Here Is New York - Jack Lemmon

 

Here Is New York

E. B. White's 

Here Is New York

Jack Lemmon

Produced by Bob Bach

Cover Design: Ken Deardoff

Riverside Records are Produced bt Bill Grauer Productions, Inc.

Riverside Records RLP 849

From the back cover: In Here Is New York you roam through the concrete jungle that is the city – from the plushest offices high above the streets to the crummiest slums only a few blocks away; from the most elegant hostelries to the depths of the Bowery; from Harlem to Greenwich Village to Chinatown and the neon wilderness of Broadway. Here is the greatest town in the world – the gaudiest, most beautiful, most crowded, most private, most satisfying, most heartbreaking city in all history.

There is only one writer alive today who could so succinctly convey the texture of Manhattan – its sound and smells, its restless energy, its teeming population, its intimacy, its privacy, its inconveniences, its heady delights, its aching loneliness. That man is E. B. White. Anyone who has read his pieces in The New Yorker over the years will understand why he is so uniquely capable of capturing the magic of this city.

Mr. White, who considers a hotel room the ideal place for writing (he wrote "Here Is New York" in one), divides his time between New York City and a farm in Maine. After an assortment of journalistic and advertising jobs, he went to work on The New Yorker magazine shortly after it was founded. There his verses, his satirical sketches, his essays, his captions, and his taglines for news breaks soon became the delight of readers of that weekly.

He is married to Katherine S. White, with whom he co-edited "A Sub-Treasury Of American Humor". White is the author of "Quo Vadimus," "One Man's Meat," "Stuart Little" and other notable works of fiction and non-fiction.

He wrote "Here Is New York" in 1948. It first appeared in print the following year as the nucleus of a special issue of Holiday magazine, and was soon after published in book form by Harper & Bros. (Most of the descriptive material about Mr. White and his text in these notes is derived from the jacket of that book.) In his forward to the book, the author noted that the city constantly changes, that "to bring New York down to date, a man would have to be published with the speed of light." But he noted also that "The essential fever of New York has not changed in any particular." He expressed the feeling "that it is the reader's, not the author's, duty to bring New York down to date; and I trust it will prove less a duty than a pleasure."

A dozen years separate the publication of the book and this issuance of a recorded version. However, surprisingly little alteration was called for – to remedy obviously outdated specifics. For, of course, "The essential fever" is still unchanged. And since this work has always been concerned with the essence of New York more than its facts and vital statistic – and since, furthermore, even the facts do not alter that much – Here Is New York remains a brilliantly true picture. As for any needed touch of up-dating, the author's original comment still holds: that is the listener's duty or, preferably, pleasure.

Jack Lemmon's success in bringing to life E. B. White's unique evocation of New York must, of course, be at least partly credited to his undoubted ability as an actor. But it must also be attributed to some degree to the strange magic of New York – to the affection the city call forth and the spell it holds over so many who come into contact with it. Lemmon is by no means a full-scale New Yorker.

Born in Boston and currently a toiler in the vineyards of Hollywood and thereabouts, Lemmon did however, spend several formative years in New York. After college (Harvard) and World War II (he was communications officer on an aircraft carrier), he came to The City to pursue an acting career. Radio soap operas first provided his bread and butter; then came more than 500 TV shows. He made his Broadway debut in a 1953 revival of "Room Service" and this rather quickly led to a film contract. In 1955, he won and Academy Award for his supporting performance as Ensign Pulver in "Mister Roberts," which sparked a rise to stardom that has seen the fortunate Mr. Lemmon co-starred with such as Judy Holliday, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Doris Day, Shirley MacLaine and Rita Hayworth. His notable performances in "Some Like It Hot" and "The Apartment" (much of the latter film, incidentally, was shot in New York) have led producer-director Billy Wilder to refer to him as "the outstanding young comedy talent of this day".