RIP Kobe Bryant (1978-2020)

One of the hard truths of life is that we never know when our number will be up. If we are lucky, we will live to see old age. But not all of us are so lucky.

NBA legend Kobe Bryant was killed this morning in a helicopter crash with his daughter Gianna and seven other people.

I’m not a huge sports fan. The extend of my sports watching is going a Brooklyn Cyclones game every summer. But I respect hard work, talent, drive and the knowledge that one has to work for what you want from life.

Kobe Bryant was only 41. His daughter was only 13. Their loss, simply on the human level, is palpable and heartbreaking. My heart goes out to his wife, his surviving children, those who knew him best and the millions of basketball fans around the world.

On Yom Kippur, we say the Unetanah Tokef prayer. Part of the prayer is as follows:

And on Yom Kippur it is sealed./How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,/Who shall live and who shall die,

We never know when the final chapter in the book of life will be written. We can only live to the fullest and give thanks for our blessings.

May the memories of Bryant, his daughter, and everyone who perished this morning forever be a blessing. Z”l.

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All the Ways We Said Goodbye: A Novel of the Ritz Paris Book Review

A building is more than the materials used to build it. It is a place of action and memories.

The center of the new novel, All the Ways We Said Goodbye: A Novel of the Ritz Paris is the Ritz Paris Hotel. Co-written by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White, the book is set in three different times and places in France: an aristocratic country house during World War I, Paris during World War II and Paris in the 1960’s.

During World War I, heiress Aurelie is trapped in her family’s ancestral home with her father. The Germans have taken over and are slowly sapping the land and the people of their resources. During World War II, Daisy was raised by her American grandmother. Married to a Frenchman who has joined the Nazi cause, she secretly joins the resistance. In the 1960’s, Barbara is a recent widow. She has come to France to seek out the lover her late husband never got over.

When three authors work together on one story, there is either the potential to create an amazing story or a mess of a novel with three separate voices that never quite merge together. This book is somewhere in the middle. It is far from the worst book I have ever read. However, it does not quite reach the potential that it promises.

Do I recommend it? Maybe.

Thoughts on Eric Adams’ Telling Non-Native New Yorkers to Go Back to Ohio and Iowa

If you know nothing about New York City, you know that it is an expensive place to live. For the same price of renting or buying a home in New York City, one can buy a home with a large piece of land in another part of the country.

Last Monday, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams stated the following during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech.

“Go back to Iowa, you go back to Ohio,” he said during a speech in Harlem.

“New York City belongs to the people that was here and made New York City what it is.”

To be fair, the point he is making is not exactly a lie. Living in New York City is not cheap. In many neighborhoods that were once considered to be untouchable, gentrification is causing rent and home prices to rise. An unfortunate side effect of this is that long time residents of these neighborhoods (many of whom who are people of color), cannot afford to stay in their homes.

However, the blame does not lie on the feet of those who come from states like Iowa and Ohio. I have many friends who are not native New Yorkers. Their contribution to this city is just as important as those of us who were born here. The blame lies on the building owners and the developers who charge prices for homes that is unreasonable for most of America. The blame also lies with the city and the state who do not step in to make sure that the homeless population is not increasing because of rising rent and home buying prices.

New York City has always welcome newcomers. It is what makes this city so vibrant and so beautiful. If this city is to thrive in the future, we must continue to welcome newcomers. We must also ensure that those who live here can continue to live here. But that does not mean we blame those newcomers for being able to afford to live here.