Quote: 'When Memories Become More Important Than Dreams'

Of all places, I heard the following quote in the Series Finale of Desperate Housewives, which has been sitting in my Tivo for months. It so struck a chord with me that I paused, played it again and scrawled it down... It's not pretty, by my god, it is truth. And I get it. Totally.

"You know you've hit middle age when memories become more important than your dreams."

It took me back to my first months in New York, when I had just arrived for my dream job at Billboard magazine in the fall of 1996. Such hope, such ambition... and for sure, every dream that I dared imagine for that job—which ultimately blossomed into a 14-year career—came blissfully true.

In the winter of 1996, January or February, I made a music video set to Collective Soul's "The World I Know," shot around my tiny, adorable, beloved studio apartment on the Upper West Side at 82nd & Broadway. Below is a trio of screen shots from the vid. I have a DVD that I managed to transfer from VHS years ago, but I have yet to figure out how the hell to load it to YouTube so that I might share it—and protect it. It is indeed a treasured memory... of my dreams. *

NYC Vintage: 70 Clark Street, Brooklyn Heights, 1948

The six-story apartment building at 70 Clark Street and Henry is photographed here September 15, 1948. Note the three towering TV antennas along the roofline. The street-level retail gave us Parker Drugs, offering a lunch counter and soda fountain; with “Soda and Lunch,” “Cosmetics and Cigars” advertised along the front signage.

Today, 70 Clark, across the street from the St. George Hotel, is the location of Clark’s Restaurant and Ozu Japanese, while the residential coop has changed precious little over the past 50+ years. According to a recent Prudential Douglas Elliman listing, many of the building’s units feature 9-foot ceilings, along with a common garden between its twin structures. *

(Historic Photo: Wurtz Brothers, Museum of the City of New York/Current: Chuck Taylor)

Has Nanny Bloomberg Finally Come Skipping Out Of The Closet?

Judging this photo from the NYC Gov Tumblr, it appears that New York Mayor Nanny Bloomberg has at last decided to come clean and come out! He certainly appears comfortable wearing his festive rubber gloves at the QUEENS Botanical Garden, huh? Oh, tee hee hee.

Despite having two daughters and handsome female beard Diana Taylor on his arm for public events, the prissy politico billionaire has been notoriously hiding in the closet for decades. How refreshing that he's at last grown comfortable in his curmudgeonly skin! *

NYC Vintage Image: Photo Of The Day: ‘Stalked By Stork’ 1937

Times haven’t changed but so much between 1937 and 2012. Some 65 years ago, the U.S. was enduring a marked recession that lasted 13 months and catapulted unemployment from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.0% in 1938. Thankfully, in 2012, the national unemployment rate isn’t quite as dire—but it remains stagnant for a fifth dismal year.

On Friday June 15, the Labor Department reported that unemployment in May 2012 rose to 8.2% from 8.1% in April, the first increase in a year. In New York City, the May rate upticked from 9.5% to 9.7%.

That makes this vintage photograph from April 1937 all the more relevant. The 28-year-old unemployed Brooklyn resident is showing great ambition wearing a sandwich sign around his neck, proclaiming he’s “Stalked by Stork.” That, of course, means a baby is on the way. He’s looking for work in advertising, sales promotion, contract publicity and the like.

After digging down deep into the Internet, I found “A Woman’s New York” column written by Alice Hughes on April 13, 1937. She reports: "New York’s sidewalks are filled with ladies and gentlemen carrying signs. They may advertise a cheap beauty parlor or they may announce that the bearer, an American citizen, spent 10 months in a German prison and is very mad about it. But I met my favorite the other day. A young man was wearing a ‘sandwich’ which read, in part, ‘Stalked by Stork. I want work now!’ The gallant young man carried his sign and (walked) out of my life, but I certainly hope he got a job, don’t you? That ‘Stalked By Stork’ is a punch line if ever there was one.’" *

Iconic Images Of NYC From The 1950s

By day, Frank Oscar Larson worked as a banker at the Empire Trust Co., but in his free time, he snapped thousands of photos, capturing scenes from 1950s New York. Thousands of negatives were discovered in Larson's daughter-in-law’s Maine home in 2009, stored in more than 100 envelopes, and each neatly labeled with the date and location.

The son of Swedish immigrant parents, Larson was born in Brooklyn but lived the rest of his life in Flushing. His work documented everyday life and people in the Big Apple, including policemen, shoe-repair workers, chefs and painters. Here are some of his now-amazing glances at everyday life in the Big Apple, circa 1954-1957. *

Vintage Brooklyn Heights: Mammy's Pantry, 122 Montague Street

Long before there was a Housing Works Thrift Shop or a Fish’s Eddy—or for that matter, a Brooklyn Heights Promenade—122 Montague Street was the location of beloved Southern-style restaurant Mammy’s Pantry. In the 1940s, the eatery served up a lunch and dinner menu of such goodies as Maryland Crab Cakes, Southern Fried Chicken, Shrimps Creole and Chesapeake Bay Oysters.

