NYC SOBRIQUETS?

The 19th century writer Washington Irving (above) was the first to apply the nickname "Gotham" to New York City, when he called it "the renowned and ancient city of Gotham" in an essay he wrote for his satiric literary magazine Salmagundi in 1807. The real origin of the name requires going back a bit further, to an English book published in 1540 under the title "The Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham." It tells the tale of the antics of the townsfolk of Gotham (from the Anglo-Saxon word Got-ham, meaning goat-town) to avoid paying an unpopular new tax. When the King's Tax Inspectors arrive to collect, the villagers act like lunatics and fools. They paint green apples red, try to drown a fish in a pool of water, and attempt to capture a bird by building fences around the bush in which the bird is perched. "We should have built the fence higher," they decide when the bird had flown away.

So when Washington Irving used the term, he was putting his finger on the peculiar blend of lunacy, wiliness and bravado that characterizes New York City.


The moniker became popular once again with the Batman & Batwoman comic books, which appeared more than a century later in 1939; the title character was said to live in Gotham City, clearly recognizable as New York.

The nickname "the Big Apple" has a much more recent derivation; it was coined around 1920 by jazz musicians from New Orleans. In New Orleans slang, to play in the big apple meant to play the big-time shows. By 1920 New York City was the principle city for jazz, and so over time it became known as the Big Apple.

Sports writer John J Fitz Gerald helped to popularize the term with his racing column of the 1920's, "Around the Big Apple". ("There's only one Big Apple. That's New York," he wrote in his column in 1924.) He'd heard the name from his stable hands, who had picked it up from the jazz circuit. The nickname became official in the 1970's, when the New York Convention and Visitor's Bureau started the Big Apple publicity campaign to attract tourists to the city.

NYC TITANS - ARTHUR MILLER

Arthur Miller (October 17, 1915 - February 10, 2005) was an American playwright and essayist. Born to moderately affluent Jewish-American parents in Manhattan he graduated from the Abraham Lincoln High School (New York) before securing a place at University of Michegan, majoring in journalism where he became the reporter and night editor on the student paper, the Michegan Daily. Switching his major the English, he wrote his first novel, No Villain, which won the Avery Hopwood Award.

At University he was mentored by Professor Kenneth Rowe, who helped him with his early attempts at playwrighting, and Miller retained strong ties to his alma mater throughout the rest of his life, establishing the university's Arthur Miller Award for Dramatic Writing in 1999 and lending his name to the Arthur Miller Theater in 2000.

Miller rose to international fame and acclaim as the author of many successful Broadway hits, the best known of which are The Crucible and Death of a Salesman (winner of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize). A selection of the others: A View from the Bridge, All My Sons, and After the Fall - all receiving critical acclaim.

He also made the headlines for his short lived marriage to Marilyn Monroe (seen together above). They first met in April of 1951, whilst he was married to Mary Slattery, when they had a brief affair. After the fling they continued to remain in contact until in June 1956, Miller left his wife and a short time later married Marilyn. Miller wrote the film script for The Misfits, which starred his wife, but described the filming as one of the low points of his life, and shortly before the film's premiere in 1961, the pair divorced. Nineteen months later, Monroe died of an apparent drug overdose.


For most of their short marriage they lived at Apartment 13 E, 444, East 57th Street (above) at Sutton Place, overlooking the East River, and after their divorce Marilyn lived here until her death. After moving out Miller spent some time living at the Chelsea Hotel until he married for a third time to Inge Morath in 1962, and had two children and remained together until her death in 2002.

Said to be his defining work, Death of a Salesman, is a caustic attack on the American Dream and made Arthur Miller and Willy Loman, the central character, household names. and is a tragic examination of a man's relationship to the modern world. Themes of New York life, like the gap between financial success and happiness, and the difficulties of life in an urban setting, are central to many of his plays.

Miller is considered by audiences and scholars as one of America's greatest playwrights and his plays are lauded throughout the world.

