Tag: NEW YORK

Afterthoughts

Before the cloud of dust and ash had even reached Brooklyn they were already calling it our generation’s “J.F.K.” We all remember it — where we were, who we were with, what we were doing. I’m not going to tell you my memories of 9/11 because they aren’t probably much different from those of most other people who weren’t in New York that day. Surely to do so would be to weigh in on an already over-saturated topic, to intellectualize other people’s all-too-real tragedy, and to appropriate their daily pain in an empty gesture of solidarity. I’m not an American, I wasn’t in New York ten years ago and I didn’t personally know anybody who died in the attacks. Who the hell am I to get in the way of those who are, were, and did?

I was hesitant to write about 9/11 at all until a New Yorker friend convinced me otherwise. She talked about the “ownership” of 9/11, her view being that it belongs to us all (unlike 9/12, which belongs only to New York). Indeed, as much as those events were an attack on the freedom of the Western world at large, it was New York that had to grapple in the aftermath of a very real disaster. Yet while the city was distracted, its back turned, its energies drained and emotions exhausted, somehow “9/11” was swept upon — by politicians, media, or simply the circumstances of an imminent global threat — and rebranded as an American tragedy. It was a subtle shift but one which opened up the city to the rest of the country, welcoming swathes of out-of-towners who’d previously avoided New York at all costs (“too dirty, too dangerous”), and perhaps consequently setting in motion Manhattan’s rapid and alarming suburbanization.

I know more than one American who has admitted to me that they didn’t know what the World Trade Center was on 9/10. Today several of my Facebook friends — many of whom have never been to New York — have updated their statuses and changed their profile pictures accordingly to reflect the supposed mood of the city. I even read about a guy who remained incredulous last Friday when a colleague wished him a “Happy 9/11”. Given this, plus the slew of discussions and hollow sentiments gushing our way this anniversary week, I wish more people were as reluctant to share thoughts on 9/11 as I am.

Ironically, while the rest of America has embraced New York in its visitor-friendly post-9/11 guise, so New Yorkers increasingly yearn for what has been lost over the last decade. I’m always surprised just to what extent the city I wake up to in 2011 differs from the New York that has always existed in my head, where, along with DON’T WALK/WALK lights and Checker cabs, the Twin Towers are still very much there.

I visited the Twin Towers once when they really were still there, and rode the startlingly fast elevator to the top floors and observation deck, where I walked about for roughly a half-hour under the hazy July sun, marveling at the view and taking photos with my Pentax K-1000. I have one super wide montage (which I pieced together once my photos had been developed) looking north where you can see the curvature of the earth. I took another great shot looking directly across at the other tower, and I remember being able to see the Colgate HQ across the river (the giant clock is still there). NY1 called it the hottest July 5th on record at the time, and you couldn’t make out much beyond Central Park because of the haze. My mum went during a crisp November a few years earlier — in her photos you can probably see Connecticut. There was a point near the gift shop and restaurant where you could step down to the windows and put your toes against glass. It was pretty scary (in a fun sort of way) at the time; the memory became terrifying a few years later.

After moving to New York it never occurred to me to visit what had by then become habitually referred to as “Ground Zero”. I don’t know if having lost loved ones would be greater incentive to visit or a big reason to stay away, but I find it odd that people travel across America to visit the former site of the World Trade Center and pose for photos in front of what has begun only recently to resemble something other than a building site. (It’s still the only “tourist attraction” I can think of in which people come to see something that isn’t there, rather than something that is.) But I’m sure they all leave with a commemorative fridge magnet to take home.

Having said that, I think after all the speculation the new memorial site is far more perfect than anything I could have imagined. Those two square pools are a powerful sight. Maybe it’s naive to hope that the re-opening of the site will act as a sort of closure for the city, and that vast space as it develops can finally return to being a living, breathing part of downtown Manhattan. But it will probably be a long while before I go down there.

I certainly would never have dreamed of going downtown today. Instead I stayed at home, curled up on the sofa with a cup of coffee and a bumper edition of Sunday’s Times (which I’d bought on Saturday night). I got seriously choked up during the TV memorial service when kids barely old enough to remember their dads started to cry as they read out their names. The list was especially moving when they got to the most common last names, like Smith, and it began to read like a phone book.

A decade of cheap tourism, internet theorists, airport security lines, late-nite terrorism gags and numbing scenes of war on the nightly news has made it easy to forget that few people in this city weren’t directly affected by what happened on 9/11. Ten years is nothing, and when I speak with New Yorkers — or anyone for that matter — I never bring it up. And despite everyone’s desire to move on the subject should continue to be treated with caution and respect, a tough task for many given the current choice of platforms encouraging extreme opinions and knee-jerk reactions.

Too many New Yorkers wear the fact like a badge of honor. Let’s always try and remember that some have earned theirs.

Some Like It Hot

Summer’s here and the time is right… for freezing indoors?

