carcass or a pair of ragged claws scuttling across Manhattan.  Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, it did cost a whopping big sum and took 12 years to do, and it certainly doesn’t look like a traditional train station.  But so what?  The site is unique, steeped in history and tragedy, symbolic as well as utilitarian.  Ground Zero demands something more than a conventional structure, something not tame but innovative, bigger-than-life, startling, even spiritual.  And that is what Mr. Calatrava gave us.
         From a practical standpoint, there are other concerns.  To negotiate it as a visitor requires endurance, so take your vitamins and wear good shoes.  To get anywhere, you trek and trek and trek.  For PATH commuters, quite a trudge just to get to or from the turnstiles.  As for all those pricey shops, when I toured the place – a fraction of it – they were all but deserted.  Why would morning rush-hour commuters linger to shop there, when they’re hurrying to work?  And in the evening rush hour, tired from a long day’s work, they aren’t likely to shop.  A quick drink, maybe, before facing the obligations of home, but little more.  So who does that leave?  Tourists.  I saw lots of them lining up for the 9/11 Museum and lots more at the 9/11 Memorial, but very few in the Oculus.  Walking down the concourse, usually I was amazingly alone.  So I question whether it’s going to make it as a shopping mall.  An epic monument yes, and a spacious (maybe too spacious) avant-garde train station, but perhaps nothing else.
         By contrast, the 9/11 Memorial strikes me as being just right: a place to remember 9/11 and its victims with dignity and reverence.  Tourist hordes, yes, but reasonably calm and respectful.  Of course they’re going to click like mad taking pictures, including the inevitable selfies, but outside on the plaza that’s acceptable.  And the whole Memorial is kept meticulously clean.


         And the Freedom Tower?   Seen close up, that too is exciting.  I have reservations about the supertall high rises going up all over Manhattan, but this one I permit and applaud.  But I’m biased: I see it first thing every morning from my bedroom window, and last thing at night, ablaze with light, when I retire.  It’s New York, it’s special, it’s a part of my life, it's me.  I wouldn’t want to do without it.
Coming soon: Gimmicky Appeals: How Even Good Guys Rip Us Off  (unless I switch to the Costume Institute's gala, High Fashion on Steroids)


BROWDERBOOKS  


All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way.  A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 
The back cover summary:

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
New release; available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


©   2018   Clifford Browder

353. Fascinating New Yorkers: Why and How I Wrote It

Some of my friends have asked me why I wrote Fascinating New Yorkers and how I researched it.  Here are some answers in the form of an imagined interview.
1.  All right, Cliff Browder, why did you write it?
Because I’m fascinated by the history of New York City and want to share it with others.  New York is, and always has been, a mecca for hustlers and doers of every kind, some now remembered and others forgotten, and their stories are fascinating.  I had told many of these stories in posts for this blog.  Finally, having already written one award-winning book based on posts from the blog (No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World), I realized that I could do another, this one, if I grouped the posts in sections and did a bit more research.
2.  What kind of research did you do? 
The book is part history, part memoir.  For the history, I went online and googled the names.  Of course I usually got a New York Times obit or another such obit, and a Wikipedia article, but they give what everybody knows, and Wikipedia has to be used with caution, so I dug deeper.  If you get twenty pages of online references and scan them, you’ll find lots of irrelevant stuff, but somewhere around the seventh or eighth page you often find obscure but relevant bits of information that the main sources have missed.  These are valuable.
3.  You say the book is part memoir.  How so?
I’ve been in the city since the 1950s and have accumulated all kinds of info on these people.
4.  Did you know any of them personally?
Yes, two: Ree Dragonette and Anaïs Nin.  We weren’t close friends, but I socialized with them a number of times, and did a reading with Ree.  So I have vivid personal impressions of both.
5.  Did you have contact with any of the others?
Long ago I heard Walter Winchell on the radio; you had to hear him, to understand his impact.  In college I heard Dylan Thomas read – unforgettable, but not for the best of reasons.  With Taylor Mead I had brief encounters here and in San Francisco.  I saw several of the early Living Theatre productions, which Julian Beck and Judith Molina produced and sometimes appeared in, and all the “happenings” – and weird things they were – that they staged when they returned to this country in 1968.  And I remember how some of these people first became known to the general public.
6.  Who would they be?
Roy Cohn, Thomas Dewey, Nicky Barnes.  And of course the Dragon Lady, Madame Chiang Kai-shek.
7.  She’s a New Yorker?
She lived here in retirement for many years and died here.  But I learned of her long before, during the Second World War.  I attended a Methodist Sunday School, and the Methodists were very concerned about China, where there were many Methodist missionaries.  They and the whole country hailed Madame Chiang, the wife of the Generalissimo and herself a Methodist, as our noble ally in the war against Japan.  After the war things changed, and I changed my mind about her.
8.  How so?
The corruption in her husband's party became known.  And I heard a very revealing story about her from a friend of my mother’s, who got it from Nehru’s sister, Madame Pandit.  It’s in the book.
9.  So your book has stuff not known to the general public, or even known obscurely online?
Yes.  One of my friends gave me stories about Cardinal Spellman that he heard from standees at the Metropolitan Opera.  Another friend had stories about Andy Warhol, whom he knew in his early days.  And when I edited Dorothy Norman’s memoir, I learned things about her from the in-house editor I worked with.  But there are other ways as well to learn about people you don’t know personally.
10.  For instance?
From places associated with them.  When I visited the Jumel Mansion, the oldest house in Manhattan, I learned a lot about Eliza Jumel, who lived there and furnished it.  And I was a standee at the Old Met, and attended performances at both the Old Met and the New, when Rudolph Bing was the general manager.  And when I walked in Inwood Hill Park and Van Cortlandt Park, I could see how Robert Moses cut them up by pushing his highways through.  It didn't endear me to him.
11.  Any other ways to get to know these people?
By reading their works.  The poetry of Dylan Thomas and Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Rudolph Bing’s and Polly Adler’s memoirs.  And Ayn Rand, whose interminable Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged I managed to get through.   And old movies – Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell – not for the facts but for their legend.  And when I was still a kid back in Illinois, my father told me about speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan and the evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who tried to “save” Texas – what characters those two were!
12.  Do you wish you’d known any of these people?
I don’t have a thing about getting to know celebrities, but there are exceptions.  Certainly Texas Guinan and Polly Adler, Queen of Tarts.  And above all Brooke Astor.  She loved to dance, I love to dance. She and I could have danced up a storm.
13.  Do you admire, genuinely admire, any of them?
Helena Rubinstein and Elsa Maxwell.  Nobodies who made themselves somebodies.
14.  Any you could do without?
The mobsters and David Berkowitz.  Berkowitz committed six murders and left several other victims maimed for life.  But other people in the book are fun and some of them are downright sexy.
15.  Aha!  Who’s the most fun?
Texas Guinan.  The police kept raiding her speakeasy and dragging her off to jail.  “I like your cute little jail,” she said once.  “And I don’t know when my jewels have seemed so safe.”  And her sixth raid ended up in a nine-hour party that she gave at the station house.
16.  She sounds like fun, all right.  And who’s the sexiest?
It’s a toss-up between Madame Chiang, with her slit skirts, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.  Madame Chiang vamped the mighty of the world, and believe me, she knew how.  As for Edna, though you don’t get it from her photographs, she had something special going for her.  At the sight of this redhead from Maine via Vassar, every heterosexual male in Greenwich Village fell head-over-heels in love with her.  Edna took full advantage, when not writing sonnets or sleeping with her own sex.
17.  Hmm...  Maybe that’s enough for now, mustn't risk spoilers.  Any last word?
Get to know these people.  Whether you like them or hate them, admire them or deplore them, I guarantee you won’t be bored.
                    *                  *                    *                  *                   Release date July 26.  You can order it here from Black Rose Writing, the publisher, and get a discounted price (plus postage), but it won't be shipped before that date.  Also available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, minus the discount but with the delay.  Signed copies are available now from the author (i.e., me) for $20.00 (plus postage, if needed), though in limited numbers. 
Coming soon:  The Oculus: Boondoggle or Architectural Wonder, and the 9/11 Memorial.

