The New York Times Book of New York

by The New York Times

  On a recent weekday afternoon, a collection of parents and their strollers were parked in front of a screen underneath the blue whale’s head that plays a film of underwater scenes and ocean sunsets. The strollers were full of sleeping children, the benches filled with adults in the head-to-the-sternum pose of subway sleepers. Whale songs played over the speakers, and the blue panels on the ceiling moved like a passing wave.

  Politeness prevented this reporter from waking anyone to ask what made the spot relaxing, and several people who appeared to have only recently awakened were not in the mood to be interviewed. “It’s dark, it’s comfortable, there’s the ocean sounds,” said one man, who declined to give his name. As he spoke, he wiped his eyes. A security guard in the room, who did not give his name, saying he was not allowed to speak to reporters, called the room “the most peaceful place” he had ever worked.

  Outer Space vs. Parking Space

  By GLENN COLLINS | January 25, 2000

  THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL History’s sleek new $210 million planetarium is almost finished, and the museum is bracing for an onslaught. The first of as many as a million extra visitors over the next year are about to descend on the museum and its new Rose Center for Earth and Space.

  Even if the planetarium had not been a New York City icon for 65 years, this debut would be no ordinary opening. Expressing everything from jubilation to intense concern, city officials and neighborhood naysayers have at last found themselves in agreement about something: the impact of the new building will be off the charts. Even other museums say so. “We think the Rose Center is a perfect addition to the neighborhood,” said Harold Holzer, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  That opinion is not shared by all. The courts rebuffed community law suits trying to block the new building’s construction. But the museum still faces opposition from neighbors, some of whom are opposed to the look of the new planetarium.

  “They could have put the new Zeiss projector in the original landmarked Hayden Planetarium and preserved it,” said Samuel H. Leff, president of the Community Alliance for Responsible Museum Development, one of two groups that sued the museum and lost. “They wanted to put something in there that was very flashy, so they’d have something like the Pyramide at the Louvre and get a lot of attention,” he said, referring to I. M. Pei’s acclaimed addition to the Louvre.

  Mr. Leff claimed that many in the neighborhood oppose what he called “the traffic disaster” caused by automobile and bus visitors “and the additional congestion and pollution in an already densely populated neighborhood.” Although dozens of school buses could park in the old street-surface lot on the planetarium grounds, there is room for only 10 of them in the Rose Center’s new 370-space garage.

  MUSICALS AND PLAYS

  Recalling the Heyday of the Great White Way

  By ALLEN CHURCHILL | January 24, 1982

  A few playbills from the thousands of shows that have played on Broadway.

  TALK OF THE DEMOLITION OF TWO OR MORE established Broadway theaters to make way for a glossy supra-hotel brings particular pangs to the nostalgia-conscious. As an author who has researched and written two books about what used to be called the Great White Way, I can easily shut my eyes and visualize today’s theater district back in 1900, when no theaters at all stood above 42nd Street.

  The area was then no more than a neighborhood, largely filled by cheap boarding houses for aspiring actors and vaudeville acts between bookings—“at liberty,” it was called. One who passed hot summers on these boarding house stoops was Will Rogers, before he was tapped for glory in the “Ziegfeld Follies.”

  In 1900, New York’s legitimate theaters ran up Broadway like a string of pearls from 34th to 42nd Street, capped on the right by the hallowed Empire and on the left by the now-forgotten Casino. But there was more. A sharp left on 42nd Street (this corner was called “the crossroads of the world”) brought playgoers to a street of theaters that included the New Amsterdam, Lyric, Apollo and Republic, in the last of which “Abie’s Irish Rose” ran in the 1920’s.

  Electric bulbs were called Mazdas in those days, and soon Times Square as far north as 50th Street was alight with an estimated million Mazdas. Inevitably, it was christened Mazda Lane, or Alley, and finally the Great White Way. The nation allegedly hummed a song I have never heard rendered—“There’s a Broken Heart for Every Light on Broadway.” But Diamond Jim Brady may have said it best. Stepping from a midnight supper into this blazing brilliance, he exclaimed, “Street of the midnight sun!”