TIME FOR CHANGE

The Charging Bull is a 3,200 kg. (7000 pound) bronze sculpture by Arturo Di Modica that sits in Bowling Green Park near Wall Street in New York City. It depicts a bull, as a symbol of aggressive financial optimism and prosperity, leaning back on its haunches and with its head lowered as if ready to charge. The sculpture, as well as being a tourist destination and much photographed, has come to be an unofficial symbol the the Financial District itself, and often appears in the media to punctuate stories about optimism in the financial markets.

However, in the aftermath of the meltdown occasioned by the 'toxic debt' farrago and the 'credit crunch' hysteria, it must be clear even to those with severely impaired mental facilities, that the symbolism of 'The Charging Bull' is completely misplaced and inappropriate.

The Bull needs hurling into the East River and new, more relevant statue or statues erected in its place, that might serve to warn future generations from ever being suckered into financial self-destruction again.

How about?

Mike the Headless Chicken (April 1945 - March 1947) lived for 23 months after losing its head, symbolises the chaotic, uncontrolled and negligent behaviour, demonstrated by many within the financial sector.

A Fat Cat reflecting the 'wholly unwarranted' pay taken by top executives at the expense of other staff and shareholders


A Snake in The Grass - reflecting the public's revulsion and opinion of those responsible for engendering these calamitous happenings.

So there we have it - a marble plinth bedecked with A HEADLESS CHICKEN, A FAT CAT & A SNAKE IN THE GRASS. Or to economise in this period of recession, repossessions and redundancies, just one statue of A FAT HEADLESS SNAKE!

THE ORIGINAL CAPPUCCINO

Cafe Reggio is almost a Greenwich Village institution. Located at 119, MacDougal Street, this tiny little Victorian styled cafe is very personal, intimate, romantic, good for singles wanting to catch up on a good book, etc. It's also a bit famous and has been used in quite a few films: the latest film was In Good Company with Scarlett Johannsen (who attended NYU and lived in the Hayden dorm, right up the street on Washington Square West.)

The Italian Renaissance decor is inspired by Caravaggio and the Medici family. Beautiful wall murals and iron seating makes for romantic atmosphere. A dramatic 16th century painting by the Roman master Caravaggio and an antique bench bearing the crest of the illustrious Medici family are among the works that impart a feeling of character and warmth to Cafe Reggio.

Cappuccino first became popular in Italy at the beginning of the last century, and was introduced in America by the original owner of Cafe Reggio, Domenico Parisi (pictured above in 1914.)

At the heart of Caffe Reggio is their magnificent espresso machine, shown above next to the cafe's second owner Niso Cavallari, in 1963. This marvellous early example was made in 1902, and was the first of its kind. Its ornate chrome and bronze exterior houses an impressive marriage of engineering and design.

What better place to while away your time enjoying a coffee and maybe a pastry or two, whilst in this charismatic area of Greenwich Village?

DO MY EYES DECEIVE ME?

Peck Slip (South Street Seaport) in 1850

Peck Slip today looking from Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive

Peck Slip is named after Benjamin Peck, who had an active ship-fitting business here in the mid-1700's. The actual slip was created in 1755. In 1763, he built the slip market at this location, which was one of the many predecessors of the Fulton Market.

Thomas Edison located his first electric generating station near here at 255, Pearl Street in 1882. In fact, it was the first commercial generating system for incandescent service in the United States. He selected this area because the financial community was nearby (the first lights were turned on at 23, Wall Street) as were the newspapers (in and around Park Row.) ConEd still maintains this electrical substation on the north side of Peck Slip.

Mural on the blank side of the ConEd Building on Peck Slip

Richard Hass' 1977 mural, Trompe l'oeil (above) depicts a classical colonnade, complete with an illusionistic view through the brick wall to the Brooklyn Bridge. Trompe l'oeil (pronounced trump loy) is a phrase borrowed from French which literally means "that which deceives the eye." It is a painting style that gives an optical illusion of depth or distance where there is only a flat surface. The technique uses shadows and receding lines to trick the eye into believing there is something in the distance when there is really only a picture on the wall.

Another example of Richard Hass' work can be found on a building (below) at East 83rd Street and York Avenue depicting the largest glockenspiel (exterior clock) in New York City.

