When the Upper West Side Was King

Sometime around 2015, I saw a movie called The Intern starring Robert DeNiro and Anne Hathaway. I don't know what genre of movie it was. It had the feel of a rom-com, but the love between the two stars was not romantic. That has nothing to do with my point. 

My point is when the movie was over, I felt old and out-of-touch. Not because the film involved a man not much older than I was trying to fit it at a fashion start-up, but because the entire movie was set in Brooklyn. Every scene. Brooklyn. I knew nothing of Brooklyn beyond Brooklyn Heights and the River Cafe. To me, Brooklyn was somewhere you didn't want to live because it was hard to get a cab to take you there late at night.

When I lived in New York, I lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was at the time very in. How did I know that? Because I could not step out of my apartment without running into a film crew. There were always production trucks parked somewhere in the neighborhood. Often they were from Law & Order. If as many dead bodies showed up in my neighborhood in real life as they did on Law & Order, rents would have plummeted. Well, probably not. Rents never plummet in New York. Let's just say it wouldn't have been good.

More often the filming was for movies about young professionals. Green Card. Baby Boom. You've Got Mail. When Harry Met Sally. Even the Ghostbusters were, in their own minds at least, professionals. Certainly, Sigourney Weaver's character was. All these successful fictional characters were my neighbors. Three Men and a Baby filmed a short walk down Central Park West from my apartment. I remember running into the twins who played the baby on the street and all the male stars in the park. A lot of the other movies were shot much closer. I was annoyed to find out while I was on an all-day conference call in my apartment Jack Nicolson had been filming Wolf on my corner. The Upper West Side was a cool place to be.

At the movies, I got used to recognizing not just streets but restaurants. All these shiny characters would sit at the same table where I sat. The Upper West Side may not have been the hippest place to live but it had a certain cachet, a certain style. I loved it.

I had not lived in New York for many years when I saw The Intern. I had heard about the move to Brooklyn. As a matter of fact, I made a business call to the only partially renovated building in Williamsburg in the early 1990s. The guy who lived on top of the mostly empty building where he ran his business told me to buy a building. What happened to Soho is about to happen to Williamsburg. I ignored his advice. I missed the boom. I have never actually been to the hip Williamsburg. For all I know, Williamsburg may have become somewhat passe. There might be a more hip Brooklyn neighborhood. I wouldn’t be the right person to ask.

So watching The Intern brought home to me that my time had passed. Sometimes, I like to revisit the restaurants I loved in the eighties and nineties when they were the hot spots in town, but my enjoyment is always tinged with a little sadness. My favorite restaurant and I are both a hold-over from the past. Ironically, it is owned by Robert DeNiro.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Hanging with Stalkers

Tony Bennett died a few weeks ago. I had never seen him perform. The only encounter we ever had was in the basement of 30 Rock. I noticed him but didn’t pay too much attention because I had just discovered that I was sitting at a table with two lovely and intelligent women who had, on that day and that day only, elected to become stalkers. 

Who were they stalking? Arthur Kent, NBC international correspondent and over night sensation dubbed the Scud Stud. At least the two made a good choice when deciding whom to stalk. Did I mention he was very handsome and exceedingly sexy in his brown leather bomber jacket? He also had great hair. I was happy to watch him give me the news from the Middle East during the Gulf War.  That was enough for me.

Apparently not enough for my two co-workers. A friend and I had run into our colleagues, aka the potential stalkers, when headed for an after-work drink. They were on their way to the same bar because, as I would soon discover, Arthur Kent had just gone in there. 

We joined them and noticed they had picked a table with a good view of - you guessed it - Arthur Kent. Okay. Not a problem. I assumed they simply wanted a look at him. I assumed wrong. I discovered that when they brought out pictures showing pretty much everything Arthur had done that day. (How I now wonder since this was before we had cameras on our phones? But they had photos. One hour film developing? Must have been.)

Anyway, they had shots of Arthur Kent walking up and down the street (Madison Avenue as I recall) and going in and out of his hotel (completely forget which one). All the photos were taken as they shadowed him from across the street. I assured myself that they were being discreet. 

Or so I thought. While we were looking at the photos, we failed to notice that Stalker 1 (no names) had sent a drink to Arthur Kent. This was a bridge too far for me. Somehow, I came up with an excuse to get my friend alone outside the bar. “They’re stalking him! What do we do?” What could we do? We returned to the table and finished our drinks. I tried not to notice that Arthur Kent was ten feet away. 

But it was kind of hard to ignore him. That guy was really hot.  I’m not a stalker and don’t anticipate becoming one. However, I had to admit that by choosing Arthur Kent as the object of their affection, my stalker/colleagues did show good taste.

Arthur threw a smile our way as he passed our table on his way out. The stalkers did not follow. Maybe they were done for the day. Then again, maybe not. They knew where to find him. 

NOTE: Kent often reported standing beside Mile Boettcher a competent reporter who did not have stud qualities. Years later, I got on a flight from New York to London with him. He looked neat and well-groomed. He wore a great looking camel hair coat, Oddly enough, he was also on my return flight a week or so later. He looked beat. Whatever he’d been doing, grooming wasn’t a high priority. His beautiful coat appeared to have been through a lot. He might not have been glamorous - at least compared to Arthur Kent - but, if one can judge by experiences, he certainly worked hard. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Lexington 1-2-3

A Puerto Rican Day Parade Memory. East side downtown bus. Driver having trouble dealing with traffic. So he got off.

Not a classic story but what elevates the tale is that, as far as I know, he never came back. 

This story does raise three questions:  

1) How long does it take a busload of New Yorkers to figure out the driver is not coming back for them. (In the early 90s about five minutes.) 

2) What percentage of the passengers know how to open the doors on those models? (Zero)  

3) How long does it take a busload of New Yorkers to figure out how to open the doors?  (A lot longer than you think.)

Lesson learned: if traveling on a popular parade day, take the subway.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

There was a consolation prize - Mia, Woody and Dustin

One nice thing about living on the Upper West Side in the 1980s and 1990s was I saw people all the time who had succeeded. I am sure there were many highly successful people that I didn't recognize but it was hard not to notice the ones in the entertainment field. Especially, if they insisted on coming out of their apartment house looking like themselves. I'm looking at you, Madonna.

And so it was on a warm and sunny Father's Day, I was walking down Columbus Avenue with my friend Pat when I realized Woody Allen and Mia Farrow were walking beside us. I mean right beside us. As if we were walking four abreast. I knew it was inevitable. Pat was going to notice. She did.

Pat: Jane. ..

Jane: I know . . .

Silence. 

Neither one of us wanted to act like tourists. Well, Pat might have been willing but she knew I would kill her.  She didn't speak until Woody and Mia (I feel it is unnecessary to clarify that this happened before it all hit the fan) moved ahead. 

Pat: Can we just walk behind them for a bit?

We were very discreet. We crossed Columbus and walked along something like 75th Street on the opposite side. Unobtrusive. Just observing. One thing we observed is that Woody and Mia walked very fast. They reached Central Park West before us. We stood on the corner looking uptown and downtown, but they had disappeared - most likely into the building where Mia Farrow lived and Woody sometimes filmed.

Me: I'm sorry, Pat.

Pat: Don't worry. There's Dustin Hoffman.

Such was life on the Upper West Side in the 1980s.

© 2022 Jane Kelly