How New York City Changed

 

The post-WWII New York City, in which I grew up, was very different from the New York City I live in now. I grew up at the end of what journalist Jonathan Mahler called "New York's golden age as America's great working-class city" with a "bustling and diverse shipping and manufacturing economy." I can in fact - if just barely - remember when my father worked in a factory straight down the IRT subway line in downtown Manhattan and a friend's father in another factory across a bridge in northern Manhattan, all long since gone. After graduating from one of the glories of that now tragically lost New York, tuition-free City College, I left the city to go to graduate school in New Jersey in 1972. My parents moved out of the Bronx two years later. For the next decade-plus, I visited regularly, still socialized with friends in the city, and continued to appreciate and avail myself of the city's vibrancy on those occasions. But the city was changing irrevocably, and the New York to which I returned actually to live in again in 1987 was a very different city from the one in which I had grown up. What had happened in between and in particular what was happening then in the late 1980s is the tale Mahler tells so vividly in The Gods of New York:: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City 1986-1990 (NY: Random House, 2025). 

Mahler is also famously the author of what we might call a 2005 prequel to this book, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City.

His new book begins in 1986 with Ed Koch's triumphant inauguration to his third term as mayor. It is in fact a journalistic chronicle of that four-year term as the city's citizens experienced it, with lots of flashbacks to the path that had led there. Koch's third term, however, "was pretty clearly a disaster" and ended, of course with his dramatic defeat by David Dinkins in 1989. For all Koch's personal limitations, he was a real product of the old New York City, and Mahler presents hims a someone still truly committed to the city - in conspicuous contrast to some other rising stars at that time, whose commitment to anything other than themselves might be more easily questioned. There too, however, I think it is important, even while knowing what we now know about the later trajectories of outsized 1980s New Yorkers like Donald Trump (whom Mahler at one point characterizes as "the city's white id") and Rudy Giuliani, to try to remember them as we perceived them then. (The same might be said in a different register for that other larger-than-life 1980s New Yorker who is still so very much with us, Al Sharpton.)

The book can be read as an anecdotal journalistic account of the political corruption scandals, high-profile crime stories, and highly publicized and racially charged incidents that dominated Koch's third term through the city's tabloid headlines. Those tabloids themselves are an important part of the story for the significant role they played in shaping New Yorker's attention and uniting them around "the same narratives and story lines." Among the many crime stories, the infamous Robert Chambers "preppy murder" case also evokes unhappy memories of the peripheral role played by some New York Church figures, among them Theodore McCarrick.

The indispensable background story is, of course, the infamous collapse of the old city's economy and politics in the 1970s and the city's much ballyhooed rebirth linked to the ascendancy of the so-called FIRE industries - finance, insurance, real estate, eventually turning the city into what one later mayor would call a "luxury product." The city's rebirth - as a playground for the rich, folks like  those President George W. Busch would later famously call "the haves and have mores" - was real enough. But Mahler looks under the hood, so to speak, exposing its shallowness. Mahler is particularly good at highlighting how the homelessness crisis came to be as a result of specific policy directions (among them, the clearing of the city's SROs to profit developers and the failure to provide adequate community-based mental-health services). He also does a particularly good job recalling New York City's experience of the 1980s AIDS epidemic and the emerging and controversial responses to it.

His final paragraph sums it up well: "The existential questions that New York faced as it entered 1986 were answered. The great working-class city was gone, and so was any realistic expectation that it might ever be bound by a single civic culture. A new city, or, rather, an infinite number of cities, had been born. Rich, poor, very rich, very poor - for better and for worse, everyone would now live in their own New York."

Mahler's book appears at a particularly poignant moment when the bill has at last come due for New York's 1980s transformation. At this time, when so many TV watchers have been riveted by HBO's glorious series The Gilded Age, Murray Kempton's comment, quoted by Mahler, seems especially apt: "The robber barons sacked the earth and flayed the toilers, but they left mines and mills and railroads behind them. Their greed was the terrible engine of progress; ours is only the bedizened fellow traveler of decay."

Now the bill has come due - both in terms of the nationalization of oligarchy and the retreat from politics properly understood, but also as New Yorkers are about to vote in yet another mayoral elections that is in effect a referendum on whether the preferential option for the rich has been worth the price paid by both our bodies and our souls or whether it may be time at last to reclaim an alternative civic sensibility.