For desert, one could order homemade cakes and pies, Mammy’s Pastries, Bittersweet Chocolates, Jams & Jellies or its renowned Cobbler. Wash it all down with generous juleps, swizzlers, fizzes, wine or cocktails from the bar.

Mammy’s, which endured at least from 1941 to 1947, was owned by “Mrs. Christine Heinemann, a grand cook from Virginia,” according to a column in November 1944 from Gourmet magazine “Food Flashes” columnist Clementine Paddleford. Its manager was a Brooklyn Heights resident, Ruth Wagner. Paddleford called Mammy’s “one of the city’s beloved of the home-style restaurants.”
 
An ad in the January 17, 1941 Brooklyn Eagle, promotes Mammy’s as “a delightful place to enjoy a meal. Dine in the Brooklyn Heights Room or the more formal Old Dominion Room.” Sunday dinner was served from 12:30 to 8 p.m., for 70 cents to 95 cents. Virginia breakfast was available Sunday mornings for 50 cents.

The precious two-fold linen postcard for Mammy’s Pantry also reveals a lot about the eatery, including air conditioning, music by MUSAK and its telephone exchange: MAin 4-4446 and 4-9365. It also boasts an illustration of “Mammy” that would be anything but politically correct today, although at the time it represented Southern hospitality and cuisine.

A handy color map of the neighborhood, with “a chart to find your way around,” offers historical markers of Brooklyn Heights, including: “Here was the Ferry to Wall Street,” “Blare Edwin Booth stayed,” “Tom Paine’s house” and “Here Beecher auctioned Sarah the Negro slave.” The map also reveals a pre-Cadman Plaza Park and pre-Promenade Heights (the latter would be dedicated in 1950).

Mammy’s was apparently more than an eatery enjoyed by Brooklyn Heights locals. In Paddleford's Gourmet column in November 1944 , she wrote about World War II's rationing of bread ingredients, and welcomed the return to Mammy’s menu of “Brooklyn’s famous orange bread, a war casualty for months.”

Paddleford said, “It's a bread dark as fruit cake. It has an orange peel tang for the palate, made as it is with the whole oranges (minus their seeds) put through the food chopper. Raisins are added to the pulp, and pecans coarsely cut. White flour goes in, whole eggs and seasonings. The oranges are shipped direct from a Florida grove, the pecans come from a grower in Georgia, and the baking is supervised by Mrs. Heinemann. But the recipe is Northern, from a farm woman in upstate New York.

"The little 35-cent loaf will cut 10 to 12 slices, depending entirely on the sharpness of the knife. The bread needs only the thinnest streak of butter to be the last word with tea. Or use it with cream cheese. It is as fragrant as a pomander, the flavor truly orange.” She adds that “the women who shop after luncheon at (Mammy's) retail bread case say, ‘Good to see the bread back again.’”

 Likewise, in July 1943, Paddleford referred to New York “dining rooms” offering “field-to-table sweet corn steaming hot from the pot, which included Schrafft's Restaurants; The White Turkey Town Houses, 220 Madison Avenue and 1 University Place; The Skipper Restaurant, 17 East 48th Street; Mammy's Pantry, 122 Montague Street, Brooklyn; Abraham & Straus Restaurant, Brooklyn; and Bamberger's in Newark. She notes that Skipper, Mammy's Pantry and Bamberger's also sell the corn “to the carry-home trade.”

Meanwhile, the building at 122 Montague Street was constructed in 1900, according to various city records, stands five stories tall, and includes three residential rentals, as it has throughout much of its history. In 1976, according to the Montague Street Revitalization plan, it housed Piccadeli Restaurant, which offered table service, a bar and take out. From that point, it is unclear what occupied the space until around 2007, with the short-lived Fish’s Eddy and its current tenant Housing Works.

Various websites refer to The Montage Street News and Montague Street Saloon at 122 Montague Street, but seem uncertain. *

New York In The Early 1980s: The Photographs Of Steven Siegel

Photog and sculptor Steven Siegel, who was born in NYC in 1953, began a project some 30 years ago, documenting the five boroughs of New York City.

Here are some fascinating images from early 1980s New York, which give us a glimpse into how gritty, and otherwordly the Big Apple seems compared to the Disney-esque New York of today. Bushwick back then looked like a post-apocalyptic dystopia filled with abandoned lots, crumbling buildings, dismantled cars and an occasional passerby. A fascinating study of a New York I never knew. *

NYC Then & Now: Sweet Street-Side Vendors

Thankfully, Mayor Bloomie hasn't yet decided to rid New York City of its charming street-side convenience vendors, where you can pick up a newspaper, gum, pop or pack of smokes without having to stop in the neighborhood Duane Reede. Of course, NYC's Dictator has done his share of damage: That same pack of cigarettes that cost 25 cents in 1945 is now $12. Alas, this remains a sweet site of the city. *

NYC's Holland Tunnel: A Narrow Escape!