IN THE BEST POSSIBLE TASTE

In 2004, Andre Balazs snapped up a much-discussed lot in the Meatpacking District for $24 million and will use it to build NYC's first Standard Hotel (above drawing) - a uber-trendy, boutique (whatever that means) hotel that straddles the soon to be renovated High Line. The lot is bordered by West Street, West 13th Street, Washington Street and Little West 12th Street.

Its design and marketing blurb is directed at hitting the target clientele of young and not so young but 'well-and-expensively-preserved' Meatpacking groupies, 'slap-bang-wallop' between the eyes. It has set its stall out already with its pre-completion advertising. The 'teaser' below is offering reduced rates for those rooms finished, until the entire hotel is rid of constructors, construction noise and construction 'dust and bullets.'

"WE'LL PUT UP WITH YOUR BANGING IF YOU'LL PUT UP WITH OURS" says it all really doesn't it?

WARNING UNHEEDED

Pier 54 at the end of W 13th. Street - The Lusitanias's last port of call

Lusitania departed Pier 54, in New York on 1st May 1915. RMS Lusitania was a British luxury ocean liner owned by the Cunard Line, christened and launched in June 1906. At the outset of World War I, the British Admiralty considered Lusitania for requisition as an armed merchant ship but was considered to consume too much coal. She continued in her service as a luxury liner conveying people to and fro between England and the United States, but to reduce costs and save coal, transatlantic crossings were reduced to one monthly.

On 4th. February 1915 Germany declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone and that from 18th February Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning.

Pier 54 today with only the steel outline of its original facade remaining

A few days before Lusitania was due to make her 201st. return to Liverpool, the German Embassy in Washington issued this warning, which was published in the press:-

NOTICE!

Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.

IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY

Washington D.C. 22 April 1915

This warning was printed right next to an advertisement for Lusitania's return voyage and led to some agitation in the press and worried the ship's passengers and crew. However, despite this warning the liner steamed out of New York at noon, on 1st May, two hours behind schedule due to a transfer of passengers and crew from the recently requisitioned Cameronia.

1915 painting depicting the sinking of the Lusitania by U-Boat U20

On 7th May 1915, Lusitania met a disastrous end as a casualty of the First World War when she was torpedoed by the German submarine U20. The great ship sank in just 18 minutes, eight miles of the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland killing 1,198 of the people on board. The sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany, and was probably a major factor in the eventual decision of the United States to join the war in 1917. The recent discovery of munitions in the wreck indicates it may have been a blockade runner, and thus a legitimate target.

As an ironic and sad footnote, shortly after the vessel had pulled away from Pier 54, three blind stowaways had been found on board but as the vessel was a little late, were not put ashore but detained below decks.

A JUMBO HAS LANDED - IN 1882?

An aerial photograph of Battery Park

Battery Park is the 25-acre public park located at the Battery, the southern tip of NYC, facing New York Harbour. Named after the artillery battery that was stationed there at various times by the Dutch and British in order to protect the harbour. At the north end of the park is Pier A, formerly a fireboat station, recently restored this pier has served as the gateway for many celebrities upon their arrival in New York City.

Pier A Battery Park

Pier A was the scene of Charles A. Lindbergh's triumphal return after the first transatlantic flight on June 13, 1927 and the grand arrival of King George VI on June 10, 1939, and many other famous dignitaries.

But one visitor stands out above the rest: it was here that the legendary elephant Jumbo arrived on the Assyrian Monarch and first stepped on American soil with all the fanfare P. T. Barnum could muster, on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1882. Barnum had recently purchased the elephant from the London Zoo for $10,000, much to the disappointment of english children, who started a letter asking Queen Victoria to intervene and save the pachyderm. Nevertheless, Jumbo came to the United States to be the star attraction in Barnum's circus. Even after his death three years later in a train accident, Jumbo's fame lived on. No other animal's name has been so widely adopted into the English language.

P. T. Barnum's most famous circus attraction, "Jumbo," paraded to the opening of "The Greatest Show on Earth" at Madison Square Garden (then on the northeastern corner of Madison Square Park.) Jumbo had arrived in America with Matthew Scott, his beloved keeper of twenty years. The pair became inseperable when Scott nursed the sick baby elephant back to health.