I knew summer was officially upon us as soon as I arrived at work last Monday morning. Two colleagues were perched awkwardly halfway up a stepladder. One was holding a drill, the other a raw piece of lumber, while each used his free hand to grip the large air-conditioner which teetered precariously between the window frame and the sidewalk six floors below. Beads of sweat sprung off both men, as if time was against them and their jobs (or very lives) hung in the balance. Before I knew it the large sash windows around me were slid shut — sssshhhhhhh-clunk! — and with that went my last breath of fresh air until late September. The bulky machine was plugged in and stirred into life, immediately releasing a wheezy drone. Their makeshift installation job having apparently taken hold, my colleagues slumped back in their chairs and purposely mopped their brows, as if by the skins of their teeth they had narrowly averted a minor local disaster.

By all accounts, it got pretty hot in New York this week. I wouldn’t know, since I now spend my days holed up in an air-tight chamber where the temperature hovers at a permanently tolerable sixty-eight degrees. On the other hand, the noise level is now akin to that on a construction site, though the rickety jackhammers cutting up Sixth Avenue are a far lesser disturbance. The aging AC unit’s grating, incessant din is so obtrusive that even on the occasions when I hear the telephone ring, answering it is pointless.

While I understand the importance of feeling comfortable in the workplace, I consider the air-conditioner a far from essential appliance. My office has no direct sunlight and seven windows which, when opened, create a pleasant through-breeze. On an especially hot day we might require, at most, a fan. In the AC’s defense, it is fair to say that I have not broken a sweat in over a week. Instead I now have to bring a sweater to work, an item of clothing that most would agree should no longer be a necessity come July. On occasions when I pick up the AC remote the whole office leaps up to monitor my actions lest I adjust the temperature or — gasp! — switch the thing off entirely. Maybe I’d have a greater degree of tolerance for the air conditioner if this wasn’t the fourth successive summer I’ve had to put up with the decrepit device, which each year is dragged out of hibernation rather than being put out to pasture.

For many of the city’s inhabitants, it seems no sooner has the depressing winter melted away than the sticky summer ahead becomes the target of their seasonal discontent. Most temper this sweat-related stress by cranking up the AC, which of course is designed to help suffering city dwellers beat the heat. Yet while air-conditioning may be a quick fix for this problem, to what extent does it also encourage it?

New Yorkers survived decades of hot summers with just loose clothing and Coca-Cola for comfort. But images of neighborhood kids frolicking under the gushing spray of the fire hydrant down the block are rooted in the middle of the last century, long before the air-conditioner came along to turn living spaces into temperature-controlled unnatural environments. Perhaps people defer to the AC simply because they can’t remember things any other way. Over the last fifty years this oversize, low-tech, energy-inefficient apparatus has become — along with the baseball cap and dip — something that America as a society has convinced itself it cannot live without.

I’m British, therefore hardly in a position to complain about warm weather. In England, the two days out of the year where temperatures might warrant air-conditioning hardly justify the purchase and installation of such an appliance. Elsewhere in Europe it gets scorching hot, but our continental cousins have come up with their own devices — such as wooden shutters and leisurely lunches — to combat the soaring afternoon heat. I’d never actually laid eyes on an air-conditioner until I arrived in New York. My wife and I had one at our old apartment which we took with us to our current place, where it has remained wrapped up in the closet ever since. As a foreigner living in a foreign land, I don’t wish to tell people how to live, but there are several advantages to enjoying your summer AC-free.

Not taking into account the needs of small children and the elderly, the air-conditioner actually presents more health problems than it alleviates. Exposure to temperature extremes can encourage allergies while doing no good whatsoever to skin, eyes or throat. More significantly, habitual AC use prevents any possibility of a natural acclimatization to warm weather, perpetuating the very problem it is intended to relieve. Precisely for this reason people feel the effect of the heat all the more as soon as they step outside — where the air-conditioner continues to make its presence felt in the form of that irritating drip that has a habit of landing on your shoulder instead of the sidewalk.

Unfortunately, this is not the only threat to the well-being of Manhattan’s pedestrians. So prevalent is AC use that it’s not uncommon for store-bought air-conditioners to be installed improperly. A few years ago an upstairs neighbor’s hefty appliance was destroyed after plummeting onto our second floor terrace (which, fortunately, we were not eating dinner on at the time). Last September a 67-year-old man was hospitalized after an AC unit fell six floors before bouncing off a canopy and hitting him in the head as he walked his dog down Second Avenue.

A more long-term concern is the enormous waste generated by continuous and unrestrained air-conditioner use. Studies have proven that the average AC unit wastes 40% of its input energy, while research suggests that air-conditioners use up over 15% of a home’s annual energy consumption. Needless to say, all of this puts a major demand on the electrical power grid. Just today both the AC and my computer abruptly shut down when a colleague attempted to use the office microwave. Luckily I’m not the one paying the Con Edison bill.

