Eric, We Hardly Knew Ya

New York City Mayor Eric Adams withdrew from the New York mayoral campaign.

Adams, only the city's second black mayor, started out with great promise when he took over as mayor of the nation's largest city in January 2022.  A former police officer, he ran on making the city safer and seemed to have more of a purpose than the well-meaning but rudderless Bill DeBlasio.  But Adams got bogged down in personal and public scandals that led him to make many a devil's bargain with Trump in order to evade prosecution for federal charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations.  The deal between Trump and Adams essentially allowed Trump to have more leeway over New York in his plan to detain undocumented immigrants.   

Somehow, everyone had forgotten that cops can be crooked too.

Adams, who hoped to be elected to a second term as mayor, saw the writing on the wall and realized that Zohran Mamdani is clearly on the path to becoming the city's 111th mayor (unless Andrew Cuomo can find a way to short-circuit him, which seems unlikely at the moment).  He bowed out  but his name will still be on the ballot, a circumstance of embarrassment not just for Adams but or anyone who votes for him.  Even if he never goes to prison for his alleged crimes (and he will remain presumed innocent, because once the charges were dropped, he no longer had to worry about being proven guilty), he's already paid his debt to society by surrendering his credibility and his political career.   

Out of the Darkness

I think it's safe to say that the COVID pandemic is over, at least as far as the American Northeast is concerned.  The daytime high temperatures of late have been 25 degrees above normal with temperatures pushing 90 degrees, and given how respiratory viruses wilt and wither in warm air, I can honestly say that the heat has disinfected my area from COVID until at least December.  And when it returns, it really will be "just the flu."

As it turns out, the timing is perfect.  The New York Auto Show is in full swing, as it is every Easter Week (well, except for 2020 and 2021. of course), and, despite the smaller, more low-key nature of this year's show, I will be going tomorrow.  I just have to get out of the house - and return to Manhattan for the first time in nearly four years.  I will likely take less time a tthe auto show than I did in 2019, but that's fine - I can always check out Hudson Yards nearby, a place I have heard about but have not seen in person.  (I understand it's like Battery Park City on steroids.)  Given the way auto shows have been evolving (or devolving) lately, though, I think this may be the last auto show I go to for a long time.    

Also, NJ Transit has, for the time being, replaced DeCamp bus service with buses that run only at peak hours on weekdays, so at least there's' that.  And I can always drive to a nearby town to catch the train for Manhattan when I want to go into the city on a Saturday or Sunday or for an evening event.  As fate would have it, there is an evening event in New York I'm attending next Friday, April 21 - and you'll know more about that afterwards.

I have been under duress and in a deep funk since the March 2020 pandemic shutdown, but now, with these two excursions to New York City coming up, it seems things are finally turning around for me. 

DeCamp Update

It's not official yet, but NJ Transit and Boxcar, a transportation company I have never heard of before, will step in for DeCamp Bus Lines, which ends service between New York City and its northern New Jersey suburbs in Essex County this Friday.

Boxcar has announced the "Essex Express" bus to start running on Easter Monday, Starting April 10, with ten runs every morning between 5:30 A.M. and 10:30 A.M,, and another ten runs every evening between 3:30 P.M and 9:30 P.M.   The company plans to follow the same route as the #33 DeCamp bus from the Caldwells through Montclair and then go up Park Street and Valley Road to New Jersey Route 3, which leads into New Jersey Route 495 and then to the Lincoln Tunnel.

NJ Transit will be running buses in place of DeCamp for "weekday peak periods only," so it's unclear as to what DeCamp routes NJ Transit will be running, or whether Boxcar plans to run buses on weekends.  A more detailed schedule will be revealed tomorrow.  

DeCamp Decamps

DeCamp Bus Lines, which started as a stagecoach company in 1870 ferrying people from western Essex County in New Jersey to Newark and later began running motorized buses to New York City, is ending commuter service to the city from Essex County.  The simple fact is that most people along its routes don't travel to New York City for work anymore, and there are fewer daytrippers using DeCamp to take in the city's numerous attractions.  The last day of service is Friday, April 7, 2023.  (DeCamp isn't going out of business; it will continue to run charter and shuttle buses as well as casino buses to Atlantic City.)

DeCamp suspended service five months into the pandemic due to lack of ridership, but it later resumed service aimed primarily at commuters.  This meant that buses stopped running after about 8:00 P.M.  That meant no return service to the suburbs for people who might want to go a Broadway show, take in a concert, attend a ballet recital, or do all of the other 499,997 things Huey Lewis once said you can do even at 2:45 A.M.  I began to wonder if the DeCamp family thought those of us in the Caldwells and nearby Verona - Montclair and Bloomfield, also affected, still have passenger rail service - were all Mormons who rolled up the sidewalks and went in when the sun went down.

