In 1988, director Elia Kazan recalled a story in which he and Broadway scenic designer Boris Aronson drove cross-country together on a research trip for their latest theatrical collaboration. According to Kazan, as they entered New Mexico, Aronson pointed to a single tree growing atop a chain of hills barren of any other vegetation and said, “Without this tree, these hills would not exist.” As single elements, neither the tree nor the hills attract notice. But when taken together, it is the tree that draws the eye to the hills, bringing them into focus, making them relevant.
It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic
Reviewed By Ivan Bujan
In a recent conversation with my students in my undergraduate course that explores the politics of pleasure, the class reaffirmed my belief that the current US sex education still gives little practical information about sex and sexuality, largely reinforcing the Victorian myths about abstinence, monogamy, and reproduction. One student had not heard about HIV/AIDS or its history before coming to college. Only a few had heard about Gran Fury and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and their importance in the history of contemporary politics of sexuality.
Interview: Bob Santelli on the “Songwriters Hall of Fame Experience” Exhibit at the GRAMMY Museum
Bob Santelli interviewed by Ryan Purcell
What makes great music? What gives it power to sway our hips and emotions? These are some of the questions behind the Songwriters Hall of Fame Experience exhibit at the CUNY Graduate Center. Founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer, the Songwriters Hall of Fame (SOHF) has celebrated the work and legacy of some of the most significant songwriters in American popular culture. The esteemed ranks of SHOF’s inductees include prolific teams such Rogers and Hammerstein (who helped compile the Great American Songbook), and Holland-Dozier-Holland (the songwriting engine that drove Motown), as well as solo songsmiths from Carole King to Mariah Carey.
Interview: Anthony Tamburri on the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute
Interviewed by Adam Kocurek
Today on the blog, Gotham editor Adam Kocurek speaks with the dean of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Anthony Tamburri about the history of the Institute, and the work it does for supporting Italian American scholars and the history of Italian Americans.
Review: God in Gotham: The Miracle of Religion in Modern Manhattan
Reviewed by Kenneth T. Jackson
When we think of New York and history, religion is not typically the first thing that comes to mind. Organized crime perhaps, or skyscrapers, or labor disputes, or nightclubs, legitimate theaters, museums, subways, Wall Street, wealth, poverty, the list could be endless. To most people, Gotham is more associated with sin than with morality, more with prostitution than with sermons, more with sports venues than with churches.
The Complicated Legacy of Paul Moss, La Guardia’s Infamous “Gutter-Cleaner”
By Jonathan Kay
Outside the conference room at the Bow Tie Partners offices in Times Square, there is a framed letter, dated September 5, 1944, addressed to one “Master Charles B. Moss, Jr.” — the grandson of legendary New York City film exhibitor B.S. Moss (1878-1951), who still presides over the family film and real-estate business.
“The Avant-Groove”: Excerpt from No Sounds Are Forbidden
By Matthew Friedman
Morton Subotnick arrived in New York in the fall of 1966 already a giant of the burgeoning avant-garde music scene. Together with composer Ramon Sender, a tape recorder, scattered equipment borrowed from a local high school or through a fortuitous connection with the local Ampex representative, and support from Mills College, he had built the San Francisco Tape Music Center into a force in electronic music rivaling the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (CPEMC), uptown.
On a winter day in February 1967, pedestrians gawked as a young African American man walked along Fifth Avenue in New York City: He stood 6 feet, 3 inches tall, aged twenty-five and he was clearly in fighting shape.[1]
“Is that you, Muhammad Ali?’ one woman exclaimed. “You're so handsome."
Review: New York, New Music, 1980-1986, Museum of the City of New York
Reviewed by Jeffrey Escoffier
The Museum of the City of New York has opened an ongoing exhibition, New York, New Music, 1980-1986, covering the full range of new music from modernist avant-garde to rock — punk, new wave, no wave & noise — to salsa, hip hop, and pop. The exhibit not only commemorates the numerous musical pioneers and performers that thrived in New York during this period, celebrates the dozens of venues that provided stages for the musical performances, and shows the interaction between musicians, visual artists, designers, and cultural entrepreneurs, it also situates the music of 1980s New York in time and place.
Percy Loomis Sperr and the Total Photographic Documentation of New York City, 1924-45
By Susan Smith-Peter
Using crutches because of an early bout with meningitis, Percy Loomis Sperr managed to photograph nearly all of New York City from the 1920s to the 1940s. Sperr sought to document and preserve the city as fully as possible. He was interested in telling the story of New York through the lives and environments of everyday people. This work brought him into contact with important photographers such as Berenice Abbott and, to a lesser extent, Walker Evans. And his work has deeply shaped our vision of this New York City during the Jazz Age and Depression era.
