The city has launched its greatest ever engineering project – the New York City Underwater Project. ibid.
In the autumn of 1875 on a quiet residential street in Paris ... work began on a statue. Ken Burns, The Statue of Liberty, PBS 1985
The tallest structure in the new world … she was handbuilt by Frenchmen in Paris. ibid.
Bartholdi was certain he had found the site for his masterpiece. ibid.
Masonic symbols were to be present in the Statue of Liberty as well. ibid.
It was the biggest bridge in the world: everyone in Brooklyn and New York agreed. Ken Burns, Brooklyn Bridge, BBC 1981
It took fourteen long years to build the bridge: from 1869 to 1883. ibid.
The most striking features of this iron web were the cables radiating from its towers. ibid.
‘That’s the first mistake we’ve made since that guy sold us the Brooklyn Bridge.’ ibid. Stan Laurel
Satan’s Seat: New York represented Prohibition’s biggest challenge. The ultimate battleground between Wets and Drys. Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, Prohibition II: Scofflaws, PBS 2011
The 18th Amendment, La Guardia said, was a disaster. Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, Prohibition IV: A Sea of Rum
Women found themselves going places they had never been to before. ibid.
No-one knows precisely how many speakeasies operated in New York City. One police commissioner estimated there were at least 32,000. ibid.
23-year-old Lois Long ... was assigned to cover the city’s nightlife. Her pen-name was lipstick. ibid.
On the face of it the fall of Governor Spitzer was just another sex scandal. Was it a private matter or a public reckoning? And what of the timing? A few months after his resignation the reckless banker Spitzer … brought the economic system close to failure. Storyville: Client 9 – The Call Girl & the Governor, BBC 2011
Spitzer’s wrong turn surprised everyone because he had a reputation as Mister Right. As Attorney General of New York he was known as the Sheriff of Wall Street. ibid.
He uncovered fraud in the pharmaceutical industry where pill-makers hid the damage done by their drugs. ibid.
Eliot Spitzer had taken the first step into his double life. He had just entered a world which formally he had seen only from the outside as a prosecutor. In April 2004 after wire-tapping a social club in Staten Island, Spitzer helped the FBI and NYPD bring down a sophisticated prostitution ring. ibid.
The affidavit was full of steamy sexual banter. ibid.
The city must be changed or it will perish. New York: City of Tomorrow, PBS 1999
New York would become the arena of a titanic contest between the automobile and the pedestrian. ibid.
In three hundred years it had grown from a tiny trading post on the far edge of the known world to become the undisputed culture and economic capital of the world. ibid.
Tens of thousands of New Yorkers were evicted from their homes. ibid.
Shanty towns ... called Hoovervilles. ibid.
Rumours of official malfeasance had swirling about City Hall. ibid.
Robert Moses would become the epicentre of a whirlwind of public building. New York: City of Tomorrow II
The first urban highway system in the world. ibid.
1935 ... Violence on the streets of Harlem. ibid.
The first race riot in New York was 1712. ibid.
In the 1970s the Big Apple was rotten to the core. But amidst the ruins and squalor a gold era of music was born. In Downtown Manhattan punk was created; in the midtown, disco was king; while on the streets of the Bronx hip-hop sprung up. In the 1970s New York you could be anything you wanted to be. Once Upon a Time in New York: The Birth of Hip Hop, Disco & Punk
Back in the summer of ’69 a police raid on a gay bar in Christopher Street got out of hand, and gave birth to sexual politics as well as a new musical movement. ibid.
The Dolls played at the Mercer Arts Centre. ibid.
Punk was originally the name of a Fanzine. ibid.
8Set in New York the movie Saturday Night Fever exported disco fever worldwide. ibid.
Open air disco parties sprung up on the streets and the parks of South Bronx, and the DJs that hosted them became neighbourhood stars. ibid.
As the nascent hip-hop scene absorbed the streets gang’s energy it began to flourish and the word spread around town. ibid.
CBGB: it shut its doors for the last time in October 2006. ibid.
We’ll be raided again by the village of East Hampton. Albert & David Maysles, Grey Gardens 1975, starring Edith ‘Big Edie’ Ewing Bouvier Beale & daughter ‘Little Edie’
Jackie’s Aunt Told: Clean Up Mansion: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis’ aunt and cousin on Long Island are living in a garbage-ridden, filthy 28-room house with eight cats, fleas, cobwebs and no running water – conditions so unsanitary that the Suffolk County Health Department has ordered them to clean up or get out. ibid. news article George Carpozi
I almost die with the fleas in this place. ibid. little Edie
She had a proposal of marriage from Paul Getty. ibid. big Edie
I took care of this damned house for twenty-five years. ibid. little Edie
I think my days at Grey Gardens are limited. ibid.
She’s a lot of fun; I hope she doesn’t die. ibid.
New York is a constellation of magic moments. Robert A M Stearn
I shall not rest until my native city is first. Not only in population but also in wholesome housing. Not only in commerce but also in public health. Fiorello la Guardia
We’re going to make his city a real heaven. Fiorello la Guardia
It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under. Grandmaster Flash, The Message lyrics
Start spreading the news,
I’m leaving today
I want to be a part of it
New York New York … Theme from New York New York, Sinatra et al
He adored New York City. He romanticised it all out of proportion ... Yep, to him this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin. Manhattan 1979 starring Woody Allen & Dianne Keaton & Michael Murphy & Mariel Hemingway & Meryl Street & Anne Byrne & Michael O’Donoghue & Wallace Shawn & Karen Ludwig et al, director Woody Allen
He adored New York City. For him, it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out was rapidly turning the town of his dreams … ibid.
I can’t with any conscience argue for New York with anyone. It’s like Calcutta. But I love the city in an emotional, irrational way, like loving your mother or your father even though they’re a drunk or a thief. I’ve loved the city my whole life – to me, it’s like a great woman. Woody Allen
I don’t care to visit New York. Citizen Kane 1941 starring Orson Welles & Joseph Cotten & Dorothy Comingore & Everett Sloane & Ray Collins & George Coulouris & Agnes Moorehead & Paul Stewart & Ruth Warrick & Erskine Sanford & William Alland et al, director Orson Welles
I’m souvenir hunting for scammers ... Is it all as innocent as it appears to be? Scam City s2e7: New York City, National Geographic 2014
I don’t have my licence on me ... I’ll give you sixty-five. ibid. pedicab middle man
Perfume is everywhere ... At least half a dozen perfume companies in that building. ibid.
‘Most of it comes from China.’ ibid. geezer