Celebrations
“New York Groove”
To the left and to the right /
Buildings towering to the sky, it’s outta sight /
In the dead of night
I can’t decide whether it’s surprising that “New York Groove” is in that many true-crime documentaries; or that it’s not in more true-crime documentaries. I do know that dropping a key change at just over a minute into the track is the rock equivalent of not waiting for the light to change before crossing. Perfect, no notes.
Philippe Petit’s high-wire stunt
“I couldn’t help laughing, it was so beautiful,” Petit told the NYT. I couldn’t help hyperventilating during most of Man On Wire but Petit’s whole “challenge accepted, bon” deal means he’s one of ours.
Patrick ventures out
“Ex” is the first episode of High Maintenance I saw, and its portrait of the city as simultaneously very annoying and a soft web of unexpected emotional connections spoke to this semi-retired agoraphobe immediately.
Nino ventures in
It took a solid hour to verify that the scene I remembered from 1962’s Mafioso had actually occurred – 50 of the 60 minutes were spent trying to separate search-results wheat from chaff, like, did I hallucinate the entire movie? – but when our involuntary-hitman protagonist, Nino (Alberto Sordi), is getting dazzled by the early-sixties cityscape, it’s really something. Then it’s…really something else entirely, tonally.
Carrie and Big’s wedding lunch
The most straightforwardly joyous moment in the Sex & The City franchise, and where it should have ended: a chosen family, in a diner.
Department stores
The windows that doubled as art installations; the iconic brown bags.
The Village Voice‘s concert listings
The Voice is gone. At least half the venues whose ads we scanned looking for our favorites? Also gone. That thrill when you rolled into the student center hungover, grabbed the last Voice off the stack, and finally spotted the Sundays in a smudgy “upcoming” box stays with you forever.
A late-summer “Zcavenger” hunt
Look, the city has some problems. A bunch of those problems involve out-of-touch rich dudes who hate it here trying to run the place, like, what? Mamdani is perfect for the gig and actually wants to do it! Move to Hilton Head if it sucks here so bad!
What for-real never sleeps is fighting about pizza
Best by borough, unforgivable toppings, which national chain is more embarrassing for a New Yorker to patronize within city limits, other cities trying to start shit by putting sauce and mozz on a snickerdoodle or whatever deranged thing…it never stops. And thank God.
This September 21 home run
Thanks, buddy. – Buntsy
…and this September 21 home run
Thanks, buddy. – everyone else
Susan
Peak aspirational Madge in every way. I mean, codes in the paper! Buntnip.
Christmastime dead drops at the Strand
Even Buntnippier! I watch it every year.
Summertime Spike Lee
Because very few filmmakers can convey the hilarrible communal misery of a Gotham heat wave as well as he can. And since Breslin has the mic…
Midcentury newspapermen
We lost Selwyn Raab earlier this year, and Harvey Aronson earlier this month. The window into the “fellas, what we need is a murder at a good address” era is painting itself shut, for good or ill. A lot of those ink-stained wretches didn’t write very well, or didn’t know when to stop, or had libelously wrong ideas about major cases, but physically going out into the city with a breast-pocket-size steno pad and a writing implement, going into the story, had value. They remembered all the New Yorks that came before whichever one they found themselves in now. “I wonder what happened,” Pete Hamill writes in Downtown, “to all the high-heeled women, who are grandmothers now, and most certainly still beautiful.”
Kotter
From the “obligatory beauty shot of the Towers” era of NYC-show credits.
The most dangerous university on earth
Chung-chung!
“Let’s go get ’em!”
It is clear on some level to the New Yorkers of Superman II that they can’t beat Zod and his henchfolk. Daily Planet headlines on the milk crates at the beginning of the Times Square battle sequence blare, “WHITE HOUSE SURRENDERS.” They’ve just seen Supes (they think) get killed by an entire bus. They’re fighting anyway.