©   2018   Clifford Browder

352. Fighting New York City: Five Tips

For my other books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.

Okay, here it is:




A collection of posts from this blog.  Short biographical sketches of people, some remembered and some forgotten, who lived or died in New York.  You'll learn some fascinating scraps of information: 

Who was getting more sex?  Andy Warhol or the cardinal archbishop of New York?Why was the most famous architect in the country shot to death in front of scores of witnesses in the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden, and what became of his murderer?Who was the Queen of Tarts, and why did celebrities flock to her establishment?What happened when the queen of West Coast evangelists, out to reform the wicked city of New York, confronted the queen of East Coast speakeasies in her speakeasy?What movie star said of a famous colleague, "She slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie"?  And was it true?Too tabloid for you?  Too gossipy?  All right, there's serious stuff, too: enough liberated women to warm a feminist's heart, a self-styled "Mr. Monster" who terrorized the city, and the most powerful woman in the world, so sexy that the president of the U.S. kept a card table between them when he met her, so he wouldn't be "vamped."  And lots more.
To be published July 26.  You can order it here from Black Rose Writing, the publisher, and get a discounted price (plus postage), but it won't be shipped before that date.  Also available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, minus the discount but with the delay.  Signed copies are available now from the author (meaning me) for $20.00 (plus postage, if needed), though in limited numbers.  But remember: don't buy the book just to oblige the author; buy it only if you really want to read it.  It's a good read and will find its audience in time.

SMALL  TALK

It's been a long winter in New York, stretching even into spring. There were four snowstorms in March, and another in early April, and since then we've had one chilly, windy day after another.  But last Sunday there was sun without wind, and by afternoon it was in the 60s.  I went out prepared for at least a slight chill, but soon doffed my jacket and wished I hadn't worn a sweater.  I had a light lunch at Philip Marie, on the corner of Hudson and West 11th.  The place was jammed, so once again I watched New Yorkers babbling joyously, socializing and relaxing.  Looking at my fellow diners, I was struck by how expressive the women were, with facial expressions and gestures -- much more so than the men.  Discreetly eyeing a table to my left with two couples, I could see the two men clearly: one was a nice young man, polite, genteel, and the other was a charmer.  Of course the charmer dominated.

     Leaving the restaurant, I went down West 11th toward the river and looked in at the Robin Rice Gallery, a new photography gallery whose opening reception on March 21 I had hoped to attend, but gave it up because of a heavy snowfall making the sidewalks slick. I was the only visitor, and the young man on duty assured me that the snowfall hadn't canceled the opening.  I looked again at the current exhibit, photographs by Leonard Pucci entitled "episodes (without a real order)." Predominating were scenes of buildings, each with a male torso or two visible in a single window, somewhat reminiscent of Edward Hopper's urban scenes with often a single small human visible.  Asked for my reaction, I said, "Erotic, homoerotic, but subtly so."  There were other photographs as well, one with a window displaying a distinctly feminine leg with a high heel, and others that verged on the abstract.  The young attendant then showed me a small back room crowded with other art work, and behind that, a bathroom with still more: enough art for two or three shows.

     The same block, between Greenwich Street and Washington, harbors other attractions, including my laundry and Turks and Frogs, a wine bar I have yet to investigate.  But my goal was the river, so I went on to the end of the street, crossed busy West Street, and sat on a low wall facing the Hudson.  Hordes of New Yorkers went by: joggers, strollers, families with toddlers, people of all ages shedding their jackets to soak up the sun.  And beyond, looking into the light on the river, I saw dancing dots of silver, as a gentle breeze rippled the surface of the water -- a sight that only I was noticing.  It made my day.  Whenever I walk in a park or rural area on a sunny day, if there is water -- a puddle, a pond, a river, or an ocean -- I know to look into the light and see these dancing dots, or streaks of silver, or a broad shining sheet of it, depending on the strength of the wind.  For me, it is the face of God.

     Such was my first spring walk in 2018: people, art, nature -- a bit of all three.  Nothing could top it.


Fighting New York City: Five Tips


     When my partner Bob got his new hospital bed recently, we had to store the dismantled old bed in our apartment for several days, because it could be taken down to the street only on a Monday afternoon, for collection the following morning.  To have put it out before that risked getting a summons from a city inspector imposing a hefty fine on the building's owner, with whom we have no quarrel.  The building used to get frequent summonses when the trash cans were out in front, where Magnolia Bakery customers felt free to deposit their trash in or on them until they overflowed -- a problem that was solved only when the cans were removed to a trash area inside the building.  And a friend of mine once got a summons for dropping a letter addressed to him in a trash can on the street.  The inspector imposing the fine was courteous, but explained that trash cans on the street are not meant for household trash.  You can drop a Magnolia cupcake carton or crumpled napkin there, but not anything delivered to your apartment.  All of which shows how finicky the city is -- to the tune of $100 -- and how vulnerable its residents are to being fined.  


No household trash, please.
RockyJennifer

     Obviously, if you get a summons for some kind of offense, you are not alone.  Being over-regulated, New York City has a vast bureaucracy -- second only to the federal government's -- to see that citizens conform.  Aside from parking and red-light tickets, in 2017 the city handed out more than 877,000 summonses for noncriminal offenses.  Here are some of the offenses that residents have been  charged with:

Entering a park after the closing hour. Installing a toilet without a permit.Urinating in public.Spitting on the sidewalk.Trash on your front walk thrown there by passersby.Forty-six fruit flies (count 'em) found by an inspector in your deli.Parking a food cart less than 20 feet from the door of a store.Letting your pet dog's rabies vaccine expire.Mixing recyclables with trash.Drinking a beer on the sidewalk.
So what are the commonest offenses?  In 2017 18,000 naughty New Yorkers got summonses for public urination (no pissoirs here), and a whopping 90,000 for drinking alcohol in public.  (Maybe there's a connection?)  Fortunately, these two offenses have been downgraded from crimes to mere offenses subject to a fine; they won't get you a criminal record.


