Summertime Nostalgia At The Twin Towers

The Stage Between The Twin Towers at Austin J. Tobin Plaza

Writing a novel which takes place in the early 1990s in New York City had me frequently thinking back on what life was like in that not-so-long ago era. It’s remarkable how much things have changed in a relatively short time period. Not just the skyline, the ballparks and the presence of Uber cabs on every street. For as sophisticated as the big city is, our existence was notably simpler back then. Email was in its infancy. Amazon was solely a desert without prime customers. Wi-Fi was not yet a concept (let alone a civic requirement). Security was far less of a presence. And you didn’t have sidewalks cluttered with distracted pedestrians checking their phones and texting their friends persistently.

          One of the simple joys that I recall both with fondness and a tinge of melancholy is a summertime ritual lost to time and terror. From 1987 – 2001, thousands of downtown workers would gather each week at Austin J. Tobin Plaza during their lunch hour for a series of free concerts. Tobin Plaza served as a park, performance venue, and crowd-funneling area in the open space directly between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. It was the ideal spot in lower Manhattan to entertain a large mid-day crowd.

          I’ll never forget the pure joy of escaping work for an hour on a warm day to grab a Frozefruit bar and join thousands of fellow New Yorkers for a free lunchtime concert by some of rock & roll’s legendary names.

          I first learned about the summer concert series from my late cousin, Michael Greenberg, who worked most of his adult life in lower Manhattan. It was June of 1995. I’d been employed a few months at a direct mail agency down on Hudson Street. Mike, who had been working just blocks from the Trade Center, often met me for lunch when the weather cooperated. We’d regularly wander the neighborhood, shopping for CDs at Tower Records, or duck inside the basement of the Century 21 department store.

          Like me, Mike was an aficionado of classic rock & roll. He and I attended many memorable concerts together. Through his broker “friends,” he’d often manage to score us tickets to some of the most in-demand shows including Paul McCartney in ‘89 at Giants Stadium and Fleetwood Mac with Squeeze at Jones Beach in 1990. But by the summer of ‘95, work had mostly overtaken play. And in my case, office life was exceptionally demanding.

          The job I had interviewed for was an assistant accounts manager, helping with the subscriber renewal campaigns for some popular magazines. I was hired at a low salary, trained by my supervisor for two weeks, then handed over the full responsibility of these clients when she departed ten days later for something more lucrative. My employer offered me none of the compensation, or perks of my predecessor. He even continued to refer to me as an “assistant” to justify the entry-level pay. It was delightful.

            The one perk that I was sure to make full usage of was my one-hour lunch break. Each day around 12:30, I’d forward my phone line to an answering machine (this was the pre-voicemail days) and step out to grab some fresh air and a sandwich. I’d even found a favorite pizza hangout down on Chambers Street, near Broadway.

          Personal calls at work were more difficult to manage in the era before cell-phones. Still, Mike and I did touch base regularly, usually late in the day to chat about last night’s ballgame, or a recent family gathering. Then came that Wednesday morning call in early July. “Hey Lonnie, come on down at the Trade Center at noon. Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits are doing a free show.”

          We met up at the bustling curb just before Tobin Plaza. Mike knew we weren’t likely to get much closer for a popular attraction on a sunny afternoon. I’m not quite sure how we managed to find each other in the crowd without cell phones or GPS. Yet somehow, this is exactly what people did over the centuries that proceeded today’s technology. We each bought a snack from the Good Humor truck on the corner, then maneuvered about halfway through the crowd toward the stage area.

          What I best remember about these summer concerts is the incredible backdrop that the towers provided. Each Wednesday, another musical star of the 1960s would play a free mini-concert on a wooden stage, framed by metal stanchion and draped with a huge rectangular banner for WCBS-FM, NY’s Oldies Station. At 12:15, the classic artist and his/her band would be introduced by a CBS-FM on-air personality, like Cousin Brucie or Norm N. Nite. The audio system was powerful enough for passerby’s to hear the music even a couple of blocks away. And the sight of the soaring steel and glass directly above the stage was dramatic, even breathtaking.