DEEP DOWN

The Brooklyn Bridge was by far the longest suspension bridge in the World With a central span of 1600 feet, it was 60% longer than its nearest rival - the 1000 foot Cincinnati Bridge spanning the Ohio River. Th length of the bridge wasn't the only issue either, it was the foundation also. By definition, the roadway of a suspension bridge is suspended by wires from the towers above it, towers which therefore require an extremely solid foundation.

The bottom of the East River is sand - totally unfit to support the necessary weight of the towers - and at the time no one knew how far down the sand went. The Cincinnati Bridge, also constructed by the Roebling family, was easy. Its foundation is barely knee-deep in water, in contrast with the Brooklyn Bridge, which would be laid 40-80 ft. deep. The problem of the laying the foundation in such deep water was solved by using "caissons", massive wooden boxes (3000 tons each for the two Brooklyn Bridge towers), built air-tight, and floated down to where the foundation was to be dug. Stone was then layered on them until they sunk to the bottom of the river.

Cut-away diagram of a Caisson rising out of the East River

The water was pumped out with compressed air, and workers could begin excavating the riverbed until they reached bedrock. Danger increased exponentially with each meter of depth. Fires, explosions and "caisson disease" - now known as nitrogen narcosis, or 'the Bends' - took the lives of 20 men, and left Chief Engineer Washington Roebling paralyzed. On the Brooklyn side, the bedrock was found at 45 feet but on the Manhattan side, they never did hit bedrock. At 78 feet, Roebling decided that the weight of the tower would be enough to hold it in place. Only then did the men begin to build their way, brick by brick, back to the surface.

Inside the Caisson

Life in the caisson was miserable. E.F.Farrington, the master mechanic working under Washington Roebling, described the inner workings of the caissons as follows:

"Inside the caisson everything wore an unreal, weird appearance. There was a confused sensation in the head, like "the rush of many waters." The pulse was at first accelerated, then sometimes fell alarmingly below the normal rate. The voice sounded faint unnatural, and it became a great effort to speak. What with the flaming lights, the deep shadows, the confusing noise of the hammers, drills and chains, the half-naked forms flitting about, if of a poetic temperament, get a realizing sense of Dante's inferno. One thing to me was noticeable - time passed quickly in the caisson."

The next time your breath is being taken away, from admiring the magnificently beautiful sight that is Brooklyn Bridge, please spare a thought for the poor devils who risked life, limb and sanity by working in the caissons, for without their efforts there would not be a Brooklyn Bridge.

CULTURE IN THE PARK

To avert our minds from the raw winter chills that seem to be the order of the day for several months, it is good to let the mind drift as if on a warm air current, to the summer period and particularly to the outdoor Delacorte Theater, in the southwest corner of the Great Lawn, Central Park. The Delacorte is the summer home of the annual "Shakespeare in the Park" production, begun in 1957 by Joseph Papp.

The theater is semi-circular in shape and the audience is treated to the sight of the lovely summer landscape forming a stunning backdrop to the stage. This includes Turtle Pond, and the almost dreamlike vista of Belvedere Castle looking down benignly from above.

Before the start of a production of "Julius Caesar"

New Yorkers are well regarded for their self-deprecating humour which is illustrated with the story "that at the interval after Julius Caesar was stabbed during a performance of 'Julius Caesar' at the Delacorte, half the audience hurriedly left the theater, because they didn't want to get involved!"

INVENTIONS OUR SPECIALITY

463, West Street is a 13 building complex located on the block between West Street, Washington Street, Bank Street, and Bethune Street in Manhattan. It was originally the home of Bell Telephone Laboratories between 1898 and 1966. For a time it was the largest research center in the United States.

Many early technological inventions were developed here including the first experimental talking movies (1923), black and white and color TV, radar, the vacuum tube, the transistor, medical equipment, the development of the phonograph record, and the first commercial broadcasts including the first broadcast of a baseball game and the New York Philharmonic with Toscanini conducting. It also served as the headquarters for the company and was also home for part of the Manhattan Project (for the development of the first atomic bomb) during World War II.

