As denizens of a city where the Naked Cowboy poses for pictures with tourists in sub-freezing temperatures directly across the street from where a zealous street evangelist preaches apocalyptic doom and street vendors hawk pirated DVDs and (what they would like potential buyers to believe are real) Rolex watches, New Yorkers aren’t easily fazed. But every now and then, something does manage to make us stop and do a double-take.
It happened on one of the rare occasions when Philip and I weren’t having lunch at our respective desks in The Interchurch Center (his on the 8th floor, mine on the 10th). We took a stroll across the street to pick up something or other at The Riverside Church gift shop. As we crossed 120th Street on Claremont Avenue, there emerged from the rear entrance of the church a trio of victims who appeared to have been caught in a literal crossfire. With blood oozing from bullet holes in their foreheads, the mortally wounded walked out of the church, none the worse for wear. Behind them were homicide detectives from the 27th Precinct, whose officers, for two decades, have been responsible for maintaining law (if not necessarily order) in Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
“In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.”
Tonight will mark the end of an era as the last quip is uttered and the screen fades to black on Law & Order.
When the original series premiered in the Fall of 1990 – the year Victoria, my youngest, was born – the senior detectives were avuncular character actors, and the hot junior detective – Chris Noth’s tormented and volatile Mike Logan – was exactly my age. Twenty years later, Jeremy Sisto, senior detective Cyrus Lupo in the current cast, is young enough to be my son.
L&O production trailers are familiar sights outside our office building. Many exterior scenes are shot around the campus of Columbia University. Union Theological Seminary on Broadway and 120th often serves as the setting for the show’s fictional Hudson University. If the trailers are parked on Riverside Drive, it usually means they’re filming the show’s trademark opening sequence, where a bickering couple’s bickering is interrupted when they stumble upon a dead body in Riverside Park.
But there’s another reason I feel connected to L&O: I have a shared history with some of the actors who have appeared on the show over the years. Two of my schoolmates at St. Michael Academy, the all-girls Catholic high school we attended in the late 1960s and early 1970s, have been guest stars on the original show (the “mother ship”) and its various spin-offs. (One of these high school acquaintances, who enjoyed a recurring role as a scheming defense attorney on the “Order” half of L&O, will forever be remembered for revealing the ultimate Citizen Kane spoiler. As we crossed paths in the hallway on the way to Sister Mary Michel’s English class, where we were to view the last reel of that classic film – and in technologically primitive 1970, it was a reel, of the 16mm variety – she announced in a stage voice that would serve her well in her future calling, “It was the SLED!”)
Like Law & Order, St. Michael’s received a cancellation notice this Spring. After a 136-year run, the high school is scheduled to close in mid-June – 40 years after the closing of the elementary school – the victim of low enrollment, financial shortfalls and ecclesiastical politics.
Yesterday, Victoria and I visited St. Michael’s. After a quick tour of the old parish church that had been my spiritual home as a young child, we walked around the corner to the school building. It being Sunday, everything was closed, and all we could do was shoot exterior photos – of the steps to the convent, which housed our teachers, the Sisters of the Presentation; of the huge statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, now safely encased, but which, for a long time, always seemed to be missing a few fingers; of the once-gender segregated entrances marked “Girls” and “Boys” dating back to the original elementary school – all showing signs of age. As we walked and clicked away, each picture had a story to tell – some serious, most funny, many irreverent, all sacred. And I could not help feeling that there were many more yet to be told, that now will not.
Neat tie-in! Thanks for the stories.
ReplyDeleteL&O was part of our lives in ways beyond our TV. It always made my day when we rounded the corner on Riverside Drive and saw the lines of production trailers -- a sure sign that L&O was filming across the street from our office at Union Seminary (usually presenting as the fictional Hudson U.) Weeks later, it was a thrill to recognize doorways, hallways and offices at Union used as L&O sets. No doubt Union will miss L&O as much as I will.
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