When I dared broach this issue with my boss his quipped response (“Go back to f***ing England”) suggested the matter was not open for discussion. It seems air-conditioning has become so deeply embedded in our culture that its necessity cannot even be questioned. Even elevator small-talk has been reduced to an impromptu appreciation of the air-conditioner’s savior-like qualities, and how it has once again rescued us all from an otherwise brutal summer of pure misery. New York’s latest heatwave should come as no surprise to anyone who’s spent a July here before, but if these same people were denied their precious AC I get the feeling they’d collapse not due to heat exhaustion but rather from sheer panic. Just what exactly are they so afraid of?

There are so many elements to the New York summer that make it such a pleasurable experience for the senses: a daily diet of gazpacho and watermelon, intermittent bursts of salsa wafting from an open window, the glistening patina of perspiration on tanned limbs… Like it or not, summer’s here and it’s going to get hot. So what if you sweat a little? It’s nothing a cold beer can’t fix.

Island Life

“One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.”
— Thomas Wolfe

Last week, three years after moving to New York, and two and a half years after marrying my lovely American wife, I received my Green Card in the mail. According to the letter which came attached, I am now a Permanent Resident of the United States of America, although to me my new immigrant status still seems excessive. After all, I’ve only ever been to twelve of the fifty states, and generally never leave the island of Manhattan except to return to Europe. As John Lennon once said to an interviewer in reference to his deportation struggle, “Couldn’t they just ban me from Ohio?”

A colleague of mine left me a note which read “Congratulations, official New Yorker!” It was a sweet thought but one which left me confused. I wasn’t a New Yorker, just a Brit who got lucky enough to live here. Naturally, it begged the decidedly abstract question: when does a “New Yorker” become a New Yorker? I’ve heard it said that you’re only a New Yorker after you’ve lived here a certain number of years, but if so, how many? Whatever the answer may be I’m probably a few years away yet, but I’ve certainly feel like I’ve put in enough overtime studying this city to have shaved a few months off my sentence.

I know I have no greater right to be here than anyone else in my boat, but I doubt most new arrivals devote hours to meticulously researching the shooting locations of long-forgotten New York movies. Nor do they embark on a pilgrimage to the Upper West Side to photograph the city’s last remaining phone booths, or spend entire afternoons seeking out Manhattan’s humblest coffee shops on a self-assigned mission in search of the city’s finest egg cream. Nor do they drop $60 on an original 1974 Massimo Vignelli subway map (an exorbitant amount of money for something that was once handed out for free).

While I recognize that not everybody cares about these things (and nor should they), I also believe that a person is obligated to obtain an historical, cultural and social sense of their city, especially their chosen city, because I consider it important to understand where you are and what that means. When I see a group of young people in untucked shirts and trilbies exit a Barbie-pink stretch Hummer on Avenue B, it makes me sad that none of them look up from their iPhones long enough to realize they’re standing feet away from the former home of Charlie Parker. That is, if they know who Charlie Parker is to begin with. Personally I think they should make all would-be New Yorkers take a test. Anyone who fails has to spend six months in New Jersey swotting up on their Newyorkology. That would hopefully weed out all those who consider food trucks to be the height of urban chic.

Edward Hopper once said you get the greatest sense of a place upon arriving or leaving for the first time. I think he was right. To this day I still get a slight twinge the day before I leave New York or when heading to the airport at dawn, as if I begin to appreciate the greatness of the city knowing I’m going to be away from it (if only for a few days). But each time I return to Manhattan after a trip, I get a rush of the same excitement and awe that I felt the first time I got in the back of a yellow cab. Somehow the city looks, smells, even feels different. Streets I walk on every day are seen in a different light. Even the people with whom I jostle for space on the crowded sidewalk suddenly appear exotic and appealing. Could this be the same town I left less than a week earlier? That elusive magical feeling hits me like the first few seconds of “(Love Is Like A) Heatwave” and — at least for the duration of that cab ride — I remember why I always wanted to be here in the first place.

elizabeth lennard 2

Maybe you become a New Yorker the first time New York feels like home. Not long after I moved to the U.S. I took a trip to visit my girlfriend’s family in West Virginia. It was the first time I’d left New York City, and I remember feeling an unexpected sense of blasé familiarity when I landed back at JFK, an airport I had until that moment associated only with extreme excitement and anticipation. Now, it was other places gave me that feeling; New York had become “normal”. The slightly bittersweet compromise but inevitable consequence of living somewhere you’d always dreamed of living is that that very special feeling — that urgent, frantic desire you once felt, perhaps even years before you got here — is lost. Of course, it’s replaced with something arguably much better: the real and more rewarding experiences that come with actually living somewhere.

