Newsletter 4 - December 1999
We're sorry to say that after June 2000,
because of changes in our service provider's operations and a host
of other circumstances, we were forced to discontinue publication of
what -- we thought -- was a information packed digest. We hope to be
able to resume sometime in the future
Contents
1. Happy Holidays
2. Holiday Links
3. It's the Millennium: Help These Stars Find
a Job
4. Broadway: Reviews, Openings, Coming Soon,
Closings
5. The Oyster Bar
6. Forlorn City Hall
7. What's Up?
8. Smile! You're On Cabbie Camera
1. Happy Holidays
The Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center is
alight, getting the City in the mood for Christmas. The giant
Menorah on Fifth Avenue is lighted each evening during the Chanukah
festivities. Kwanza is on the way. The Millennium is just around the
corner. There's finally a nip in the air (at least on some days),
morning frost on the ground and people bundled in blankets riding in
horse-drawn carriages in Central Park. The City is alive and
bustling with shoppers and sightseers taking in the windows at
Macy's, Lord & Taylor and Sak's Fifth Avenue. The aroma of
roasted chestnuts in the air, all we need is snow. It's a grand
time!
One of the most enjoyable facets of operating a
web site is that our business is not just accessible to the people
walking along Fifth Avenue, or 34th Street, or Elm Street, or Main
Street; in New York City, New City or New Caledonia; in the United
States, in Slovenia or in Malaysia. We have a storefront on the
world! In the past nine months thousands of visitors from all over
have stopped by to browse, ask questions, just to chat. We thank
everyone for taking the same to say 'Hi,' and we wish all of you a
healthy and happy winter holiday season.
As the sun races east over the Pacific on
January 1st, people the world over will celebrate the start of a new
year. Whether you look at it as the last year of the Second
Millennium or the first year of the Third Millennium, 2000 is a
magic number; it symbolizes the triumph of people over thousands of
years of disease, strife, war and disaster -- We made it this far!
-- and the hope we can look forward to continue improving the lot of
all peoples -- We're going to beat it! Maybe this electronic thing
called the Internet can help. May the next year be happy, healthy
and prosperous and the start of a truly new age in the world.
2. Holiday Links
Jim's Deli holiday links include our Winter
Holiday Event Calendar - Everything to plan your winter holiday
activities in the city. Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza celebrations;
complete schedules and information for A Christmas Carol at Madison
Square Garden Theater, George Ballanchine's The Nutcracker by the
New York City Ballet and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular
featuring The Rockettes; listings of performances of Handel's
Messiah around the city; Christmas Hotel Availability - A sampling
of the many hotel rooms and rates available for the holidays; and,
NEW this week, Christmas Windows - The Miracle on 34th Street at
Macy's, My Wish for Tomorrow at Lord & Taylor and Auntie Claus
at Sak's Fifth Avenue.
Find everything you need to know to celebrate
the holidays in New York City at our Christmas
Guide
3. It's the Millennium: Help
These Stars Find a Job
Celebration 2000, the
starting-at-$1,000-per-person New Year's Eve extravaganza at the
Javits Center, has been cancelled due to lack of interest.
World-class entertainers such as Andrea Bocelli, Sting, Aretha
Franklin, Tom Jones, Enrique Iglesias, Chuck Berry, Kool & the
Gang, K C & the Sunshine Band, Joan Rivers and the Duke
Ellington Orchestra are suddenly looking for a gig. Restaurateur
Jean-Georges Vongerichten gets stuck with the leftovers. The biggest
bash is a bust as many people decide to enjoy less lavish, if not
quieter, New Year's Eve celebrations. Andrea Bocelli, Aretha
Franklin and Enrique Iglesias shouldn't have any problems finding
work, but what do Tom Jones, Kool & the Gang (Is Kool still
cool?) and K C and the Sunshine Band do? Get a few couples together,
throw in ten bucks apiece and give them a call. You never know?
Many of the City's top spots, especially any
located anywhere near Times Square, decided to close for the night.
Most Broadway theaters are also dark (New Year's Eve is usually a
premium-priced night). There will be more than enough to do and more
than enough people doing it, but many are opting to stay close to
home.
To find out where and when, check our New Year's
Eve pages. They include our New Year's Eve 2000 Events Calendar -
What to do and where to do it; Times Square 2000 - Find out all
about this 26-hour extravaganza; and New Year's Eve Hotels - Yes,
there is room at the inn. Find out where at our New Year's
Eve Guide (old link)
4. Broadway
This Months Reviews
The
Rainmaker, with Woody Harrelson and Jayne
Atkinson, opened Nov 11th. An enjoyable lightweight.
