Saturday Night Fever and I: Bay Ridge Comes to Bryant Park

Bryant Park's free summer movies in NYC return this year on Monday, June 16. 1977's Saturday Night Fever kicks off the film festival that evening. Shot in Brooklyn and Manhattan, it's an iconic movie in many ways but, oddly, not a well-made or respected one by any means. I remember, when I first saw it theatrically on its initial release, being astounded by the sight of overhead mikes dipping into the shots. And the script (based freely on an article published in New York magazine) is very contrived, kind of a Rebel without a Cause Goes Disco.

SNF is best represented by and remembered for its soundtrack, for John Travolta's white suit and for evoking the zeitgeist of the disco era. That the movie celebrated disco music for mainstream movie audiences turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. It turned disco dancing into something more formalized, the music into something less soulful, forged stupid petty-bourgeoise fashions and hairstyles and disco culture itself into something ultimately overbearing. Every legit act that had been around for decades went disco in the wake of this film's success: Abbe Lane, Andy Williams, Ethel Merman! As if that wan't enough to put the nail in the coffin, there was that whole, ugly Comiskey Park (anti-gay, racist) Disco Demolition Night (akin to the Nazi book burnings; the Tea Party would have loved it).

The movie represents an era when young Brooklynites longed to move to Manhattan for the culture, the art, the money! Of course, this was in the time before Barclay's Center, DUMBO and Whole Foods. Travolta's character's escape plan was to get across the East River divide by hitting the disco floor in power platforms and an exposed chest adorned by costume jewelry.

I have a few Six Degrees of Saturday Night Fever: The disco is in Bay Ridge (Travolta's Tony Manero is from Bensonhurst); I now reside in Bay Ridge. The real-life disco it is shot in really exists; in the '90s and early 2000's, I'd travel out to Bay Ridge when it was a gay club, Spectrum. It was fabulously no-attitude; had great live acts like Hazell Dean and The Village People, great music, and that legendary flashing-colors dance floor from the film. My friend Allison's husband played John Travolta's feet! In the beginning, as Manero struts down the street near the elevated train, we see close-ups of his feet hitting the pavement. They belong to Allison's husband, foot double. Lastly, I'm gay and so, it turns out, is John Travolta. He always pinged our gaydar. Plus, we're both Jersey boys.

Saturday Night Fever, Bryant Park, on the big screen, starts @ sundown/ lawn opens @ 5 pm. Bring a blanket and a picnic basket if you wish. Alcohol ok.

Stayin' Alive: My Bay Ridge Power Walk

Just as you've got to climb Mt Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls, conversely, there's an uphill climb from the Bay Ridge waterfont to reach home I learned today.

I first committed to do a power walk with downstairs friend and neighbor, Kevin, last week but finked out. Today, when he called on me, I reluctantly agreed to his "see you in 15 minutes." Off we went into the sunny, 80+ degree weather, but not before I stopped into our downstairs deli to buy coffee and bottled water required for this adventure. 

You see, I've never been to the waterfront here before, so Kevin was my guide on how to actually get there. You have to know the way. We were dressed in shorts, tees, sneakers, sunglasses and caps (mine the souvenir cap from the revival of reviled musical, Carrie).  Past the stately manors west of Third Ave we hoofed it, finally reaching an overpass at Shore Road that took us across the Parkway to the other side, where we covered the waterfront.


To one side, the view of the imposing structure of the Verazzano Bridge traversing the water; to the other, the isle of Manhattan glittering like Oz with its array of shiny skyscrapers. Large barges anchor offshore on the restful waters. And the briny odor of the bay filling our lungs. It was gorgeous! We sat for awhile to chat, bask in the breeze of the river, soak up the sun and take a load off.  It felt reinvigorating, rejuvenating, refreshing.


Back we went, walking down to Bay Ridge Ave., so we could stroll through the little but well-tended botanical garden where we literally stopped to smell the roses. (Scentsual!) There was a small bamboo forest and a cluster of bird houses amongst the varied flora. (This is as close as I like to get to communing with Nature, by the way.)


It was a long, sweaty schlep back, uphill, to Third Avenue. A wink and a wave to my friends, Tony and Kevin, in the deli. My pal Kevin and I parted ways at his second-floor apartment, and I climbed once more to my place and, at last, a shower, now well needed.


So, I'm feeling good! Very good. I'm glad I went. I'm glad I walked. I'm glad I let Kevin nudge me into doing this. My body thanks me as I sit here, a bit sore but it hurts so good, and it's glad, too. Think I'll go do it again, solo, tomorrow. If you watch Saturday Night Fever, you'll think Bay Ridge is some sort of claustrophobic urban nightmare. But, as Sportin' Life would say, "It ain't necessarily so."