Recyclables only; anything else could get you a fine.
Sterilgutassistentin

     If you get a fine, what should you do?  Most people shrug, mutter, curse, and pay.  But a valiant few, insisting on their innocence, choose to fight.  If you're one of them, here are five tips.

Tip #1.  Go to your borough's OATH office.  "OATH?" you say. "What's that?"  OATH is the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, and there is one in each borough.  No matter which city agency is fining you, your borough's OATH office is where you go to appeal a fine.  OATH hears thousands of these cases a year.  The judges hearing them are called hearing officers and don't wear robes or use gavels.  They are per-diem city lawyers in business clothes and hear the cases not in an awe-imposing courtroom but in a small private room with a desk and chairs, a computer and printer. Here the defendants, who are called respondents, get their day in court -- a few minutes in an unpretentious non-court.  The hearing officer turns on a recorder, reads the summons into the record, and asks the defendant  -- you -- to tell your story.  Some win, some lose.  For those who lose, there are windows nearby where they can pay their fine.  Here are examples of the cases heard:
A contractor got a summons because the subcontractors brought their dump trucks to the site more than an hour early and blocked the lane.A food cart vendor got a summons because the rice on his cart's steam table was heated at less than 140 degrees.  A woman selling pastries on a folding table on Brighton Beach Avenue in Coney Island was fined for not having a permit.In 2017, 44 percent of the contested 223,000 summonses were dismissed -- not a bad percentage, causing many city bureaus to think OATH much too lenient.  So what can you do to avoid the fine?  

Tip #2.  Be reasonable and brief.  For instance:
A 68-year-old lady in the Bronx got a $100 summons for not shoveling snow in a timely fashion.  She explained that her 76-year-old husband had done his best.  Case dismissed.A Staten Island man went to bed in his home at 10 p.m., at which time the garbage he had put out for collection had not been collected.  At 1:45 a.m. he got a $100 summons for putting trash out on a non-collection day.  "Am I supposed to set my alarm for after midnight?" he asked.  Case dismissed. A locksmith waiting between two parked cars in the Bronx for a coworker to pick him up got a ticket from an officer for urinating on a public sidewalk, which he denied.  His explanation was clear and convincing; case dismissed.A cab driver being fined for blocking a bike lane with his cab at 6:30 p.m. showed his Uber log, which proved that at 6:34 p.m. he was seven blocks away.  Case dismissed.
Tip #3.  Know the law.  Here's what happens if you don't:
A grocer in Queens sold some cigarettes to a bearded young man who looked to be 24, and was immediately arrested by a woman who turned out to be a city inspector and gave him a $1000 summons for selling tobacco to a minor.  The buyer, only 17, was a plant.  The grocer protested the city's using a kid to entrap people, but the inspector explained that he was supposed to ask for an ID if they look under 30.  The grocer hopes for leniency.  A woman who got a summons for having a rat infestation on her property said that she had many cats to control the rat population.  She showed photos of the cats, but two of them were raccoons.  Case upheld.  Even minus the raccoons, her appeal would have been denied.  Having cats on the premises isn't enough; an infestation is an infestation.
Tip #4.  Tell your story and stick to it.  Don't keep changing your appeal.  An example:

A man got a summons for possessing an open 24-ounce can of beer in a park.  Explanation no. 1: It was a friend's beer that happened to be by his feet.  But he then went on to Explanation no. 2: He wasn't drinking beer because he was with his wife.  And Explanation no. 3: He only briefly held the beer in his hand as a favor to a friend, because he saw the police coming.  Case upheld; he was fined.  

Tip #5.  Know the difference between being at fault and being responsible.  If someone leaves trash on your property, they are at fault.  But if you own the property, you are responsible for policing it and can be fined for not removing the trash.  Thus:

A property owner got a summons because patrons of the bodega next door throw empty bottles over the fence onto his vacant lot. He protests his innocence, but as the owner of the lot, he is responsible for keeping it clean.  Case upheld.  

     In spite of all these regulations and all these possible fines, and the city taxes that go to pay for their implementation, we New Yorkers love our city and wouldn't live anywhere else.  We love to complain, and this gives us lots to complain about.  We're never bored.


A trash-filled lot.  Who's responsible?  Someone is, and what a fine they'll get!


Trash, properly bagged, awaiting collection.  This super knows his job; no fine forthcoming.
Jess Hawsor

Source note:  This Small Talk is indebted to an article by Andy Newman, entitled "Step Right Up and Say What Happened," in the Metropolitan Section of the New York Times of Sunday, March 18, 2018.

Coming soon:  The Oculus: Boondoggle or Architectural Wonder, and the 9/11 Memorial.



BROWDERBOOKS  
  
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 
The back cover summary:

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
New release; available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.



©   2018   Clifford Browder

351. The 9/11 Museum: My Descent into the Land of the Dead

For my books, see BROWDERBOOKS below.

In the (near) Offing:

A self-appointed heir to the throne of Byzantium who for his coronation wanted fifty Vestal Virgins, but settled instead for Andy Warhol, a boa constrictor, and an ape.   

A male movie star whose New York funeral caused an all-day riot.  

An opera house manager who feuded with Maria Callas and told a disgruntled tenor to bite a soprano's ear onstage.

They're all forthcoming.  I've got them in hand, will announce them next week.  Some of them are fun, some are astonishing, some are frightening.


SMALL  TALK

Just after dawn on a recent Friday a truck pulled up at Bryant Park, the park behind the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue between West 42nd and 41st Street.  The truck's back door then opened and a great buzzing was heard, for stacked in the truck were boxes containing 9 million bees.  This was an annual rite of spring in the city, the delivery of bees from Florida to the beekeepers of the city and its environs, and they flocked (the beekeepers, not the bees) to claim their purchases.  Once banned (but practiced furtively), beekeeping became legal again in the city in 2010, and since then it has become a popular pastime.  Of the truck's 9 million bees, 3 million were sold in Bryant Park.  By car, train, bus, and bicycle, the keepers carried their spoils off to replenish their apiaries.  And where are those apiaries located?  On rooftops (including a church in Chelsea), in small backyards, and in some cases even indoors.  Many of the beekeepers had lost their bees because of last winter's fluctuating weather, but one keeper from a rural area said that bears had killed his bees last spring.  The bears ate the honey and killed the queen bees, and their death meant the end of the hives.  To avoid another such disaster, this year the keeper is using elevated hives.  But many of the bees stay in the city, and I've bought their honey in the Union Square greenmarket at Andrew's Honey, where Andrew boasts of honey that is locally produced.  So even if the season is afflicted with chilly weather and gale-force winds, the bees and their keepers insist that it is spring.

Source note: This Small Talk is indebted to Corey Kilgannon's article "Beekeepers' Rite of Spring: Replenishing the City's Hives," in the New York Times of April 14, 2018.

