[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Let's talk about a new exhibit called, This Is New York. Our City, in the words of The Schuyler Sisters, is the greatest city in the world. Home to some of the world's most recognizable architecture, the Lights of Broadway, the beacon of freedom and compassion. That's Lady Liberty. We have virtually every kind of food, every kind of human being and the city has a reputation as the epicenter for art and music. New York factors into major moments in US history, Stonewall, 9/11, Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. We are proud of our resilience, confidence, and our grit, and we get that grit from a zillion and one inconveniences.

We experience whether it's the challenge of finding a seat on a crowded subway car, living in a tiny walk of apartment with a not so tiny price tag and noisy neighbors. We deal with rats and gross mystery smells and Grimes. Grime, being a New Yorker is complicated to love New Yorkers sometimes they also hate it, but one things for sure. There's no place like it.

From its beginnings it's inspired, it continues to inspire creatives of all backgrounds. A new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York that opens today plays on all of these contradictions. This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture uses paintings, sculpture, photos, and interactive installations to explore New York for the last 100 years. From the beauty of its quiet places to the cacophony of its busy streets, it is on display through next June, and its chief curator and interim director Sarah Henry joins us to discuss. Hi Sarah.

Sarah Henry: Hi there, Alison.

Alison Stewart: New Yorkers. We want to hear from you. What keeps you here in New York City? Is it the diversity? Is it the food? Is it the nightlife? What makes New York City so great to you? What does it have that other places have that you can't live without? Give us a call, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can also use that number to text us now, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We're taking your calls and texts. We want to hear what keeps you here in New York. What makes New York so great to you? Sarah, the plans for this exhibit. It was development pre-COVID, correct?

Sarah Henry: That's right. We started, yes, almost five years ago. The reason we started it was that this year, 2023 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Museum of the City of New York. New York City was the first city in the US to get a city museum. We're really proud of being the city's official museum, and we really wanted celebrate this anniversary in style.

Alison Stewart: You started pre-pandemic, pandemic comes-

Sarah Henry: We did.

Alison Stewart: What changed about the exhibition or did anything change about the themes, the ethos of it, given what we all went through together?

Sarah Henry: It did. Well, I think the focus really crystallized during the pandemic where we realized we really wanted to concentrate on how artists and creators have depicted these New Yorkers of the mind. Why has New York been such an obsession for filmmakers, photographers, painters, songwriters, comic book artists, you name it, for 100 years, it felt like a good antidote to the existential crisis we were all going through during the pandemic.

We had a lot of heart-to-heart talks over Zoom during lockdown saying, what should the theme of this be? We want to talk about why people love New York, but also why they are driven crazy by New York, as you said. Why we love the fact that we live here, why we hate that we love it, why we sometimes hate it, sometimes brag about how much we hate it. Just to embrace all of that complexity as it has been depicted by generations of artists and creators.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. Alex from New Jersey City is calling in. Hi Alex. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Alex: Thank you. Great to be on the show. I remember you back from the MTV days. What keeps me in the area, I'm a born New Yorker, but I live in Jersey City so we'll count it as the sixth borough as most of us do. Now more expensive in New York but what keeps me in the area is obviously culture, food, the people but there's really one interesting thing about New York that not too many of those cities have.

You could be in Midtown and in an hour you could be in Hudson Valley enjoying total nature, or you could be at the beach. I'm coming back from having a surf in Rockaway and I just think it's amazing that we have this really wonderful geography and nature so close and that's what keeps me here.

Alison Stewart: Then you can still make the opera at night.

Sarah Henry: I love that you said that because it's actually one of the things we thought about in the exhibition, This Is New York. A lot of what the artists and observers gravitate to first are the crowds and the speed and energy of New York but there's a whole other strand of people observing New York around what we call the edges just as a shorthand, that you can escape from New York. In New York. Artists have been really fascinated by the parks that are right here.

We have more green space per capita than anywhere in the country. More city of islands. We have beaches in every boroughs except Manhattan. You can go to the beach right here in New York. We have fantastic art that goes from Weegee taking photographs at the beach, all the way up to the most recent artwork in the exhibition, which is by Cheyenne Julien, which is a painting of Orchard Beach in the Bronx, Salsa Sundays at Orchard Beach.

Alison Stewart: There's also a section with that beautiful Faith Ringgold quilt, the Tar Beach, the family lying on the roof, having a nice dinner overlooking the GWB, little kid [unintelligible 00:06:21] Girls imagine she's flying over the bridge. It was the cover of the great children's book, Tar Beach. It has its own history. How does it fit into the theme of the show? That's a classic piece.

