A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from December 18, 2005
“I Love New York” (2005)
"I Love New York" is on Madonna's Confessions on the Dance Floor (2005).

Perhaps you can dance to it, but the lyrics will win her no awards.

http://www.gawker.com/news/madonna/madonna-pens-the-new-new-york-anthem-137481.php
In case you forget, our fair city has an anthem. We never much liked it, though — it was cute in a nostalgic, old-school-Big-Apple sort of way, but it didn't really speak to the New York as we know it. You know what does, however? The new Madonna album, that's what. It's so dancey, so gay, so throbbing that it practically oozes NYC vibe with every trancey thud. And? It even comes with a brand new New York theme song, handily titled I Love New York:

I don't like cities but I like New York
Other places make me feel like a dork
Los Angeles is for people who sleep
Paris and London, baby you can keep
Other cities always make me mad
Other places always make me sad
No other made me glad, except New York
I love New York


Perfect anthem, right? We can't imagine anything more New York than this sort of musical genius, with lyrics so insipid even a tweaking Chelsea boy could understand them.

http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2005/11/16/madonna-may-love-new-york-but-what%E2%80%99s-the-official-anthem/
Madonna May Love New York, But What's The Official Anthem?
November 16th, 2005

Madonna's new song "I Love New York" is, says Gawker, the "perfect anthem" for New York (though Wonkster realizes this is hip talk for "dreadful"), and then reprints the lyrics:

I don't like cities but I like New York
Other places make me feel like a dork
Los Angeles is for people who sleep
Paris and London, baby you can keep
Other cities always make me mad
Other places always make me sad
No other made me glad, except New York
I love New York


This begs the question — what is New York's official anthem?

The Politicker and the world-renowned NYC administrative law judge and Big Apple enthusiast Barry Popik both have said that it's New York For The Time Of Your Life, by Frank Wildhorn, who wrote the Broadway musicals "Jekyll and Hyde" and "Dracula", and that the lyrics go like this:

It's a great front row seat for the world at your feet
It's the Yankees and Knicks, the Rockettes doin' kicks.
You can sail Sheepshead Bay, see a show on Broadway.
It's Fifth Avenue, plenty to see and do. …
New York, New York …
Winter, spring, summer, fall
Baby we've got it all!
New York, anytime of year
New York, it's all happening here
New York, for the time of your life!
You can shop 'til you drop, live your life to the top.
Double header at Shea, somethin' new every day.
It's the lights in Times Square, the moments you share.
Summer breaks. Paint the town — paint it up, paint it down.
Take the ferry to Staten from lower Manhattan. It's a bagel and schmear, it's a whole other gear.
It's a hot dog from Coney, a waiter named Tony. Yellow cabs, limousines. It's the subway to Queens. It's so nice, see it twice, paradise by the slice,
Brooklyn Heights, The Bronx Zoo, somethin' old, somethin' new
I love New York, baby … come paint the town


Others, however, say it's "New York, New York," which was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb for Martin Scorsese's 1977 film of the same name and which former Mayor Ed Koch proclaimed the city's official song in 1985. The lyrics, as modified by Frank Sinatra, who made it a hit when he recorded it in 1980, go like this:

Start spreadin' the news, I'm leavin' today
I want to be a part of it, New York, New York
These vagabond shoes are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it, New York, New York

I wanna wake up in a city that doesn't sleep
And find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap

These little town blues are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it, in old New York
If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you , New York, New York

New York, New York

I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps
And find I'm A-number-one, top of the list,
King of the hill, A-number-one

These little town blues are melting away
I'm gonna make a brand new start of it in old New York
A-a-a-nd if I can make it there, I'm gonna make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York


But then what about Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green's "New York, New York (It's A Helluva Town)," or Billy Joel's "New York State Of Mind" or Norah Jones's "New York City (Such A Beautiful Disease)" ?

Compiled by Jonathan
Posted by {name}
Music/Dance/Theatre/Film/Circus • Sunday, December 18, 2005 • Permalink


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