New york

Sunday

Matt Purple

Andrew Cuomo: the Princess Di of the Plague

Over the weekend, the two-hundred-and-forty-second woman to accuse Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment came forward. That number is no less true for being inaccurate. It seems you can’t open a newspaper these days without reading about some horrible Cuomo come-on at an Albany Christmas party or a Manhattan cocktail hour. How’s it going for Democrats seeking a left-wing foil to Donald Trump? They seem to have gotten all of the vices with none of the humor. Of course, Cuomo deserves his due process like everyone else. But the accusations do seem credible and certainly fit with his hard-charging bull-in-a-bodega persona. There’s also the matter of the governor’s other scandal, which has been swept under the rug despite it involving the mass death of old people.

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Wednesday

Chadwick Moore

Time for Tudorbethan

You’ll find them all over the boroughs of New York City. Multiple-dwelling buildings, usually large apartment blocks, slapped with a faux-Tudor façade defined by fake gables hiding a flat roof. They aren’t particularly attractive buildings. Even 100 years after most were built, they come off as self-conscious, a bit tacky, imparting to the viewer a dreaded feeling of secret working-class shame — a befuddling reproduction of a reproduction. They say New Yorkers never look up. But even during short journeys through Queens or parts of Brooklyn, New Yorkers are bound to have noticed examples, even if they don’t give it much thought.

tudorbethan
grüner
Mary Kate Skehan

Why Grüner is my go-to

The first person ever to tell me something true about wine was my first real boss, a generous and wise woman who toted me along to the Frankfurt Book Fair with her for several years in my early twenties. At the time I drank mostly sweet red blends that came in denominations of ‘box’ or ‘jug’. When she sensed (or perhaps shared) my fear of humiliating us both when I was asked for my wine order at a long, formal luncheon in a rather famous hotel, she leaned across the many forks of her place setting and whispered to me, ‘Get the Grüner.’ She elaborated that the American white wines I’d had were probably sweet or buttery, but German whites, like dry Rieslings and Grüner Veltliner, were mineral and fresh and lovely. They paired well with all foods.

Tuesday

Bill Kauffman

Steve Hawley and the case for two New Yorks

Whenever New York governor Andrew Cuomo — that churning mass of grating sanctimony, unwarranted arrogance and personal nastiness — hurls petty edicts (No gatherings greater than 10 at Thanksgiving! Chicken wings don’t count as food in restaurants!) at his subjects, Steve Hawley, erstwhile pig farmer and our assemblyman, is usually there to throw them back. I spoke recently with Hawley while sitting on a bench outside his insurance office in the Genesee Country Mall. An imbiber at the fountain of youth, he looks a good 15 years younger than his age of 73, and the imp within coexists easily with his role as deputy minority leader of the New York State Assembly’s Republicans.

hawley

Monday

Chadwick Moore

2 masks, 2 furious

There are two women leaning against a railing overlooking the medieval armor exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on a Sunday afternoon. Both have shoulder-length, proudly gray hair, are resplendent in wooden jewelry and draped in clashing layers of flowing tapestry ranging from clay to marigold to topaz, some with vaguely ethnic-inspired patterning. The two women are in conversation, six feet apart down to the inch and laughing. They’re having a good time. The tableau is a sort of variation on a theme, an aesthetic we might call Santa Fe Art Mom and they are exactly the sort of person you’d expect, as they are, to be wearing two face masks, each.

double masks

Tuesday

Amber Duke

Cuomo’s problem isn’t #MeToo. It’s killing old people

New York governor Andrew Cuomo is finally getting his comeuppance. Oddly, however, it’s not for killing thousands of nursing home residents. Instead, the press has decided that the real story is Cuomo being slightly creepy toward to young women. Cuomo's comments to two former aides are icky, no doubt. However, the media has also piled on with other spurious accusations that they insist are proof of a pattern of abusive behavior. In one, a young woman says Cuomo touched the small of her back at a wedding and then grabbed her face and asked if he could kiss her. She is visibly uncomfortable in a photo of the incident, but what attractive woman hasn't had a weird old dude make a poorly strategized advance at an event with alcohol?

andrew cuomo

Friday

John Fund

Now we know the extent of Cuomo’s nursing-home disgrace

For the duration of the COVID pandemic, New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been the living embodiment of hubris. As early as last July, he released a commemorative poster touting his handling of the crisis. It resembled a liberal version of Soviet-style propaganda posters from the Cold War era. He eagerly accepted an International Emmy award for his 'masterful' daily briefings on the pandemic. 'He effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure,' Emmy Award CEO Bruce Paisner explained. And in October, Cuomo released his book American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.