  Until 1916, the theater’s galaxy stopped at 45th Street, but in that year another Brady—William A.—built his Playhouse on 48th. It opened with “Bought and Paid For,” by George Broadhurst, about a millionaire in love with a telephone hello-girl. Bold Mr. Brady was concerned about his production, but really worried about whether people would travel so far north for a play. Of course they did.

  “South Pacific”

  By BROOKS ATKINSON | April 17, 1949

  IF NEW YORK SEEMS PLEASANTLY RELAXED and languid again, it is doubtless because “South Pacific” has opened successfully and has settled down to the quiet luxury of a long run. There is nothing more for any New Yorker to worry about now. To judge by the gossip when “South Pacific” was on the road, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan were not the only people uneasy about the reception their new musical drama would have on Broadway.

  On the day of the opening, business practically stopped all over town, as on the day before Christmas. Everyone was obsessed with one idea. The teller at the bank murmured wistfully over the top of a pile of bills, “I hope ‘South Pacific’ is as good as they say it’s going to be.”

  Although the expectations had been fabulous, “South Pacific” mercifully fulfilled them. Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Hammerstein fulfilled them. Like “Oklahoma” and “Carousel,” “South Pacific” has a genuine theme and develops it with skill and continuity. Rogers and Hammerstein respect their craft and the theater and they have composed another top-shelf drama of music. Having survived the drama of the opening of “South Pacific,” New York can now go back to work with no further anxiety.

  A Season’s Indelible Moments

  By ROBERT SIMONSON | June 1, 2008

  The cast of “South Pacific” on the stage at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in 2008.

  THE DEFINING MOMENT OF LINCOLN CENTER Theater’s lavishly praised revival of “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific” arguably comes before the show has actually begun, when not a single actor is onstage. This nonprofit theater has made much of its decision to employ a full complement of orchestra musicians at a time when pits are being pared down to the core. At the beginning of the overture, just as the violins introduce the lushly melodic lines of “Bali Ha’i,” the stage floor above the musicians’ heads begins to recede, drawing back to reveal every one of the pit’s 30 members.

  At least one person on the Lincoln Center Theater staff jokingly calls this gasp-producing moment in the director Bartlett Sher’s production the “802 reveal,” referring to the musicians’ union local, to which all the players belong. Mr. Sher knew he had found a showstopper with this “now you don’t see them, now you do” sleight of hand. If it’s possible for theater audiences to swoon in these cynical times, they do so here.

  15 Record Years of “A Chorus Line”

  By JOHN P. MACKENZIE | March 4, 1990

  ON THE DAY THEY ANNOUNCED THAT “A Chorus Line” would finally close, you could walk over to the Shubert Theater and ask whether any good seats were available for tomorrow night. The answer would be “You never can tell … Sixth row center all right?” Those seats would be fine.

  The performers, too, carried on as though nothing were amiss. On stage at least, there was no unprofessional melancholy. It was basically the same production it had been for all 15 record years. And for one who luckily had forgotten which of the 19 gypsies won the eight places in the chorus line, the show evoked the same suspens
e, the same sense of caring: what would happen to each of those desperate, talented dancers?

  Isn’t that what made this musical great? The audience’s thrill was the thrill familiar to other notable musicals. What put “A Chorus Line” in that class, indeed at the head of it, was the insidious way it made audiences care. We took instruction from those who so committed their talent and emotions. Can I afford to put my whole self on the line? Don’t I need some reserve as a buffer against betrayal or failure?

  The character Diana Morales, of course, has the only right answer: Tell it straight. Give it your all; then don’t forget, don’t regret.

  Just thinking about that show will always have me on the edge of my seat.

  Rock Opera à la “Bohème” and “Hair”

  By BEN BRANTLEY | February 14, 1996

  THE SUBJECT OF THE WORK IS DEATH AT AN early age. And in one of the dark dramatic coincidences theater occasionally springs on us, its 35-year-old author died only weeks before its opening. Yet no one who attends Jonathan Larson’s “Rent,” the exhilarating, landmark rock opera at the New York Theater Workshop, is likely to mistake it for a wake.

