Mae West: In Long Island City

MAE WEST has a role in a special live event that takes place very soon in Queens.
• • Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles — — but please let gusty Hurricane Irene blow away in time for Monday. On the evening of 29 August 2011 there will be a one-night-only outdoor performance, “Odysseus at Hell Gate,” created by Brooklyn residents Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles — — and Mae West will be a player in this unique site-specific work commissioned for Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, NY.
• • From Astoria, journalist Melena Ryzik describes this experience for her readers: For “Odysseus at Hell Gate,” Mr. Alex Kahn and Ms. Sophia Michahelles, a couple from Red Hook, N.Y., who are artistic directors of a nonprofit group called Processional Arts Workshop, researched the history of the sometimes forgotten spaces that dot the East River, like Hart Island, a potter’s field; North Brother Island, home to the hospital that quarantined Typhoid Mary; and Hell Gate, a traditionally treacherous maritime passage and the site of the 1904 burning of the excursion ship the General Slocum. They found many parallels in these stories to those in “the Odyssey.”
• • Melena Ryzik continues: Roosevelt Island, which is visible from the sculpture park, was once known as Welfare Island; it housed a women’s prison, “and the two most famous inmates who spent some time there were Mae West and Billie Holiday, so we thought they would be fantastic sirens,” Ms. Michahelles said with a smile. There are no siren songs per se, but a score that Mr. Kahn composed includes a Billie Holiday recording of “Comes Love (Nothing Can Be Done),” interspersed with Mae West beckoning, “Come up and see me sometime.” ...
• • Source: Article: "Odysseus Is Parading Into Queens" written by Melena Ryzik for The N.Y. Times; posted on 26 August 2011
• • Mae West on the Bookshelf • •
• • Published in 1997 by Routledge Three Plays by Mae West: Sex, the Drag, the Pleasure Man edited by Lillian Schlissel. Her essays and the source material she has selected are nothing short of excellent. A book you must own.
• • Reviewer Pamela Robertson Wojcik said: Feminists for the most part were not interested in Mae West in the 1970s (when West had a major comeback), but became attracted to her image in the late 1980s and 1990s due to changes that occurred in feminist thought and culture — — changes epitomized and, maybe, made possible by Madonna's emergence — — that made West's over-the-top, sexually aware style seem transgressive rather than regressive. ...
• • In Her Own Words • •
• • Mae West wrote this: "Don’t marry a man to reform him — — that’s what reform schools are for.”
• • Mae West wrote this: "Opportunity knocks for every man — — but you have to give a woman a ring.”
• • Mae West wrote this: "You're never too old to become younger."
• • Quote, Unquote • •
• • Blogger Jennifer Stewart wrote: Mae West became famous for pushing the envelope on matters of how women should behave, morally and sexually. Her first play was called "Sex". She was arrested on a morals charge, but that didn’t daunt her. As far as she was concerned, any publicity was good publicity, and she went on to great Broadway success. When movie producer Paramount Pictures discovered her films were so popular that she saved them from bankruptcy.
• • Anybody who stands out against conservative morals of the day gets targeted, and West was no exception. Conservative critics constantly tried to get her censored and in 1937, when she was at the height of her movie and radio career, they succeeded. . .
• • Source: Article: "Mae West, Hollywood Icon, Undaunted by Catholic Decency Groups Moral Superiority & NBC Censors" written by Jennifer Stewart for Stepping Out of History; posted on 16 January 2011
• • By the Numbers • •
• • The Mae West Blog was started seven years ago in July 2004. You are reading the 2036th blog post. Unlike many blogs, which draw upon reprinted content from a newspaper or a magazine and/ or summaries, links, or photos, the mainstay of this blog is its fresh material focused on the life and career of Mae West, herself an American original.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • on Welfare Island, May 1922 • •
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Mae West: Steel Swan