andrew cuomo nursing home

Monday

Deroy Murdock

Stop Andrew Cuomo’s war on restaurants

New York Cuomo to New York City restaurants: drop dead. This is the unmistakable message from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the cornerstone dining industry in America’s premier city. Thankfully, Cuomo’s veritable kiss of death for these establishments is earning him nothing but rotten tomatoes. Cuomo is being fricasseed like a cartoon rabbit for his policy on Gotham’s eateries. New Yorkers across the political spectrum are baffled and revolted at his treatment of these signature local enterprises. Cuomo deserves every spoon of hot gravy ladled down his back. The Emperor of the Empire State has unleashed a policy that makes zero scientific, meteorological, or economic sense. Aside from that, it couldn’t be more brilliant.

new york city restaurants

Thursday

Chadwick Moore

The resurgence of the New York Republican

Have you met Tina? You may have seen her this month leading a charge outside Mac’s Public House on Staten Island, protesting a second wave of economic terrorism against small business owners enacted by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.The fiery, bombastic blond with the thick New York accent and colorful vocabulary has shown up at anti-lockdown events across the city, broadcasting footage to her 206,000 Twitter followers at a time when everyday New York Republicans are having a bit of time in the spotlight. https://twitter.com/RealTina40/status/1335652275532992512 A couple of years ago, the city cheered Vickie Paladino, a mom from Queens who was driving home one day and saw de Blasio surrounded by reporters on the street.

new york republican

Tuesday

Karol Markowicz

Following Cuomo’s numbers

‘Follow the numbers,’ Gov. Andrew Cuomo likes to say, as if the numbers made a run for it and we all gave chase. ‘Follow the numbers!’ as if data can also make decisions. Follow the numbers. But what numbers? On October 6, during one of his regular scraps with Mayor Bill de Blasio in which the mayor wanted to implement shutdowns by zip codes and the governor wanted to use a color-coding system, Cuomo made the following remark about why he was shutting down schools in areas with elevated COVID positive test rates: ‘The schools are important because you will very often see the schools be a place of transmission.’ Gov. Cuomo never lacks for confidence so this comment was uttered with his usual certainty. You will very often see schools be a place of transmission.

numbers

Monday

Stephen L. Miller

Every business is essential

Governors across the country are deploying their unilateral power to institute draconian measures which close small businesses, mostly those in the service industry. They use outright Orwellian language to justify doing so, all in the name of the greater good of halting COVID-19 cases. But it’s not working anymore. Total cases are higher now than they’ve been since the spring and people are losing their livelihoods. No federal relief has come and there is a nationwide feeling that the dam is about to break. When people were told they had ‘15 days to slow the spread’, they listened. While they obliged, they watched crowds gather in protest of their personal causes and politicians ignore their own rules.

business

Thursday

Matt McDonald

Finally America is realizing that Andrew Cuomo is a putz

In a sane world, Andrew Cuomo would be America's least popular politician, a welcome target for a primary campaign or a robust Republican challenge in 2022. Yet the anti-Cuomo chorus has included precious few voices this year. The New York Post has been unrelenting in its criticism, as have conservatives in publications such as this one. ProPublica and the Associated Press rigorously reported out the nursing home debacle. But Cuomo's performance has been largely been lauded by liberal New Yorkers and pundits in the mainstream media. In July the New York governor was the 'politician of the moment', according to the New York Times.

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Tuesday

Amber Duke

Sorry Cuomo, we’re doing Thanksgiving

New York governor Andrew Cuomo took the last can of Who-hash by announcing a ban on both indoor and outdoor private gatherings larger than 10 people. It is just the latest flash of insanity from our nation's leaders in trying to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, but it provoked an even larger backlash than usual because it attacks two sacred American institutions: Thanksgiving and the family. Cuomo's order is insulting to our intelligence and is disgustingly authoritarian. COVID science suggests gathering outdoors is relatively safe (it's why so many states have offered restaurants money to winterize their patio dining), yet Cuomo tells families they cannot do it for Turkey Day. What if you live in a rural area and have a large backyard that makes social distancing possible?