  Indeed, this vigorous tale of a marginal band of artists in Manhattan’s East Village, a contemporary answer to “La Bohème,” rushes forward on an electric current of emotion that is anything but morbid. Sparked by a young, intensely vibrant cast directed by Michael Greif and sustained by a glittering, inventive score, the work finds a transfixing brightness in characters living in the shadow of AIDS.

  “Rent” inevitably invites reflections on the incalculable loss of its composer, who died of an aortic aneurysm, but it also shimmers with hope for the future of the American musical. While Mr. Larson plays wittily with references to Puccini’s masterpiece, the excitement around “Rent” more directly recalls the impact made by a dark-horse musical Off Broadway in 1967: “Hair.” Like that meandering, genial portrait of draft-dodging hippies, this production gives a pulsing, unexpectedly catchy voice to a generation’s confusion, anger and anarchic, pleasure-seeking vitality.

  The denizens of Mr. Larson’s bohemian landscape are directly descended from their Puccini prototypes but given a hip, topical spin. Obviously, poverty is less picturesque in Mr. Larson’s world than in Puccini’s. This show’s equivalent of the Latin Quarter café scene, with its jolly parade of children and vendors, is an angry Christmas Eve vignette set among bag people on St. Mark’s Place. And this Mimi has cold hands because she needs a fix.

  The Subway Hums Bernstein

  By JIM DWYER | February 21, 2009

  YES, OF COURSE, SUZETTE McLAURIN SAYS, she knows the musical “West Side Story,” and yes, she has been a conductor on the No. 2 train for quite a while—nearly eight years.

  So along the way, has she heard the electronic whine from the trains that sounds just like the beginning of “Somewhere,” a ballad from the show?

  This is not the kind of question Ms. McLaurin ordinarily fields during the 30 seconds or so that her train stops in the Times Square station. She leans slightly through the window.

  “When the train is moving?” she asks.

  Just when the train is starting, as if the cars were screeching, “There’s a place.”

  “I never noticed it,” Ms. McLaurin says.

  Once heard, it is unmistakable: an echo of “Somewhere” that rises from the ceaseless tide of shrieks and moans in the subways.

  The sound is a fluke. Newer trains, most of them are on the 2, 4 and 5 lines, run on alternating current, but the third rail delivers direct current; inverters chop it into frequencies that can be used by the alternating current motors, said Jeff Hakner, a professor of electrical engineering at Cooper Union. The frequencies excite the steel, he said, which—in the case of the R142 subway cars—responds by singing “Somewhere.” Inverters on other trains run at different frequencies and thus are not gifted with such a recognizable song.

  “Everyone sort of noticed it, and then this corroboration process started where people said to each other, ‘Did you hear it?’ ” said Jamie Bernstein, a writer and broadcaster whose father, Leonard Bernstein, composed “West Side Story.” The music was composed before the words, which were written by Stephen Sondheim, Ms. Bernstein said. “For a while, there was a dummy lyric to the tune,” she said, singing it: “There goes whatshisname.”

  As her No. 2 train was leaving Times Square a few days ago, Ms. McLaurin scanned the platform. The train sang out, a breeze lifting a curtain. Her face lit up.

  “West Side Story”

  By BROOKS ATKINSON | September 27, 1957

  ALTHOUGH THE MATERIAL IS HORRIFYING, the workmanship is admirable.

  Gang warfare is the material of “West Side Story,” which opened at the Winter Garden last evening, and very little of the hideousness has been left out. But the author, composer and ballet designer are creative artists. Pooling imagination and virtuosity, they have written a profoundly moving show that is as ugly as the city jungles and also as pathetic, tender and forgiving.

  The story is a powerful one, partly, no doubt, because Arthur Laurents has deliberately given it the shape of “Romeo and Juliet.” In the design of “West Side Story” he has powerful allies. Leonard Bernstein has composed another one of his nervous, flaring scores that capture the shrill beat of life in the streets. And Jerome Robbins, who has directed the production, is also its choreographer.