Colson Whitehead says “You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now.” I can definitely relate to that, and I’m always surprised just to what extent the New York in my head differs from the city I experience everyday in 2010. I confess to occasionally standing on street corners and squinting, trying desperately to recapture the sensation of walking down Broadway for the very first time, or even attempting to recall how I’d imagined New York all those years before I ever arrived. But whenever I start to wonder if this is a city best enjoyed through books and movies or my own imagination, something will jerk my senses suddenly and it all comes flooding back: early evening light on the side of a building, the sudden sight of one of the last Checker cabs bouncing down Seventh Avenue, or the inviting mix of pizza and Martha & The Vandellas floating out onto the sidewalk on a July afternoon. It’s all here, and it’s all real.

My daily commute is punctuated by the clatter of storefronts opening, a siren’s intermittent wail, hosed sidewalks, and, as I stand waiting for lights to change, the urban morning aromas of coffee, perfume and garbage. My heart lifts as I turn onto Irving Place and glimpse the Chrysler Building, half-hidden by summer’s haze or gleaming in the crisp winter sun. On the walk home I always remember to turn and look the wrong way up Lexington Avenue, to glance at all that steel and chrome rendered golden by dusk. Just in case I ever forget what I’m doing here.

In his 1949 essay “Here is New York”, E.B. White eloquently suggests there are three New Yorks, that of the native, the commuter, and the immigrant, claiming “the greatest is the last — the city of final destination, the city that is a goal.” He says the immigrants give the city “passion”, which accounts for its “high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements.” Certainly New York, more than any other city in the world, owes its very existence — social, cultural, political, even physical — to the steady influx of people who have dared to dream that this could be their home.

Jeremiah Moss says “a New Yorker is someone who longs for New York.” While it’s true that not everybody who lives in New York automatically becomes a New Yorker, by the same token he implies you can be a New Yorker without actually living here. New Yorkers are a unique breed unto themselves, and maybe it’s enough to be one in thought and spirit. Maybe New York really is a state of mind. Maybe you’re a New Yorker when you can’t imagine living anywhere else. In which case, though my adjustment of status was only recently made official, maybe I’ve been a New Yorker all along.
 
 
All artwork by Elizabeth Lennard.

Still Making Sense

When David Byrne took to the stage to greet the crowd in Brooklyn last night, he was accompanied by an unusual accessory. Not a guitar, nor even a tape recorder containing a drum machine backing track of “Psycho Killer”. Instead, the former Talking Head wheeled out a white bicycle, which had apparently been designed to match his outfit (and hair). While many of the 27,000 who’d crammed into Prospect Park had taken the subway to attend the free concert, Byrne, now 57, explained how he’d simply ridden his bike across the river. It was a typically quirky introduction to the evening from a man who in recent years has become as active in his advocacy of two-wheel travel as in making music. He even designed a series of bike racks which are dotted around New York City.

Things didn’t get any less predictably unexpected once the music started. The set was billed as focusing solely on Byrne’s long-term, on-off-on again collaborations with Brian Eno, who produced a trio of early Talking Heads albums: More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979) and Remain In Light (1980). In 1981 Byrne and Eno made the experimental record My Life in The Bush of Ghosts, their last project until last year’s Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, from which the evening’s opening number was plucked. Unfortunately, the song, “Strange Overtures”, is lost amid a half-baked sound which struggles to generate much interest. Initially disturbed, I can only assume that this was a technical hitch, as shortly afterwards the pulsating Afro-beats and Dadaist chants of “I Zimbra” float effortlessly into the warm air, setting the tone for the rest of the evening.

Though often inaccurately bunched together with punk and post-punk acts due to regular appearances at the same venues, Talking Heads were really a no-wave group, whose interest (in the early days at least) lay firmly in the underground cultures of avant-garde art and New York’s club scene. Combine this with Byrne’s obsessive fascination for foreign rhythms, stream-of-consciousness lyrics and quizzical observations about the rest of the country, and one has arguably the quintessential New York baby-boomer band: wordy, witty, worldly, but not afraid to shut up and get down when the music takes them. The band’s distinctive sound seems to have been spawned by the city’s streets on a hot July day, when Manhattan could be mistaken for Calcutta. No song captures the oppressive rhythm of a New York summer like “Born Under Punches (And The Heat Goes On)”, which always sounds like it was written and recorded in a jungle (made of trees or concrete). Tonight the song hangs in the thick air and seems to drip like dew off sticky humid leaves.

This hypnotic track is immediately followed by “Once in a Lifetime”, perhaps Byrne’s best-known composition. The song has gone a long way in helping seal Talking Heads’ position as the most enduring and influential band of the American New Wave and Byrne as rock’s ultimate everyman anti-hero. Lyrically, both this and the next song, “Life During Wartime”, have long-since seeped into the realms public consciousness: “You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile…”, “This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco…” Almost thirty years after he wrote it, when Byrne asks, “Well, how did I get here?”, I still wonder if he’s figured out an answer.