The
Price opened Nov 15th. It's a keeper, but . . .
Tango Argentino, the dance review, opened at the
Gershwin Theater Nov 17th. Spare, yet sensual.
Another opening and Oh! What a show! Kiss
Me Kate at the Martin Beck Theater
Carol Burnett is back on Broadway. Putting
It Together opened Nov 21st at the Ethel Barrymore
Theater. Well, we still love Carol.
Marie
Christine, starring Audra McDonald, opened Dec 2nd
opening at the Barrymore Theater. McDonald triumphs!
Opening This Month
Minnelli
on Minnelli Liza sings songs from her father
Vincent's films from Dec 1st thru Jan 2nd at the Palace
Swing!
The revue begins previews Nov 2nd for a Dec 9th opening at the St
James Theater
The
Dead Christopher Walken and Blair Brown star in
this musical play based on James Joyce's work. Begins Dec 14th at
the Belasco Theater
Much
Ado About Everything Jackie Mason begins previews
Nov 16th for a Dec 30th opening at the John Golden Theater
Coming Soon
Elton John and Tim Rice wrote the score for Aida,
Disney's offering to begin previews Feb 25th at the Palace Theater
The revival of Tom Stoppard's The
Real Thing will open at the Belasco Theater sometime
in the Spring, probably April. Stephen Dillane and Jennifer Ehle
will reprise the lead roles, originally played by Jeremy Irons and
Glenn Close.
Rose, the Martin
Sherman drama, is set to open in the Spring but hasn't yet found a
home
The Green Bird The
Lion King's Julie Taymor returns with a teenage coming-of-age story
at the Cort Theater | March or April
Closing Soon
The
Scarlet Pimpernel The critically panned return
engagement started Sep 10th at the Neil Simon Theater. Will close
'sometime in January'
Ragtime
Good box office but high costs force closing Jan 16th
It
Ain't Nothin' But the Blues From the New Victory
to the Beaumont to closing at the Ambassador Jan 2nd
Kat
and the Kings Should never have made it to
Broadway. Held out for awhile, but closes at the Cort Theater Jan
2nd
Smokey
Joe's Cafe The revue has been on the boards since
1995, closing at the Virginia Theater in Jan
5. The Oyster Bar
One of the things Jim is always disappointed
about when we travel to California is the lack of seafood. Well, not
exactly a lack of seafood, but a lack of variety. Even the most
popular seafood restaurants have what seem, to an Easterner's eye's,
very limited menus. Sure, you can find tuna and salmon, mahi mahi
and mako shark,
something-that-doesn't-have-a-name-that-they-call-snapper, shrimp
and those spiny Pacific lobsters, sweet Dungeness crab, squid in
many incarnations and a handful of oyster, clam and mussel
varieties. But where's the good stuff? On a cold, dreary New York
City afternoon this past Wednesday, Susie had a great idea,
"Let's stop at the Oyster Bar for a bowl of chowder!"
One of the City's best kept secrets, the Oyster
Bar is tucked away in the bowels of Grand Central Terminal. After a
fire a couple of year's ago the place looks as good as old, down to
the cheap white plastic tables and chairs in the bar of the dining
room (if you stop in for a drink try the Oyster Bar Saloon). It's an
old-NYC type of restaurant, sharing a soul with the Palm, Peter
Luger's and Gage and Tollner's. Side orders run to creamed spinach,
cole slaw and fired potatoes, though the fare has been updated a bit
with the addition of jicama slaw and steamed Yukon Gold potatoes.
One of the best times to drop into the Oyster Bar is a cold
afternoon, after the lunch rush, about 2:30P. Sit at the curving
lunch counter or at the oyster bar and order a bowl of Manhattan or
New England chowder. At $4.50 they're best buys. At first, the
Manhattan chowder will remind you of Campbell's vegetable soup; then
the briny taste of clams comes through, soothing and heart-warming.
The New England chowder is also a winner; not thick and pasty, the
creamy base gently enfolds the tender morsels of clam. On this past
visit Jim opted for an oyster pan-roast. Sit at the oyster bar so
you can watch the cook gently sauté five plump and briny Bluepoints,
add cream, cook it all up to a bisque, then ladle it atop a slice of
good old American white bread toast. The oysters are succulent, the
bisque very, very rich. At $9.95 this will hold you for a few hours.