Update: maybe, finally, got ’em
It is difficult to explain to the generations after X what HIV/AIDS did, and was…what it stole and destroyed, inevitably, as we stood helplessly by. It is difficult for me to remember, sometimes, that we were terrorized. It is also difficult for me to remember sometimes that to expect better, and to go in search of it for everyone, is a great courage.
Night flights
“No New Yorker, no matter how cynical, is immune to the feeling of flying into JFK at night. Tired though she was, anxious though she’d been, some hidden hope alighted in Bonnie as soon as the plane touched down. She was back in New York. City of sirens, city of secrets, city of her sisters. She had dreaded returning, but it was surprisingly comforting to see the city lights wink in their bed of black below, each one a little life of its own.” – Coco Mellors, Blue Sisters
New friends
Thanks for coming by. It might be past fixing but we can find out together.
Old friends
Oh, hello. I think all y’all know each other.
Sticking candles in a black-and-white cookie
‘Tis the season. Happy birthday, Don.
Tags: September 11th
Thank you, Sars, every year. ?
Thank you as ever for holding this space.
Still wish i remembered my old name.
Happy birthday, Don ?
Thanks. Appreciate your steadfastness more each year. HB, Don.
As I grappled with feeling absolutely nothing yesterday, I worried that the US had broken my empathy response with its position that guns are more important than human lives. I can’t bring myself to care that two kids will grow up without a father, and that three students are fighting to live right now, because Americans keep making the choice that the gun reigns supreme.
But then I come here, and I remember the friends here who keep coming back, to remember and thank a stranger who helped someone we love in a time of need, someone most of us have never met, but who remains a constant in our lives. And my heart lifts, because I believe there are more empathetic and caring people out there than there are heartless people. We’re just quieter, doing what we can in the background to make the lives of our fellow humans a little bit better. We’ll get through this together.
Happy birthday, Don.
Happy birthday, Don.
Thank you for doing this every year. I can’t believe it will be 25 next year.
Every year. Happy birthday Don.
so much appreciation and all of my gratitude to you, good soul Sars, for this gift of kindness, clarity, and hope you share year after year.
:ps:
Thank you for holding space here for us to gather every year, Sars.
Happy birthday, Don.
I wasn’t going to look for this until later, but then I thought maybe I would browse the past ones, aside generally do each year, until the new material dropped.
(Dropped? So much slang has been born since 2001. So much else has happened, too.)
Thank you for being here every year. Thank you to all the familiar names in the comments. It feels like a still point in the turning world, more necessary now than at any time I can recall.
Well Buntsy, that list certainly put me in a …certain … state of mind. Don’t have any reasons. Left them all behind.
Hope it’s a good one, Don.
Happy birthday, Don. This and every year.
Thanks Sars.
I consider myself empathetic to a problematic degree in my personal life, but yesterday was weird. Is my empathy broken? Am I numb? Is it selective? Can you make yourself feel empathy, and if it’s forced is it no longer empathy? But then I saw the date today and clearly I can feel empathy, and I remember that humans are pretty great sometimes even if we are also terrible.
Can believe it’s been 24 years.
Happy birthday Don!
Happy Birthday, Don.
For some reason, today resonates so hard this year. It seems like 2001 was such a more innocent time and we had no idea how awful things would be in 2025. Thanks for holding this space, Sars.
Every year I revisit, will not forget. Thank you for this space to meet up and remember.
Happy birthday Don.
A great list, sars. Thank you for being here then and now and hopefully in the future the world will be… better? right?
Happy birthday Don.
Many happy returns, Don.
It does a heart good to see you all here every year. I wish so many things were different, but I’m thankful for this tradition all the same.
Gratitude and love to Sarah, as always.
Happy birthday, Don.
Thank you again, SARS, for creating a space where we can come every year on this date to commune and remember.
Happy Birthday, Don. Xx
Happy birthday, Don. This year, and every year. So reassuring to see you all again here, friends.
Hi friends (because thats what you are to me)-
I was just driving into the city in the last week as an out-of-towner and am still awestruck by the skyline and the energy of the people bustling past me as I navigated Park Slope in rush hour. NYC, you will always be one of my favorites stops, along with Tomato Nation.