The 9/11 Museum: My Descent into the Land of the Dead


        To describe my visit to the 9/11 Museum requires a lengthy preface to explain my relationship to the World Trade Center site.  Frankly, I never had much use for the Twin Towers.  Architecturally, they struck me as two big boxes jutting skyward, void of grace and style.  And I agreed with those who said they weren’t really needed, but were built simply because it was possible and therefore should be done.  And if I’m not mistaken, they never filled up completely, always had room for tenants who never quite seemed to appear.  My one foray into one of them, to get some tax forms from a New York State office, involved changing elevators halfway up and left me indifferent to their height and significance.  My partner Bob, on the other hand, took his mother more than once to the Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower, and raved not about the food but the view, which was said to extend for ninety miles.  My conclusion: the towers were acceptable if you were at the top looking out and didn’t have to look at the towers themselves.
Circa 1993.
Mariordo
         Yet for all that, the Twin Towers insinuated themselves into my daily existence.  Visible from my south-facing bedroom window, they were the last thing I saw at night, when I pulled the shade down, and the first thing I saw in the morning, when I put the shade back up.  If they were clearly visible, I knew the day would start off bright and sunny.  If they were somewhat blurred, I anticipated fog or maybe rain.  And if they weren’t visible at all, it meant heavy rain or possibly, in winter, snow.  So it went for years.
         Then came 9/11.  I had gotten up early to go look at migrating warblers in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge at Broad Channel, on an island in Jamaica Bay, Queens.  I got there by a little before 8 a.m. and began walking around the West Pond, on whose edges I indeed found several warblers feeding at ground level and therefore easy to view. 
         “Have you seen the World Trade Center?” asked a young woman who was walking in the opposite direction. 
         “Yes, of course,” I answered, wondering why she asked, since one could always see it from a certain point that I had yet to reach.
         Farther on along the path I saw one of the towers – the North Tower, I learned later – emitting a huge column of black smoke.  What a fire! I thought, but went on looking at the birds.  Fires, even big ones, are common enough in the city and get put out in a matter of time.
The North Tower, as seen from the Statue of Liberty.
         Perhaps a half hour later, having circled the pond, I came back to the point where the Twin Towers were visible.  But now they weren’t visible at all, being cloaked in a huge cloud of smoke that the wind was driving slowly eastward over Brooklyn toward the ocean.  Still, I assumed that this resulted from the fire I had seen before and found it only mildly troubling.  Then another visitor told me they were shutting down the refuge, and subway service to Manhattan might be suspended.  Now at last I realized that this was more than just a fire; it was an emergency affecting the whole city.
         Worried about getting back to Manhattan, I went out to Cross Bay Boulevard to wait for a bus to take me into Queens.  A policeman came over and informed me that no buses were running across the bridge to Howard Beach and the mainland, so I started walking toward the bridge.  One of the Wildlife Refuge staff driving that way in a car recognized me as a recent visitor to the refuge, stopped, and offered me a ride to Howard Beach.  There I got out to find a telephone and ask my friend Richard in Brooklyn to come get me with his car.  He came an hour later, and as we drove back to Brooklyn he told me that both towers had been hit by planes and collapsed.  Richard dropped me off at a subway entrance where we saw some people entering, but when I went down to the platform to wait for a train, I and other hopefuls heard a PA system announcement that no trains were running to Manhattan.  So I was trapped in Brooklyn. 
         Walking to Richard’s brownstone, I explained my situation.  He let me phone my partner Bob to explain that I would have to spend the night in Brooklyn, and then invited me to join him and several other friends for an impromptu dinner, following which another friend put me up in a guest room for the night.  The next morning I was able to get back to Manhattan by train.  I got off at a station within the so-called frozen zone, all of Manhattan below 14th Street that was now closed to the public, except for first responders heading downtown, and residents who lived inside the zone.  As I walked through the West Village, there were no cars driving on the streets, and an eerie silence prevailed. 
         Back in my apartment at last, I could see from the south-facing windows a blurred mass of smoke where the Twin Towers had once been visible.  The wind had now shifted in the direction of Manhattan, bringing us a burnt smell that persisted for days, sometimes so strong that we had to shut the windows.  Gradually the smell subsided, and the frozen zone was reduced in stages, until it was confined to only the area around Ground Zero, the site of the attack.  For weeks to come, whenever I took a walk along the riverfront, I would see people holding up signs that said THANK YOU and other messages of gratitude intended for any vehicle – police, fire department, or whatever – heading downtown to the site of the attack.  Often the driver of the vehicle would sound his horn in response.  This went on for weeks.
         I had witnessed the 9/11 attack only from a distance, but others were not so removed.  A woman I knew lived high up in a downtown apartment from which she could see people who, trapped in the blazing towers, in desperation leaped to their death.  This sight was avoided by the media, but it was implanted in her mind and horrified her for days to come.  And another friend of mine was dismayed to learn that her family heirlooms -- jewelry passed on to her by her mother and grandmother – had been destroyed in the bank vault where she had deposited them long before, thinking a vault at the World Trade Center the safest place imaginable.  In time her bank informed her that it had been able to access the vault and recover its safe deposit boxes, which had miraculously survived the attack. All her jewelry was intact except the pearls, which the intense heat of the fire had dissolved.
         Of course the Ground Zero site would be rebuilt, but the process  dragged on for many years, complicated by the conflicting needs and wishes of the many parties involved.  I often despaired of the whole business, until tangible results were achieved.  Through my south-facing window I could at last see the Freedom Tower, which at night appeared all lit up, with an antenna mounted on its roof and topped by a blinking red light; I christened it my Tower of Light.  As for the recently opened 9/11 Museum and Memorial, I heard good things about them and recently, quite on the spur of the moment, decided to visit the museum. 
Ground Zero as seen from above, 2011.
Shiny Things
         Just because these remarkable buildings and the Freedom Tower have been completed, don’t imagine that the site is all tidied up and presentable.  When I exited the E train terminal on Church Street near Fulton, the first thing I saw was the graveyard behind the St. Paul’s Chapel – not the graveyard I was meaning to visit.  And just across Church Street was a huge construction area blocked off and closed to the public.  Only by following big signs posted at intervals was I able to proceed to the museum past areas still under construction and emitting loud screeches and roars and whines.  On the way I saw, for the first time up close, the faceted thrust of the Freedom Tower stabbing skyward, and the Oculus, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, which replaces the old PATH train station destroyed on 9/11: a strange thing looming squatly like a huge white mushroom or, as some would have it, a white dove spreading its wings and about to fly.  But I had no desire to linger here or to explore the Memorial’s plaza and fountains, given the nippy gusts of wind and my entrance scheduled for 10 a.m., so I hurried on to the museum entrance.  There, having bought my ticket online in advance, I was privileged to stand in the shorter line for ticket holders, as opposed to the long line for those numerous poor souls who had yet to obtain a ticket.  Admitted inside at last, I went through security just as strict and vigilant as the security at airports, and was finally ready to explore the museum itself.  Given the options of a tour with a guide or a do-it-yourself audio guide, I spurned both and elected to blunder forward on my own.
         Future visitors be warned: negotiating this labyrinthine museum requires an epic tolerance of darkness and crowds.  Anticipating wonders and horrors, I left daylight and the museum’s ground floor behind and descended a very long ramp into the land of the dead.  Arriving at a lower level, I saw a huge wall with square panels in various shades of blue and, in large letters, a quote from Virgil: NO DAY SHALL ERASE YOU FROM THE MEMORY OF TIME.  This perplexed me until, squinting through the semidarkness, I deciphered a sign explaining that behind the wall were the remains of many who died in the attack.  This, I later learned, was Memorial Hall, a reminder that the museum is, above all, a shrine to the deceased.  Throughout the whole of my visit the hundreds of visitors were properly respectful and subdued, the only audible speech often being that of the tour guides to their groups.