Sarah Henry: That classic piece. First of all, let's just start with the title and the comment from the caller. This was the beach for her growing up in Harlem, you got to the beach by going up to the rooftop of the building where you're living in. That's so New York, claiming space. It is amazing how many artists have depicted rooftops and in the exhibition we go all the way from John Sloan, from the Ashcan School, all the way up to Faith Ringgold, and to Spider-Man and beyond.

Those special places that you have particular access to, where you can get a little bit away from the city, but also have an incredible vantage point over it, has been this enduring fascination because it's the counterpoint to those crowded streets where we're in the mix and the hubbub. The Masterpiece by Faith Ringgold has the hero of her story, eight-year-old Cassie Lightfoot lying on the roof of her building and projecting herself up into the sky and in the sense, taking her own ownership of this city that has influenced her so much. She gets to soar over the George Washington Bridge and make New York her own, which is, I think what each of us do and what artists teach us how to do.

Alison Stewart: We got a text, Tom from Kings Park says, "I stay in New York for the food. Above all, I lived in a few locations throughout the US, Florida, Oklahoma, Missouri, but the food here is unmatched." Another text we got is, "Love New York City for MCNY and other museums going to three this weekend and Tin Pan Alley co-presenting with MCNY Centennial Program in October."

Listeners, we want to get you in on this conversation. We're talking about the exhibit, This Is New York at the Museum of City of New York. It opens today. New Yorkers, we want to hear what keeps you in New York City. Is it the diversity? Is it the food? Is it the arts? Nightlife? What makes New York City great to you? What does it have that other places don't have that you cannot live without? Our phone number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. That is the phone number to be on air. It's also a number where you can text us now.

Ah, technology. My guest is Sarah Henry, chief curator and interim director of the Museum of the City of New York. There's so many great gee-whiz objects in the exhibition. There are lyrics written in New York City by Jimi Hendrix. There's an Edward Hopper paper. I want to think it's the clapboard from Desperately Seeking Susan.

Sarah Henry: Exactly. Yes, Susan Seidelman's clapper board from the production of Desperately Seeking Susan. There's the 22 that Carrie Bradshaw wears in the opening sequence of Sex and the City. They're the hand-drawn storyboards from the opening scenes of Taxi Driver that Martin Scorsese made himself. There's the Furby pendant from Uncut Gems.

Alison Stewart: That's a classic.

Sarah Henry: There really are a bunch of things that we think of as pilgrimage objects because they're such cultural touchstones and they really speak to yes, just so many imagined New Yorkers that all populate our mind. The food comment I wanted to pick on up on for a second, because there's a gallery in which we deal with destinations and it's all about Times Square and Coney Island and also dining out.

There's another feature of the exhibition, which is a gallery dedicated to movies about New York. There's an intro gallery called Scenes from the City, from James Sanders' book. Then there's an entire immersive gallery with a film on 16 screens, which was made for us by RadicalMedia that's called You Are Here. It just bombards you with clips from hundreds of movies made in New York. The food sequence is particularly wonderful, I think, because it goes from everything from street food whether it's falafel or [unintelligible 00:10:46], or getting a hot dog on the street, to pizza. There's some great pizza scenes in New York movies, to great diner scenes, which I'm sure you can think of some.

Then the high dining, the dumplings, just a wonderful collage of the richness of food culture in New York. It's just an exhilarating part of that film. Alison, I know you came to visit the exhibition. I was wondering if there was a part of that film that embedded itself in your head.

Alison Stewart: I ended up having a lovely conversation with the team that put it together. I was introduced to them and just hearing their process it was phenomenal because that is a piece of art. I can imagine and can't imagine the [chuckles] amount of time that went into putting that. It's almost like a kaleidoscope in that [crosstalk]

Sarah Henry: [unintelligible 00:11:41] that's a perfect word.

Alison Stewart: Because the different scenes come together and then they separate and then they meet up again in a different color. I just thought it was very clever that they manage in the moment. It would only happen in this moment, is there is a shot with Melanie Lynskey. Melanie Lynskey, I think it's from Coyote Ugly, is having such a moment right now. People are recognizing her talent after so long in Yellowjackets and various other films.

Sarah Henry: Amazing.

Alison Stewart: I was like, "Hey, wow, there's a young Melanie Lynskey in this [chuckles] montage."

Sarah Henry: The film is 21 minutes. It's to my mind, a gift to New York as we emerge into the new future of New York because it's a chance to just channel the city to sit there surrounded by this wealth of imagery. It's 21 minutes long, but you could watch it over and over again because each time you see something new in there, which I think is so great. I love your word kaleidoscope because to me, one of my colleagues used that metaphor the other day. I mean, that's really what making sense of New York is necessarily about. You have all these shards of colorful things, all bumping up against each other. You shake it and it can resolve into a thing of beauty, but it's not the only way to look at it. You can reshake it and remix it, and you get another insight into the city.

