I would love to find out more about your new book, New Yorkers: A Feisty People Who Will Unsettle, Madden, Amuse and Astonish You! But first, are you a diehard New Yorker? Have you lived anywhere else?
Clifford: Born and raised in Illinois, went to college in Southern California. Only after two years in Europe did I come to New York to do graduate work in French. And only gradually did I become a diehard New Yorker, but that I certainly am. I love this city, for all its many faults.
Inside your book, you talk about how the Statue of Liberty almost didn’t happen. Can you tell us more about this? Sounds interesting!
Clifford: Some republicans in France wanted to give it to us, asking only that we find a spot and provide a massive base for it. We found the spot, but a depression in the mid-1870s made it hard for people to contribute. Other cities didn't want to promote a statue in New York, and politicians squabbled. Meanwhile the Statue -- yet to be assembled -- languished in warehouses in France. Then the newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer vowed to raise the money from ordinary people, and money flowed in in quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. And the Statue came to New York and was assembled and installed.
Who is your most remarkable New Yorker?
Clifford: Our most remarkable mayor was Fiorello LaGuardia (the "Little Flower"), a fireball of energetic, totally honest, but demanding, and a tough guy to work for. Beyond that, I'd have to give you a long list of candidates.
Who has been the craziest New Yorker you ever saw in your life?
Clifford: I've seen him only on TV: Donald Trump.
What is it about New York and its people that gave you the idea to write a book about them?
Clifford: I honestly believe that New York is the most exciting city in the world. It has a special quality, unique. Its people are doers, they want to get somewhere, accomplish something, and I respect that. It's a wild, crazy, supremely creative place, and so are its people. But we also know how to relax, though not during rush hour. And now, of course, the city is in lockdown -- anything but typical.
Will you be having more books released about New York?
Clifford: I have published two other nonfiction titles about New York: No Place for Normal: New York /Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, and Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, Liberated Women, Creators, Queers, and Crazies. Forthcoming in January is Forbidden Brownstones, the fifth title in my Metropolis series of historical novels set in nineteenth-century New York. I do both fiction and nonfiction, always related New York. Likewise my blog.
A quirky memoir by a longtime resident, with glances at his city’s history and bits of travel lore all rolled into one.
Readers will learn how the Statue of Liberty almost didn’t happen; how the author found the sacred in the city, and learned the Charleston on You Tube; how mobsters shared the corridors of the legendary Waldorf Astoria hotel with the Duke and Dutchess of Windsor and an ex-president; and how the author had an affair with a Broadway chorus boy (if the Cardinal Archbishop of New York could do it, so could he).
Plus Mohawks, hustlers, scams and cons, wigmakers and crematory managers, racoons in Central Park, Trump Tower, cholera, and the Beatles. A fun book, but with some serious moments.
New York is the most exciting city in the world. The author wants to share it with everyone.
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