Barbara Hitchcock
         Proceeding from there, I found myself immersed in a darkness so total that I couldn’t see the floor in front of me and was afraid of stumbling over some unseen object and falling.  So I went groping bravely forward with other visitors on all sides of me doing the same.  Thinking to steady myself by touching a wall, I reached out and found … nothing!  So I just kept pressing on.
         Carried along in the sluggish flow of visitors, I encountered two large twisted steel girders, remnants from the attack, that seemed frozen together in a frenzied dance.  After that, an endless series of remnants, including the rectangular base of the steel box columns that had anchored the South Tower to bedrock.  The damaged columns had been removed, leaving only these “footprints” of the tower.  We were, then, on the site of the South Tower, the second to be hit.  Visitors were quietly snapping photos right and left, but in a separate section labeled IN MEMORIAM this was strictly forbidden.  Entering through a revolving door, I found myself confronted by a huge wall covered with photos and the names of the 2,983 people killed on 9/11 and in the earlier attack on February 26, 1993.  There were three more vast walls with photos and names, and a separate room where you could sit quietly and hear those many names being read aloud by a recorded voice.
         Having left this inner shrine, I came upon what seemed like a towering and twisted 40-foot avant-garde sculpture, which proved to be a section of the South Tower’s ravaged steel façade.  Down a side hall I found a display of the many New Yorker magazine covers celebrating the Twin Towers, followed by covers commemorating their destruction.  Especially vivid also on the wall was a large photo of the looming towers, quite intact, with a cluster of white-sailed sailboats passing tranquilly in the river in the foreground.
         At intervals in this subterranean maze I came upon stairs and escalators that took visitors still farther into the depths of Ground Zero.  Along the way benches were few and far between, and usually occupied by weary visitors, but I found a big one empty and promptly sat on it.  Only when I got up did I see a sign explaining that this was a bench salvaged from the plaza of the Twin Towers after the attack.  And just beyond that point I got a free museum map from an employee handing them out – useful now but useless at the time, given the lack of lighting.
         On ahead was the site of the North Tower, the one I had seen emitting a huge dark cloud of smoke.  Here were exhibits that took me into an eerie world of wonders.  What looked like a giant’s rust-brown headband topped by a tangle of spaghetti hair turned out to be a salvaged elevator motor.  And across the way loomed what looked like a big sci-fi armadillo, or perhaps a deep-sea creature with an armament of protruding spikes: a segment, a sign informed me, of the radio and television antenna that once rose from the roof of the North Tower.  Nearby, what bore the letters LADDER 3 was easy to identify: a Fire Department truck, one end savagely smashed.
Geraldshields 11
Barbara Hitchcock

         At some point in my subterranean wanderings I entered a large hall – the Foundation Hall, as I later learned – where a section of wall had been left exposed: a huge expanse of illuminated rough concrete with some kind of knobs protruding at regular intervals.  Devoid of aesthetic interest, it impressed me only by its size.  Later I learned that this was part of the “slurry wall” that ran around the World Trade Center foundation, protecting it from the surrounding water table.  On 9/11 the wall strained under intense pressure from the water table, but held fast and prevented flooding of the underground subway tracks nearby, and maybe even the flooding of Lower Manhattan. 
The slurry wall.
Beyond My Ken
          And in that same Foundation Hall you see the so-called Last Column, a 58-ton steel beam ceremoniously removed from the ravaged WTC site in 2002 and inscribed with markings, pictures, and tributes by the recovery workers. 

Barbara Hitchcock
         Finally I entered a climactic exhibition that told the story of the day 9/11 hour by hour, with photographs of the burning towers, quotes from witnesses, and even recorded voices of people expressing their bafflement, shock, and horror.  Especially riveting was a segment of film showing the second plane crashing into the South Tower, causing the tower to erupt into a huge fiery blaze consuming many floors below the top of the tower.  The film lasted only two or three minutes and was constantly repeated.  I recognized it as one made quite by chance by two young Frenchmen who happened to be out that morning filming in the streets.  Though I had seen it before, like everyone around me, I simply had to stand there and watch it at least three times, registering shock each time at the moment of the crash.
         There was more in the exhibit ahead of me, but by now I had spent two hours in the darkened depths and, foot-weary, was eager to return to the world of daylight.  Having long ago experienced the real 9/11 in my own way, I didn’t feel compelled to repeat it in its brilliantly reconstructed totality now.  Seeing an exit door for those not wishing to continue, I pushed it open and followed a corridor to the foot of the longest escalator I had ever seen, and by this means ascended slowly and regained the world of the living.  It was 12 noon.  Should I go up to the top floor and lunch in the café?  No, I decided to head home and collapse, having tasted the horrors of 9/11 to satiety. 

         Someday, in sunny mild weather, I’ll return to see my Tower of Light up close, as well as the Memorial plaza and the supermodern wonders of the Oculus.  But if, for me, two hours in the land of the dead had been enough, that land had been strange and fascinating.  It had assumed in turn the atmosphere of a hushed shrine, an avant-garde gallery of tortured statuary, and an undersea grotto inhabited by weird and mysterious creatures that loomed in frozen silence.  The 9/11 Museum is unique.

Coming soon: Fighting New York City: Five Tips.   

BROWDERBOOKS  


All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 
The back cover summary:

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
New release; available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
©   2018   Clifford Browder

350. Flamboyant vs. "Normal" Gay: Triumphs, Risks and Horrors

For my fiction and nonfiction, scroll down past the post to BROWDERBOOKS. 

A note on reviews:

A review of my novel Dark Knowledge has been included in the April 2018 issue of Reviewer's Bookwatch, the online book review magazine of Midwest Book Review.  To see it, go here and scroll down.

If you read a book of mine or anyone's and enjoy it, tell your friends.  Word-of-mouth is the best advertising there is.

And if you read a book of mine or anyone's, go the book's online page on Amazon or Barnes & Noble and do a customer's review.  I have found it easier to get a book published than to get a review. (Yes, I'm serious.)  A review doesn't have to be three paragraphs long; it can be three sentences or less.  Anyone can do a review. And the review needn't be favorable, just honest.  Better a bad review than no review at all.