Thank you Sars (always) + Happy Birthday Don.
Thank you for reminding us that there are many reasons to celebrate, even with …all the things… going on. Thank you for being there for your readers for all these years.
Happy Birthday, Don.
Every year, without fail.
Happy birthday, Don.
Every year. I always think of you when I listen to The Sundays.
I’m not a New Yorker, never will be, but you are and the love you reflect for and from NYC is real and helps all of us. The moon doesn’t make its own light either but it still guides us in the dark.
Thanks as always, Sars. HBD.
[heart] I always think of YOU when I’m on a highway in the driving rain, of us laughing/glaring at that W bumper sticker we had no choice but to look at for 20 minutes. This sounds like a bad thing but it isn’t! xo
Thank you, Sarah and all the other Tomato Nationals out there, for this.
For giving me a place to bring my little memorial candle every year. For reminding me that there are always things to celebrate. For reassuring me that there are enough of us and we will figure it out together.
Happy birthday, Don.
Happy birthday, Don. Hope you are walking in light.
Happy birthday, Don.
Grateful for this ritual with all of you strangers.
I come here every year – thanks for holding space for us all.
Happy Birthday Don
As always, thank you Sars, for giving us this space to hold and remember.
Thank you, Hellcat13, for saying beautifully what was floating around in my mind.
And always and forever, Happy Birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sars, for every year. Happy Birthday Don. You are my 9/11 tradition. xoxo
Happy Birthday Don. And hello to all of you who stop by this pilgrimage spot for our yearly remembrance.
Thanks, Sars. Happy birthday, Don.
Thank you. And Happy Birthday, Don.
Thank you Sars for the steadfastness. We hope for better things, from Detroit.
HBD.
Don made it to Reddit this year. https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/s/O38F4uy8gv
And we’re all 24 years older and so many feel this so deeply. I hope someday you can wish Don a happy birthday in person.
oh dang! I was thinking the other day, maybe I should let the redditors have a crack at this. Let’s see what happens! (thanks for the heads-up)
And here we are again.
Lately I’ve been imagining a big house, like a farm house, maybe red brick, with wide white porches, and sunset in the windows. There are tables scattered over the lawn, under tall, spreading trees. Approaching from down the hill, you can hear snatches of conversation, everyone catching up; the tables are full, small knots and large groups; laughter, tears and memory on the air, clear as the scent of woodsmoke and food on the grill. Some of us have come a long way. There’s the beginning of a chill in the late breeze, but the sun seems to warm everyone’s faces. There’s birthday cake later, of course.
Hello, friends. I hope you’re all staying well. Thank you, Sarah, as ever. Happy birthday, Don — still grateful you were there to hold her hand.
“steeped in rue, steeped in rue” (or…rye :) )
Happy birthday, Don.
Happy Birthday Don! As always, thank you Sarah! Hope the Redditors crack this thing wide open and you (along with all of us) get to wish Don a happy belated birthday.
Happy Birthday Don! As always, thank you Sarah! Hope the Redditors crack this thing wide open and you (along with all of us) get to wish Don a happy belated birthday!
Sending my love to you today.
Happy birthday, Don. <3
Thanks, Sars. This has been an off-kilter day and I didn’t know how much I needed to take a deep breath and think about other days in my hometown. That Piazza dinger remains the only Mets highlight I have ever cheered (while also crying).
Happy Birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sarah. Happy Birthday, Don.
I can’t believe we’re back here already.
Happy birthday, Don
It’s that little souvenir, of a terrible year/which makes my eyes feel sore
Thanks for the souvenir, Sars (in a good way.) Happy Birthday, Don. <3
Every year I think of Sars, Don and all of you.
Happy Birthday, Don.
Strange to think part of a ritual can be checking a specific website that was a part of a specific time in one’s life – and here we are again, remembering. And celebrating a stranger’s birthday together, again. Happy Birthday, Don.
Thank you for leaving the light on for us, Sarah.
Sending peace and love from Canada.
Happy Birthday, Don.