Myrna Katz Frommer – författare

Experience the mosaic of mid-century Manhattan in this exuberant oral history that begins in the post–World War II years when the city came into its own, and ends in the mid-1970s when it nearly went bust. This is the story of a time when great ocean liners were docked in the Hudson River ports, Checker cabs hurtled across a two-way Fifth Avenue, and the Third Avenue el cast long shadows onto the street below. There are recollections of Friday night boxing matches at the old Madison Square Garden, of peddling tunes in the heart of Tin Pan Alley at the Brill Building, of a Harlem that had a nightclub on every corner, and a SoHo that was saved from a wrecker’s ball by a “bunch of mothers.” Eleven daily newspapers covered the city beat back then, Automats and five-and-dimes were in each neighborhood, and the New York Philharmonic performed free summer concerts at Lewisohn Stadium on the City College campus. Zabar’s was a small dairy store; Balducci’s was an open-air fruit and vegetable stand. New York was becoming the center of haute cuisine and haute couture; the New York School of abstract expressionists had taken the lead from Paris in avant-garde art.This transformative time when New York City became the capital of the world is captured here in myriad memories that create an often humorous, sometimes poignant, occasionally bitter—but always loving—testament to the magical mystique of Manhattan. Includes interviews with Jimmy Breslin, Bill Gallo, Monte Irvin, Robert Merrill, Herman Badillo, Elaine Kaufman, Jerry Della Femina, Pauline Trigère, Sirio Maccioni, Jane Jacobs, Saul Zabar, Margaret Whiting, and many more.

In this deliciously revealing oral history of Broadway from World War II through the early 1980s, more than one hundred theater veterans—including Carol Channing, Hal Prince, Donna McKechnie, Hal Holbrook, Andrea McArdle, and Al Hirschfeld—deliver the behind-the-scenes story of the hits, the stars, the feuds, and the fiascoes. Along the way there are evocations of the great comedians and dramatic actors who had that indefinable magic that made them stand out above the rest. With verve, love, and passion, this book gives us the story of more than half a century of great theater—from the inside out.

Just in time for the one-hundredth anniversary of Miami Beach, It Happened in Miami, the Magic City: An Oral History features nearly seventy fabulous voices including more than fifteen mini-memorists, telling stories, offering perceptions on subject matter as far back as memory allows up to the exciting headlines of today. Sun and fun, yes, but the story is much more than that.We are there through the dramatic days of World War II, the segregated south that Miami was, Meyer Lansky and cops and robbers, the Cocaine Cowboys, the post–war glamour of the flashy hotels and famed architect Morris Lapidius, the Fountainbleau and Eden Roc, the Jewish presence and contributions, the swinging Rat Pack of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. We are witness to Muhammad Ali and the iconic Fifth Street Gym, the preserving of art deco, the days of the Mariel and Pedro Pan and the Cuban impact. We are brought inside modern day Miami—an international city, a place of culture and dreamers, a city of tomorrow.