It is 87 degrees, but a sumptuously, sunny day right now. Soak up the sun, y'all!

Ciao! Manhattan

Ciao! Manhattan is the name of a 1972 avant-garde film starring Edie Sedgewick as Susan Superstar and its title appropriately conveys my sentiments as I pack and prepare to move, after 18 years in my cramped, little apartment in Greenwich Village, to a much larger floor-through in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I put up with the lack of room lo these many years because of the convenience of location and because the Gay Pride march passed right in front, so it was always a perfect spot to watch, have friends over, have food and drinks on hand, and have the use of a toilet for everyone's convenience. But now the time has come to say goodbye and move on.

12 Fifth Avenue is located off 8th Street, just one block away from the Washington Arch in Washington Square Park. If I stood in the middle of the road outside my building, this would be the view:

But now my motto of "location, location, location" seems played out, and it's time to embrace "space, space, space," as I have outgrown 12 Fifth not only in terms of material things that have overwhelmed the square footage, but subjectively on emotional and psychological levels.

I'm a Jersey boy. And, growing up 20 miles from Manhattan, it was always the place that I wanted to move to. I started coming into "The City," as we called it (synonymous with Manhattan) as a child, when my mother would take me to places like the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium (mainly because I was so into dinosaurs and outer space, it was only natural). My grandmother enjoyed taking me, on occasion, to Radio City Music Hall, where the show consisted of a major motion picture release on the big screen and a live extravaganza by The Rockettes. We always took the bus in, and I always got a thrill the moment I set foot in the Port Authority bus terminal. Hell, I even got a thrill boarding the bus, knowing it was en route to New York City.

School field trips introduced me to places like The Cloisters and Grant's Tomb. Culturally, intellectually and just for pure fun, Manhattan was where it was at! As a pre-teen, reading about Bob Dylan, Judy Collins and other folkies; and the beat poets like Paterson, NJ's own Allen Ginsberg,

and Jack Kerouac, all of whom emerged from the beatnik culture, enticed me. (Side note: Allen's father, poet Louis Ginsberg, was one of my Mom's high-school English teachers.) I pictured myself in the Village, leading a Bohemian artist's life. It was a romantic and callow dream, but one I felt I'd one day pursue.

In high school, it was Broadway and off-Broadway shows I was then exposed to, and a new aspect of the dream took hold: the Theater!

"New Jersey is death, The City is life," my friend Vinny used to say. And I shared his opinion that life in our small city in Jersey was stifling us but, in Greenwich Village, we could live the unfettered, creative Bohemian life; the good life! One of us did. It was me.

After college at the University of Colorado (where I was active writing for The Colorado Daily, the campus and Boulder community free paper), I moved to New York, performed in cabaret, screened my underground super-8 movies starring friends, had some articles on pop music and film, and some poetry, published. I even returned to NJ to read my poems in the Paterson Public Library as first runner-up for the William Carlos Williams Poetry Award. Mom was in attendance.

In the movie, Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta (another Jersey boy) and Karen Lynn Gorney's characters long to leave their working-class Brooklyn lives and flee to Manhattan where they can make it big-time. (In fact, "Saturday Night Fever" largely takes place, and was filmed, in Bay Ridge.) This reinforced the idea that living in Brooklyn would just be like living in NJ; I'd just be one of those unfulfilled bridge-and-tunnel people. It reiterated Vinny's mantra that "New Jersey is death, The City is life," and, by association, Brooklyn or any borough outside Manhattan would mean a living death, too.

By the way, the disco in that film with the famously lit-up dance floor was shot on-location at what was then Odyssey disco, later to change its name to Spectrum when it reincarnated itself as a popular gay club. I had many fun nights at Spectrum in the 1990s and saw great club acts, like The Village People, Hazell Dean and Carol Jiani, as I danced on that iconic floor. Spectrum/Odyssey is located in Bay Ridge. (Spectrum still exists, this time round with an urban-reggae-gangsta orientation.)

Anyhow, times change. Soaring rentals for Manhattan residences have forced many struggling artists out to other boroughs. Since the 1980s, Greenwich Village has become increasingly more yuppie-fied, less Bohemian, less seductive. Struggling artists have made the exodus beyond the parameters of the island-city of Manhattan. And my teenage dreams about The City have become outmoded, so it's time to put them on the shelf.

Now, Bay Ridge may not exactly be a new Bohemia but I've also long outgrown the Bohemian-lifestyle ideals of my youth. My quality of life will improve and I'm at a point in time where that's important to me. So, it's time to say farewell to the old and hello to the new, fresh and exciting. Buon giorno, Bay Ridge and Ciao bello, Manhattan!