A Tour of Gracie Mansion

Today, I took a wonderful group tour of Gracie Mansion. Since Mayor Bloomberg does not live there, we were able to view the second floor.






No photos were permitted inside the mansion. So after the tour, I enjoyed Carl Schurz Park.

Macy's Flower Show

Today, I went to Macy's Flower Show.

"The Beats in Greenwich Village," a walking tour

It was a dreary, cold, and rainy Sunday afternoon. I met the group from St. Francis College Departments of English and Communication Arts at 2:30, and we began the tour across the street from 130-132 MacDougal Street, where Louisa May Alcott wrote "Little Women."


This is a view of MacDougal Street, looking in the other direction. In this photo, you can see the original location of Kettle of Fish, at 114 MacDougal Street. It is to the right of the blue Frequency awning and behind the yellow taxi on the left.


This is Minetta Tavern restaurant.


This is Minetta Street. You can see the walking tour group on the right.



This is the site of the old Pony Stable Inn, where Gregory Corso met Allen Ginsberg.


This is 48 Morton Street, where David Kammerer lived.


This is 69 Bedford Street, where William Burroughs lived.


This is a view of the White Horse Tavern at West 11th Street.


And this is where the tour ended. I was happy I wore comfortable shoes.


Here are some extra shots I took along the way:



In this photo, you can see the current location of Kettle of Fish at 59 Christopher Street. It is behind the white tents in the distance on the left.


And Bob Dylan lived in this building above the Tic Tac Toe lingerie shop.


Please listen now to: this.

Backstage at the New York City Opera

Well, my plans took a detour today. I joined my TTN for a fantastic backstage tour of the New York City Opera at the David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center. Then we went for a late lunch at Josephina. I had the chicken campagnole and it was incredible. Then, I went to see "The Runaways." It was nasty in NYC, with a slow steady light rain falling all day. But, glorious NYC always has activity.








I love this photo most of all. As we were standing on the stage looking out at the vast theater, I took a photo of the backstage area. The reflection of the women of my TTN group was captured in the set piece on the left.

The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine

Today, my Transition Network had a very educational and inspiring tour of:
The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.

Wayno Draino, artist/actor/stand-up comic

I had a late lunch today today with Wayno Draino at a diner in Manhattan. We spoke for a long time and there is much to write so this interview will be put up in parts.

Wayno was born in Bayonne, NJ. He declares: "I was born under the smokestacks of Bayonne, and that is why most people think I have brain damage now. At the hospital, the birthing room is underneath the smokestacks and when the babies are born they get that toxic injection of smoke to prepare them for living in Bayonne. If they don't, they can die within a month." Wayno says the air in Bayonne is 60% nicotine. He grew up on a cul-de-sac, 75 feet from a chemical container. When he was a kid, he used to play "hide and go seek" and hide on top of the tank. But, "it is really tough to hide when you are glowing."

Wayno was an illustrator who did not really play with other kids because he was very introverted. He says in Bayonne everybody was beating each other up all day long. He learned to play hockey and football not because he wanted to be a great sports man. He liked tackling and punching the other kids.

He always was looking for friends... so when he was a teenager he was sitting around on the docks at his Long Beach Island summer home and everybody was real quiet. You could hear the crickets. He was introverted, but he started talking. The more he talked, the more the girls liked him. He would tell stories about his life; his wild and crazy days. He was overly animated and added punchlines and would "crack everybody up." It was an amazing feeling getting everybody in the group to laugh. He felt "connected to humanity" which is a feeling he almost never had. He was truly happy when he saw people around him laughing and that is why he began doing stand-up. And comedy is also a defense mechanism that helps him get through miserable days. It was very dark and industrial in the part of town in which he grew up and Bayonne was "not a very happy place."

Wayno said his whole family was in the TV business. His father was a film editor for CBS and at the end of his career he had his own film editing company that edited TV commercials. Early in his career, Wayno was a "shock" comic to get the attention of the audience. I met Wayno in about 1988 at the Eagle Tavern, which was located on West 14th Street in NYC. The pub had great comedy open mic nights for beginners, and this is Wayno from 20 years ago doing stand-up. We got along and became friends, and Wayne cast me as his mother in his film, which he said I could call "Challenged Superheroes." It actually had another name.... and Wayne laughed when I told him I was changing the name of the film for this blog. Anthony Ribustello was also in the film. Wayno told me the film in which I appear will soon be up on YouTube. I still can remember my first line: "Hey everybody, Wayne's here." And Wayno reminded me that I was in the illustration of the film for his "New Underground Magazine."

We went on to discuss Dan Aykroyd's "Out There" show. Wayno Draino worked for the show as a graphics and animation producer for 6 weeks. After 60 shows were recorded, the show was cancelled.