SMALL  TALK

What they said about New York:

"A hundred times I have thought New York a catastrophe, and fifty times: It is a beautiful catastrophe."  Le Corbusier 

"There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless."  Simone de Beauvoir


Flamboyant vs. "Normal" Gay
         In an article in the New York Times of March 29, 2018, producer and author Jacob Tobia protests the preference in film and television for masculine gay male leads, as opposed to feminine and gender-nonconforming gay men, who are only allowed to provide comic relief.  In so doing he tells how as an undergraduate at Duke University he was outrageously and flamboyantly gay.  He wore bright red lipstick and a full beard; danced on a bar in a miniskirt, exposing his unshaven legs; and strutted brazenly across cobblestones in four-inch heels.  For half the gay men on campus he was an inspiration and friend, and for the other half, an embarrassment.  Those who were embarrassed wouldn’t speak to him and even avoided eye contact, yet benefited from his presence, since his being the campus freak let them get accepted as “normal” gay.  The message for gay young people today, Tobia insists, is that they must be the “right type of gay” – masculine, not flamboyant femme – to be respected, accepted by their family, and desirable. 
         Tobia’s article underlines the divide in the gay community between “normal” (i.e., masculine) gay and flamboyant femme gay that goes back as far as I can remember.  In my days as a graduate student at Columbia University in the 1950s I can recall a gay Iranian student complaining of “those characters who give homosexuality a bad name.”  A very masculine gay man getting a master’s degree in Library Science gave his friends glowing accounts of a gay bar in Patterson, New Jersey, where “there isn’t a “broken wrist in sight,” that being a stereotypical sign of femme gay.  In those less tolerant days, the majority of gay men distanced themselves from the obviously gay, queenly types, even if sometimes, discreetly, they might approach them for a romp in bed.
         Memorable from my days at Columbia is a Puerto Rican kid named Wally, not outrageously femme but a bit too exuberant to be straight, who got a lot of attention and reveled in it.  “Cette folle” (“that madwoman”) a very masculine Haitian acquaintance of mine labeled him and kept his distance, but a Jewish friend, a sophisticated New Yorker, told me, when I described Wally to him, “I want to meet this one.”  Meet “this one” he did, not out of sexual interest but curiosity, a curiosity that was satisfied with a single encounter.  Though I half kept my distance, Wally confided in me how back in Puerto Rico his family had heard strangers comment on his exuberant gayness.  The family solution was to have some cousins drop him off at a brothel and wait till he reappeared, presumably no longer a virgin.  Wally assured the cousins that all had gone well, and so for the moment allayed the family’s suspicions.  To pass the time in the brothel, he must have entertained the girls with some of his stories, or maybe, like a friend of mine once, joined them in a game of tiddlywinks.  When he got a chance to come to New York to study, Wally jumped at it and left the family and its suspicions far behind in Puerto Rico.  Wally was an entertainer, exuberant and gregarious, but his entertaining ran big risks.  When he got a job teaching in a boys’ school, I predicted that he wouldn’t last one term.  Sure enough, the kids caught on to him and he was summarily dismissed.  What became of him after that I have no idea.
         Another acquaintance from my first year at Columbia was Jimmy, a rather sexy femme kid whose room was just across the hall from mine on the fifteenth floor of John Jay Hall, where, quite by chance, two-thirds of the guys were gay, but mostly “normal” gay.  A graduate student in English, Jimmy had a cute little black lover who was often seen in the communal shower.  One morning, having just seen a very macho Marlon Brando in curly bangs playing young Mark Antony in the film Julius Caesar, Jimmy showed up in bangs.  
Jimmy's inspiration.
But if bangs enhanced the masculinity of a very quietly and confidently masculine Brando, on Jimmy they came off as just plain weird.  To my dismay, I found myself walking with Jimmy to a 9:00 a.m. English class that we were both attending.  Without being a close friend, I knew him too well to avoid going with him, but feared the looks we would both soon get.  Looks there were aplenty, but all at Jimmy; I was scarcely noticed.  Then, within a day or two, the bangs were gone.  His black lover, he told me, had taken one look and announced, “You look like a Roman whore.”  That did it; the bangs disappeared.  At the end of the year Jimmy announced that he had been drafted.  “Whatever my sergeant can do,” he told me, “I guess I can do, too.”  What the consequences were for both Jimmy and the Army I hesitate to say.
         My memories stretch back as well to my undergraduate days at Pomona College in Claremont, California.  There I honestly believed myself to be straight, but like many other students, I was distantly tolerant of the “drama crowd” who starred repeatedly in campus theater productions or otherwise helped make them happen.  That crowd was presumably gay – the men, at least – but they were tolerated as different, “artsy-fartsy,” marginal.  One of them named Don – short, witty, cute -- seemed to revel in his “otherness” and reportedly proclaimed himself “as queer as a two-dollar bill.”  Far from clinging to the shadows, Don often performed in the college productions, preferring comic roles and doing a delicious Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Likable and harmless, he was accepted as the campus queer.  I recall myself saying of him, “I don’t care what he is, as long as he leaves me alone.”  He achieved a new height of notoriety when, with a perverse sense of humor, the Pomona coeds elected him the King of Pomona, who then, in a gesture of friendship, was supposed to meet the Queen of Occidental, our traditional rival in football.  When they met, the poor girl from Occidental stared, dumbfounded, as Don romped and reveled at the news of his election.
         My memories go back even to my distant high school days in the 1940s and a blond kid in my junior year journalism class named David.  Back then being blond could automatically make you suspect (mercifully, my blond hair had long since turned to brown), and David, being very blond, reinforced the stereotype.  In no way flamboyant, he was gently femme, a likable guy who was simply, softly there.  And he could take a joke on himself.  When the class teacher read a bit of his writing that was much too rich, too lush, inducing laughter in the class, David smiled sheepishly and said, “I’m his straight man.”  (“Straight man” meaning the stone-faced partner in a comic team who acts as a foil to the comic, delivering lines that let the comic respond and get the laughs.)  The other kids liked David, an arch example of the feminine boy who wished no harm to anyone and simply wanted to blend in.  I have often wondered what became of him and how he survived.
         Another gay acquaintance from my graduate school years told me how, when he outed himself to a straight friend, the friend replied, “Well, you’re not obvious,” indicating that “normal” gay he could take.  But when the time came for gay liberation, it was the flamboyant drag queens who launched the Stonewall riots that got the ball rolling.  In the Gay Pride marches that followed, everyone took part: the supermacho leather crowd, the drag queens, and the legions of gay guys whom most people wouldn’t take for gay.  When I marched with the Whole Foods Project in June 1994, just a month after surgery for cancer, behind our contingent in the parade was a delegation from San Francisco.  Most of them were in T-shirts and shorts like the other marchers, but the front row and the leader took drag to a new level.  Instead of presenting themselves as women, or caricatures of women, their outlandish costumes made them come off as creatures from another universe: drag transformed into sci-fi.
London Pride, 2017.
Fae
         Of course there were gay detractors who denounced the parades as giving ammunition to homophobes, who could then show photos of militant drag queens and ask, “Do you want your children to be taught in the schools by these people?”  I saw many of the parades over time but never felt that they were a mistake, no matter how wild a few of the participants might be.  The parade was – and is -- the gay Mardi Gras, that once-a-year event where anything goes.
         A femme gay whose name became a household word was Andy Warhol, the Prince of Pop, whose art was in his own time controversial, but sells today for phenomenal prices.  My friend John, who knew him early in his career in the 1950s, described him as friendly, accessible, and “featherly,” a gentle, soft-voiced soul.  Photos from that period show a delicately featured young man with long blond hair and glasses, femme in the extreme.  But “femme” needn’t mean passive and mild.  By the 1960s his studio on East 47thStreet, dubbed the Factory, was a magnet for avant-garde artists, writers, musicians, celebrities, drug addicts, and assorted weirdos, over whom he ruled tyrannically.  Only a near-fatal bullet wound from the radical feminist Valerie Solanas in 1968 ended that phase of his career.  He lived another nineteen years, but time was not kind to him; later photos show a gaunt face framed by long graying hair that often looked like a fright wig.
Andy Warhol, 1977.
         A rare example of quietly assertive femme gay was Quentin Crisp, the self-styled “Stately Homo of England,” who at age 70, already a celebrity by virtue of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant, came to these shores in 1978 to do his one-man show and, falling in love with New York, returned to stay.  He was persistently and unashamedly femme, and in getting himself accepted and even acclaimed as such, worked a minor revolution.  Perennially onstage and easily recognized by his painted face and black, wide-brimmed hat tilted rakishly, he coasted on his wit.  A gregarious loner, he distanced himself from the gay lib movement that had got its start right here in New York, yet benefited from the tolerance that movement generated.  In spite of himself, he was a part of it. 
Quentin Crisp, 1996.
Ross B. Lewis
         The success of Andy Warhol and Quentin Crisp shows that feminine gays could achieve a welcome notoriety and a degree of acceptance in New York that would have been inconceivable some years earlier.  When Mart Crowley’s play The Boys in the Band was produced Off Broadway in 1968, it was the one of the first plays with gay men in the leads.  Especially memorable was Emory, a flamboyant interior decorator who made the rest of the cast look “normal.”  Some of my gay friends took exception to Crowley’s portrayal of the gay world, but the reviews were generally favorable, and a film followed in 1970.
         Acceptance, yes, but not without risks.  I recall a directors class at the Actors Studio in the 1960s where a gay actor presented a shapeless happening with himself, a younger gay actor, and a young women performing.  It wasn’t a play and was criticized as such.  At one point the younger actor did a monolog that began with his announcing, “I feel so oral.”  In what followed he came off as decidedly gay, with discreet suggestions of oral sex.  An actor in the class told of seeing the non-play performed for the public, and of observing a straight guy in the audience, attending in the company of his girl, seething with barely suppressed rage.  He felt threatened in his manhood by the monolog, and the result might well have been violent.  And this in easygoing, tolerant New York.
         How it was in the rest of the country became apparent with an incident in Bangor, Maine, in 1984.  Charlie Howard was a flamboyantly gay 23-year-old, blond and slight of build, who if he felt like “sissying up” -- wearing makeup and jewelry and coming off as flagrantly femme -- did so.  Bullied in high school in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he didn’t attend graduation so his parents wouldn’t hear the taunts he was sure to receive.  Coming to Bangor, Maine, Charlie made new friends, joined a gay-friendly Unitarian church, got an apartment, and adopted a kitten.  When a woman in a local market shouted at him, “You pervert!  You queer!” he got frightened and left, but as he did so, he blew her a kiss.  Then, leaving his apartment one day, he found his kitten on the doorstep, strangled. 
         Matters came to a head on the evening of July 7, 1984.  As Charlie and a friend were walking across a bridge over the Kenduskeag River, a car with five high school kids -- three boys and two girls who had been drinking -- stopped.  Leaving the two girls in the car, the three boys got out and attacked Charlie.  Charlie’s friend escaped, but the boys caught Charlie, beat him, and started lifting him over the bridge’s railing.  “Don’t,” pleaded Charlie, “I can’t swim!”  Ignoring his pleas, they pried his hand loose from the railing and pushed him over, then returned to the car and left.  Unaware of Charlie’s fate, they went to a party and boasted of what they had done.  But Charlie had drowned; his body was recovered the next day.  When they learned of his death, the two girls went to the police and told what they had witnessed.  Arrested, the boys were arraigned in court.  A photo of them in police custody and handcuffed, ages 15, 16, and 17, shows vividly just how young they were.  The judge had to decide whether they should be tried for murder as adults, or for manslaughter as juveniles.  Public opinion was sharply divided.  Some argued the three were just “boys being boys,” and insisted that Charlie’s outlandish behavior had provoked the attack.  His defenders staged a demonstration and labeled his death a hate crime deserving the most severe penalty.  The judge acknowledged the seriousness of the offense, but cited the boys’ lack of any criminal record and therefore charged them as juveniles with manslaughter.  They pleaded guilty, served up to two years in a juvenile detention center and, as required by state law, were all out by age 21.
         Twenty-five years later one of the boys, now a middle-aged man living in Bangor, said in an interview that he spoke regularly advocating tolerance of sexual deviation and thought of Charlie every day of his life.  A memorial to Charlie was installed on the site of his death, but in 2011 it was vandalized with spray-painted graffiti.  July 7, the date of Charlie’s death, is now celebrated as Diversity Day in Bangor.  Every year on that date people drop flowers into the Kenduskeag River, saying, “Charlie, this is for you.”
         I find Charlie Howard’s story heartbreaking in the extreme.  But beyond that, what do I conclude?  Some gay men are driven by a deep-seated urge to be flamboyant, to throw their gayness in the face of society, to be perennially and conspicuously onstage.  Maybe it’s their revenge for being gay, or a need for attention at whatever cost, or even a kind of death wish.  Certainly, like Charlie, they refuse to not be who they are.  But while “normal” gay men manage today to live quietly without too much to-do, their flamboyant brothers still court danger and sometimes even death.