Superman: A Post-Human Postscript

In my review of Superman a few days back, I recognized the theme of Superman's "humanity" that seems to pervade the film and has accordingly attracted attention. (Of course, Superman is a Kryptonian, not a human. He does not assume a human nature, but he does develop - presumably thanks largely to his socialization by his parents - a human sensibility.) The film makes clear that Superman's "humanity" is found in his participation in and dependence upon human beings and an authentically human-like community life (reflected especially in his relationships with his parents, his co-workers, and, above all, with Lois Lane). In the film's development and presentation of the character, however, his ersatz "humanity" seems somehow to elide all too easily with his goodness. Obviously, the two are not the same thing. Plenty of real humans are not so good as Superman, and some (like Lex Luthor and his gang of villains) are quite evil. Indeed, Superman himself seems at times to be primarily presented as morally better thant he average human. All of which invites the question: if Superman were evil, if, for example, he sought to dominate the planet as his birth parents had apparently intended, would we so readily ascribe human traits to him? How much of the film's celebration of Superman's human sensibility is actually an indirect celebration of his moral goodness for an era which is still willing to celebrate human sensibility and mutual dependence but is ambivalent about any actually recognizable moral claims?

That said, for me the ultimate problematic about Superman's human sensibility is its contrast with the "metahuman" world which dominates the action aspect of the movie. There is a traditional Superman story, which highlights his human friends and collaborators and the human villains who are his enemies. But so much of the actual battle between good and evil is fought out between various other sci-fi action figures - characters who represent a "metahuman" or, better, post-human world. It is not insignificant that much of this movie portrays most of the human race as completely passive, effectively silent, agency-lacking spectators in the story of seemingly endless battles between various more than humanly powerful figures. It is a frightening image of a somewhat horrifying world.

Of course, it is inherent in the Superman myth that he heroically comes to the rescue of otherwise powerless people. Except for Superman's actual intervention, however, peoples' problems are paradigmatically human problems, which Superman's morally virtuous human sensibility motivates him to resolve using his super powers. The traditional Superman's world is and - despite his inherently sci-fi presence as an alien from another planet - remains essentially an authentically human world. The sheer number and omnipresence of other techno-powered action figures makes Metropolis and the wider planet a somewhat post-human world - if not, in fact, an inhuman one. (What this suggests about how we moderns actually experience and interpret our contemporary world and our lack of agency in it is itself a subject for separate discussion.)

Obviously, I recognize that this aspect of the film flows from the contemporary need to fill the film with acton and special effect to appeal to a modern audience, which would perhaps find the Superman who debuted in 1938 somewhat boring - and probably not morally credible. Perhaps, the suspension of disbelief required to accommodate all the sci-fi special effects and action figures also provides some cover and credibility for Superman's seemingly implausible goodness, which would otherwise be barely credible to a contemporary audience.

Queen of Peace

At his general Audience this past Wednesday, Pope Leo looked ahead to today's feast of the the Queenship of Mary and made this special request:

"Next Friday, 22 August, we will celebrate the memorial of Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary is the Mother of believers here on earth, and is also invoked as Queen of Peace, while our earth continues to be wounded by wars in the Holy Land, in Ukraine, and in many other regions of the world.

"I invite all the faithful to devote the day of 22 August to fasting and prayer, imploring the Lord to grant us peace and justice, and to dry the tears of those who suffer as a result of the ongoing armed conflicts. Mary, Queen of Peace, intercede so that peoples may find the path to peace."

Peace is a perennial preoccupation of modern popes and has been a persistent theme of Pope Leo so far in his brief pontificate. Historically, papal diplomacy has been less than successful in such ventures, and has been especially ineffective in regard to recent conflicts. 

Indeed, an unjust peace may meet the desires of those for whom peace is an end in itself, but it only incubates increased conflict over time. Meanwhile, most of us can contribute nothing useful to the peace-making process, apart from prayer.

Perhaps the political resonance of Mary's title as Queen makes today a particularly apt one to appeal for such prayer. Such was evidently in the intention of Venerable Pius XII when he established this feast some seven decades ago:

Following upon the frightful calamities which before Our very eyes have reduced flourishing cities, towns, and villages to ruins, We see to Our sorrow that many great moral evils are being spread abroad in what may be described as a violent flood. Occasionally We behold justice giving way; and, on the one hand and the other, the victory of the powers of corruption. The threat of this fearful crisis fills Us with a great anguish, and so with confidence We have recourse to Mary Our Queen, making known to her those sentiments of filial reverence which are not Ours alone, but which belong to all those who glory in the name of Christian. (Encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, October 11, 1954, 2)