          Peter Noone’s free show was the first of many we would gather for that summer. The following week it was The Grass Roots, followed by Lesley Gore and later Felix Caveliere and the Rascals. Each week, the artist would perform a set of 6 – 8 of their best known tunes, sometimes interrupted by a lesser-known album track, or cover song. They would usually save their biggest hit for last, which resulted in a joyous sing-along. It’s My Party by Leslie Gore and Good Lovin’ by The Rascals had the crowd in whipped up in a frenzy. Midnight Confessions by the Grass Roots saw hundreds of New Yorkers playing their best air guitar and keyboards.

          One week in mid August, we headed to the towers for a show by The Association. Even as a listener of “oldies radio,” I didn’t recall the band’s name being terribly familiar. An overcast morning kept early crowds to a minimum. I met Mike at the iconic bronze Sphere sculpture right in the center of the plaza. We were fortunate enough to get just steps away from the stage; the closest we had gotten for any of the shows. To our utter amazement, The Association were fabulous. For 45 minutes they played hit after hit (Along Came Mary, Cherish, Windy, Never My Love), as the crowd swelled in numbers and volume. So good were they that the group was urged on to play an unscheduled encore. It was the only time we witnessed something so spontaneous at one of these tightly scripted performances.

           
One convenient aspect of the summertime shows was that each artist actually played an identical set both at 12:15, and then again at 1:15. Latecomers who caught the tail end of the early performance could hang around and see the balance of the show after a 15 minute intermission. This format worked wonderfully for artists with a solid catalog of hits. Then there was Chubby Checker.

         
 It was a beautiful August afternoon when Mr. Checker took the stage between the towers for his summertime spotlight. A strong crowd filled ¾ of the standing room on the plaza. And things got off to a roaring start with his biggest song, The Twist. Hundreds of New Yorkers were clapping and swiveling their hips. Next came his follow-up hit, Lets Twist Again, also fondly received. And then… the singer – apparently short on worthwhile material - elected to repeat the same two songs twice more. And this just to round out the opening set! A good portion of the early crowd left, looking perplexed during the first repeat. Later arrivals headed for the exit after the second duplication, leaving just a handful of spectators to take in the 1:15 show. The confused faces of the departing fans summarized the shortcoming of this sometimes limited format. Especially when the headliner was a legendary two-hit wonder.

Davy Jones of The Monkees at the World Trade Center

          The biggest crowd that summer at the Trade Center was for a concert by Mickey Dolenz and Davy Jones of The Monkees. Mike and I arrived at 12:10 to find the audience stretched all the way out onto West Street. Getting anywhere near the vicinity of the stage was a pipedream. But from our vantage point at the curb, we were at least able to hear the full performance and the roar of an adoring 6,000 fans. That didn’t even include the hundreds of workers watching through the glass inside the north tower. Monkey-mania was still very much alive in the summer of ’95.

           
Back in 1995, cell phones were not as commonplace, or as sophisticated as we now know them to be. As a result, few photos and even fewer videos exist of these magical summer freebies. One would have had to have owned a bulky camcorder and been close enough to the stage to pick up both the audio and video of the show. Only a handful of YouTube clips have surfaced.

By the next summer, I had been firmly ensconced in a new job up on west 34^th Street. Lunch-breaks were infrequent at best. And the Trade Center was now a good 25 minute commute. Mike still worked downtown and would often call me to meet him for the ’96 concert season. He mailed me a tri-fold pamphlet (which I still keep to this day) listing all the shows including Opera Mondays, Swinging Tuesdays, Jazz Wednesdays, and Country Fridays. But only Oldies Thursdays held any appeal to us. Just once was I able to escape work that summer. And that was to see a revamped lineup of The Mamas and the Papas featuring Papa John Phillips and a trio of non-original members. Uninspiring as the performance was, it was still great to bond with Mike and get away from my desk for a mini-summer vacation. Hard to believe that this would be my last time standing in the formidable shadow of the soaring Twin Towers.

The summer concert series continued to draw large lunchtime audiences right up to the tragic morning of 9/11. An afternoon show had been scheduled there for that very day. One which would obviously never be played.