Coming soon: The 9/11 Museum: My Descent into the Land of the Dead


BROWDERBOOKS  


All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.



Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 
The back cover summary:

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
New release; available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

©   2018   Clifford Browder

349. Life in a Supertall High-Rise

In the Offing:


The most powerful woman in the world, so attractive that the president of the United States, not wanting to be vamped, kept a card table between them when he met her.

SMALL  TALK

Seen recently on Fifth Avenue:

A couple wearing hats with papier-mâché images of the stone heads on Easter Island;A woman with a hat with a foam sailboat being dragged down by the red tentacles of a sea monster;A chihuahua sporting red sunglasses and a ladybug raincoat;A woman with flowing white hair topped by tall green bunny ears;A man on a two-wheeled vehicle adorned with orange orchids, his black top hat sprouting black bunny ears, and at his feet a poodle spray-painted orange;A woman overtopped by a huge bouquet of flowers six times as large as her head;A man wearing as headgear a pink spider web made of wires and yarn, and dangling in front of him, black foam spiders with tiny flower bonnets.
A resurgence of Dada?  A fashion show in Bellevue?  No, just last Sunday's annual Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue, though the paraders in question, much photographed, probably didn't end up in church.  Once a parade of high fashion, the event has evolved into a costume extravaganza, an outlandish carnival celebration of spring that screams, "Only in New York."


