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
This is one of my favorites of them all. Thanks for being here. Happy birthday to Don.
NYC will always be my favourite place in the world. I really enjoyed the love letter to it this year.
Best wishes to Sars and to many familiar names here.
Happy Birthday, Don.
Happy Birthday, Don!! Thank you again for all you did. Do?
I cannot stop crying today, and it’s stupid. Love to all, hugs to all.
I was reading through the comments from previous year’s posts yesterday when it was the 11th my time and before this was published. How are we nearly a quarter century on, with adults who were born after it happened and who have no memory of “before”? (I work with some, it’s occasionally disconcerting to realise I’m not… quite as young as I think).
Thank you for holding space, and at some point I hope to be able to go to NYC again. Happy birthday Don!
Thank you, Sars, and happy birthday, Don, from a wanna-be New Yorker.
Happy birthday, Don. We were young then and the world seemed less irretrievably broken. Does it feel like the first crack was that day? It does to me. God that was a stunning day, walking in silence from 43st to 125th in hopes of making some kind of train.
But thank you Sars for leaving the light on.
Still here with you. Internet strangers like me were worried about you 24 years ago and that does still matter. Caring about people matters. The community you have created matters. ?? Happy birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sars and TNers, for gathering here every year. Thank you for all the wise words about this anniversary, yesterday, and the state of the country in general. I pray that Don has a wonderful birthday and feels the love that gets sent his way every year. And how amazing it would be if Reddit tracks him down in time for the 25th next year.
Bless you all.
I look forward to this every year. Thank you as always, Sarah and Happy Birthday Don.
So many years later, and I come here still to say Happy Birthday, Don. And thank you both, for holding space and sharing kindness.
It feels harder this year.
Happy Birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sars. You’re one of my constants on this day.
And HBD.
Still here, still grateful for this community and this moment we all share and reflect on together. My love to all my fellow Tomato Nationals, and a toast to Don on another trip around the sun.
Happy birthday, Don.
Still coming by every year to tune in. I think I wore that “red menace” T-shirt into the ground, way back when. It’s surreal to still be here. So many people should.
Happy birthday, Don.
Happy birthday, Don, and thanks for being here this year and every year, Sarah.
My yearly pilgrimage- thank you as always Sars. Happy birthday, Don.
Day late, dollar short. Saw a post on Insta about someone searching for their 9/11 connection, this many years later, and came back to read.
Happy Birthday, Don.
I’m late but as soon as I remembered I came here to check in with the Tomato Nation crew and to wish Don a very happy belated birthday.
Thank you Sars, from Canada. Every year I wonder if this’ll be the year you and Don reunite. There was a tiktok this week of someone with a similar story, and they found each other.
Happy birthday Don.
Thanks, Sarah, for all your thoughts and insights, and for being here every year!!
Happy Birthday, Don.
Love and hugs to all!!
Valerie
Thank you Sars and TN friends. Thank you Don for being a friend to Sars on the worst day. Happy birthday!
I hope and pray that the ripples of care and compassion demonstrated then, and each year right here among us are amplified as we meet and encourage one another, and spread it back out into this world of insanity.
Knowing that you all exist and seeing you again sustains a hope for better things.
Happy birthday, Don. Like an earlier comment, this anniversary never passes without stopping by to check in and think of Don on his birthday.
Late but not forgotten, I hope.
This really helped remind me that no matter what, no matter what, THEY CANNOT TAKE IT ALL.