But news of its end of service for Essex County is a total blow.  Now we can't even take the bus to go to a place like a museum, Central Park or the Statue of Liberty on a Saturday afternoon.  Result?  If you live in Essex County, New Jersey and you don't have passenger rail to fall back on - which the Caldwells and Verona haven't had since 1966 - you'll drive either into the city, to Weehawken and take the ferry across the Hudson River, or to Hoboken and take the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) train, and you'll like it, because it beats the alternative - taking the #29 city bus to the PATH station in Newark! 

Then again, even rail service to and from New York can be spotty, but with Montclair having six railway stations and the Caldwells and Verona having none, mediocre public transit is better than no public transit at all. 

I've pretty much given up on public transit in this country.  Sure, I'll still use it in New York when I finally go back there, but I obviously can no longer use it to get there from where I live, and just about every other place I go is by car.  (Don't bother me none; I have a Volkswagen!) I'm no longer campaigning for high-speed intercity rail because I concluded that there is no way it's ever going to happen.  Besides, where would I ride it? 

The U.S. House members who represent Essex County are currently trying to get grant money for continued bus service, or possible NJ Transit to take over the DeCamp routes.  Good luck with that; despite the pandemic being all but officially over, the days of the socioeconomic conditions that made commuter buses to Manhattan serving Essex County a viable business are also over. People would rather stay home with their families than go to the city and party until they get drunk.

Maybe the pandemic has made northern New Jersey suburbanites more like the Mormons.  

Election Inspection

The Democrats look like they could go back to going full Whig.  After the election returns this past Tuesday, how could you not come to that conclusion?

Terry McAuliffe's nomination for a second nonconsecutive term to oppose Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin (above) was one of those classic bad ideas that was plausible enough that no one would challenge or question such a preposterous idea.  McAuliffe got the nod to run again not so much for his record as governor from 2014 to 2018 but because of his position in Democratic insider politics and his fundraising ability.  Also, he's a friend of the Clintons.  And he seemed to feel as entitled to the governor's mansion in Virginia as the Clintons did to the White House.   But he screwed up in saying that parents did not have a say in how children were educated - revealing his ignorance of elected school boards - giving Youngkin a perfect issue to run on.  And when Youngkin responded in kind by suggested with a campaign commercial that Toni Morrison's "Beloved" shouldn't be taught in AP literature (though the ad did not mention the book by title), McAuliffe couldn't even use it to his advantage.   President Biden was chastised by some pundits by deflecting blame for the Democrats' loss in Virginia from his inability to get his agenda passed; McAuliffe's foibles as a candidate suggest that Biden was right.  He was such a lousy candidate he took the Virginia Democratic Party down with him; it appears that the party lost control of the lower house of the state legislature.  Two of the new Republican members took part in the January 6 insurrection.

(By the way, if you go back to my post from this past Monday and make a sentence from the first word of each sentence in it, you'll see that I called Virginia right.)

Biden certainly didn't have anything to do with the surprise result in New Jersey, where Phil Murphy won re-election as governor by far less than expected.  Murphy ran on his progressive record and didn't shy away from his policies but he failed to enunciate his accomplishments as much as he should have and he completely ignored the issue his Republican opponent Jack Ciattarelli hammered away on repeatedly during the campaign - property taxes.  It turns out a lot of people still care about that!  Murphy, relatively speaking, was one of the big winners among the Democrats this past Tuesday.  He stays in office with most of his agenda in place and he's in a position to secure his legacy, and he is now the first Democrat to win a second term as governor of New Jersey since Brendan Byrne in 1977.  But he should have won by more.

The disappointing results Democrats had in Virginia and New Jersey were local, but nationally they still have a problem.  Republicans blame the Democrats' losses on the Democratic agenda.  Listening to them, you'd think nobody in America wants paid family leave, expanded Medicare coverage, or universal nursery school.  (Hey, I just called Joe Manchin a nobody!)  Well, it makes perfect sense that voters rebelled against the Democratic agenda - because a lot of voters thought the Democrats wanted to rename schools named for Founding Fathers in honor of black nationalists, teach "critical race theory" in those same schools, tear down statues of Jefferson and Washington, and, oh yes, defund the police.  Because even when they talk about paid family leave, Medicare dental coverage and all those other nice things, they still can't articulate their agenda in clear-cut language, and what they do say gets drowned out by so-called "woke" members of the Squad.  So it makes sense the the biggest winner among Democrats, New York Mayor-elect Eric Adams, is an ex-cop who would rather defend the police than defund them.  (Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, his Republican opponent, is a cat lover and has sixteen cats at home; that was the only thing I liked about him.)     