thanksgiving

Thursday

Rebecca Sugar

The age of the informant

Parts of the country are talking openly about lockdowns again. The dangerous economic, mental health, educational and developmental implications of shutdowns have been widely debated. One that has not been sufficiently discussed is the social division and distrust bred by draconian rules that pit neighbor against neighbor. We all have stories about being shamed, yelled at or reported on for not wearing a mask outdoors, not socially distancing enough, or for gathering in our yards. Who are these finger-pointers and what does it mean when society produces people who appoint themselves watchdogs over everyone else? About three months into the lockdown in New York, I went to my local tailor.

lockdown snitches informant

Wednesday

Andrew L. Shea

Culture and anarchy

Paul Signac’s portrait of Félix Fénéon is a striking and historically important painting. But is it a good one? Its subject didn’t think so. Signac profiles Fénéon against a swirl of complementary colors and kaleidoscopic shapes, as if anticipating an acid-trip scene from a Roger Corman movie. This radioactively abstract background was bold stuff for Paris in 1890, when the picture was made, but contemporary critics disapproved, one finding the work ‘cold and dry’, another calling it ‘neither decorative nor comprehensible in terms of feeling’. Fénéon himself was similarly vexed by the final result, though he held onto the portrait throughout his life out of loyalty to his painter friend.

Féneon anarchy

Friday

Ben Sixsmith

Andrew Cuomo’s revisionist history

‘I normally don't turn off my cellphone when I sleep,’ writes Andrew Cuomo in his new book American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic, ‘because the work of being governor is literally 24 hours a day, and the phone pings all night long.’ Wait a minute. Is he joking? If Cuomo is so busy, how on Earth has he found the time to write a book in a matter of months? I can't find the time to write a book. How in Hell can he? A few pages later, Cuomo is at it again:‘I don’t have what you call a balanced life either. I work all the time. Enjoyment for me is when I’m with my daughters or my family, and in the summer I spend time on the water with my brother and friends, but usually I just work.

andrew cuomo

Monday

Andrew L. Shea

Still painting after all these years

On March 14, 1847, Eugène Delacroix made a trip to the studio of his colleague and countryman Camille Corot. Later that day, Delacroix recorded in his journal a feeling of newfound appreciation for the painter’s landscapes: ‘Corot is a true artist. One has to see a painter in his own place to get an idea of his worth.’ The Corot paintings that Delacroix had recently viewed at the Paris Salon seemed to hold new meaning after his seeing the site of their creation. As to exactly what had changed, or what he saw that changed it, Delacroix does not — perhaps could not — tell us. Few modern painters can claim as close a kinship to the spirit of Corot as Paul Resika.

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dickie
Digby Dent

Dickie and me

New York Hullo, readers. Many thanks for the kind notes and well-wishes. I’ve fully recovered from my bout with the plague and am only a little worse for wear. I’m desperate for a bit more time on the water, but I’m convinced my palate hasn’t yet recovered. I’ve been reduced to taking brandy in the evenings. Still, though far from splendid, isolation hasn’t been all bad. I’ve spent a great deal of time on the phone with my brother Richard. We’re not naturally expressive people, and I’m more than a bit embarrassed about the state of my marriage. But our respective sheltering-in-place, his in Boston and mine in New York, has turned us into talkers. Like the rest of the family, I’ve always called him Dickie.

Sunday

Benjamin Riley

The perception of doors

The architectural historian Andrew Alpern has for decades done the dirty work when it comes to pre-war New York apartments. Others have presented glossy coffee-table books full of newly commissioned professional photographs. Alpern has focused on the practical details of apartment design, especially floor plans, which tell us so much about how people actually live in their apartments, or at least were originally meant to. His Apartments for the Affluent (1975), Historic Manhattan Apartment Houses (1996) and New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter (2002) are essential compendia; anyone with an interest in New York residential architecture, especially of the magnificent variety, must have them. The more industrious uptown real estate agents also find them useful.

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Monday

John R. MacArthur

New York has turned ugly

New York City In grim times such as these, New Yorkers tend to flatter themselves for possessing special reserves of moxie, an outdated word that connotes courage, brio and a kind of raffish know-how. Think of Humphrey Bogart as Rick, a nightclub owner in the film Casablanca, when he jousts with Major Strasser, the German bully who thinks he can outsmart and intimidate him. Pressed to reveal his background and political beliefs, the poker-faced Rick replies: ‘I was born in New York City, if that’ll help you any.’ Asked if he could imagine the Germans occupying New York, Rick retorts, with a little extra moxie, ‘There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I would not advise you to try to invade.

new york