“Oh, what can you do with a man like that? What can you do? How can you dissuade his eyes in a crowd from seeking out the cheek with acne, the infirm hand; how can you teach him to respond to the inestimable greatness of the race, the harsh surface beauty of life; how can you put his finger for him on the obdurate truths before which fear and horror are powerless? The sea that morning was iridescent and dark. My wife and my sister were swimming — Diana and Helen — and I saw their uncovered heads, black and gold in the dark water. I saw them come out and I saw that they were naked, unshy, beautiful and full of grace, and I watched the naked women walk out of the sea.”

And yet, that very last paragraph in the article…he’s being sarcastic, but it has all come to pass. I was waxing nostalgic to my wife about Steve’s ice cream the other day (really!), and certainly the Mudd Club has become as iconic of its era as the places Hamill listed way back then were. Lever House got the benefit of the Landmarks Commission, but it’s considered classic architecture of its period today. Trump Tower and David’s Cookies he got right, IMO, but I’m sure they have their nostalgia partisans, too.

Just goes to show, generation after generation, the city changes faster than we’re prepared for….

I’m not sure what I feel nostalgic about re that NY, tho as someone who went to high school downtown, and spent time in those years in some of the dive bars of the east between Houston and 14th – the places willing to serve 17 year olds — I never fail to be amazed at the transformation of that part of the city — and the lower east side south of Houston as well — in the last 20 years.

One thing too about the NY of the 70s is that there were still some holdovers of the NY Hamill talks about. For example, Paddy’s Clamhouse near the new (then) Garden, where my Dad always took me before Knick and Ranger games as a kid.