When I gaze upon the skyline of lower Manhattan today, my heart aches for what is no longer there, rather than to admire the structure that stands in its place. So much of our youth, our past and our history was robbed from us on that fateful September Tuesday morning. That and the lives of nearly 3,000 New Yorkers, some of whom I likely rubbed shoulders with down on Austin J. Tobin Plaza on those warm summer afternoons.

In spite of all of the unfathomable destruction from the 9/11 attacks, one singular landmark from Tobin Plaza remains mostly intact. The 25-foot tall bronze Sphere sculpture that served as a meeting-place for thirty years somehow emerged from the rubble of two collapsed skyscrapers with only some punctures, dents and scrapes. Today, it has been relocated to nearby Battery Park where it now stands next to an eternal flame as a memorial to everything and everyone we lost.

When I tell my daughters about what life was like in the early 90s, I get a quite an array of surprised reactions and eye-rolls. They find it hard to believe that society once functioned without wireless tablets, Instagram and streaming video. “You mean you didn’t get a cell phone until you were 33? How’s that possible?” It’s a foreign concept that they will never quite wrap their mind around. But when I share stories of my summer afternoons with Cousin Mike, catching free concerts at the foot of the old Twin Towers, I detect a gleam of comprehension. An appreciation and disappointment of a time and place that they will never get to visit outside of their imagination.

Quite an irony that a series of shows intended to celebrate an earlier yesteryear has now become my own nostalgia.

Poet Of The Wrong Generation by Lonnie Ostrow is now available in paperback and eBook format. CLICK HERE to order your copy.

Crusin' With Cousin Brucie

I first met Cousin Brucie in November of 1995. Back then, I was the director of marketing and events for IGPC, the world’s largest postal agency. I was organizing an international postal tribute to John Lennon, marking the 15^th anniversary of his assassination. A major event to “unveil” the Lennon stamps at the Hard Rock Café was in the works. A ticket-giveaway promotion with WCBS-FM (NY’s Oldies station) led me to Bruce, who immediately volunteered to MC the festivities. Now, he was coming by to review the event timeline a few weeks early.

          “Hello Cousin Lonnie,” he said in his most endearing radio voice, entering our conference room.  “It’s really an honor to be involved in this groovy stamp event. So tell me: what can I do to help you make it even better?”

          I found it truly humbling that this icon of the New York airwaves – a radio voice that I (and my parents) had grown up on - was standing before me, addressing me as an honorary “cousin.” Even more impressive was his immediate willingness to roll up his sleeves and offer a helping hand. And boy did he ever!

Mary Wilson, Peter Noone and Billy J. Kramer 

          Up to that point, I was scrambling to round up enough high-profile personalities to help participate in the ceremony. We had eight stamps to unveil for eight different governments. I had managed to secure appearances by Mary Wilson (the Supremes), singer Billy J. Kramer, NY Governor, George Pataki, plus a house band to play a set of John Lennon songs. By my scorecard, I was short five celebrity unveilers with only three weeks to go until the big day.

         

Bruce popped open a small black phonebook from the breast pocket of his jacket and started running through some names. “How ‘bout Peter Noone?” he asked. “That guy knew the Beatles from his Herman’s Hermits days. Oh, and what about Leslie Gore? She’s right here in New York.” His smile lit up the room as he flipped through the pages. “And maybe, if we ask nicely, we can get you Dion DiMucci (Dion & the Belmonts).”

Incredibly, Cousin Brucie’s influence turned out to be even more persuasive than I could have imagined. Not only did he help land those pop stars of yesteryear, but he also hooked me up with famed Beatles concert promoter, Sid Bernstein. And for our stage announcer, he successfully recruited Les Marshak, the voiceover host of every major televised award show in America including the Oscars.

Our jam-packed ceremony on the morning of December 8^th, 1995 was the event of the season. Every TV station in NY was on hand. Local, regional and national newspapers too! Flashbulbs popping everywhere. We had each musical presenter perform a John Lennon song with our house band. Cousin Brucie, of course, was front and center. And from this magical day, a special friendship was born.