  Since the characters are kids of the streets, their speech is curt and jeering. Mr. Laurents has provided the raw material of a tragedy that occurs because none of the young people involved understands what is happening to them. And his contribution is the essential one.

  As Tony, Larry Kert is perfectly cast, plain in speech and manner; and as Maria, Carol Lawrence, maidenly soft and glowing, is perfectly cast also. Their balcony scene on the fire escape of a dreary tenement is tender and affecting. From that moment on, “West Side Story” is an incandescent piece of work.

  Eugene O’Neill Returns After Twelve Years

  By S. J. WOOLF | September 15, 1946

  AFTER A LAPSE OF TWELVE YEARS A NEW play by Eugene O’Neill will soon be seen on Broadway. And after an even longer absence the man whom many Americans consider the most distinguished dramatist this country ever produced has come back to New York from California as a permanent resident. Even the locale of the new play suggests that the production is in every sense a home-coming. The setting of “The Iceman Cometh” is New York—specifically, the lower West Side of 1912—the play has been the subject of intense curiosity along Broadway for several seasons.

  Now that the author has settled into a Manhattan penthouse and has been regularly attending rehearsals, word of its theme and contents has got around quite generally. It ignores the coming not only of automatic refrigeration but of the atomic age as well, but its subject is as much a matter of pity and terror in 1946 as in 1912. His iceman, O’Neill explains, is death, and his use of the archaic verb “cometh” is a deliberate reference to biblical language and universality.

  Even among his prized possessions O’Neill seems a curiously detached person. He is tall and thin with a repressed manner that is almost shy. Greenwich Village, where his plays first attracted attention, has left no apparent impress on him. He dresses immaculately, his hair is neatly brushed, and when he smokes, as he does almost continuously, he is careful to have an ashtray by his side.

  Whatever reception “The Iceman Cometh” may receive, it is undoubtedly the work of a man who takes both the theatre and life seriously. The setting may be a bar, but it will not be the most unlikely place in which O’Neill has staged a tragic drama. In the past he has found drama of stature in the jungle, the New England village, the Midwestern farm and the forecastle. And the emotions of his characters invariable transcended the specific time and place.

  Honoring Eugene O’Neill

  By JOHN CORRY | November 28, 1973

  THEY HUNG A PLAQUE FOR EUGENE O’Neill on Broadway yesterday, and they hung it exactly o
ne block from where they were supposed to do it. They did it in rain and drizzle, and while they did, people stopped and stared.

  “And who the hell is Eugene O’Neill?” one man finally said.

  “There, that’s him over there,” another man answered. He was pointing at Brooks Atkinson.

  Mr. Atkinson, The Times’s drama critic, retired in 1958. O’Neill, the great playwright, died 20 years ago yesterday. The plaque, however, was supposed to mark where he was born, which was the old Barrett House on 43rd Street. Somehow it got hung in front of a bank on 44th Street, although this may not have mattered much at all.

  O’Neill was a chaotic man, with a great sense of the impermanence of things. “Born in a hotel room, and God damn it, died in a hotel room,” he said on his death bed in Boston. Still, before him, there was no true American theater, but when he died there was. He has practically made it himself.

  So, yesterday in what may have been the least formal ceremony in New York’s history, some people came to honor O’Neill.

  The people who were passing by, meanwhile, were plainly baffled.

  “What’s going on?” one of them said.

  “I think they’re opening a new bank,” someone answered him.

  “A Streetcar Named Desire”

  By BROOKS ATKINSON | December 4, 1947

  TENNESSEE WILLIAMS HAS BROUGHT US A superb drama, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” which was acted at the Ethel Barrymore last evening. And Jessica Tandy gives a superb performance as rueful heroine whose misery Mr. Williams is tenderly recording. This must be one of the most perfect marriages of acting and playwriting. For the acting and playwriting are perfectly blended in a limpid performance, and it is impossible to tell where Miss Tandy begins to give form and warmth to the mood Mr. Williams has created.