Oh yeah, it's so obvious that woke-ism is so out of place in These States - even in our major-league cities - that Buffalo mayor Byron Brown was re-elected as a write-in candidate after losing the Democratic nomination to a self-described socialist!  

But the muddled message wasn't the only issue - so was the fact that the Democratic Congress was supposed to deliver the goods and spent much of the past year arguing with each other.  In the end, they were the only people who were "woke" on Tuesday.

The Democrats still have a chance to cut their losses in the 2022 midterms, if they prove they can govern and pass legislation that will help the people.  Last night, they got off to a good but troubled start; the House finally passed President Biden's infrastructure bill, which now goes to the White House for the President's signature.  But distrust remains over the reconciliation bill, and there's a long way to go to get that settled.  Moderates, however, have committed themselves to voting on it ,later, so maybe we can still build back better.  And maybe get voting rights legislation passed.  Or, we could end up seeing a Republican Congress in 2023 passing a whole new round of tax cuts.  

And by the way, speaking of voting rights . . . voting rights were expanded in Virginia and New Jersey, and look what happened. 

Oh yeah, congratulations to Michelle Wu for becoming the first elected female mayor and mayor of color of Boston. 

Un . . . Deux . . . Trois . . . Book Signing!

The ongoing follies in the Washington and the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang distracted me from practically everything else, but I'm here today with something different . . . an account of a social event I went to in New York City back in January.

My friend Shanti Patty Owen, a former model and also an occasional actress, was one of the most sought-after models of the late 1970s and early 1980s.  Known for her fierce, fearless look, she's really a lovable sweetheart.  But life wasn't always glamour and sweetness for Shanti; she dealt with a sexual obsession that turned into an addiction that led to the most sordid lifestyle one could possibly imagine.  She has chronicled her dark period of sex addiction in her new book, "Memoirs of a Legal Courtesan," and she launched the book this past January 30 at Cafe Un Deux Trois in Manhattan.

Named for its location at 123 West 44th Street, Cafe Un Deux Trois is a charming little restaurant in the heart of New York's Theater District frequented by  many stage actors and actresses . . . and me.  I like to go here whenever I can, ever since I first became acquainted with it when top model Nancy Donahue and top hairdresser Harry King had one of their parties here - you know all about that!   Shanti chose this place for her book launch, and a lot of her friends showed up to buy copies of her book and get her autograph.  Alas, I couldn't afford a copy, but Shanti was nice enough to sign a promotional card for me.  And I got a lot of souvenirs in the form of pictures.    

This is Shanti Patty Owen, easily one of the nicest women you'll ever meet.  Here she is at Cafe Un Deux Trois all ready to sign copies of her book.

And here's her book. 

I have a feeling that the public library in my hometown would ban this book on the basis of the cover alone.  But Shanti is nothing if not frank about her past.    

Many of our mutual friends were there, including her fellow top model Alva Chinn, with whom she poses below.  Cool mirror image, huh? :-D.

She also received one of the most legendary models of all time, Linda Morand Phillips (below), who was modeling in Paris back in the sixties.  Of course, both Alva and Linda are friends of mine as well.   

Shanti spent two hours signing books, and she met with many of her old friends in the process.  Those of us who've only known her for a little while as well as her lifelong buddies were happy to support her in her literary endeavor. 

Yours truly got into the picture - literally - courtesy of art director and designer Fred J. DeVito, who has worked on many a fashion ad.  Here's  Fred's picture of me with my good friend Bhavaja Kat . . . 

  . . . and here's a smartphone pic of the two of us with male model Tony Spinelli.

No, I didn't change my shirt.  Some digital cameras reproduce color better than others.

It was a night to remember. like so many other nights with the veteran movers and shakers of New York fashion, and Shanti was as always a gracious hostess.  but then, she was amply surrounded by friends.

If your friends are there, then everything's all right. :-)    

You can buy Shanti's book here.

Statues and Names

You knew this was going to happen.