Cousin Brucie Interviews The Beatles in 1964

Cousin Brucie (Bruce Morrow) began his radio career back in 1959. He made a name for himself in New York on the old WABC AM radio in the early 60s. He got to interview Elvis Presley during a rare visit to NYC, and later, The Beatles for their first American radio interview in 1964. For more than six decades, Bruce has hosted a wide array of Top-40 shows – both national and regional – on AM, FM and now satellite radio. He was a music correspondent on Good Morning America. He appeared as a magician in the 1997 film classic, Dirty Dancing. There’s even a section of 52^nd Street in Manhattan named after him.

In my novel, Poet Of The Wrong Generation, I invented an iconic NY radio personality as a noteworthy supporting character. Larry Jacobs is the program director and afternoon drive host on the fictional WNYR – a man who attempts to help revive the career of our protagonist, Johnny Elias, after his public downfall. Several early readers of my novel, including my editor asked me if I based Larry on anyone in particular. A few suspected that I had Cousin Brucie in mind.

The truth is: There are some parallels between my fictional radio icon and the great Cousin Brucie. Both live downtown in Greenwich Village. Both are aficionados of classic rock & roll. Both are aligned with great charitable causes. However, the personalities are vastly different, as is their physical appearance and domestic situations (Bruce being a happily married family man, while Larry is bitterly divorced). And the real-life Cousin Brucie is a far more charming and a notably more sensible decision maker. But in the similarities column, both men have a keen sense of using the medium of radio for extraordinary, spontaneous promotion.

Cousin Brucie and I with The Flying Elvi at Stampfest '96

In September of 1996, Bruce served as my on-stage host for StampFest, a postage stamp festival at NY’s South Street Seaport, that drew some 27,000 attendees. Successful as the event was, the ending was shockingly abrupt.  Late afternoon hurricane-like conditions suddenly sent the masses scattering… just as the Flying Elvi were skydiving over the East River for our grand finale.

I’ll never forget the phone call early the next morning from Cousin Brucie. He roused me from my discouragement and offered to head back down to the Seaport that afternoon to finish up the final performances and ceremony. I raced to get the details organized, then wondered if anyone would bother showing up to witness it.

Leave it to Bruce to work his magic. Within minutes of getting the plans together, the “cuz” was phoning in on air at CBS-FM, urging all listeners to head downtown at lunchtime for the Elvis-themed conclusion to the festival. Okay, so we didn’t draw the massive crowd from Sunday. But he did manage to recruit about 400 people on a Monday afternoon to witness the last portion of our unique postal program.

Unquestionably, it was this real-life story that help to inspire the heroic promotional efforts of my fictional Larry Jacobs in his attempt to hype the attempted renegade Central Park concert by Johnny Elias. Larry’s masterful on-air publicity on the day of the unscheduled show is borrowed straight out of Cousin Brucie’s playbook. Only in this case, boosted to the umpteenth degree of my imagination. No doubt a strategy that the legendary “cuz” would be proud of.

Poet Of The Wrong Generation by Lonnie Ostrow is now available in paperback and eBook format.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY.

Video Made These Radio Stars

The year was 1983. MTV was broadcasting music-videos into the bedrooms of virtually every teenager across America. And the Greg Kihn Band was riding high on the pop-charts (and receiving steady video airplay) with its biggest hit, Jeopardy.

          Flash forward thirteen years and Greg Kihn found himself riding a whole new wave of popularity – as the host of the # 1 rated FM radio morning show in the San Francisco Bay Area. A pop-star turned radio star, Kihn served as the wake-up voice across northern California for nearly two decades. A stark contradiction to the declaration made by the Buggles in their 1980 landmark hit, Video Killed The Radio Star.

In my novel, Poet Of The Wrong Generation, there’s a scene in which our protagonist, Johnny Elias, is visited at home by an iconic (fictional) radio personality, Larry Jacobs. Johnny, once a burgeoning pop star, is now living in suburbia and self-imposed obscurity after a major tumble from grace. Initially, Johnny suspects that Larry Jacobs is attempting to recruit him as a DJ on (the fictional) WNYR classic rock station. Mr. Jacobs clarifies his true reason for visiting, but also cites a handful of former popstars who went on to enjoy successful careers as radio personalities. The list is quite fascinating.

