Matt Lauer Shows Us FDR’s Secret TrainCheck out the abandoned subway stop beneath the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where VIPs could travel in their own private train cars that, we assume, didn’t smell like urine.
in other news
Nearly One in Three Influential Americans Are New Yorkers!Proving that even highfalutin big-thinkers can indulge themselves in newsstand-boosting top-X rankings, the new issue of The Atlantic brings a list of, as its cover proclaims, “The 100 Most Influential Americans of All Time.” By our count, 31 of them are New Yorkers. (FDR, at No. 4, is the top-ranking New Yorker.) That includes those who were come from the city (say, Teddy Roosevelt, No. 15, born on the East 20th Street, just a few doors down from Danny Meyer’s not-yet-existent Gramercy Tavern, in 1858) and those born elsewhere who lived and made their mark here (say, Hartford-born Frederick Law Olmsted, No. 49, the designer of Central and Prospect Parks). Prominent death here — or, at least, a prominent tomb here — works, too. (Hello, No. 12 Ulysses Grant.) We didn’t cross state lines to include the suburbs (New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson, No. 10, does not make our list), but we were willing to go upstate (we’ll include Betty Friedan, No. 77, who made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut-butter sandwiches with her children, and chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies in Rockland County). Other states may lay claim on some (San Simeon might make one think of William Randolph Hearst, No. 80, as a Californian), but there’s good reason to call them New Yorkers, too (Hearst Corporation is headquartered in midtown, and the Chief ran for mayor and governor here). And lending your name to a school in Riverdale does not make you, by our standards, a New Yorker. (Sorry, Horace Mann, No. 56. School notwithstanding, you’re a Massachusetts guy.)
After the jump, our 31. Did we miss anyone? Include someone we shouldn’t have? Let us know.