After two years of renovations by Richard Meier, the building was reopened in 1970 as Westbeth Artists Community, a haven for low to middle income artists. In addition to affordable artist housing, the complex contains a theater, an art gallery, and a synagogue. There are 383, residential units as well as commercial spaces, and rehearsal and artist' studios in the thirteen inter-connected buildings.

It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975.

NEW YORK ART - EDWARD HOPPER

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) Self portrait 1906

Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. Whilst popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolourist and printmaker in etching.

He was born in upper Nyack, New York, a yacht-building center north of NYC, the only son of comfortably well-off middle class family. He studied illustration in NYC at a commercial art school before switching to painting and studied at the New York School of Art from 1901 to 1906, largely under Robert Henri.

Hopper's studio at No. 3, The Studio Building, Washington Square North

He made three trips to Europe between 1906 and 1910 but remained unaffected by the great European realists - Diego Velazquez, Francisco de Goya, Edouard Monet - whose work had been introduced to him by his NYC teachers. His early paintings, such as Le pavillon de flore, were committed to realism and exhibited some of the basic characteristics that he was to retain throughout his career: compositional style based on simple, large geometric forms; flat masses of colour;and the use of architectural elements in his scenes for their strong verticals, horizontals, and diagonals.

Until 1925, he was little known and was obliged to work as a commercial artist, when he painted House by the Railroad, which was acclaimed a landmark in American art that marked the advent of his mature style. The emphasis on blunt shapes and angles and the stark play of light and shadow were in keeping with his earlier work, but the mood - which was the real subject of the painting - was new: it conveyed an atmosphere of all-embracing loneliness and almost eerie solitude.

"Nighthawks" inspired by a diner on a corner of Greenwich Avenue in Hopper's neighborhood

Girl in NYC hotel room - 1943

"Hotel Lobby" - 1945

"Office in a small City" - 1953

Nude lady in hotel room 1951

Hopper continued with increasing commercial success and critical plaudits, to work in this style for the rest of his life, refining and purifying it but never abandoning its basic principles. Most of his paintings portray scenes in New York or New England, with deserted streets, half-empty theaters, gas stations, railroad tracks, rooming houses and hotels. Perhaps his best known work "Nighthawks", shows an all-night cafe, its uncommunicative customers illuminated in the pitiless glare of electric lights.

His work, whilst outside the mainstream of mid-20th-century abstractionism, was through its simplified schematic style, one of the major influences on the later representtional revival and on pop art. Edward Hopper died on May 15, 1967, in New York City.

CHAPEL OF REST & REFUGE

St. Paul's Chapel, is a famous landmark in the Lower Manhattan Financial District. Built in 1766, as a satellite of Trinity Church, it is with the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Harlem the oldest building in Manhattan. It survived the 1766 fire that destroyed the first Trinity Church because its flat roof allowed rescuers to stand atop it and put out falling embers. The tower was not added until 1796. It has alot of history attached to it which is worthy of further research and a subsequent visit.

However, none of the happenings in its history would have impacted so profoundly, as did the terrible and harrowing events that played out on September 11, 2001.


The Chapel stands on a plot that backs onto Church Street which immediately adjoined the site of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, and served as a place of rest and refuge for recovery workers at the WTC site. For eight months, hundreds of volunteers worked 12 hour shifts around the clock, serving meals, making beds, counseling and praying with fire fighters, construction workers, police and others. Miraculously, the chapel survived without even a broken window. Church history declares it was spared by a miracle sycamore on the northwest corner of the property that bore the full force of the debris. The tree's root has been preserved in a bronze memorial by sculptor Steve Tobin.

Inside of St. Paul's Chapel was filled with worldwide messages of support

The fence around the Chapel grounds became the main spot for visitors to place impromptu memorials to the event. After it became filled with flowers, photos, teddy bears, and other paraphernalia, chapel officials decided to erect a number of panels on which visitors could add to the memorial. Estimating that only 15 would be needed in total, they eventually required 400.

The Chapel is now a popular tourist destination since it still keeps many of the memorial banners around the sanctuary and has an extensive audio video history of the tragedy. A place to visit, reflect, feel sorrow and compassion and wish that it never happens again - sadly, perhaps an unrealistic attainment.

SITTING ON THE FENCE?

Fredericka Mandelbaum.......