Wayno is indeed outrageous and he went on to tell me how his "doodling" got him into some recent trouble on a plane. I was really laughing. He certainly has a way of telling a great story.

Wayno Draino has given written permission for all of his art work (posted below) to appear at this blog.

Cheryl Ingersoll, model

All young girls who grew up in the late 1960s and 1970s knew the face of Cheryl Ingersoll. Cheryl was a very popular model who appeared in hundreds of teen and romance magazines, in print ads for films, TV commercials, and she was on the cover of paperback novels. She was in a Hires Root Beer TV ad and a print ad for Knox Gelatine which appears at this blog. I can recall seeing Cheryl's pretty face on so many digests, journals, and magazines in all the "stationery" stores. In my opinion, she looked like the prettiest teenager... with a perfect smile and even more beautiful hair. She also posed for commercial artists. Cheryl says: "There were a lot of paperback bookcovers that were paintings of me." One well known artist (with whom she worked) was Charles McVicker. "He has now been for many years a highly successful landscape artist."

In the 1970s, I would always go into a luncheonette on West 15th Street and browse through the magazines with "beauty tips" and invariably I would see a photo of Cheryl. So, I was very surprised when one day, in about 1990, I was walking around and I saw Cheryl! "There she is," I cried. "That's the model!" I ran over to her and I exclaimed: "You are the pretty model I saw on the cover of all the fashion magazines." Cheryl seemed surprised that I recognized her... but, she acknowledged she was indeed "that girl." I recall telling her she had not changed and she was completely recognizable. Thereafter, we developed a neighborly relationship.

When I began this blog and saw Cheryl, I asked her if she would be interviewed. Last summer, she agreed..... and we finally sat down this Sunday morning and talked over brunch. Her face still hasn't changed a bit. Again I told Cheryl, "You still look exactly the same." She really is instantly recognizable and appears to not have aged.

Cheryl grew up in a small town in Ohio. Since she was fourteen, she thought anybody could be a model and she knew she had to go to New York to pursue a modeling career. So, when Cheryl was eighteen she left Ohio with her childhood friend, Suzanne Ryan, for Manhattan. They lived for a time at the Chelsea Hotel and in Greenwich Village. Along the way, friends helped her with advice and she developed connections. She had photos made for a portfolio and she even got an answering service. She was first signed by Lawrence Famous Talents and later the very popular Charles Ryan Agency and American Girl. And, through the Victor Jay agency she got television work. Her sister, Nancy, also was a model and they appeared in photo shoots together. Cheryl was also an artist all those years... along the way meeting the great Willem de Kooning. She worked in the city and she was considered a teenage model through her twenties and until she was almost thirty. Cheryl and Suzanne are still today dear friends.

Cheryl stopped modeling in the 1980s and she works now for Fashion Group International, which she considers family. In May, it will be eleven years she has been there and that is another blessing. Cheryl warmly added: "Please mention that my beautiful daughter, Nancy Cristina, is the light of my life. She truly is a wonderful blessing. I am a vegan because of my love of animals. I have two cats that live with me, Marcella and Sophie. Transcendental Meditation is a very important part of my spiritual life along with St. Peter's Episcopal Church." Cheryl also feels that she has had a blessed and wonderful life. She said that one of the most important things she has been doing for the past eight years is working as a volunteer at the New York Foundling Hospital. She finds it extremely rewarding and fulfilling because the "best thing is helping others." She asked me: "Do you see why I feel the way I do about my life?" And then she happily stated, "You know, it only keeps getting better!"

Dan Wakefield, author and screenwriter

Dan Wakefield has written the novels, "Going All the Way," and "Starting Over." Both of those books were made into major motion pictures. Now, he writes books on spirituality. "How Do We Know When It's God?" is his spiritual memoir. This link is his website.
Dan lives in Florida, so I sent him a list of questions for this interview and today he replied in an E-mail.

Q: Many baby boomers who grew up all over the country during the 50s are fascinated with that time period and have a general feeling of nostalgia for all things connected to those years. Do you think all children are sentimental about the years during which they grew up, or was there something special about the 50s?
A: I don't think all people are sentimental about their youth- especially those who grew up as Jews during WWII, as well as all children whose homes were bombed or (those who had) parents or family members killed in wartime- and probably many who grew up in our Depression of the '30s. The '50s was a time of peace, except for Korea and there were no new wars when Ike was president (1952-1960.)

Q: What year did you leave Boston? And please speak a little about your decision to move to Florida and about your present life there.
A: I left Boston in 1992, lived back in NYC until I went to Florida in 1994- for the reason I was offered a good position as Writer in Residence at Florida International University.

