Fading Ads of New York City

Author: Frank Jump
Publisher: The History Press
Publication Date: Nov. 2011

In 1986, when Frank Jump was 26 years old, he was diagnosed as HIV positive. It was a time when doctors still knew little of the disease. They estimated Jump only had a few years left to live.

The doctors were wrong. Nearly 10 years after his diagnosis, things started looking up for Jump — literally.

In 1997, he “discovered” an ad for Omega Oil, a cure-all tonic, painted on the side of a New York City building. It was the beginning of a quest to photograph old ads painted or glued to the sides of city buildings, ads he views as relics of New York’s past. The quest has consumed Jump ever since.

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Truth: People want to see themselves onstage. It’s why I respond to stories about working class folk. It’s why a movie like “Sugar” (about a Dominican baseball player recruited to play in the U.S.) or “The Lost Boys of Sudan” (a documentary about two Sudanese refugees coming to the U.S.) can reduce me to a puddle. The stories of immigrants struggling to find acceptance in the new world is my story — my parents emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1975, settling in Brooklyn.

A second truth: many immigrants don’t respond well to criticism of their own culture. They say the airing of dirty laundry ought to remain a private thing.

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Those are the words of legendary jazz man Cab Calloway.

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Wake Me When It’s Over

Authors: Rob Sacher
Publisher: Selena Press
Publication Date: March 1, 2012

There are only a handful of rock nightclubs in the history of New York City where musicians actually took their art to extraordinary places — before almost anyone knew who they were, or what it was they were giving to us on stage. Among them was the highly regarded Luna Lounge, the Lower East Side club I was fortunate enough to co-own from 1995 to 2005. Another was CBGB, but I’ll address that club — and its rumored resurrection — a bit later.

Luna was, I believe, one place in a million, one place in time; a simple rectangular box bisected by a wall creating two rooms within one. And, within those rooms, people came to create and connect themselves among friends. Luna was also more than a club; it was a conduit to the consciousness of a certain generation of artists, musicians, comedians and painters who found a home running with a kindred spirit.

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At the annual Play Revolution party, members of the women-only social club Mice at Play practiced drumming. Photo courtesy of Mice at Play.

Once upon a time, the idea of a women’s social club brought to mind tea, sandwiches, socialites and social causes. More recently, some female-only groups revolved around moms and their children. But now, at a time when the number of women in the work force may soon surpass the number of men, more adventurous — and fun — clubs catering to those with two X chromosomes are popping up all over New York City.

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In 2009, graffiti was at the height of its powers. Artists who had once risked heavy jail time for their craft were now receiving mainstream gallery representation. It was under these circumstances, at a big gallery show, that two New York City street artists who go by the names Workhorse and PAC were introduced. The encounter might have been forgotten if PAC hadn’t mentioned an abandoned subway station — the holy grail of graffiti spots — that he knew about.

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Singer and songwriter Valerie Simpson, center, takes the stage at Sugar Bar, the restaurant she co-owned with her husband Nickolas Ashford until his passing last year. Sugar Bar is known for its lively Thursday night open mics. Photo courtesy of Sugar Bar.

One of my favorite places to hear music is Sugar Bar on West 72nd Street between Broadway and West End Avenue. It was established in 1996 by Nickolas Ashford and his wife Valerie Simpson, the singer-songwriters behind Motown classics like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and the ’80s hit “Solid.” Nick passed away last year, but their renowned Thursday night open mic night is still as lively as ever.

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New York Diaries: 1609 to 2009

Author: Teresa Carpenter
Publisher: Modern Library
Publication Date: Jan. 2012

I’ve been keeping a nightly diary for more than 30 years. It started as one of those line-a-day books in which weepy teenage girls used to opine about crushes and friends — but only to themselves in ballpoint. It occurred to me, as I moved past my teens, that penning this juvenilia may not have left a compelling social record, but it had, at least, developed some mental discipline. And if one aspires to become a writer, then one should write something every day.

That diary, or rather the stack of black and red volumes in the back of my closet, remained a purely personal matter until I married. My husband, who knew better than to peek at those pages, nonetheless recognized my fondness for them; on my birthday in 1987 he gave me “The Faber Book of Diaries,” 400 years of British diary-keeping edited by the mystery writer, Simon Brett. It was a splendid and illuminating work.  I placed the book on my bedside table where it has remained, ever since.

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A DJ spins tunes at a recent One Step Beyond event. If you want to feel downright disobedient, head to the Museum of Natural History for a night of dancing. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Natural History.

Never underestimating the fun that can be had at museums. Yes, there are plenty of old fossils (that you can’t touch) and de Kooning exhibits (that you might not understand), but New York’s major and minor museums also boast some unexpected events  for younger museum-goers and the young-at-heart.

Here are some of the fun-filled late nights you can have at New York’s museums:

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From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel

Author: Alex Gilvarry
Publisher: Viking
Publication Date: January 2012

Boyet (Boy) Hernandez, the fictional protagonist in “From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel,” is an up-and-coming Filipino fashion designer in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when he’s mistakenly arrested on terrorism charges and sent to Guantanamo Bay prison.

Alex Gilvarry’s debut novel, set in the post-9/11 New York fashion world, is written in the style of a memoir, jumping seamlessly between tales of nights out with models and designers in the city and Boy’s darker experiences under the watchful eye of his captors in Cuba. (This Wednesday marks 10 years since Americans began detaining people at Guantanamo Bay.)

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