The best things about the Oyster Bar are the
quality and the variety. A gentleman seated a few stools down from
us ordered an oyster sampler, 3 each of the jumbo (j-u-m-b-o) Belon,
Bristol, Dungeness and Malpeque oysters. Each glistening, plump to
almost bulging piece of oyster meat sat atop a shell as large as an
ashtray. The gentleman enjoyed! Across the way another gentleman was
introducing his about-12-year-old son to the mysteries of the
oyster, followed by samples of smoked salmon and sturgeon. The son
struggled with his first oyster, but battled on through, taking a
great liking to the smoked fish. For his efforts, the kid was
rewarded with a large order of French fries.
If we say that the Oyster Bar has more than 30
varieties of oysters, more than 30 varieties of fish and more than
10 varieties of other seafood, this short sentence doesn't really
hit home. So, here we go with what was on the menu Wed, Dec 1st.
Oysters, $1.95 to $2.95 per piece (jumbo extra)
Belon, Bluepoint, Bras d'Or, Box, Caraquet, Chedabucto, Cape Ann,
Bristol, Cuttyhunk, Duck Island, Dungeness, Evening Cove, Glidden
Point, Hunter's Cove, Salt Aire, Kittery Point, Kumamoto, Malpeque,
Martha's Vineyard, Pappasquash, Newport Cup, Fisher's Island, Judd
Cove, Quilcene, Raspberry Point, Wellfleet, Sheepscott, Spinney
Creek, Sister Point, Tatamgouche, Montauk Point. (Dang! They were
out of Watch Hill from Rhode Island.)
Fish, entrees $19.95 to $27.45 Arctic Char,
Amberjack, Bluefish, Catfish, Dover Sole, Flounder, Grouper,
Halibut, Lemon Sole, John Dory, Mahi Mahi, Marlin, Monkfish, Pink
Snapper, Pompano, Red Trout, Red Snapper, Atlantic Salmon, Wild
Alaskan Salmon, Scrod, Sea Bass, Sea Trout, Make Shark, Smelts,
Squid, Striped Bass, Swordfish, Sturgeon, Tuna, Tombo, Turbot
Shellfish, $9.95 to $37.95 Florida Rock Shrimp,
Jumbo Gulf Shrimp, Prince Edward Island Mussels, New Zealand Green
Lip Mussels, Dungeness Crab, Blue Claw Crab, Maine Lobster, Florida
Stone Crab Claws, Carolina Soft-Shelled Crabs, Crawfish, Maine Sea
Scallops, Nantucket Bay Scallops
And More Caviar, Marinated Herring, Smoked North
Atlantic Salmon, Smoked Rainbow Trout, Smoked Sturgeon, Imperial
Balik Salmon, Dutch Herring
We've left out a few items so you can discover
them for yourself. The wine list is a disgrace, nothing is under $22
a bottle and the cheapest glass is $5.75. So much for a cheap bottle
of white to go with a couple of bowls of chowder.
You've must see the restored Grand Central
Terminal, you must stop for a bowl of chowder.
The Oyster Bar | Lower Concourse of Grand
Central Terminal | Park Avenue at 42nd Street | 212-490-6650
6. Forlorn City Hall
It had not been our aim to use this newsletter
as an editorial forum or to inveigh against the powers-that-be in
the City. After passing by City Hall the other day, we must.
Designed by Joseph Francois Mangin and John
McComb, Jr., construction started on City Hall in 1803 and was
completed in 1811 at a cost approaching $500,000. After Mangin quit
the project, McCombs re-interpreted his French Renassaince facade
with home-grown Federal-style touches that gave the building a true,
New York City look and feel. City Hall was initially sheathed, on
three sides, in Massachusetts marble; the rear, northern elevation
stonework was local brownstone. (By the early 19th century New
Yorkers had slowly, slowly moved uptown. The City Hall site was on
the northern outreaches and, as the story goes, the administrators
holding the purse strings did not want to spend money on something
most people would never see.)
In the almost two centuries since construction
started, City Hall has been the center of government, despair,
celebration and dissention: the Erie Canal celebration in 1825;
demonstrators outside and inside City Hall during the Panic of 1857;
the connection of the Trans-Atlantic cable in 1858; Abraham Lincoln
addressing the crowds in February 1865; Lincoln's catafalque in
April 1865; Ulysses S Grant lying in state in 1885; the
consolidation of Greater New York in 1898; Bud Abbot and Lou
Costello with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1934; Charles Lindbergh,
John Glenn, the Iran hostages, the New York Yankees and all the
other heroes who's ticker-tape parades have ended at the City Hall
steps; the teachers, transit workers, police officers and future
mayors who used the steps as a podium.
