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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Old Manhattan Has Disappeared Before My Eyes

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By: Phyllis Chesler

I knew it was all over when they shut down the Horn and Hardart Automat, the restaurant where portions of food appeared in glass cages—but their liberation could be purchased with as little as five cents. Oh, those baked beans! And those tempting slices of pie! They took Chock Full O’ Nuts away along with their nutty, dark raisin bread and cream cheese sandwiches.

They took Chock Full O’ Nuts away along with their nutty, dark raisin bread and cream cheese sandwiches. Photo Credit: Reddit.com

Schraffts, a genteel women-only preserve, which served elegant little sandwiches and dessert (and where I kept to myself and studied while in graduate school)—lost in the mists of memory. The Peacock Cafe, on West 4th St., where they started my cappuccino the moment I entered, and where I also sat, read, and wrote—now closed. The Copa is gone as is the Waldorf Astoria, with its gilded pagan facade and Art Deco magnificence, sold to the Chinese government.

Always new restaurants keep popping up and then closing due to sky-high rents. Increasingly, the Manhattan sky has been pierced by heartless, mirrored skyscrapers, so that the human frame is increasingly diminished; these towering temples of greed put us all in our lowly place.

Nearly sixty years ago, when I visited Europe for the first time, the buildings did not yet dwarf the human frame, one felt grounded, centered, and of consequence.

Schraffts, a genteel women-only preserve, which served elegant little sandwiches and dessert (and where I kept to myself and studied while in graduate school)—lost in the mists of memory. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Both Bemelmen’s Bar and the Carlyle Hotel which houses it are now owned by Katara Hospitality (Qatar); the Plaza Hotel is still standing but the fabled Palm Court is different, the Old World violinist and pianist have been replaced by Muzak, and it is now owned by Rosewood Hospitality (which is Hong-Kong based); the Waldorf Astoria, which I mentioned yesterday, is now owned by China.

Have we sold the Empire State Building—well yes, but only in part to Qatar. Rockefeller Center is owned by a consortium which at one point included Mitsubishi Estates. Kiehl’s Pharmacies are still here but they are now owned by L’Oreal (France). What’s wrong with this picture?

And the movie theaters that once were—are gone, going. I used to go to the Thalia in the late 1950s and early 1960s to see the best foreign films. Long gone. And now, they’ve shut down Lincoln Plaza Cinema, the Beekman on Second Ave, and the cinema that once stood at 210 East 86th St. Are we all now couch potatoes with unlimited access to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Acorn, Britbox, Hulu, Vudu, MHZ, etc.? What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s Popular; What’s Not??

The comments I posted about the two raunchy, pole dancing, crotch-grabbing, half-naked celebrity performances at the Super Bowl at half-time “reached” nearly 6500 people, “engaged” 3089 people, and drew 52 comments. What I posted about Harvey Weinstein’s genitalia “reached” 878 people, “engaged” 328 people, and drew 14 comments. Only what I posted about the Oscars (disagreeing with some of the Chosen) also “reached” 835 people, “engaged” 328, but only drew 14 comments. Perhaps one of the most important articles that I linked to was about Wuhan.

The bar at the Carlyle, the internationally acclaimed luxury hotel and East Side institution. Photo Credit: Pinterest

It was written by a friend, Marion Dreyfus, who once lived there and who described the utterly unhygienic, filthy, frightening, conditions that applied in Wuhan in the early 21st century (no potable water, all manner of fish, fowl, and beast, slaughtered in the open marketplace, etc.). This article “reached” 687 people, “engaged” 328 people, and drew only 3 comments. Far more important than pole dancing at the Super-Bowl, but apparently, of far less interest. Woe!

Everything else I posted about Honor Killing Escapees, Islamist Death Threats to “Blasphemers” in France, sacred music, divine ballet, the scourge of Anti-Semitism in the UK, and Old Manhattan (to name only a few entries) drew far less interest.

People: Must I write about entertainers, celebrities, reality show stars such as Kim Kardashian—or worse yet, about electoral politics, in order to command reader attention at Facebook? If so, what have we become? A nation of sex- and star-crazed voyeurs, oblivious to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse thundering our way?

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