When I saw Byrne seven years ago on a similar summer evening in Leicester, he was accompanied by a group of young singers he’d met at a high school. Tonight he’s backed by a troupe of hyperactive dancers and gymnasts, whose back-flips and leapfrogs somehow manage not to distract but to enhance the musical experience. For the most part Byrne remains passive to their performance, as if unaware of their presence.

Things slow down for “Heaven”, which Byrne sings with soaring concentration. The careful choreography (even Byrne’s Stratocaster is off-white) is reminiscent of the Stop Making Sense tour, captured so memorably by filmmaker Jonathan Demme in what is still perhaps the greatest concert movie of that decade. That feature leaned heavily on Speaking In Tongues (1983), Talking Heads’ first record produced without Brian Eno since their debut LP in 1977. Likewise tonight’s curated set-list finds no room for the radio-friendly material from later self-produced albums Little Creatures (1985), True Stories (1986) or Naked (1988).

For the encore Byrne is joined on-stage by percussionist Steve Scales, whose inclusion in the expanded Talking Heads band helped define the funky sound of the live albums The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads (1981) and Stop Making Sense (1984). There’d be no dusting off of the big suit tonight, but nobody questions Byrne when he reappears sporting a white tutu pulled up over his original outfit. “Take Me To The River” is a rare case of a covered song improving on the original, and it belongs as much to Byrne as it does to Al Green now, while “Burning Down The House” always does exactly that. Both songs demonstrate Byrne’s long-standing interest in gospel music and religion-induced performance.

At show’s end David Byrne disciples young and old (this was the most family-friendly concert I have attended) filtered off into the streets and down into the subway, their bodies still jerking to Byrne’s rare brand of spasmodic rhythms. By all accounts Byrne hopped back over the bridge on his bike. I bet he was home before we were.


David Byrne, Prospect Park Bandshell, Brooklyn — June 8, 2009

Strange Overtones
I Zimbra
One Fine Day
Help Me Somebody
Houses In Motion
My Big Nurse
My Big Hands (Fall Through The Cracks)
Heaven
Moonlight In Glory
Life Is Long
Crosseyed and Painless
Born Under Punches (And The Heat Goes On)
Once In A Lifetime
Life During Wartime
I Feel My Stuff

Encore 1
Take Me To The River
The Great Curve

Encore 2
Air
Burning Down The House

Encore 3
Everything That Happens

San Siro Send-Off Turns Sour for Capitano Maldini

It was a sunny afternoon in Milan last Sunday as Paolo Maldini led his team out onto the San Siro turf for the final time. The Milan captain was greeted by the fervent roar of home support from a crowd of over 70,000 that had gathered to cheer their hero one last time and to honor an extraordinary career. Each fan waved aloft a special scarf commemorating the occasion, and even the players of Roma, Milan’s opponents for the day, wore GRAZIE PAOLO t-shirts over their playing jerseys as they took to the field.

As the teams lined up, an emotional Maldini saluted his family in the stands, before glancing to catch teammate Andrea Pirlo wiping away tears: “Ragazzi, let’s not start now, eh?” Indeed: despite the celebratory atmosphere, there was a game to be won, and for the victor a potential spot in next season’s Champions League beckoned. Yet it was at this moment that the Curva Sud, the area behind the goal on the second tier which is home to Milan’s most fanatical followers, chose to have its say, by unfurling a large banner which controversially criticized the man of the hour:

“Grazie capitano: sul campo un campione infinito
ma hai mancato di rispetto a chi ti ha arricchito”
“Thank you Captain: on the pitch an ageless champion
but you have shown a lack of respect towards those who made you rich.”

The celebration had been marred by a small section of Milan supporters, who chose Maldini’s farewell home match to turn on their loyal captain. For one of the sport’s greatest ambassadors, a model of service and fair play, it was a shocking reception.

The match kicked-off, and Milan came twice from behind before eventually losing 3-2, a defeat which has thrown their hopes of playing in Europe next season into jeopardy. At the final whistle, all twenty-two players ran to embrace Maldini, who then, at the encouragement of his colleagues, somewhat reluctantly embarked on a weary lap of honor. As he approached the curva, the same disgruntled fans took its second dig at their captain, unveiling a second banner.

“Per i tuoi 25 anni di gloriosa carriera sentiti ringraziamenti
da chi hai definito mercenari e pezzenti”
“For your glorious 25-year career you’ve received praise and thanks
from those you once defined as mercenaries and tramps.”

Spray-painted banners, known as striscioni, are a common sight in Italian soccer stadia, and play a significant role in ultrà culture. Gli ultras are Italian teams’ most die-hard supporters, the kind of people for whom being a football fan is a full-time job. Often topical and usually humorous (ultràs love a good play-on-words), striscioni can be used to great effect in rallying home fans or breaking the tension in an important game. If critical, they generally target the club’s upstairs management or a teams’s poor performances. Rarely do individuals come under personal attack. But in Maldini’s case, it was clear the milanisti had old scores to settle. To further rub salt into Maldini’s wounds, they even dusted off a giant red-and-black striped flag with a huge white number six, the shirt number (since retired) worn by former Milan legend Franco Baresi, from whom Maldini inherited the captain’s armband in 1997. The bitter disappointment was etched on Maldini’s face as he shot a sarcastic thumbs up to his critics on the second tier on the curva — he could even be seen mouthing the words “figli di puttane”, though after the game his only official comment was “I’m proud not to be one of them.”