Greg Kihn as a radio host

Greg Kihn and his band were hardly a one-hit-wonder. After a decade of releasing mildly successful albums in the 1970s, the band broke through in 1981 with their first top-20 hit, The Breakup Song. Jeopardy would hit # 2 on the singles chart, and was later famously spoofed by Weird Al Yankovic. But by 1987, musical success had dried up and the band went their separate ways. Following a pair of largely–ignored solo albums, Kihn got a tryout as a late-night DJ in San Jose. A year later, he was offered the morning show, which he successfully hosted until 2012.

Dee Snider was the flamboyant front-man of the 80s hard rock group, Twisted Sister. His band peaked in 1984 with their album, Stay Hungry, featuring the hit songs: We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock. When Twisted Sister’s cycle of popularity ran its course, Snider moved behind the radio mic. In 1997, he began hosting a nationally syndicated heavy metal program aptly named House Of Hair. In 1999, Snider became the popular morning man in Hartford, CT on radio 104 FM – a position he would hold through 2003. After stints in a variety of reality TV shows, Snider again returned to radio, hosting a show on Sirius satellite radio.

Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman are best known to music fans as Flo and Eddie. From 1964 – 1970, the duo performed as the classic rock group, The Turtles. The band scored a series of top-ten hits throughout the decade including the #1 smash, Happy Together. In 1970, Flo and Eddie joined up with Frank Zappa’s band, Mothers Of Invention. By the early 1980s, the duo set their sights on broadcasting. A tryout at a Los Angeles FM station (KROQ) led to a weekly show on Sunday nights, and eventually an afternoon show on KMET. Their program consisted of a blend of interviews with rock stars, comedy bits, and snippets of classic rock songs. From 1989 – 91, Flo and Eddie moved to NY, where they hosted the afternoon drive program on 92.3 FM, K-Rock. Eventually, they got back to live concert performances and left the radio business behind.

Mickey Dolenz rocketed to fame as the lead singer and drummer for The Monkees, a TV sitcom band who evolved into a much celebrated rock group. His lead vocals can be heard on the hit songs: I’m A Believer and Last Train To Clarksville. Dolenz continued to act on TV and in films after the Monkees break-up. He also performed on a variety of Monkees reunion tours throughout the decades. In 2005, Dolenz was handed the reigns of the morning show on WCBS-FM, New York’s legendary oldies station. Much fanfare was generated for the new program, which garnered strong ratings in its first three months. But on the very day that he celebrated his 100^th show, Dolenz learned that CBS was scrapping their oldies format for all-music programming with no DJs (JACK-FM). Dolenz was unceremoniously dumped, along with all of the on-air talent at the station.  He would soon return to the concert stage, but never again to radio.

Country music fans across America have been in love with Kix Brooks since 1991. That was the year that he and Ronnie Dunn teamed up as Brooks & Dunn, the most successful duo in the history of country music. Brooks provides lead vocals on the #1 smash, You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone, one of twenty Country chart-toppers for the duo. In 2006, Brooks became the nationally syndicated radio host for America’s Country Countdown – a weekly Top-30 program. He took over for Bob Kingsley, the show’s longtime popular host. In a style similar to Casey Kasem’s American Top-40 program, Brooks introduces the bestselling country songs of each week, reads listener requests, and shares stories about the artists in each 4-hour program. It is currently heard on 103 FM stations across America.

The advent of radio subscription services (Such as Sirius and XM) have turned other mega music stars into occasional DJs. Artists such as Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Buffett and even Bob Dylan have recorded a handful of pre-recorded studio banter on their artist-branded stations. It’s not quite the regular gig as cited in the examples above. However, the concept of popular recording artists transitioning to radio hosts is a trend we are most likely to see continue long into the future. An opportunity for heritage artists to keep in touch with their legions of fans, while also providing a deeper glimpse into their off-stage personalities.
 

Suffice to say, video did not kill the radio star. But in some cases, it may have enabled a few.

Poet Of The Wrong Generation by Lonnie Ostrow is now available for pre-sale in paperback and eBook format. It will be published on November 10th. CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY.