Category Archives: New York City

Any and all documents and quotes related in any way to the cultural, social, economic, and political life of Five Boroughs of New York City.

The Algonquin Wits: Heywood Broun his Sartorial State

Posted on June 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Broun, known for his always unkempt appearance, devoted an article to the topic ‘Best-Dressed Women of the World.’ In it he commented on his own experiences in such contests: ‘While I was running for Best-Dressed Senior in the graduating class of Horace Mann High School, I often spent as much as three or four minutes in the morning deciding which pants I ought to wear. The grey or the blue. The blue or the grey. I generally decided to take the ones which possessed the closest appearance to a crease.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Boss Tweed

Posted on June 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, for my colleagues in New York City, the next time a student asks you why the Tweed Courthouse (still home to the New York City Department of Education, as far as I know) is so named, you might find useful this reading on Boss Tweed and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. William Marcy Tweed (“Boss”) incidentally, is buried under a relatively ostentatious stone in Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Tweed’s middle name suggests that he is a member of, or at least a scion of, the same Marcy family that gave us William L. Marcy. Chances are good that this is how Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn got its name.

Perhaps making the connections in this lineage of people and place names would be a worthy endeavor for an inquisitive student? I’m just asking.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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The Algonquin Wits: Dorothy Parker on Narcissism among the Upper Classes

Posted on June 2, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Margot Asquith, an English countess, published an autobiography which filled four large volumes, a literary endeavor that Dorothy Parker found tedious and over-personalized. Mrs. Parker predicted: ‘The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Brooklyn Bridge

Posted on May 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

It was the biggest civil engineering project in the history of the world when it was built, so it has global significance. But whenever I post something like this reading on the Brooklyn Bridge and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet, I do so with my erstwhile New York City colleagues in mind. This is as much about the Roebling family, father and son, who designed and built the bridge–did you know that the day-to-day superintendency of the project fell to Emily Warren Roebling, the daughter-in-law of John Roebling, who began construction of the Brooklyn Bridge? There’s some women’s history to be extracted from this material for the right learner.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Book of Answers: Dylan Thomas

Posted on May 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

“How did poet Dylan Thomas die? He died at age thirty-nine in New York City after drinking eighteen straight whiskeys in a bar and lapsing into a coma.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

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The Algonquin Wits: George S. Kaufman to Adolph Zukor

Posted on May 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Hollywood’s Adolph Zukor was said to have offered a trifling $30,000 for movie rights to a Kaufman play. The playwright sent back a telegram offering Zukor $40,000 for Paramount.”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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The Algonquin Wits: Harpo Marx Visits Alexander Woollcott’s Summer Place

Posted on April 20, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Harpo Marx once arrived at Woollcott’s Lake Bomoseen home in a broken-down Model-T Ford. ‘What do you call that?’ Woollcott exclaimed as he regarded the automobile.

‘This is my town car,’ Harpo explained.

‘What was the town?’ asked Woollcott. ‘Pompeii?’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Graffiti Art

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Graffiti Art: (It., scratched) Beginning in the 1970s with the availability of aerosol spray paints, illegal graffiti statements and designs began to coat New York subway cars. Whereas political art took art from inside galleries and into the streets, the graffiti are movement appropriated this element of street culture and brought it into the elite world of New York art galleries. There, untrained artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat enjoyed brief recognition, while Keith Haring’s self-conscious use of the style made him its most famous proponent. Once in the galleries, however, graffiti art lost its element of illegal performance, its power as protest, and its context. Neutralized, it became fashion and quickly went out of style.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

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The Algonquin Wits: Dorothy Parker Reviews a Book on Science

Posted on April 7, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Reviewing a book on science, Mrs. Parker wrote, ‘It was written without fear and without research.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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The Algonquin Wits: George S. Kaufman Addresses a Critic

Posted on April 3, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Kaufman was seldom open to outside suggestions concerning his work, especially from persons he didn’t know. One self-appointed critic, on being snubbed by G.S.K. remarked, ‘Perhaps you don’t know who I am?’

‘That’s only part of it,’ said Kaufman.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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