New York Magazine - USA (2020-10-12)

78 newyork| october12–25, 2020

TheCULTUREPAGES

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Abstract Expressionism Acrylic Paint ACT UP ▼ By 1987, the AIDS epidemic had claimed almost half a million lives worldwide and over 6,500 in New York City. Early that year, the playwright Larry Kramer spoke at the LGBTQ Community Center on West 13th Streetand told a roomful of primarily gay men that two-thirds of them would be dead in a few years if they did not take radical steps. Two nights later,about two dozen people met at Kramer’s Greenwich Village apartment and launched the activist collective ACT UP (for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power),which went on to scoresome of the biggest gainsagainst the epidemic before an effective treatment emerged in 1996. With its unapologetically queer rhetoric and aesthetic— the signature chantwas “We’re here! We’requeer! Get used to it!”—ACTUP ef fectively defined what it meant to be LGBTQ and political in theU.S. Air Conditioning Algonquin Round Table Alt-Weekly Amazon.com Anchorman AnthoraCup AtomicBomb AuteurTheory Automat AutomatedTeller Machine

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Bagel Barbicide▼ Asa teenager,Maurice Kingwasdisgustedthat barberssimplyused watertocleantheir combs.In 194 7, after earninga degreein chemicalengineering,he startedmixingbatches ofchemicaldisinfectant inthebathroomofhis Brooklynapartment. Hedyedit electricblue

to signal purity, leaving a permanent stain on his bathtub. He then began lobbying for a law requiring the use of disinfectants in barbershops. The states bit, and many wrote legislation requiring the product by its name, Barbicide—which, King joked, means “Kill the barber,” a nod to his teenage distaste. Baseball The Beats Bebop Bike Lane Birth-Control Clinic Bloomberg Terminal ▼

Bodega Brassiere ▼ In 1913, Mary Phelps Jacob, a 21-year-old New York debutante, was dressing for a dance. Repeatedly frustrated with the corset that was,atthetime, the literalfoundation of a well-dressedwoman’s attire,Jacobasked her maidtobringher two silkhandkerchiefs, a ribbon,anda needle and thread. The garment she assembled, she later said, “was delicious. I could move more freely, a nearlynakedfeeling,and intheglassI sawthat I wasflat andproper.” Althougha variety ofsimilargarments predateherpatent,she is generallycreditedwith theinventionofthebra. Afterherunderwear breakthrough,shemoved toParisfora while;co- foundedtheBlackSun Press,publishingErnest Hemingway;married threetimes;changedher nametoCaresseCrosby; workedasanantiwar activist; dabbledwith opium-smokinginNorth Africa;owneda dog namedClytoris;anddied in 1970 attheage of78, notfarfromthecastle sheownedinRome. Break-dancing BrillBuilding

It CameFrom

New York

Disco.Thefreakshow. Neoconservatism. Q-tips.They allstartedintheworld’s most creative, inventivecity.

evenif anideadoesnotstrictlystarthere, New York is, disproportionately often, the placewhereit is droppedoff, trimmedtosize, mattedandframed,anddisplayedtoeveryone withanexplanatorywalltext. Certaintypesof peoplearedrawntoa placelike this.They tendtobeyoung,smart, andambitious.Definition- ally,they aredissatisfiedwiththeirhometowns.(Otherwise, why leave?)Hometoauthorsandacademicsandmusicians, artgalleriesandfashionhouses—howexactlydidthismajes- ticconfluenceofcreativityappearhere? Oneexplanationis NewYork’ssheersize:Bigideasaremagnetic,andina big townra therthana smallone,youcangatherenoughTrotsky- itesorav ant-gardepoets at aneventtomake waves.There’s a self-fulfillingnesstothesethingstoo:Self-confidence begetsself-confidence,andcentralitydrawspeoplewho wanttobeatthecenter, whichmakesthecenterbigger.Not tomentionthefiercecompetition. It is,ofcourse,nota placeforeveryone.Peoplecomehereto trytoshootthemoon.If it doesn’t workout,a lotofthemgo backtowheretheycamefrom,orsometimestoNewJersey. Thosewhohangonarea self-selectedsubset, intentonmaking somethingneverbeforeseen.Youcanhardlygo a day without encounteringsomethingthat startedhere.Thelist is,you mightsay, encyclopedic.And,infact, theentriesthat follow havebeenadaptedfromtheforthcomingEncyclopediaof NewYork,a bookcompiledbytheeditorsofthisvery magazine.It’sa historyof NewYork’scorepower—innovation—and ofthewaysinwhichonecity exportstheintentions,whether corporealorintangible,thathaveshapedoureveryday existenceforhundredsofyears.It wasalwaysa terrible,great ideatomovehereandshootyourshot,andit stillis.The apartmentnext doorto youmay becramped,buttheideasthat willdefineeveryone’slifea few yearshencemay liewithin.

PHOTOGRAPH:

TONY CENICOLA/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX (BLOOMBERG TERMINAL)

theencyclopediaofnewyorkisonsaleOctober20.

We Made Another Book!

New York Magazine - USA (2020-10-12)

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PHOTOGRAPH:

TONY CENICOLA/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX (BLOOMBERG TERMINAL)

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