Q: You have said you believe in "putting aside the 'numbing' distractions of television and music." Do you watch any television or go to the movies... and are there any recent television shows or films you have seen that you enjoyed?
A: I go to movies and I think "Mad Men" is the best thing I've ever seen on TV and the only accurate description of the '50s on TV or film. I also watch "The Good Wife" and "Glee."

Q: Do you think there has been a general "dumbing down" of American culture in the past few decades?
A: Yes.

Q: Helen Weaver, in "The Awakener," suggests that today's Village may be just a facade and that the real Village may still be there underneath... just like it used to be. Do you think time creates a sort of pentimenti that drives imaginations to dream of time travel?
A: Helen Weaver said that in my book, "New York in the Fifties." "The Awakener" is a terrific book and a great remembrance of Kerouac and the era!

Q: If you believe in reincarnation, do you think it is possible to be reborn into the past?
A: I don't believe or disbelieve in reincarnation. I am open to anything, but I just don't know. I'd like to come back as Babe Ruth.

Thanks, Dan Wakefield!

Here is more on Dan, a writer from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Dan Wakefield has approved the use of the above photo at this blog.

'Tis the Season

In 1897, Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Sun. This was her letter:

Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in THE SUN it's so." Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West 95th Street

These are photos of 115 West 95th Street that I took today.


Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus.

And this is a photo I took around the holidays that I call "Cute in NY."

Ain't We Got Fun

Jack Kerouac sings!
listen to this!

Beat Poetry Contest

My poem, "WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY," was chosen as the first place winner of the Beat Poetry Contest at: The Daily Beat. Please go to Rick Dale's website to read my poem. And thank-you, Rick!

Here, as well, is my Jack Kerouac inspired poem.

WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY
by Marjorie J. Levine

Almost dusk:
Last summer on one Wednesday, in July,
I sat on a bench, a grey wooden tired
Bench on a boardwalk out at old Long Beach.
In the sky a lonely and lost grey kittiwake tipped
As the hot pink sun set in blazing technicolor over
Hot pinkish sand and the fading blue ocean water.

That morning:
I had thought about seeing great art...
Vermeer, or Courbet, or maybe Monet.
But, I drove to the beach instead to think
To think about everything creative that had been
Created before I got here, and when I was here,
And what will be created when I leave this place.
When one day I leave my place and all places in my
Consciousness that is now in this time and was
At a past time and will be in some next time;
Maybe all time exists at the same time.
The great minds of theoretical physicists search
For the "Theory of Everything" as they sit
In their cluttered rooms, their great thinking rooms.
In universities, they ponder the mathematical equations
And Schrodinger's cat and all those mysteries.

In the evening:
It is during the quiet and still and sad night when
I miss most the people I never met:
Edie Beale, and the Rat Pack, and even Rod Serling
Who made me want to time travel: to go back to simpler places
Like Nedick's, or the Belmore, or Bickford's, and Willoughby.
Then the longing, a longing when distant sounds and faraway
Foghorns drive thoughts to reflect on a life visible through some
Smoky cracked mirror, a haunted and haunting steamy mirror.
As I am sort of old now and getting older
There is a vague and odd feeling that I,
Like the kittiwake, somehow must have lost the way.

© 2009 Marjorie Levine

WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY

Here's my poem that won Rick Dale's Beat Poetry Contest on December 3, 2009.

WHAT WAY TO GO TODAY

Almost dusk:
Last summer on one Wednesday, in July,
I sat on a bench, a grey wooden tired
Bench on a boardwalk out at old Long Beach.
In the sky a lonely and lost grey kittiwake tipped
As the hot pink sun set in blazing technicolor over
Hot pinkish sand and the fading blue ocean water.

That morning:
I had thought about seeing great art...
Vermeer, or Courbet, or maybe Monet.
But, I drove to the beach instead to think
To think about everything creative that had been
Created before I got here, and when I was here,
And what will be created when I leave this place.
When one day I leave my place and all places in my
Consciousness that is now in this time and was
At a past time and will be in some next time;
Maybe all time exists at the same time.
The great minds of theoretical physicists search
For the "Theory of Everything" as they sit
In their cluttered rooms, their great thinking rooms.
In universities, they ponder the mathematical equations
And Schrodinger's cat and all those mysteries.

In the evening:
It is during the quiet and still and sad night when
I miss most the people I never met:
Edie Beale, and the Rat Pack, and even Rod Serling
Who made me want to time travel: to go back to simpler places
Like Nedick's, or the Belmore, or Bickford's, and Willoughby.
Then the longing, a longing when distant sounds and faraway
Foghorns drive thoughts to reflect on a life visible through some
Smoky cracked mirror, a haunted and haunting steamy mirror.
As I am sort of old now and getting older
There is a vague and odd feeling that I,
Like the kittiwake, somehow must have lost the way.

© Marjorie Levine 2009