With the drive to remove Confederate monuments in the South in full force, New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito is calling for the statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus Circle to be removed.  The argument goes, after all, that Columbus was a genocidal maniac who exterminated indigenous tribes in the Caribbean and introduced slavery to the New World.  New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has acknowledged that the possible removal of the statue is under consideration, leading Italian-Americans to rally in favor of keeping the Columbus statue there, saying that Columbus had flaws like anyone else and that he represents the presence of Italians in the New World.  (De Blasio, of course, is Italian-American.)

This is just the sort of Pandora's box that many liberals feared would be opened if the monument issue were taken any further than removing statues of the leaders of the Confederacy - the so-called "slippery slope."  The statue of Columbus, erected in 1892 to honor the four hundredth anniversary of his arrival in the New World, was placed there with funds raised by Italian-American groups to celebrate their heritage.  The culture wars are being fought on battle lines drawn along ethnic groups . . . the Italians versus the Puerto Ricans, almost like something out of West Side Story.  Mark-Viverito, a Puerto Rican of partial Italian origin, will probably end up hating . . . herself.

Columbus Circle itself could easily be renamed if the statue comes down.  In Chicago, Columbus Park may not be renamed, but James Dukes, the pastor of the Liberation Christian Center Church on the South Side, is calling for the removal of a statue of George Washington near Washington Park and the renaming of Washington Park, as well as the renaming of nearby Jackson Park, because Washington and Andrew Jackson were slave owners. He proposed that the parks could keep their names, but in honor of other people similarly named - the late Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who lived in Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s.  If naming Jackson Park after a living person named Jackson is a problem, Jackson Park could be named after another one of Dukes' suggestions - Michael Jackson.

What?

And now even monuments for Civil War Union generals are under scrutiny, such as the General Grant National Memorial - Grant's Tomb - in New York (and it's under scrutiny by the city, not the National Park Service that operates it) because Ulysses S. Grant is alleged to have been anti-Semitic, a canard that has since been disproved.  So, eh, how are you gong to take down a mausoleum?  And is Chicago going to rename Grant Park while we're at it?

Uh, yeah, this is what Steve Bannon wants.  More identity politics.  There are a great number of reasons to take down Confederate statues, and there may be good reasons to remove Columbus statues, but there is no reason to take down a statue of George Washington, the Father of Our Country and the man who got the Republic up and running, or renaming a park named for him.  Andrew Jackson is a more complicated figure, having driven Indians from their lands and having settled quarrels with duels but also having peacefully settled the question of the sanctity of the Union in the Nullification Crisis of 1832 and having expanded the democratic franchise, albeit selectively, beyond wealthy property owners.  And he defended New Orleans from the British.  Although Jackson didn't give the vote to women and to freemen of color, that would have been too radical for anyone to propose in the 1830s, and many upper-class Americans of Jackson's day found his advocacy for enfranchising the common man radical enough.

We can't really judge historical figures by the standards of our time.  Someone who doesn't seem enlightened now probably was for his or her own time.  In the 1850s, Abraham Lincoln believed that the black man was a human being, entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and had the right to be a free laborer instead of laboring for free - all radical statements in 1850s Illinois.  But his ambivalence toward black political rights - an ambivalence he had largely disavowed by the time of his assassination - was in keeping with the attitudes of the times.

Be that as it may, someone torched a Lincoln bust in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood recently - twice.  

Above is the Lincoln bust at 69th Street and Wolcott Avenue, which has since been removed to protect it from further vandalism at the behest of Raymond Lopez, a Chicago alderman, after it was vandalized.  The photo below from 2015 shows it before it was vandalized.

This is all getting crazy.

However, I would not be against other efforts to cleanse public parks and streets of the memories of history's more unsavory figures.  Like the statue in Philadelphia of Frank Rizzo, the racist mayor of the city in the 1970s.  And, back in June 2017, some Chicago kids petitioned the city to rename Douglas Park, named for Stephen Douglas, the nineteenth-century U.S. Senator from Illinois and would-be President, for Frederick Douglass by simply adding an "s" to the name . . . because Stephen Douglas championed slavery.  And he did.  While Douglas was consistent in his position that permitting or prohibiting slavery in a state or territory was for the people of said state or territory to decide - he supported the decision of the people of Kansas to ban slavery against the wishes of his own Democratic Party - he was by no means opposed to slavery itself.  He happened to own a plantation in Mississippi.  And it would also do Chicago good to remove the Balbo Monument on Lake Shore Drive and also rename Balbo Avenue, which honor Italo Balbo, an Italian aviator and military leader who flew a plane from Rome to Chicago in 1933 for Chicago's centennial celebrations.  General Balbo was in fact a minion of Benito Mussolini and a proud fascist.

Awk-ward!

