Remembering The Owner Of A Times Square Holdout The Grand Luncheonette

When I moved to NYC, 42nd Street was still pretty gritty and one of my favorite spots along the Deuce between 7th and 8th avenue was the Grand Lucheonette.  It was essentially a hot dog stand squeezed into the lobby entrance of one of the old grindhouses on the block.  It was a classic old New York joint that had been there since the 1940's which was run by a classic old New Yorker, Fred Hakim.

Hakim, age 83, died yesterday and got a lovely obit in the TIMES, recalling his place in the storied block's history as well as his stand against the gentrification which ultimately took his business in 1997 and changed 42nd Street into a corporate playground.  When Fred took ill last week, Jeremiah's Vanishing New York ran a lengthy post with photos (by Richard Estes) and video of the Luncheonette from back in the 90's just before it was closed. The video is especially beautiful with it's grainy quality and the utter lack of tourists!

Hakim said that the closing was ultimately a stroke of great luck as the theatre itself collapsed just a few weeks after his departure due to a combination of demolition work next door and high winds. Anyway, I will always remember him standing in the window and slinging dogs in this quaint relic of long gone era.

The New World Trade Center Is The Tallest Building In NYC

Today, if all goes according to plan, 1 World Trade Center will claim its spot as the tallest in New York City when the first beam of the 100th floor goes up.  It will rise pass the height of the Empire State Building at 1251 feet. The new building, which ultimately will rise to the symbolic height of 1776 feet with a large broadcast tower, is expected to top out this summer and will open for business in 2014.


Below is a very cool video that came out this weekend to commemorate the progress on the new World Trade Center. Shot over the course of 7 years, it shows the building rise in a stunning time-lapse film.  Watch as 1 World Trade Center rises from below ground to tower over lower Manattan in just under 2 minutes.

SATURDAY SPECIAL: A Gay Spin On A Disney Classic Gets 2 Million Hits

Earlier this month, I was working on the production of a flash mob in DC when people started talking about their favorite and funniest YouTube videos.  One of the dancers said "Hey Girl!" and everyone laughed, except me. I was quickly directed to this spoof of Alan Mencken & Howard Ashman's opening song from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST which gets a decidedly gay (and bitchy) spin.

This video has been around for a little while, going up last September, but I never got wind of it until now. Also, I'd like to give some props to The Walt Disney Co. for not taking it down since then.  More than most entertainment companies (Sony, hello?), Disney realizes the ultimate value (not to mention great publicity) of a fun viral video.

Two New Bleecker Street Subway Entrances Open

In NYC, where improvements to the city's 100 year old-plus subway move at a snails pace, there was some exciting news this week when two new entrances to the Bleecker Street subway station on the 6 line opened. This station is one of the oldest in the system and part of the original IRT trunk line that ran from City Hall up to Washington Heights and opened to the public back in 1904.

For the last three years, construction has been underway to shift the Bleecker Street platform 200 feet to the south to accomodate a new transfer point to the BDFM trains that run just beneath the old IRT line. The actual transfer, with shiny new escalators and elevators and some cool public art by an artist friend of mine, will open in June but this week the new entrances opened from the the street.  There is one right on Houston and, even though it's brand new, it's the style of the older entrances. The other one is a semi-odd spot, just off Houston and actually on Mulberry, hidden behind a Bank of America branch and under an advertising sign. This entrance has actually been there for years but was only for use by MTA employees to get into the tunnel.  Now its a fully tricked out double-wide entrance to a heavily trafficked station long in need of additional access points.

Anyway, it's not every day that a new subway entrance opens...especially in my neighborhood. So it's something to be excited about....at least for a transit geek like myself!

I THINK I DO Screens At Seattle Marriage Equality Fundraiser

I was so pleased to get this news from Jason Plourde, who programs the Seattle Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, that my first feature I THINK I DO screened last night at a fundraiser for marriage equality in Washington state. The movie, which was released in 1998, is about a gay couple attending a straight couple's wedding.  The couple, played by Alexis Arquette (when he was a boy) and Tuc Watkins (from DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES), inspired by the marital hubbub, are considering marriage themselves which sets in motion all sorts of hijinks and revives an old romance.

The film was conceived as a comedy in the screwball style, harking back to the classics of the 1930's and 1940's where divorce and women's rights were the taboos lurking beneath the bright shiny surface of the antics at hand. My film, like those previous onces, was not conceived as overtly political and, at that time, legal gay marriage was more than a glimmer in activists eyes.  But it's there just beneath the surface as I portray the gay romance alongside the straight one while, at the same time, no one makes a fuss about two guys getting engaged. Also there's a reason its set in Washington DC and it's not simply because that's where I grew up!  :)

Anyway, I was so thrilled to have my film be part of this important fundraiser. Like other states where marriage equality has passed, Washington state now faces a voter referendum to repeal the law. And the efforts for that repeal are well-funded by national groups and religious organizations (hello Mormons!).  So if you feel inclined, please donate here to help the cause of marriage equality in Washington state.  

Could 48 Frames Per Second Ruin The Magic Of Movies?