Most often linked to Brooklyn, MAE WEST moved to Queens (an area still known as "Long Island" then) sometime after 1917 — — when her family secured a modest dwelling in suburban blue-collar Woodhaven, New York. In 1920, when the census-takers interviewed the household, John West, 53, was engaged as a masseuse, teenage John was clerking at a newspaper, 21-year-old Beverly (though married to Sergei since 1917) was still living with her parents and jobless, and 26-year-old Mae was touring steadily in vaudeville.
• • Blackwell's Island Bridge • •
• • The 59th Street Bridge had opened to the public on 30 March 1909, having cost about $18 million and dozens of lives. A ceremonial grand opening was held in June 1909. It was then known as the Blackwell's Island Bridge. The double cantilevered span, also called the Queensboro Bridge, crosses the East River, connecting Long Island City with Manhattan, passing over the once bustling Women's Workhouse on this curious spit of land that had also housed a hospital and a lunatic asylum.
• • Thanks to this graceful steel swan, Long Island acreage that had been farmland, cemeteries, and swamps became growing neighborhoods accessible by the streetcar, trolley, bicycle, railways, and the automobile.
• • As a working actress, Mae West crossed this bridge dozens of times as she returned to the parental abode after a performance. Encouraged by her mother, during March 1921 Mae mailed her slim playscript "The Ruby Ring" to the Library of Congress. At 20 pages, this manuscript was more of an extended "sketch" than a play. Gloria, the female lead, is a man-trap who is able to pick the gents off with ease.
• • Her family was still living there in 1922 when 29-year-old Mae added a full-length play — — "The Hussy" — — to these Washington, DC archives. Nona, the female lead, likes generous fellows who demonstrate their devotion to a gal by dropping jewelry on her.
• • But a different path in late January 1927 would lead to events that took the ambitious trouper across the span with other inmates to the Women's Workhouse.
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• • Roosevelt Island — — At one point in time, New York City exported most of its problems to Roosevelt Island, now a cozy off-shore town, explains Amanda Cormier. The small strip of land in the East River — — known first as Blackwell’s Island, then Welfare Island in 1921, and Roosevelt Island in 1973 — — housed some of the city’s most famous “undesirables” in its penitentiary: Boss Tweed, Mae West, and Billie Holiday, who served a four-month term for prostitution charges.
• • “The river became the place where they put all sorts of public institutions,” says Edwin Burrows, professor of history at Brooklyn College, holder of a doctorate from Columbia, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898.” He adds, “It wasn’t until the early 1940s and 1950s that it became prime real estate.” ....
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Reconstructing History — — professors speak on New York’s forgotten buildings and blocks
• • BY: Amanda Cormier | Columnist
• • Published by The Eye | The Columbia Daily Spectator — — eye.columbiaspectator.com
• • Published on: 28 January 2010
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• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Ciro's

MAE WEST used to perform at the legendary Ciro's on Sunset Boulevard, Leonie Cooper reminds the British readers of The Guardian. London is seeing a resurgence of those glamourous nightspots. At the 2-year-old Pigalle Club [in London's Piccadilly], for instance, Eartha Kitt is still stepping out from behind the velvet drapes at the back of the stage. In her red dress slit to the thigh, 81-year-old Kitt is the epitome of supper-club chic.
• • Leonie Cooper writes: Hollywood movie stars of yore knew how to dine out in style. At Ciro's supper club on Sunset Boulevard — — a favourite of Marilyn Monroe and Lana Turner — — the entertainment was provided by luminaries such as Mae West, Edith Piaf, and Billie Holiday, while Bogie and Bacall used to eat at the Mocambo, a Brazilian-themed venue that was inhabited by a flock of showbiz parrots. This was the golden, maribou-trimmed era of supper clubs, yet now, despite lean times looming, ritzy restaurant-cum-nightclubs are experiencing a revival. ...
• • Cooper has researched an enjoyable feature and you can read the rest online in The Guardian.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: A new generation of sophisticated, luxurious supper clubs is bringing back the glamorous tradition of 'dinner and a show'.
• • Written by: Leonie Cooper
• • Published in: The Guardian — — http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/
• • Published on: 21 May 2008
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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