Face it, Italo Balbo is heralded in Chicago simply for flying there from Rome and not crashing.

Anyway, Chicago is not about to rename Washington Park or Jackson Park.  Grant's Tomb in New York is safe.  And a lot of people are tired of hearing about the statue and name controversies that have gone beyond the Confederate monuments - which, again, should be removed, as they honor participants in an armed insurrection against the government - and want to hear more about jobs and the economy. And if the left gets bogged down in controversies over honors for Washington, Lincoln and, say, John F. Kennedy (why not change the name of New York's international airport back to Idlewild, since Kennedy was a grotesque philanderer who lied about his health?), it's never going to connect with voters' biggest concerns.

Me, I'd be happy if they just rename places for things instead of people, because if you name anything for anyone, you're going to offend someone for one reason or another.  Look, London has squares and circles, or "circuses," named for other places in England (Leicester Square, Oxford Circus), so why not name places in Manhattan after other places in New York State?  They could have Albany Square, Rochester Square, and in place of Columbus, Buffalo Circle!  Yeah, put a statue of a bison in the middle of it!

Yeah, they'll sell the naming rights to squares and circles first.  My least favorite  Manhattan place names are the names for squares honoring newspapers, one of which folded decades ago.  "Times Square."  "Herald Square."  Do you realize how ridiculous those sound?

How About Another Fashion Reunion Party?

For the fifth time in a row, this past month, I attended the annual spring soirée hosted for veterans of the fashion world by top model Nancy Donahue and hairdresser Harry King, at a club in Lower Manhattan.  And at least one blogger documenting models of that period was also invited - that would be me.

It's always a guess as to who shows up when you arrive at one of Nancy and Harry's parties.  In fact, the only guarantee is that Nancy and Harry will be there.  I was hoping for a big surprise, like when Anne Bezamat showed up in 2016.  I got one when I saw the tall and lovely brunette Catherine Roberts walk into the club.  I took this picture of Catherine shortly after she arrived.  (I took every other photo from the party in this blog entry except for two of them.)

The dim lighting in the above photo of Catherine has an effect similar to that in many of her late-seventies Charles of the Ritz cosmetics ads.

Here's Catherine with Geoffrey Beene model Liz Lee.

And here's Catherine with makeup artist/hair stylist and photographer Joseph Boggess.

Gee, you think I have a thing for Catherine?

Yes, and the thing is this.  Catherine Roberts was and remains one of the most beautiful and one of the most astonishing models in the business.  Her lovely face and her classy demeanor have long made her one of the most sought-after models for advertisements for not just fashion and beauty products but for accessories and even beverages.  Sadly, she's better known by sight than by name, as she's done little editorial work and thus rarely gets an identifying credit.  Also, Catherine was one of the first models to discover my blog and befriend me on social media. She is a very sweet and engaging woman, and I greatly appreciate my friendship with her.  And, because she doesn't  live in the New York area, I hadn't seen her in person in four years.  That's why I was so glad to see her and why I am eager to sing her praises here.  

Of course, there were several other models at Nancy and Harry's party, many of whom are my friends as well.  One of them is Bhavaja Kat, who posed with me for this picture.

Bhavaja and I have a shared history in that we both grew up in the same part of New Jersey, though we didn't know each other then.  While she still looks stylish, she now pursues another profession, and that is all I'm going to say about that, because it's none of your business.  

I can say this . . . she knows Beverly Lee, the groundbreaking Asian-American model from the 1970s and 1980s.  They were happy to pose together for me.

Ms. Lee, still the beautiful woman who made me sigh when I was a teenager, was a favorite of the designer Hubert de Givenchy.  She and Kat worked together a lot.

I also got this great picture of model Dawn Gallagher, another dear friend of mine, with some friends of hers that I regrettably (and ironically) cannot identify.

Of course, how could I not get a picture of the always lovely Nancy Donahue, the hostess with the mostest? Nancy was the first top model I ever met in person, I having met her when she was doing a promotional event for her body-buffer product at Bergdorf Goodman in Midtown Manhattan, and she's gotten more beautiful since then.  And she always dresses to impress.  Here she is in a stunning red and green evening dress with Dawn Gallagher and two gentlemen - photographer Hamid Bechiri (in hat) and L.J. Kirby, who used to work at Studio 54.