There is a bit of a technical tempest brewing this week after Peter Jackson screened footage from his upcoming THE HOBBIT.  Utlitizing a new digital technology that shoots 48fps (as opposed to the 80 year old 24fps standard for films), Jackson hopes to revolutionize cinema with this new look.  However, the screening of 10 minutes of scenes from his highly anticipated pre-quel to LORD OF THE RINGS got a decidedly negative reaction at Cinema Con this week.

As reported on the HuffPost and geek blogs everywhere, many people though the footage looked so hyper-real that it lost the magic that the standard movie image has.  There were unflattering comparisons to the film looking like "a bad soap opera" and the sets looking like....sets.  This sounds a bit like the concern 10 years ago when HD was first introduced and everyone thought actors on screen would look too real, and thus ordinary.  But as HD rolled out, that concern appeared to be overstated. However, given the strong reaction to Jackson's screening, it might be longer and rougher road for the conversion to this 48fps format.

Sally Draper Is A Child Psychologist To The Stars

I may be late to the party on this, but I just found this clip of Kiernan Shipka (the child actress more well-known by her role as Sally Draper in MAD MEN) playing a child psychologist to various child stars. It's very funny and Sally (I mean, Kiernan) is becoming a young actor to watch for sure.  Even better is that she is a rising star who seems to have a pretty healthy sense of humor about the absurdity of show business.

Child Star Psychologist with Kiernan Shipka from Kiernan Shipka      

SATURDAY SPECIAL: Hollywood Classic SINGIN' IN THE RAIN Is 60

At the end of March 1952, just a few weeks after Gene Kelly's film AMERICAN IN PARIS won a heap of Oscars, another Kelly movie opened in New York City called SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. The film did well commercially (though not as good as AMERICAN) and was generally well reviewed but did not garner raves. It received just two Oscar nominations and didn't win one golden statue.  Now, 60 years later, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is considered by many to be the best Hollywood musical of all time, including myself. :)

I was reading all about this fantastic movie today on a blog by film critic/enthusiast Edward Copeland (which I found by way of Roger Ebert's great Twitter feed).  Copeland has all sorts of interesting behind the scenes details and stories about the film.  But the most surprising to me was that in this film which is all about voice doubles at the start of the sound era, Debbie Reynolds herself had her singing voice dubbed for the "Would You" number!  Apparently, the studio brass thought that Reynolds' beautiful singing voice didn't quite match the look of Jean Hagen. So they hired a voice from Disney's DUMBO which was a bit deeper, a woman named Betty Noyes, to do the honors for this one song in the film.

Below are the two clips so you can compare and contrast; the first is the official released version of the film with the dubber and the second clip has the recording of Reynolds singing. All other songs in the movie, though do utilize Debbie Reynolds voice though, notably, none of them are solos.

The Return Of A Missing Child Mystery To My Neighborhood

Yesterday on my way home from the subway, I was surprised to see all these police cars and FBI vans parked on Prince Street with barricades blocking the road. Just a few blocks from my apartment, a missing child mystery more than 3 decades old was back in the news as the search was on for remains in a building that is now a fashionable Lucky jeans store.

The NY Times has an interesting article today which talks not so much about this missing case but the neighborhood itself and how it has been radically transformed in the 33 years since Etan Patz disappeared in his way to the bus. They describe how it was quiet area, filled with artists and machinists and not high end tourists. At night, it was apparently so empty that couples would have sex in darkened doorways. My favorite quote from an old timer in the hood: "It wasn't seedy. The docs were sleazy. [Soho] was gritty." Okay!

As investigators dig into the basement at 127B Prince, they are (as they article points out) digging into the neighborhood's quiet and almost small-town past.  In my play WTC VIEW, one character reminisces about playing football on Broadway in the '70s...a speech that was based on a recollection of someone who grew up here back when it was, well, a neighborhood.  Even when I got here, 20 some years ago, it had that feel, especially on my block which was filled with old Italians and Portuguese families.  Anyway, I find it interesting to see how much has changed and how the reopening of this tragic case is bringing all of that into relief.

Trending: Mad Men Inspires More Drinking At Work

There's an interesting piece over at NPR.org today that caught my eye about an apparent increase of on-the-job drinking.  They tie the story in the popularity of MAD MEN.  The real reason, however, is not to ape Don Draper and Co. but to keep employees who are working ridiculously long hours somewhat happy by including a bar on the premises. It's the same reason some hi-tech companies have elaborate cafeterias or ping pong tables or basketball courts (see Pixar); its' all to keep their employees from leaving.

Overall, the NPR piece states that there is a new and much more relaxed attitude toward drinking at work in recent years. Additionally, they do make the argument that drinking leads to creative breakthroughs, which is something that has been seen on MAD MEN. The NPR piece also discusses an academic study that apparently showed an increase in creativity and problem solving for people who were drinking.  Conversely, there is also the problem of executives peeing themselves from drinking too much at the office (see Freddie).

Below is a fun/scary montage of all the boozing on the 60s show, courtesy of New York Magazine's VULTURE site. Cheers!