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Irish Independent
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
‘Even his enemies admired his chutzpah': How Trump became a God of New York in the 1980s
In his new book, Jonathan Mahler vividly evokes the New York of four decades ago – the racial divide, the Aids epidemic and the audacious materialism The back cover of this history of New York calls it 'a real-life Bonfire of the Vanities'. Tom Wolfe's bestselling 1987 novel about a bond trader who comes a cropper in a very serious way is also referred to within the text, but the extended dramatis personae and the scope of events covered here would have even the author famed for his white suit throwing his hands up in defeat. It's closer to the Thackeray that inspired Wolfe or even the richly-detailed doorstops of the Russian masters. Mahler has form for this kind of thing. A staff writer for the New York Times with a wide remit, he authored 2005's Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning which covered the Big Apple in the late 1970s, culturally and politically, while also finding room for the arrival of Rupert Murdoch, the New York Yankees, the Son of Sam murders and the blackout of 1977. The Gods of New York takes up the story of the city, and pretty much everything in it, through the latter half of the 1980s.
Spectator
06-08-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
The powder keg of 1980s New York
The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe's romp through the status and racial anxieties of 1980s New York, begins with an unnamed mayor being Mau-Maued by Harlem activists. As he soaks up the abuse, he fantasises about the confrontation spreading: Come down from your swell co-ops, you general partners and merger lawyers! It's the Third World down there!… Staten Island! Do you Saturday do-it-yourselfers really think you're snug in your little rug? You don't think the future knows how to cross a bridge? This fictional world, a collision of riches and poverty and criminal justice and electoral politics, maps neatly on to the period described in Jonathan Mahler's new book. His previous New York social history, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning, focused on 1977, which saw a heatwave, a crime wave, a city-wide power blackout, a baseball title race and a mayoral election. Ed Koch comes from nowhere to win that election, while junior prosecutor Rudy Giuliani and real estate tyro Donald Trump hang out at Jimmy McMullen's bar on the Upper East Side, hoping they may gain admittance to Studio 54. Fast forward nine years and we are at the start of The Gods of New York. The city has rebuilt its finances, buoyed by a resurgent financial sector fuelling a property boom in Manhattan; the outer boroughs have yet to feel much of the benefit. Koch has just been elected for his third term; Giuliani, now US attorney for the southern district of New York, has been prosecuting the Mafia and is limbering up to go after Wall Street; Trump is throwing together deals and leveraging all the political capital he can muster. Over the course of the book, which ends in 1989, Koch is beset by overlapping crises, to the extent that it is hard not to feel sympathy for him. The first is crime. Part of this is corruption: ten days after the inauguration, his ally, the Queens borough president Donald Manes, is involved in a mysterious car crash that turns out to be linked to a parking fines scandal; two months later he has shot himself. This is only a curtain-raiser for other rumbling scandals in the Democratic party machine. But worse is the run of high-profile violence that inflames the city's racial politics. Bernhard Goetz, who has shot four black youths on a subway train, comes to trial and is largely acquitted. Michael Griffiths, a black man from Brooklyn, is chased on to a highway in Queens by a mob and killed by a car. Yuseef Hawkins is shot and killed in Bensonhurst. Activists, notably the Reverend Al Sharpton, confront the authorities on behalf of bereaved black families. But they also overreach. Tawana Brawley accuses four white men, including police officers and an assistant DA, of having kidnapped and raped her, and Sharpton leads protest marches through the streets. When it becomes clear that the story is a hoax, the assistant DA demands a huge damages claim from Sharpton, which is paid by his supporters. Trisha Meili, jogging in Central Park, is raped and severely assaulted; the police extract confessions from five teenagers and Trump places an advert in the Daily News calling for their execution. Convicted and imprisoned, they are later exonerated. Koch is also presiding over a deepening Aids crisis in the city, his tardy response complicated by the fact that he is a closet gay. He receives especial criticism from the playwright Larry Kramer and his group ACT-UP, who carry out a series of protests culminating in a die-in at St Patrick's Cathedral. All of this against the backdrop of widespread homelessness – Koch repeatedly tries to move the homeless off the streets and finds himself thwarted by civil liberties groups – and the crack epidemic. Individual gadflies come for him too. Giuliani, with ambitions to replace him as mayor for the Republicans (and facing machinations within that party that make the Democrats look fraternal), is directing a series of prosecutions to bolster his own image and damage Koch's. Trump is embarrassing him where possible, tussling over the lease for Trump Tower and renovating the Central Park ice rink when the city lacks funds. Announcing at a Republican dinner that he is not going to run for president in 1988, he speaks up for tariffs on 'these countries that are ripping us off', proposes an attack on 'horrible, horrible' Iran and warns that 'if the right man doesn't get into office, you're going to see a catastrophe in this country in the next four years like you're never going to believe'. (Within a few years he has suffered multiple bankruptcies and is hosting The Apprentice.) Koch eventually loses the Democratic primary to a relatively left-wing challenger, David Dinkins – who will himself serve one term before losing to Giuliani. The book's emphasis on crime and money leaves it surprisingly thin on finance and also on culture – an important part of what still brings people to the city. Ladies and Gentlemen… was incisive about CBGBs's punk and new wave and disco. Here there is an extended account of the filming of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing – influential, to be sure, though not offering much relief from the rest of the narrative. But overall, Mahler's exploration of the rowdy origins of the ruling style of contemporary US politics is engaging, enlightening and discouraging.