Ah yes, Studio 54, the disco nightspot popular in the 1970s among the many people who attended this year's fashion reunion party, though I was too young to frequent 54 back in the day - not that I would ever have been let in, as they would have sized me up as a Jethro Tull fan.  Jethro Tull records there were not, obviously, among the records played at this year's spring fashion party, but there were plenty of records from Donna Summer, the Silver Convention, and Gloria Gaynor, and although I prefer the Cars' "Let's Go," which revolves around the lyric "I like the night life, baby," I had to put up with Alicia Bridges singing "I Love the Night Life" instead.  However, I can honestly say that I would rather hear Carol Douglas sing "Doctor's Orders" (which I heard at the party) than hear Carl Douglas sing "Kung Fu Fighting" (which I didn't).  But some classic rock did make its way into the soundtrack - the Beatles ("I Saw Her Standing There," appropriate for a setting with so many beautiful women), the Rolling Stones ("[I Can't Get No] Satisfaction"), and Sly and the Family Stone ("Dance To the Music," of course).  

And Nancy can dance to all of it. :-)

She sure can cut a rug . . . or could have if there had been a rug on the floor.

Yours truly got in the picture more than once, such as in this photo of me with model Asia Dyrkacz, taken by my pal Fred DeVito . . .

. . . and in this selfie.  Recognize the lovely lady in the background? ;-)

It was another night to remember fondly, made sweeter by Catherine Roberts' surprise appearance. As someone I've known longer than anyone else at the festivities - even Nancy - she obviously holds a special place in my life, and, well, I'll leave it at that.  To those who still ask me how iconic and how distinguished she is as a model, well, I need only show you one of her Charles of the Ritz ads from the late 1970s.

One picture is worth a thousand words. :-) 

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Perhaps no passenger rail line in the United States - not even any of the proposed high-speed intercity lines that never got past the proposal stage, bar a few lawsuits - has been delayed longer than the Second Avenue subway line in Manhattan, having first been proposed over a century ago but just beginning service less than a week from now, on New Year's Day 2017.  Work on the subway didn't actually begin until the early seventies, but the 1975 fiscal crisis and a shift toward more highway construction in the country in the 1980s put it on indefinite hold - at about the same time the New York City subway system became more famous for its violent crime, is filthy stations, and its graffiti-splattered cars than for quality service.  But, with the "crime and grime" era behind it and with demand for more trains on Manhattan's East Side continuing, New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is ready to go with the new Second Avenue line.  (One of its new stations is shown below.)

Well, not completely.  This is just the first phase, which runs from East 63rd Street to East 96th Street.  The entire line will connect East 125th Street in Harlem with Hanover Square near the Financial District in Lower Manhattan.  And just getting this first leg done has taken longer than expected.  The MTA has been accused of rushing things too quickly to get it done by an arbitrary completion date of January 1, 2017 . . . which is ironic, since the MTA has taken its sweet time even getting this far.  For most Upper East Siders, it can't happen too soon.  They've had to take the Lexington Avenue line, which handles more passengers than entire rapid-transit networks of Chicago and Washington, D.C. put together, and it's woefully overcrowded.  Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, is certainly pleased with this new line.  "New Yorkers have waited nearly a century to see the promise of the Second Avenue Subway realized," he recently said, "and after unrelenting dedication from thousands of hardworking men and women, the wait is over . . ..  The on-time completion of this major, transformative project reaffirms confidence in government competence, increasing capacity on the nation’s busiest subway system, and delivering a new, vital transportation artery to millions of New Yorkers."

Just as long as New York City and New York State can reassure beleaguered Manhattanites - who've had to deal with a rapid-transit-free Second Avenue since the elevated railway there was demolished in 1940 - that the rest of the line will be done in good time.  At least this much has been done.  Meanwhile, as President Barack Obama plans to leave office this coming January 20, not a single mile of his proposed national high-speed rail network has been built.  And unless California can overcome overwhelming odds and oddities (those lawsuits again), no high-speed rail will ever be built here.  

They Got Him

So it turns out that the bombings in New York City and in Seaside Park, New Jersey were related.  And they got the alleged bomber - Ahmad Khan Rahami, an afghan-born American citizen who has live most of his life in the United States - within two days. Nice work by the authorities.  Rahami will be tried, but the evidence is pretty much against him. 

It appears, though, that the politicians were wrong about the bombings from the get go, as they originally saw no connection between them and no connection of either one to Islamic extremism.  Meanwhile, there was a knife-wielding attacker in Minnesota who was also an Islamic extremist.  Both of these guys were caught, but symptoms more merely treated.  The illness of terrorism is still there.

Bombs Aweigh . . .

I feel sick.