Linking this feast to the Assumption in the post-conciliar liturgical calendar was a logical development. It highlights her ongoing intercessory role in the fullness of her heavenly glory, which, while implicit in the celebration of the Assumption, may risk getting under-emphasized in the doctrinal emphasis on Mary's bodily glorification. In the daily life of the Church on earth, it is Mary's ongoing intercessory role in the fullness of her heavenly glory that seems so immediately significant. Thus, the Second Vatican Council proclaimed: Taken up to heaven Mary does not lay aside her salvific duty, but by her constant intercession continued to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into the happiness of their true home. (Lumen Gentium 62)

Originally, however, this feast was assigned to May 31, obviously reflecting the historical preoccupation with May as Mary's special month. This harmonized with the widespread custom at that time of celebrating a "May Crowning" on or shortly before May 31. Curiously, Pius XII's barely remembered Commission for the Reform of the Liturgy toyed with the idea of May 1 instead, which would perhaps have anticipated what seems to be the more contemporary custom of holding a "May Crowning" at the beginning of the month. In any event, a parallel preoccupation produced the somewhat less successful feast of Saint Joseph the Worker on May 1 (then widely observed as the international workers' holiday May Day). So Maria Regina got May 31. 

Whatever the vagaries of liturgical calendaring, Pope Leo's intervention has recalled some of the intentionality of a just peace originally underlying this feast.

We are convinced that this feast will help to preserve, strengthen and prolong that peace among nations which daily is almost destroyed by recurring crises. Is she not a rainbow in the clouds reaching towards God, the pledge of a covenant of peace? ... Whoever, therefore, reverences the Queen of heaven and earth - and let no one consider himself exempt from this tribute of a grateful and loving soul - let him invoke the most effective of Queens, the Mediatrix of peace; let him respect and preserve peace, which is not wickedness unpunished nor freedom without restraint, but a well-ordered harmony under the rule of the will of God; to its safeguarding and growth the gentle urgings and commands of the Virgin Mary impel us. (Ad Caeli Regina, 51).

Photo: "The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary" by William Laurel Harris (1870-1924) at the Paulist "Mother Church" of Saint Paul the Apostle, New York. Harris' mural above the Blessed Virgin Mary's altar at the front of the church portrays Mary's crowning as Queen of Heaven by the Holy Trinity, surrounded by the company of saints.

Superman 2025

 

Some 45 years ago, when I was a novice in religious life, Superman (i.e., the actor Christopher Reeve) visited our novitiate for a consultation about another on-screen role he would soon be playing. Some of my classmates were extremely smitten by the presence of a big-screen celebrity. For whatever reason, I apparently appeared less excited and so got the honor of serving coffee to the good-looking and famous film star.

Perhaps I was less excited because I had already in some sense been living with Superman (the character) all my life. starting with the black-and-white George Reeves TV series that ran from 1952 to 1958. That TV series and the Superman and Superboy comic books, that I used to read regularly while waiting for a haircut in the local barbershop (the only place I had regular access to comic books), formed my image of Superman, an image that has happily lasted a lifetime. In effect, I have been living with Superman and following his adventures for some 70+ years now. (The world has been living with Superman even longer, since Superman first appeared in comic book form in 1938).That makes it hard for me to imagine anything new to be said or done by or about Superman, which diminished any sense of urgency on my part to see the latest (2025) Superman film, starring David Corenswet.

Surrounded, however, by folks who have seen the latest film and constantly having been encouraged to see it myself, that day finally came.

So let me stipulate at the start. This is a good movie. So far, the film has been both a box-office and a critical success. Reviewing it for NPR, Glen Weldon wrote that the film "delivers a Superman deeply in touch with his humanity, and perfectly representative of the essence of the character."

This theme of Superman's "humanity" runs through lots of the reactions I have heard and was in fact one reason for my delay in seeing it. To me, it has always seemed central to the Superman story that he is, after all, not human.  He is, literally, an alien, who, while masquerading most of the time as an ordinary human ("mild-mannered reporter" Clark Kent), periodically reveals his identity, using his alien powers to do great good for people on earth. He always uses his powers to do good, which is central to our appreciation of him as a distinctive superhero. Of course, along with. his archetypal goodness, part of the distinctive charm of Superman has always been his very human face. Indeed, many of us have often been rooting for him to find a way to live an even more normally "human" life, notably through his love affair with Lois Lane!

The traditional Superman has always been integrated into human society, whether as a farm boy or as a "mild-mannered reporter." The traditional Superman has always been like us in all things except his supernatural powers (which are actually natural to him because his is, in fact, an alien). In an increasingly secular, post-Christian society, some have even seen (somewhat dubious) analogies to the Incarnation in the Superman mythology, which to me says more about the desperate effort of some to salvage anything they can that resonates even remotely religiously in our stridently secular, post-Christian society.  in any event, while an earlier generation might have willingly seen some superficial analogy to the Incarnation in the Superman myth, one has to wonder how many modern film-goers even know enough about the Incarnation to remotely recognize even a somewhat dubious analogy?