The Sun
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Sharon Van Etten and The Attachment Theory release one of 2025's best long players.
THE latest album from indie-pop queen Sharon Van Etten has her teaming up with The Attachment Theory, which is quite a surprise given her previous six solo efforts relied on a rotating cast of friends and sessionists as backing musicians. An invitation to jam, a peculiarity which Van Etten admits to being alien to, resulted in two songs from an initial session. Pleased at the fruitful outcome, the 44-year old American chanteuse and the Attachment Theory continued with this blueprint and the result is a one of the year's most enchanting alternative pop releases. At the very forefront is Van Etten's haunting and ethereal vocals, inviting all and sundry to wrap themselves in a blanket of melancholy. Recalling the sounds of Alison Goldfrapp and Cat Power, this album is almost a throwback to 90s chillout albums – designed for the comedown after a hard night raving to big beats at some abandoned warehouse. This is music to zone out to. The sort of album you stick on after a hard day's toil, letting its cool vibes wash over you like the sound of gentle rainfall outside your window. But this does not mean the album is mere background music. Instead, it invites listeners to just sit back and soak in the atmospheric vibes. Opening two tracks Live Forever and Afterlife deal with mortality, which sets the mood straight away as Van Etten's melancholia-drenched vocal chords set the tone of this ultra-chilled long player. The Attachment Theory is unobtrusive with its playing and allow Van Etten's singing to take centre stage. However, that does not mean it is bland or boring. It is anything but as the trio fashion interesting soundscapes peppered with lots of eletronica elements to keep proceedings intriguing. Think Beck at his most eclectic but not as busy and you will sort of get the picture. Even when things are taken up a notch and the band hit an uptempo vibe, Van Etten's vocals still remain centre stage, taking listeners on an aural journey that is akin to albums such as Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space. Yes, it is that good and certainly deserves comparisons with chill-out classics such as that. Channeling the spirit of prime-era Talking Heads, the Attachment Theory take the art-funk template to new albeit restrained heights on tracks such as Southern Life and Somethin' Ain't Right, with a bass line that is guaranteed to get toes tapping. There are no vocal histrionics on the entire album as Van Etten's singing barely rises above a whisper. It is all very calm and composed – all very grown up in fact. But at no point does this record meander into mediocrity or middle-of-the-road banality. It just delivers top notch chill-out anthems in an almost lazy manner but therein lies its charms. Effortless brilliance is something to be marvelled and celebrated. Make absolutely no mistake, this album is one of the best to drop in 2025 so far – every home should own it. At the very least, it should be on the playlists of those who simply enjoy great music. Essential stuff.
The Sun
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Ultimate chill pill
THE latest album from indie-pop queen Sharon Van Etten has her teaming up with The Attachment Theory, which is quite a surprise given her previous six solo efforts relied on a rotating cast of friends and sessionists as backing musicians. An invitation to jam, a peculiarity which Van Etten admits to being alien to, resulted in two songs from an initial session. Pleased at the fruitful outcome, the 44-year old American chanteuse and the Attachment Theory continued with this blueprint and the result is a one of the year's most enchanting alternative pop releases. At the very forefront is Van Etten's haunting and ethereal vocals, inviting all and sundry to wrap themselves in a blanket of melancholy. Recalling the sounds of Alison Goldfrapp and Cat Power, this album is almost a throwback to 90s chillout albums – designed for the comedown after a hard night raving to big beats at some abandoned warehouse. This is music to zone out to. The sort of album you stick on after a hard day's toil, letting its cool vibes wash over you like the sound of gentle rainfall outside your window. But this does not mean the album is mere background music. Instead, it invites listeners to just sit back and soak in the atmospheric vibes. Opening two tracks Live Forever and Afterlife deal with mortality, which sets the mood straight away as Van Etten's melancholia-drenched vocal chords set the tone of this ultra-chilled long player. The Attachment Theory is unobtrusive with its playing and allow Van Etten's singing to take centre stage. However, that does not mean it is bland or boring. It is anything but as the trio fashion interesting soundscapes peppered with lots of eletronica elements to keep proceedings intriguing. Think Beck at his most eclectic but not as busy and you will sort of get the picture. Even when things are taken up a notch and the band hit an uptempo vibe, Van Etten's vocals still remain centre stage, taking listeners on an aural journey that is akin to albums such as Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space. Yes, it is that good and certainly deserves comparisons with chill-out classics such as that. Channeling the spirit of prime-era Talking Heads, the Attachment Theory take the art-funk template to new albeit restrained heights on tracks such as Southern Life and Somethin' Ain't Right, with a bass line that is guaranteed to get toes tapping. There are no vocal histrionics on the entire album as Van Etten's singing barely rises above a whisper. It is all very calm and composed – all very grown up in fact. But at no point does this record meander into mediocrity or middle-of-the-road banality. It just delivers top notch chill-out anthems in an almost lazy manner but therein lies its charms. Effortless brilliance is something to be marvelled and celebrated. Make absolutely no mistake, this album is one of the best to drop in 2025 so far – every home should own it. At the very least, it should be on the playlists of those who simply enjoy great music. Essential stuff.