In Seaside Park, New Jersey yesterday, a pipe bomb went off in a trash can just before a five-kilometer run benefiting military families, forcing its cancellation.  Ironically, a delay in the start of the run, caused by a continuation of registrations for it, prevented from anyone running by it and getting hurt when it went off.

Later in the evening, another incendiary device exploded in New York City's Chelsea district, injuring 29 people.  In what can only be described as classic political double-talk, Mayor de Blasio,  insisted that it probably wasn't terrorism-related but said it was intentional.  (A second, unexploded, device was found later nearby.)  Both de Blasio and New York governor Andrew Cuomo said that people shouldn't be deterred by the blast and go about their lives . . . and not give in to fear.  My mother already has.  She doesn't want me to go into the city for the forseeable future.

I feel sick . . ..       

All Aboard The Train

We passenger rail advocates had a very good day yesterday. I don't know if we'll have many good days ahead, but yesterday was a very good day because of the announcement of two major rail projects involving the Northeast.

First, an alternative idea has been announced in the effort to build a new rail tunnel between New York City and New Jersey. Amtrak is planning to build a $13.5 billion tunnel that will connect New Jersey to Penn Station in Manhattan and will mostly follow the route of the tunnel canceled by New Jersey governor Chris Christie, but it will involve more of a federal role and will spare New Jersey taxpayers any cost overruns. And, it will connect Amtrak and NJ Transit's trains with other lines rather than end a block or two away under Macy's. This is actually not a new idea, as it is a revised version of a 1999 proposal to build two tunnels from New Jersey, one connecting with Grand Central Terminal and the other connecting to Penn Station. The Grand Central proposal was abandoned in 2003 due to infighting between NJ Transit and its commuter rail counterparts serving New York and Connecticut over sharing Grand Central access.

The tunnel that will now be built was originally scuttled in favor of the Access to the Region's Core (ARC) tunnel killed by Governor Christie. As Paul Mulshine reported in the Newark Star-Ledger, the ARC plan "pleased no one except the NJ Transit executives and the contractors who would have gotten the work." Connectivity was a major complaint among the ARC tunnel's critics, because it led to a separate station near Macy's and was derided as the "tunnel to Macy's basement." Christie probably looks like a hero now, having canceled the ARC tunnel and forced the pursuit of a more cost-effective alternative. He's in favor of the Amtrak plan.

Speaking of Amtrak, here's the other big story. Vice President Joe Biden went to Thirtieth Street Station in Philadelphia to announce that the Obama administration will press for a re-authorization of the federal Surface Transportation Program with an expanded mission that includes high-speed intercity rail, committing the government to a $53 billion, six-year plan to get such a system started. It looks like this country is finally prepared to commit itself to modernizing passenger rail before the end of this decade, not unlike the commitment to the moon landing project of the 1960s. But Republicans in Congress are still wary of more government spending, and some anti-rail politicians are convinced that our primary transportation focus must be on highways. Commitment from the executive branch to a national goal doesn't guarantee success. If you disagree, I have a national health insurance card from the Clinton years I'd like to show you.

I want to believe this is for real this time. Biden seems to. But online readers of newspapers like the Camden (N.J.) Courier-Post, which was the primary source for this blog entry, not only don't believe it, they don't want it. The arguments are the same - it will bankrupt the country, it will lead to higher taxes, it's an expensive toy - and they don't take into account the massive government subsidies given to aviation and highways. I hope this project gets under way soon. Because the Northeast Corridor Acela train, while sleek and comfortable, averages 60 to 80 mph between Boston and Washington despite its 150-mph top speed . . . and trains in other countries go faster than that.

It was a new day yesterday for American passenger rail advocates, but it may be an old day soon if not much happens.

Me On "Toni On"

"Toni On! New York" is a television program hosted by New York media personality Toni Senecal that covers New York's various attractions, stores, bars and dining spots, among other things. The show features historical tidbits from a local tour guide, as well as music commentary from Springsteen guitarist Steve Van Zandt and contributions from on-air personalities with various fields of expertise. I watch it regularly, and it's a great source of information for what to do in New York City. Ironically, I've only been in the city twice this year so far, and it's December.

Until recently, it was on a local commercial TV station, but it has since moved to WNYE-TV, a small Brooklyn-based UHF station owned by the city and, since WNYC-TV was sold to private interests in 1995, the last vestige of local public television in the metropolitan area, never mind the city. Senecal is still largely recycling earlier material - installments previously aired on commercial television have been revamped and re-edited - but the move to public TV has unquestionably helped the show. On commercial TV, Senecal and co-producer Tracy Shea held e-mail trivia contests that incorporated deals from sponsors, whose contributions were included in the show as tie-ins. (Full disclosure requires me to admit that I participated in almost all of her trivia contests; alas, I never won anything, not having the luck of the draw.)