“It’s my home — it always has been, it always will be.” This is how Paolo Maldini once described Milan’s Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, more commonly known as San Siro after the area of the city from which its imposing twists of concrete spiral into the Milanese fog. For decades it has been home to both Milanese clubs, Milan and Inter, but far more than just a historic soccer ground, for Maldini the famous stadium has also been his place of employment for the past twenty-four years. Maldini made his Serie A debut for the rossoneri in January 1985; he has since pulled on the red-and-black number three shirt 901 times, collecting seven scudetti (the Italian league championship title) and five European Cups/Champions Leagues in the process. He also won 126 caps for Italy between 1988 and 2002, playing in four World Cup tournaments. Maldini’s berth in football’s hall of fame has been assured for some time. Famed not only for his success but also his longevity, today the Italian is internationally adored and universally recognized as one of the greatest defenders to ever play the game. After extending his contract for one final season in 2008, the Milan captain finally announced his decision to retire from playing at the end of this season, just four weeks before his forty-first birthday.

So why the sudden backlash, and from his own fans no less? Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport tried to get to the bottom of the affair on Monday, even reporting comments of members of those responsible. “We just wanted to make a few things clear to him,” said Giancarlo Lombardi, leader of Milan’s organised support. “Maldini hasn’t always been respectful towards us in the past.” Nicknamed “Sandokan”, Lombardi claimed to be on his way to a bar just yards from Milan’s administrative headquarters in Via Turati. With him was Giancarlo Capelli, also known as “Il Barone”, historic capoultrà of the Curva Sud. Neither man was at Sunday’s game since both are already banned by Italian law from attending sporting events, but their orders had clearly been carried out.

Their grievance goes back to May 2005, when Milan dramatically lost the Champions League final to Liverpool after a penalty shoot-out, despite having galloped to a comfortable 3-0 lead at half-time. On Milan’s return from Istanbul the team ran into a group of hostile fans at Malpensa airport, who told the players they should ask for forgiveness. It was at this moment that Maldini, who had scored the game’s opening goal after just sixty seconds, responded with his now infamous “tramps” remark.

The second incident was before the 2007 Champions League final, in which Milan got their revenge over Liverpool, winning the match 2-1. A large portion of the curva ran into problems with the law in Athens, and did not appreciate Maldini’s decision to distance himself from the issue. As a consequence, the following August the entire curva refused to support the team at the 2007 European Supercup in Monaco, even preventing the more casual fans to cheer as the rossoneri ran out 3-1 winners against Sevilla. The surreal atmosphere continued at Milan’s home games for several months during the 2007-08 season.

“I don’t know why they decided to dredge up these things now,” said Maldini, recalling the incident in Wednesday’s Gazzetta, his first interview since the Sunday’s controversy. “I’ve never had a close relationship with the fans,” he told Giovanni Battista Olivero, “But not out of snobbery — with my last name I always had something to prove, and so I wanted to be judged solely by what I did on the pitch.” Maldini was referring to his father, Cesare, who captained Milan to its first European Cup success, over Benfica at Wembley in 1963. “I guess there are those who interpret this as arrogance or disregard.”

Asked about his strong comments immediately after the match, the Milan captain stands by them. “It was an instinctive response to an act which had been premeditated for days, months, maybe years. I didn’t have the chance to think. I was a wounded man.”

More than the attack itself, what hurt Maldini most was the silence of the club itself. “I don’t like the way they haven’t taken any position on the matter,” he explained. “There hasn’t been one comment. From the president down, not a word of solidarity towards me. Call me an idealist, but I believe that a club like Milan should disassociate itself from certain episodes.”

* * *

Italian fandom, like Italian politics, is an extremely complex world, both nationally and within the confines of a city or club. So complex in fact, that most outsiders (including the majority of the foreign press) too often resort to fulfilling lazy stereotypes rather than trying to fully understand the socio-cultural make-up of a club, city or nation. Though not a violent incident, Sunday was the latest poor advertisement for Italian fan behavior, in a week when Manchester United fans travelled for the Champions League final to Rome, dubbed “Stab City” by the Times of London. Of course, these same knife-wielding thugs are also responsible for the intricate and spectacular choreography common in Italian stadia, and so admired across Europe.