The Easter Parade, 2017.
-jkb-
Life in a Supertall High-Rise

         What is it like to live in one of the supertall high-rises now surging up in Manhattan and Brooklyn?  It’s hard to know, since the owners don’t want to say who the residents are, and the residents don’t speak up.  In fact, many of the residents – Saudi princes, Chinese billionaires, Russian oligarchs, and the like, or so we assume – aren’t even here a good part of the year.  But to one of us – Times reporter Penelope Green – it was recently granted to do a sleepover in One57, the first of the supertalls to sprout up on West 57th Street in 2012.   She recounts the experience in her article “Clouds in My Coffee!” in the Thursday Styles section of the New York Times of February 22, 2018.
As seen from Seventh Avenue.
Beyond My Ken

         This is no ordinary supertall (if such a thing exists).  Ms. Green  informs us that it has achieved a series if records:
·      The most expensive apartment sold in Manhattan (nearly $100.5 million)·      The tallest building in the city (for a few months, until overtopped by another monster, 432 Park Avenue)·      The first apartment bought by a toddler (a Chinese two-year-old whose mother wants her daughter to live well when the daughter attends New York University or Columbia)·      The city’s largest foreclosure·      The highest price ever paid for an apartment in foreclosure.
I have never laid eyes on it and hopefully never will, but photos show a slab of vertical-striped exterior blue glass stabbing skyward and overtopping all the other buildings around it.  To my eye, it looks brazen and insolent.


As seen from Central Park.
 Qbkingfilm
         One57 is indeed a building already claimed by history (or herstory, given the third item above).  The original owner of the apartment in foreclosure was a Nigerian businessman implicated in a money-laundering scheme that somehow involved his 79th-floor penthouse.  (So high-rise residents aren’t just Saudis, Chinese, or Russians; add in Nigerians for a start, and Qatar as well, since its prime minister bought a penthouse for $100 million.)  But One57 is not exactly popular, since Michael Kimmelman of the Times called it “chintzily embellished,” and the neighbors loathe it because Hurricane Sandy made its construction crane partially collapse, forcing many of them to evacuate.  What made the building’s soaring height possible was a merging of zoning lots and the purchase of air rights, a stratagem that angers preservationists, many of whom are clamoring for a revision of the city’s outdated zoning laws.
         Ms. Green ended up for one night in 61B, a three-bedroom apartment listed at $29 million.  Warned not to bring gerbils, ponies, guinea pigs, or bunnies, and not to engage in modeling, massage therapy, or seminude modeling, she brought two women friends instead.  Greeting them was the building’s “lifestyle attaché,” whose job it is to bring residents together for communal events like a champagne and wine tasting, a Halloween trick-or-treating, or a concert.  She also charters yachts for residents, finds them a private island to vacation on, gets them front-row seats for a fashion show, and arranges birthday parties for tiny tots.  When offered in-home shopping, a cocktail reception, a swim, and numerous other services, Ms. Green settled for dinner ($300) and a private meditation ($250).  So many are the services available, the attaché insisted, the residents don’t ever have to leave. Clearly, the atmosphere of a cruise ship or a cloister.
         The doorbell of 61B was a bird song.  The living room walls featured slabs of ivory onyx and stained and fumed eucalyptus panels, and the massive furniture included a twelve-foot sofa.  The black-glass dining room table was thirteen feet long, and the master bathroom was adorned with slabs of marble.  Most impressive of all, perhaps, were the floor-to-ceiling windows of the living room’s north wall, giving an incredible view of the whole of Central Park, all 51 blocks of it from south to north, and a vast panorama of a city far below that seemed to be in miniature.
         After a sumptuous dinner for the three of them, the friends left and Ms. Green locked the door, went to bed, and experienced the eerie silence of living on a 61st floor 600 feet above Central Park.  Then, at 7:30 the next morning, the doorbell warbled and a waiter from the ground-floor Park Hyatt Hotel brought her, as ordered, two coffees and the New York Times.  Then, while reveling in the enormous bathtub, she saw through a window a red crane towering over 111 West 57th  Street, where another high-rise is climbing that will top 432 Park Avenue by 28 feet.


111 West 57th Street, another supertall.
Justin A. Wilcox
         Later the doorbell warbled again to announce a teacher from a meditation studio who gaped at the views and took a few photos, before the two of them settled onto some purple cushions in the living room.  An introduction to meditation followed, with an explanation of how the practice takes pressure off the brain’s amygdala, so that you stop reacting as if you were being chased by a bear.  Bears are scarce on a high-rise’s 61stfloor, but I trust that Ms. Green benefited from the session.  She doesn’t relate her leaving the apartment after her unique one-night stand, but she surely had a rare taste of the delights and horrors of living far above the urban hurly-burly that most of us face every day.  It must have been a strange sensation to return to that hurly-burly, leaving behind --  perhaps forever – the strange unreality of life in a midtown high-rise.                  What is one to make of these spiking Babels of presumption, these glass-clad prisons of luxury where you can have everything but the juicy, gritty turbulence of life?  Should the city’s skyline be determined by supertalls intended for non-residing residents, cosmopolitan richies who, if they traverse its streets at all, do so in stretch limousines with blinded windows?  These elusive occupants neither have nor desire contact with the city’s surging multitudes.  Living in a world apart, they contribute little but their occasional presence to the city’s life, yet benefit from its services, which provide them with power and water and light.  At the very least, they ought to pay for those.

         Are we in a supertall real estate bubble, and if so, when will it burst?  I’ve often wondered, but know the folly of predicting when a bubble will burst.  Still, in the Sunday Real Estate section (which I rarely look at) of March 18, 2018, our sacred New York Times asks in bold letters, under a  panoramic view of Brooklyn and its mounting high-rises, “Where’s the Ceiling in Brooklyn?”  Rental towers are sprouting in downtown Brooklyn like mushrooms after a three-day rain, duplicating their surging growth in Manhattan.  But if affordable apartments in new developments attract tens of thousands of applicants per project, the vacancy rate for the most expensive units is high and rising.  Is Brooklyn’s moment of architectural growth and glory over, and does this foretell a similar topping and subsequent decline in Manhattan?  Time will tell.  I confess that the nocturnal sight of supertall towers with three-fourths of their windows dark, indicating no occupancy, would fill me with petty and perverse delight.  But petty and perverse it is, for such a downturn implies a general economic bust that would hit small businesses and the public as well, and to them I wish no ill.  So if bubble there is, may it not explode with a pop but slowly and gently deflate, like a punctured tire, causing as little harm as possible to the vast numbers of innocents – or almost innocents – not responsible for the supertalls’ unseemly rise.


Coming soon:  Flamboyant vs. "Normal" Gay: Triumphs, Risks and Horrors.

BROWDERBOOKS  


All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1.   No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World  (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.   Bill Hope: His Story  (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 
The back cover summary:

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
New release; available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


4.   The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)






Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


©   2018   Clifford Browder