Freed from such corporate connections, Senecal is now free to offer a show that's still entertaining but more informative and less crass and less reliant on sponsorship. Although there's still some of that - because this is American public television, "Toni On! New York" is still "made possible in part" by Chevrolet - the result is a much tighter and more focused show on the attractions and sights that make New York and its environs great. Newer segments, edited into the older ones, focus on the environs - New Jersey, Rockland County, and the like. I can hardly wait for Toni Senecal to start producing entirely new episodes from start to finish.

The change of station has made a good show even better, and without ratings to worry about, I predict that the 41-year-old Senecal should be a staple of local TV in the Big Apple for a long time.

Unless the city sells WNYE-TV, though.

Scare In the Square

The recent arrest of Faisal Shahzad, the by a naturalized American citizen of Pakistani birth who attempted to plant a bomb in Times Square in New York City, could have been foiled by the federal government's own missteps in handling he case. Shahzad's name was immediately placed on the no-fly list when information about the sport utility vehicle parked in Time Square with a bomb inside it linked him to the vehicle, but he was able to buy a ticket on Emirates Airlines to Dubai. EA somehow failed to check the list, but federal authorities managed to stop the plane from taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport and arrest him. As far as I'm concerned, the system worked.

Nevertheless, right-wingers are complaining that the Obama administration should be held accountable for the fact that Shahzad still got on the plane or that a bomb was ever planted there. Do they really expect Obama to micromanage the New York Police Department? Or do Emirates Airlines's job of checking no-fly lists? Anyway, Shahzad proved to be rather incompetent in his execution of the plot. The bomb was poorly made, the timers were haphazardly installed, and the SUV was a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder bought off Craigslist. Why would anyone want to buy a seventeen-year-old SUV - a Nissan, no less - with cash and with no bill of sale?

The bomb didn't have to work, apparently, to have an effect. The fact that it was planted in one of the busiest urban intersections in America was enough to scare the Shinola out of everyone. By that criterion, the plot was a success. Similarly, it turned out that terrorists didn't have to launch an attack anywhere in America during the 2004 presidential election campaign to make us elect George Walker Bush to a second term and give Osama bin Laden a recruiting tool for four more years. All bin Laden had to do then was make a tape of himself.

Busker Busting

I just learned surfing through Flickr of an arrest of a well-known street performer that took place in New York, and it makes me mad.

Shamanic violinist Stephen Kaufman, known as "Thoth" to folks who visit Bethesda Terrace in New York's Central Park, and his assistant Zoe Harkin were both arrested less than two weeks ago for playing loud music in an area designated a "quiet zone" by the Central Park Conservancy.

Thoth has performed there - specifically, in the tunnel under Olmsted and Vaux Way leading to the plaza where the fountain is located - for many years, except for when the tunnel was being restored, he has never drawn ant complaints from anyone, as he is a popular busker there. But the Conservancy, in what many see as a bid to crack down on street musicians in the park, has decided that people go to Bethesda Terrace to enjoy piece and quiet, not to be entertained.

I've never gotten Thoth's act myself, especially his incense burning and wild costumes, but every time I'm at Bethesda Terrace when he's there, he's never been an annoyance to me. I've been able to enjoy the plaza and appreciate the tranquil ambiance whether he's performing there or not. Thoth has the right to perform there, as he's been doing for some time. If you don't want to tip him, don't. If you don't like his act, don't watch it. His rights to free expression are being severely violated.

Full disclosure requires me to state that I have several friends who are street performers themselves - six at last count - and so I have some bias here. Why shouldn't I? All street performers have a right to put their art out on the streets and squares of America's cities. Attempts to undermine this right have been going on for a long time, especially in New York, where buskers are at best regulated, at worst harassed and arrested. If they're going to go after Thoth, who's next?

I'm getting angry now. I may not get Thoth's act, but what I really don't get are the authorities in New York.

The Sweet Smell of Excess

For several months, a sweet aroma comparable to maple syrup appeared over the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York, without a clue about its point of origin. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had the source investigated, and it turned out that the aroma was coming from ester being refined at a food processing plant in North Bergen, New Jersey, just west of Midtown.

I don't want to hear New Yorkers complaining about the smells coming from New Jersey again. They should be glad that we have factories that replace the grimy smells of the city with the sweet, fragrant aroma of a Sunday morning pancake breakfast.