Anyway, all artificial religious analogies aside, this version of Superman is noteworthy for how it highlights his "humanity" - in the important social sense. in which Superman, the ontological alien, has always been very human, namely his sociability. More than a masquerade, Superman's "humanity" has always been the expression of his dependence - not, obviously, in terms of his physical powers, but in terms of his wholeness as a person - on the human community of which he is an integral part, first as a family member and then as an adult citizen. He may have an alien being's physical prowess, but he has always had an effectively human sensibility. And today's Superman still works at The Daily Planet with Jimmy Olsen and, of course, Lois Lane (whom he is now dating).

The classic Superman is, of course, a traditionally constructed hero. He is powerful and good. He is also loved and appreciated by ordinary mortals and opposed only by villains. But this is a 21st-century story, where no institution is sacrosanct anymore and where the villains have more tools for villainy at their disposal. So even Superman runs into popular opposition. And, since this is the 21st-century, when he is lied about on TV, the misinformation makes the rounds and the people believe it. Likewise, the conflicts Superman tries to solve display a recognizable 21st-century face, including a sci-fi version of the Russian war against Ukraine. And the opposition to and brief legal persecution of Superman, precisely as an alien, has obvious contemporary resonance. 

Paradoxically, for all the emphasis on Superman's human sensibility, the movie functions cinematically as it does because of all its "metahuman" action characters and its sci-fi fantasies of portals and fissures, etc. And there really are more minor characters in this film than the story really needs. Even while highlighting Superman's existential humanity, we are forced to experience  a world which seems very post-human in so many ways.

But the basic, historically defined characters still shine through as stars of the story. And, through it all, Superman still comes across as an idealized image of what he should be - and so perhaps even what we might wish we might be. The homely, communitarian values of Superman's human adoptive parents shine brightly in their son and totally trump the values of his extra-terrestrial parents. But they are recognizably 20th - more than 21st - century values. Set in our post-idealistic world, he remains inspiring in a surprisingly pre-21st-century way.

Fire on Earth

Family conflicts, such as those Jesus references in the Gospel we just heard, have long been a seemingly inescapable part of family life. The Book of ‘Genesis fatally set brother against brother in the very first family. Today on You Tube, enthusiasts of HBO’s The Gilded Age are speculating wildly about the prospects of a big family breakup in the series’ next season. In the 20th century, the First World War was the occasion for a massive and highly consequential drama of family conflict among the interconnected royal and princely families of Europe. Nor, of course, have royalty been the only ones divided by wars. In the 18th century, the American Revolution famously found Benjamin Franklin and his son on opposite sides, while, in the 19th century, in our own American Civil War Abraham Lincoln’s brothers-in-law fought for the Confederacy – family divisions that were widely replicated in the experience of so many families at all levels of society. In the U.S. today, political parties are more ideologically at odds than at any time in any of our lifetimes, and studies suggest that political disagreements have put increasing strain on families and friendships, severing longstanding, once loving and supportive relationships.

Nor are wars and politics the only causes of family conflict. We all know, perhaps from our own experience, how commonly conflicts can escalate among those closest to one another – and how painful that experience can be precisely because of the bond that binds family members to one another, like it or not.

Jesus in today’s Gospel used the potential for family conflict to illustrate his larger point about the complete commitment demanded of every disciple. One of the fundamental facts of life is that saying “Yes” to one particular person, cause, or commitment often entails saying “no” to other options. Thus it is with the decision to follow Jesus - a commitment that is meant to matter enough to change everything. In this matter, Jesus himself set the standard. After all, Jesus did not die peacefully in his bed or while on vacation at the beach. Rather his death was due directly to the way he lived and the opposition which that produced.

 

Of course, no one should want to be at odds with one’s family, friends, country, or whatever. No sensible person should ever seek conflict. But conflict happens – not always, but often enough, and especially in those great either/or choices that produce martyrs (and almost martyrs, like poor Jeremiah in today’s first reading). One of modern history’s more sobering facts is that the past century has produced more Christian martyrs than any other century. And then there are all the ordinary situations, which lack the high drama of martyrdom, but which can on occasion also call for doing something different from what one would otherwise have done, even at the risk of opposition.

Of course, we would all prefer a calm, untroubled life, in a calm, conflict-free world. We voice that sentiment every day when we pray that we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress. It’s not conflict per se to which Jesus calls us. It is commitment which he challenges us to live – to identify what matters most, and to be clear about our purpose in life, committed to what needs to be done (or not done). It is the challenge of being willing to be transformed by God’s grace into the person God wants me to be – and being thus transformed while still a part of an otherwise untransformed world.