The interior of City Hall, until a few years ago
always open to the public, has been the inspiration for many
throughout the country. It is what a city hall should look like:
grand, not ostentatious; stately, not threatening. Located
throughout the building, but especially in the Governor's Room, is
the foremost local collection of civic art in the country.
Jean-Antoine Houdon's statue of George Washington is in the Rotunda.
John Trumbull's portraits of George Washington and George Clinton,
John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Edward Livingston and six other
19th-century notables are rotated through the Governor's Room. The
portrait collection also includes works by John Wesley Jarvis,
Thomas Sully, Samuel L Waldo, John Vanderlyn, Samuel F B Morse,
George Catlin and others. The room itself was restored in 1907 and
contains the writing table George Washington used at Federal Hall.
The past couple of years the City has been
embroiled over use and access to City Hall. Citing reports from the
FBI concerning possible terrorist activities, officials have limited
access and prohibited gatherings and curtailed speaking from the
steps. The FBI has denied it was the source of such reports and the
courts have repeatedly ruled against the City in abrogation of
rights suits. Not getting Downtown that often, we didn't pay too
much attention to it, paying lip service to the idea that things
will change for the better after the current administration leaves
office. What we saw the other day changed our minds. Things should
change now!
When the makeover of City Hall Park was
completed what used to be a green expanse that reached almost to the
front steps of the building is now interrupted by a semi-circular
fence. Wrought iron, it defines a perimeter about 150 feet away from
the building. There are three gates, locked, with a police car
stationed inside the fence at each gate. No people are entering the
grounds. No people are walking the grounds. No people are standing
on the steps or entering City Hall. The administration has
effectively cut the people off from the seat of government and from
a civic and cultural landmark. We hope the next mayor repairs the
damage so we can once again hear Gabe Pressman announce,
"Reporting live, from the steps of City Hall." Until then
City Hall sits alone, forlorn amidst the hustle and bustle of the
City for which it is a symbol.
7. What's Up?
Some of our readers told us the Newsletter was
too long. To try to shorten it we decided to give readers just 'a
taste of New York.' If interested, you can find all the information
at our New
York City Events Calendar
Steve Ross at the Firebird Cafe | Max Roach and
the So What Brass 5 at the Blue Note | Ronan Tynan of The Irish
Tenors at Feinstein's at the Regency | Andrea Marcovicci at the
Algonquin | Bobby Short is at the Cafe Carlyle | The Big Apple
Circus: Bello and His Friends at Lincoln Center
St John's U basketball at Madison Square Garden
| The Flying Fruit Fly Circus at The New Victory Theater | Lincoln
Center Holiday Art & Craft Show | Dave Brubeck in Concert at The
Fifht Avenue Presbyterian Church | My Favorite Broadway: The Leading
Ladies featuring Faith Prince, Karen Ziemba, Bebe Neuwirth, Lea
Delaria, Andrea McArdle, Liza Minnelli, Linda Eder, Audra McDonald,
Nell Carter, Jennifer Holiday, Elaine Stritch on WNET Ch 13
Jimmy Smith, Stanley Turrentine, Grady Tate and
Mark Whitfield at the Blue Note | Eric Comstock, Hilary Kole and
Christopher Gines appear in Our Sinatra at the Blue Angel Theater |
The Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater presents the New York
premiere of William Mayer's A Death in the Family | Portuguese Food
Festival at the United Nations Plaza Hotel
Rachelle Ferrell and Her R&B Band at the
Blue Note | Walt Disney presents the world premiere of Fantasia 2000
at Carnegie Hall with James Levine conducting the Philharmonia
Orchestra of London | Tom Scott and the La Express at the Blue Note
| The ECAC Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden | Regina Belle
at the Blue Note | The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players
perform The Pirates of Penzance at Symphony Space
Remember, for details on the above, go to our New
York City Events Calendar
8. Smile! You're on Cabbie Camera
In an attempt to deter crime against cab
drivers, the City is experimenting with miniature digital cameras.
Some cabs have been fitted with the devices that will snap photos of
the cabbie and passengers when the meter's flag is dropped. Cabs
involved in the experiment are marked with a sticker. If you happen
to catch one of these 'CabbieCams' be sure to keep your switch blade
in your pocket, or at least smile.
(Now, why doesn't the City mount forward looking
cameras on ambulance dashboards so the drivers can videotape
motorists who refuse to get out of the way?)
Hope you enjoyed our newsletter. See you next
month!
Susie and Jim
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