........also known as "Marm" or "Mrs Crime" (1818-1894) was a New York City entrepreneur and operated as a fence to many of the street gang's of the city's underworld, handling anywhere between $5 million and $10 million worth of stolen property during the period from 1862 until 1884. To get this into a current perspective, the value of stolen property would be $90 million to $180 million.

Emigrating from Prussia with her husband Wolfe Mandelbaum, the two arrived in New York in 1848. Purchasing a dry goods store at 79, Clinton Street (corner of Rivington Street), and by 1854, the business was operating as a front for her criminal activities, needing at a later date, to store goods in two large warehouses in the city.

"Marm" and client sneak in through the back gate

She did not wait to be contacted by criminals instead, Mandelbaum went to them with offers to finance thieves and burglars and was involved in planning some of the biggest theft's in the city's history. Expanding her operations, she controlled several gangs of blackmailers and confidence men as well as a school to recruit and teach younger criminals on pickpocketing. She was also a top competitor to the Grady Gang. Some lauded her work in "rescuing" children and poor women from other predators, but this recent revisionism of Marm Mandelbaum as saviour is, by any reckoning, stretching it a bit.

During the height of her criminal activities, she became one of NYC's most prominent hostesses of high society (as well as the underworld) regularly entertaining (as shown above) scores of Judges, Attorneys and high ranking Police Officers alongside some of the most well-known criminals of the day including Queen Liz, Big Mary, "Black" Lena Kleinschmidt, Adam Worth, and Sophie Lyons.

Usually on hand, dressed in high-society attire, were the likes of "Shang" Draper and "Western George" Leslie, two of the most cunning bandits in New York. Musical entertainment was often provided by "Piano Charley" Bullard, a combination of misused talents - former butcher who now 'cut' into bank safes, a trained pianist who's nimble fingers could tumble a safe as easily as the could play Chopin's Etudes. His one fault was that he drank too much, but even inebriated, it was said, his digits never failed him, either in profession or in leisure.

Alas, all good things come to an end and in 1884, the New York District Attorney hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency in infiltrate Mandelbaum's organisation. An agent, posing as a prospective thief arranged for several marked rolls of silk stolen from a store where it was discovered in a police raid on her home the following morning. Arrested with her son Julius and clerk Herman Stroude, Mandelbaum was released on a $21,000 bail and fled the United States with an estimated $1 million. She settled in Toronto, (Canada at that time did not have an extradition treaty with the United States) and remained there, reportedly happy and in comfort, until her death in 1894.

SKINT AS A BANKER'S BONUS?

With the 'toxic-debt-like' evaporation of money from your wallet from Christmas present buying, unmissable Sale bargains and New Year's Eve celebrations, you will be pleased to learn of an eaterie that serves good, tasty, very affordable food where you can go in the New Year, without having to apply for a massive handout from Bubba Bush's Banker's Benefit Fund.

Wo Hop at 17, Mott Street, near Mosco Street is the ubiquitous, old fashioned Cantonese joint, now on the decline in Chinatown, that has eschewed the temptation to reinvent itself as a trendy regional purveyor of Fijian, Szechuan or Shanghaiese cuisine or even Vietnamese, Malaysian, Thai or Korean restaurant. But at Wo Hop, established in 1938, time stands still. Opening from 10am to 7am, 7/7, with BYOB, no credit cards and no reservations it is popular with the bridge-and-tunnel crowd and glassy eyed civil servants, this tiny subterranean dinosaur serves all the classics you loved in your youth; egg drop soup, chow mein, egg foo young, subgum vegetables.


Much of the food is simply prepared and heavily battered with corn starch thickened oyster and black bean sauces ruling. But there's something comforting about it, both taste and cost wise. Maybe it's because day or night, Wo Hop is there for you with a bowl of wonton soup, brimming with wontons freshly rolled by the kitchen staff, or soy sauce soaked chunks of brown roast pork - not the lurid food-dyed red pork you'll see at other establishments. Whatever you order you will not leave hungry - portions are elephantine and the food dense - and you will not leave having been reduced in the liquidity chain to something less than Lehman Brothers or even Bear Stearns.


Oh, by the way HAPPY NEW YEAR!