That's what that immersive film You Are Here is all about. It's taking those fragments and seeing how they can be knit together into surprising new, beautiful story about New York. I think it's really for anybody who loves New York, anybody who's irritated by [chuckles] New York, anyone who's curious about New York. Which I think is everybody, or at least everybody who's listening at least to WNYC.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] For Sure. Let's talk to Tanya from Queens. Hi, Tanya. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Tanya: Hi. I love coming back to New York. I moved away in '87, came back in 2017 and I only came back for a year. My daughter graduated and went off to college, and I got my masters at the same time. I thought I'd just come home and celebrate for a year and then go back to California. Then I came back, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm still New Yorker. They understand me. They don't care if I say, no, they don't care if I say, I don't think so. They just get me and they get my jokes. I'm just loving back home. I'm still a New Yorker," [chuckles] There's nothing I hate about New York. I just love it. I'm a Brooklyn girl, but I love, love, love being back home. I feel so free. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Thanks for calling in. [unintelligible 00:14:13] text we got. "Can't forget public transportation. As flaws as it may be, being able to get around the city without a car is so valuable." Let's talk to Andrew from Crown Heights, he's on line six. Hi, Andrew. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Andrew: Hey, what's happening?

Alison Stewart: Go for it.

Andrew: Hi, how are you? This is Andrew from Crown Heights. I'm just calling to say that I really appreciate a lot of learning that I've been able to do from New York and the social demographics and the diversity that that offers. It teaches you how to show up. It teaches you what it means to be in a place of multiplicity in terms of culture, sounds, and the essence of all of that and how that brings it together. I think you were talking about earlier, The Grime. I like to [inaudible 00:14:54] I really do appreciate how that incorporates itself into the essence of the culture of what a New Yorker is [chuckles] and why being a New Yorker is so inspiring to other people. What makes them curious about what a New Yorker is and what being in New York can be like? Everybody has their own experience and they're allowed that. I think that's important to acknowledge too, everybody deserves some space, whether someone wants to believe that or not.

Alison Stewart: Andrew, thank you for calling in. My guest is Sarah Henry, chief curator and interim director of the Museum of the City of the New York. We're talking about, This Is New York exhibit. We're taking your calls. We'll hear about some of the interactive parts of the exhibit and take more of your calls and your texts after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest this hour is Sarah Henry, chief curator and interim director of the Museum of the City of New York. We're talking about the brand new exhibition, which opened today. This Is New York: 100 years of the City in Art and Pop Culture. You knew I would get to music. One of the sections in the exhibit is this really fun interactive installation around the five boroughs and the music of those boroughs. You could hop back and forth on it. If you step on the Bronx, you might hear this;

[Music - Boogie Down Productions: South Bronx]

"South Bronx, the South-South Bronx,

South Bronx, the South-South Bronx,

South Bronx, the South-South Bronx,

South Bronx, the South-South Bronx,"

Alison Stewart: Or then you decide to jump over to Manhattan, you could hear this;

[Music - Louis Armstrong: Drop Me Off in Harlem]

Drop me off in Harlem,

Any place in Harlem,

There's someone waiting there,

Who makes it seem like

heaven"

Alison Stewart: Then you hop on over to Staten Island;

[Music - Wu-Tang Clan: C.R.E.A.M.]

Cash rules everything around me

C.R.E.A.M., get the money

Dollar dollar bill, y'all

I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side.

Stayin' alive was no jive."

Alison Stewart: Dollar, dollar bill, ya'll is Wu-Tang. Okay. This installation, [chuckles] Sarah, tell us a little bit about how this installation came to be.

Sarah Henry: It sounds like you had a lot of fun [chuckles] with it Alison [crosstalk]

Alison Stewart: Oh, I was there for a while. [chuckles]

Sarah Henry: [unintelligible 00:17:15] people have been [unintelligible 00:17:16]. We really wanted to represent how the particular gallery this installation is in is dedicated to the streets and subways. I love that your caller called out public transportation because that's where you feel the energy of New York. That's the quintessential New York experiences of being in the crowd of people going places. You can literally map the entire city through lyrics of songs. Hip hop alone gets you to pretty much every subway stop [chuckles] and so many street corners, but then as you played, you can go back to jazz, calypso, swing. There are endless songs that reference the five boroughs of New York City. We worked with our wonderful design consultant, Dome Collective to come up with a way for people to experience that. What we landed on was shapes of the five boroughs on the ground.

When you step on that borough of your choice, it triggers a song that references that borough or is deeply rooted in that borough. If there's a music video or performance available, a little clip of that plays and you get a little information about the song. If you've never heard of it, because there's going to be something new for everybody, I think. I think even Allison [chuckles] maybe heard something that she hadn't heard before. There's some great classics. You can imagine the, the top of mind songs that would be in there, but then they're also lesser-known gems. It was so much fun to work with our team to select them. They're over a hundred songs in there. As you say, you can go borough hopping and be surprised by what comes up next. That's proving really, really popular with, even though the show's just opened today, we've had some previews and it has definitely become a magnet and a great fun thing for people of all ages.