And, because we live in an otherwise untransformed world, that transforming experience can at times really resemble a sword separating us from whoever or whatever we would otherwise have so readily clung to.

Jesus does indeed promise peace to his disciples – the peace of his kingdom, a very different peace from a momentary absence of conflict. As Christians, we should not and must not go around with a chip on our shoulder as if we were spoiling for a fight., treating the inevitable and ordinary disagreements that characterize a diverse and pluralistic society as if we were being persecuted. After all, the fruits of the Holy Spirit include love, joy, and peace – not hatred, hostility, and anger (something some segments of Ameerican Christian life seem to have forgotten.).The challenge, rather, is to build bridges, not to knock them down – to pave the way for more and more people to experience the peace and unity of God’s kingdom, yet all the while still struggling against an unconverted and untransformed and hence potentially hostile world.

Homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, August 17, 2025.

 

A Marvel of Mid-20th-Century American Political Culture

 

"Americans celebrated New Year's Eve [December 31, 1959] at home, private parties, restaurants, and bars. In Chicago, the city's best establishments charged between $20 and $50 per couple for an evening of entertainment. In Kansas City, the Hotel Muehlebach charged a $7.00 minimum - dinner and drinks were extra. At the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas, each guest paid a minimum of $12.50."

Rising Star, Setting Sun: Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and the Presidential Transition That Changed America (Pegasus, 2018), by journalist John T. Shaw is a serious study of a major moment in 20th-century American politics. It also offers, as in the anecdote quoted above, a partial snapshot into an almost forgotten era, an opportunity for a kind of cultural nostalgia to accompany the political nostalgia his topic so easily invokes.

Prior to 2020-2021 (still in the future when Shaw wrote this book), American presidential transitions between leaders of rival political parties were widely hailed as both symbolic rituals and real expressions of American democratic constitutional governance.  Even so, from the very first such experience in 1801, through such traumatic times as 1961 and 1933, the actual experience had ben fraught with interpersonal unpleasantness and major political challenges. The previous experience in 1953, in which Eisenhower had participated as president-elect, had been noted for its coldness, and Shaw may not be wrong in seeing in outgoing President Eisenhower's gracious approach in 1960-1961 a conscious effort to avoid any such recurrence.

Rising Star, Setting Sun is both a comprehensive treatment of the specific challenges of our uniquely American way of transitioning from one party's governance to another's, it also offers detailed insights into the lives, careers, and characters of the President-elect (the Rising Star), John F. Kennedy, at that time the youngest man ever elected to the White House, and the outgoing (Setting Sun) President Eisenhower, at that time the oldest man ever to leave the White House. I remember the 1960 election, the transition, and the 1961 Inauguration well, and the generational dimension of the transition was indeed always very much in mind during that period.

Shaw paints an appealing picture of mid-20th-century America, in which - despite the personal dislikes and philosophical differences between the outgoing and incoming administrations, the deep-seated social and political consensus that characterized that era both facilitated and celebrated a transition that was efficient, orderly, peaceful, and, indeed, friendly. He also rightly highlights the two great political speeches the transition produced - Eisenhower's Farewell Address, with its prescient warning about the "military-industrial complex," and Kennedy's rhetorically inspiring and bellicose Inaugural Address.

While echoing the contemporary canticles of praise for the behavior of thr two principals and for the process they set in motion, Shaw also notes how it "revealed flaws in a system that was informal and ad hoc." Since then, of course, the process has been significantly institutionalized. As has everything else about the presidency, the transition process has grown overwhelmingly into a complex and costly bureaucratic endeavor of its own.

Yet, as we now increasingly understand, our much celebrated tradition of efficient, orderly, peaceful, and (at least in front of the cameras) friendly presidential transition remains somewhat ad hoc - or, better, ad personam. So much of what we have taken for granted in terms of the efficient, orderly, peaceful, constitutional, and democratic governmental operation ultimately depends ont he character and personalities of the political actors involved. Like the rest of our governmental life, presidential transitions really reflect and depend for their success or failure on the political actors leaving and entering the stage.

Shaw wrote before the 2020-2021 debacle. So he was not overtly creating a contrast. His was a straightforward study of how well a very consequential presidential transition was effected by those involved. Perhaps inadvertently, he has offered us a nostalgic account - not just of a mid-20th-century simpler way of life and lower prices - but of a more morally serious society and the kind of leadership it was then capable of producing.