For several years the positions taken by Milan’s organized support have become increasingly unpredictable, and its relationship with the club’s management evermore turbulent. The notorious Fossa dei Leoni (Lion’s Den), the first ultràs group founded in Italy, was dissolved in 2005 almost overnight, following political disagreements with other fan organizations and an alleged collaboration with Digos, a special operations branch of the state police. The inner-politics of the various curva groups and their relationship with the club and the team has been strained ever since. The ultràs‘ biggest gripe, perhaps justifiably, has been Milan’s reluctance during recent transfer campaigns to invest in younger talent, instead opting repeatedly for established stars on the wrong side of thirty. This policy is perhaps harder to take given the fact that since the late-1980s until recently Milan — under the financial backing of media tycoon and current Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi — had spent large sums of money each summer on some of the world’s finest players, resulting in the most sustained period of success in the club’s history.

Maldini himself has faced criticism before. “It’s not the first time the fans have turned on me,” he recalled. “During the 1997-98 season, I’d been captain for six months when they began suggesting I wasn’t worthy of the armband. They even painted a banner outside my house which read, ‘Less Hollywood, more hard work.'” (Hollywood is a famous discoteca in Milan, and a popular hotspot where footballers, models and stars of TV can rub shoulders. Ironically, Maldini, his wife Adriana, friends and teammates spent the evening at the nightclub after Sunday’s game.) Perhaps due to his stature at Milan, and within the sport as a whole, Maldini has the mental capacity to render himself impervious. “These things make you grow,” he said. “I’ve developed an intellectual freedom and a freedom of expression which I’ll never give up.”

Over the course of the week the international football community has been quick to leap to Maldini’s defence. On Thursday, the morning after Barcelona’s Champions League victory over Manchester United, Barça coach Pep Guardiola dedicated the triumph to the Milan captain, saying, “He has all of Europe’s admiration.” The same day Milan’s general director Adriano Galliani officially responded to Maldini’s criticism of the club’s handling of the affair and lack of support towards him in the form of an open letter, which appeared on the club’s official website:

I read your interview and I understand your sadness: as you know, I’ve been under escort for the last two years because of the very same people who contested you.

It was me who took the decision to remain quiet: not just because I’d been advised, but because I believed, and still believe, that silence is the most effective weapon, and I did not wish to give these people further exposure after what happened on Sunday.

Maldini has routinely stated that he does not plan to go into coaching following the end of his playing career. Having played under his own father for both Milan (2001) and the Italian national team (1996-98), he has witnessed first-hand what effect that job can have on a man and his family. Paolo’s eldest son Christian is currently working his way through Milan’s youth ranks, and has by all accounts already developed many of his Dad’s signature defensive attributes. Milan have already made public their plan to resurrect the number three shirt (set for retirement along with Paolo) should another Maldini make the first-team squad.

Some feel that this final ugly act may push Maldini even further away from the game. He certainly has other interests outside of football, most notably the popular casual clothing line Sweet Years, which he founded with former Inter striker Christian Vieri in 2003. Though inexorably associated with one city and one club, Maldini clearly sees a world beyond the confines of Milan, both the team and the city. He has often expressed a desire to live in the United States –- he already owns a vacation home in Miami and is a regular visitor to New York.

On Sunday Maldini will play his last ever professional game against Fiorentina, a match which essentially has become a play-off for third and fourth place in Serie A and an automatic Champions League position. Whatever happens in Florence, Milan will begin next season with a new coach, the Brazilian Leonardo, a new captain,

MoMA

It was exactly four months ago when I discovered I’d be spending the fall of 2007 working at The Museum of Modern Art. I had long dreamed of the opportunity to live in New York City, yet never imagined it would arrive in the form of an internship at arguably the world’s finest Modern Art museum. A heavy application process (including three essays) had ended with a carefully coordinated trans-atlantic telephone interview with a certain Larissa Bailiff, MoMA’s internship coordinator. I was extremely nervous beforehand, and spent that morning researching extensively the museum’s current and upcoming exhibitions. Fortunately, Ms. Bailiff immediately put me at ease, and we settled into a breezy chat which lasted over forty-five minutes. I like to think my British charm and wit over the phone was what secured me the position of marketing intern, as less than a week later, I received confirmation via email that I’d be spending the next three months stateside. I barely had time to obtain my visa and update my iPod before I was jetting off across the Atlantic to confront a healthy mix of the familiar and the unknown.

Having spent the last four years livin’ la dolce vita in Italy, how would I cope when suddenly tossed into the ultimate modern metropolis that is Manhattan? Quite well, as it turned out: all those years spent studying the city combined with intensive previous visits had earned me something of an honorary self-taught degree in Newyorkology, and I felt confidently able in dodging such infamous New York pratfalls as subway navigation, the delicate art of tipping, and the correct pronunciation of Houston Street.