Alison Stewart: We have a text that says, "It's an affliction, my love for this charming, electrifying, dirty city. I stay because it has great people, many cultures and cultural facilities. I'm a walker and I can walk just about everywhere. Someone said, "This is New York. I stay because I don't drive. NYC is the one city in America." Let's talk to John Mark, who is calling in from Manhattan. Hi, John Mark.

John: Hi, there. I just wanted to bring in and join the discussion. My wife and I came to New York from Australia about 14 years ago, and we are actually preparing to return to Australia right now to support some parents that need our support due to age-related health concerns and I just wanted to reflect on New York listening to your discussion. First things I would say, just playfully to your first caller Jersey City is not the sixth borough of New York. You just keep telling yourself that. Secondly, I would say the thing that I've loved about New York is it's a world city. It belongs to the world. It's like London, Paris, Rome. First and foremost, my experience of New York is if my first allegiance is to New York, then New York is fine with whatever I want to put next in whatever particular order. As soon as you come in and sign on, then you're a New Yorker. Then your religion, your family, your country of origin, your sporting team, you can line up in whatever particular order after that.

To Echo Andrew from Crown Heights' comments, the multiculturalism of New York, it being something of a microcosm of a larger world is something we've loved enormously and we'll miss greatly. I'll add one more thing, which has helped us, in our time in New York and also as we prepare to leave New York, is people often say how much they love New York. We realized early on, you can love New York all you like, but she's completely indifferent to you,

[laughs]

John: It's not-

Alison Stewart: I'll jump in here.

John: -an quieted relationship.

Alison Stewart: John Mark, we wish you and your family well and safe travels. There is a really great reading room an interactive reading room, and you might recognize a voice in there. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Tell folks about the reading room.

Sarah Henry: Sure. We have a gallery that's dedicated to the theme of at home in New York. I think a lot of people in the broader world, have a hard time even imagining how people can make a home in New York. New Yorkers have strong opinions about this. There were two genres of media that felt particularly relevant to the theme of home and community. One was television shows because they're so often set in domestic places, and therefore drama and comedy ensues because of the tight neighborhood situations or neighbor situations and so on. The other is literature, specifically children's books, which are so often have this domestic spin to it as well.

In that gallery, we have a long bookshelf of books and DVDs that you can pick up and peruse. Then if you go and carry that book that you've chosen down to a special docking station and place it on the surface, it triggers a life-size projection from the television show or from the book. If it's a book, a passage about the nature of home in New York is read aloud. You get to enter the world of Eloise or Harriet the Spy or The Jeffersons. Just go down one of those wormholes for a moment to visit one of those other New York's of the vivid writer's imagination. Tell about the nudge, nudge part.

Alison Stewart: If you go and you listen and you go there, you might hear the lady who hosts all of it on WNYC reading one of those passages. Let's talk to Chen, calling in from Brooklyn. Hi, Chen.

Chen: Hi, guys. Thanks so much for doing this program. As much as New York changes and I'm a native New Yorker born and raised all of my 65 years. I come from the era of fascination on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenue. There had to be upwards of 10 movies on that one strip alone. The thing that keeps me in New York or gives me the electric and the excitement, just walking down the block of 42nd Street reminds me of the past.

If you Google the old 42nd Street, you'll see there are at least 10 movies on that one block alone. I was an usher in all of those movies because when you got hired as an usher on 42nd Street, it was owned by one family, the brand theaters they were called. The other thing I love about New York is that you'll never run out of things to do. I've never been to the Museum of the City of New York. I've been here 65 years.

Alison Stewart: Now you got to go. Other thing I like about New York, trans accent [crosstalk].

Sarah Henry: Now you got to come.

Alison Stewart: That was an awesome accent.

Sarah Henry: Alison mentioned Edward Hopper and you mentioned being an usher. The beautiful Edward Hopper that we have on view there is of an usherette in the quiet of a New York City movie theater. You got to come see it.

Alison Stewart: It's called, This Is New York: 100 Years of the City and Art and Pop Culture. I have been speaking with Sarah Henry, chief curator and interim director of the Museum of the City of New York. Sarah, thanks so much for joining us.

Sarah Henry: Thank you. Everyone come up and see the exhibition. We're waiting to welcome you.

Alison Stewart: I Love this text.

Sarah Henry: [unintelligible 00:25:13] a hundred.

Alison Stewart: I love this text. I'm always relieved when I get to escape the city, but I'm even more relieved when I get to come back. There's more, All Of It on the way.

 

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