It seemed like an eternity before I finally had to go to MoMA on Monday morning. In my eagerness I had arrived spectacularly early, and spent almost an hour reading in Central Park before I was due to meet Ms. Bailiff and the other interns. When I arrived at the entrance to the Cullman Building on 54th Street I was informed by the receptionist that the other interns had elected to go to Starbucks. Putting aside my usual boycott of the Seattle-based coffee giant I walked over to Sixth Avenue where I met three other interns — from Connecticut, Los Angeles and Paris. I was surprised to discover such an international bunch — something had told me I’d be the sole Brit. Instead nearly all of North America and Europe was represented. I was relieved to find all the interns smart and instantly likeable, yet I felt a bit like a reality show contestant meeting my competition rivals. I suppose this would make Larissa Heidi Klum. Larissa in person was as I had found her to be on the phone: warm, friendly and a very entertaining speaker, to the extent that a side career in stand-up comedy would not be out of the question.

After our welcoming talk and initial introduction I met my supervisor Julie Welch, who immediately struck me as bearing an uncanny resemblance to the actress Annette Bening. Julie gave me an extensive behind-the-scenes tour of the museum before introducing me to the rest of the marketing team, including marketing coordinator Zoe Jackson and director Peter Foley. She then showed me where I’d be working: a tiny cubicle the size of a phone booth (but without the windows). When Peter suggested to Julie that I’d go crazy in there she gave me the option of sharing the back office with three other interns. But for some reason I chose to stick with the private cubicle, despite its lack of space. I took off my jacket and got down to work.

Though I never quite got over the fact I was spending most days sitting feet away from all those Picassos and Pollocks, it wasn’t long before I began to feel more at home within the field of marketing, a feeling which was enhanced when I attended our weekly marketing meetings. These would generally last under an hour, but I was fascinated to learn first hand of the department’s operations (as well as interdepartmental gossip). One day Zoë gave a report on her visit to Tate Modern, and it was interesting for me to hear how the Tate’s marketing department compared with that of MoMA. I was also amused to hear my colleagues’ take on their London counterparts, and it seemed odd to think I was on the New York side of things. Peter was an impressive director with a sharp sense of humour. I admired his absolute support for his department and the confidence he showed in forcing his opinion for the good of the museum.

By this time Julie and I had begun working closely on a guerilla advertising project, for which we held a meeting with two of Downtown’s hottest young media talents. They were “humbled” to have been contacted by MoMA and enthusiastically bombarded us with ideas, from posters to a MoMA blog (which they felt I should write). It was from this meeting that I began to expand on the MyMoMA idea, a concept I’d originally toyed with before my arrival in New York. MyMoMA is essentially a two-fold idea: 1) a fun, alternate MoMA brand designed to introduce the museum to a younger audience, and 2) a prepaid card with which a larger proportion of the city’s inhabitants could gain regular entry to the museum. I created a marketing outline for MyMoMA, including possible advertising techniques. The guerilla media project never got past the concept stage, and it was frustrating not to be able to follow it through. That’s something I soon learned about MoMA: as cool as it may appear from the outside, in reality it’s also a big business, and ideas must go through everyone from curators to directors to trustees themselves before you see anything happen. While I think the department was generally satisfied with my performance, I don’t feel like my work challenged me enough, and nor was I given the opportunity to show my full potential or range of skills. Of course much of this was due to the relatively brief three-month period of the internship itself.

Perhaps the most pleasurable aspect of the experience was the friendships that came about among myself and the other interns. Even Larissa said we were an especially terrific bunch. We’d all meet once on a Tuesday for our intern lecture, which each week focused on a different department within the museum. One week we were even granted an audience with museum director Glenn D. Lowry. I asked him why the museum was so expensive yet only stayed open until five o’clock, a question to which he seemed unable to provide a satisfactory answer.

I’d often meet my fellow intern buddies for lunch at Remi To Go or coffee at Zibetto Espresso Bar, while an ever-expanding group of us began to enjoy regular evenings at parties in Chelsea or bars on the Lower East Side. I would have ideally liked to have taken more advantage of the various perks offered by the internship, but somehow my plan to visit every New York museum on my days off was never fully realized. My volunteer work for NYC CultureFest and PERFORMA 07 kept me busy, as did frequent trips to West Virginia and Florida. I was probably too caught up in the excitement that living in this remarkable place inevitably creates. I often felt overwhelmed after work when having left the office at 5:30 I was suddenly faced with an entire city at my disposal. Some nights I would walk all the way back to my East Village apartment simply for the pleasure of being on the street, taking it all in.

The internship provided me with a truly unforgettable experience and made me the envy of almost everyone I’ve ever met. I learned a lot about MoMA, museums, marketing and working in the United States. It helped me focus my career in a more specific direction, and confirmed my suitability to this particular field. I met some great people, and the whole thing just flew by, as I knew it would. My long-term plan is to remain in New York, and a great deal of passion, patience and dedication is required in order for that to happen. Yet even if I do one day work in Manhattan again, nothing will ever quite compare to the feeling of strolling down Second Avenue and jostling with New Yorkers aboard the V train up to 53rd Street, where my very own midtown office — OK, cubicle — was waiting just for me.