The Beatles Are Here!

by Penelope Rowlands

  The Times was one of six or seven daily newspapers in New York City in those days and was known as a reporter’s paper. The Herald Tribune was the writer’s paper—it was where you had a columnist like Jimmy Breslin or a very stylish writer like Tom Wolfe, and many others. I was something of a peculiar character at the Times in that I was a writer more than a reporter.

  My specialty was writing about people. I wrote about baseball players, bridge builders, civil rights leaders. It didn’t matter if what they were doing was criminal or celebratory, whether they were starting a riot or holding up a bank or robbing a building—it was all part of the daily news.

  At the Times there was a sense that the newspaper’s contents weren’t as perishable as ordinary journalism. We were a paper of record. When you wrote for the Times you were writing for the first stage of history. All of us daily reporters were doing that, although we never thought of it that way. We just covered the hour by hour events.

  So there I was, in New York with the greatest paper in the world and the freedom to write about whatever entered the city. This took all forms—artistic, militant, political, racial. It changed day to day. I was masquerading as a master of everything but really I was a master of nothing. But I had a good pair of eyes and a good pair of ears and I’d listen and observe. I was out every day and every night.

  THE BEATLES WERE four long-haired originals making their entrance into the city of opportunity. Their arrival was a departure from ordinary journalism. The Times’s editors decided that this foppish group of longhairs—these Liverpool lunatics—were worthy of history. They anointed me to go out and write of the group’s arrival in a seaport city in which ships and planes every day bring new people, new dreamers, new rattlers, new personalities, and new opportunists to the shores of Manhattan.

  New York City was in a great transition from being a place in which the news consisted mainly of powerful, rich, and socially connected people to one where you were also writing about people in the streets. The streets became the news. This happened because of the war in Vietnam, which caused street protests against the draft, and the civil rights movement.

  The Beatles were a spectacle and I was a specialist in covering spectacles, from race riots in Harlem to the shooting of Malcolm X and the early protests against Vietnam on such campuses as Columbia University and NYU. I also spent a lot of time covering the construction of the Verrazano Bridge that connected Brooklyn and Staten Island. A lot of people didn’t want the bridge built—eight thousand people had to be moved out of the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, and there were huge protests against it.

  And I wrote about what was left of society—the philanthropic evenings, the charity balls. The sixties were a time of social change, turmoil, yet also a continuation of New York as the financial capital of the United States. A lot of luxury living was going on in Manhattan. The rich were thriving. At the same time there were protests against poverty, especially in Harlem, and the lack of civil rights in this so-called liberal city.

  AFTER I GOT the Beatles assignment, I spent a whole day watching them as they moved into public recognition. I watched them from afar. I’m in the crowd, seeing them from a distance. I didn’t talk to them, I just watched. That’s what I specialized in. I don’t really like to talk to people. I’m a watcher, a scene describer. When I’m writing I’m not a civilian, but a kind of performer—a participating, fantasizing performer. I’m like an actor who plays a role and the role I play has to do with the people I’m writing about.

  I didn’t talk to the Beatles, I didn’t want to talk to them. I described the scene around them. I always find that it’s more interesting if you describe a scene as if you’re writing a movie or even taking pictures. Journalism should be scenic; it should tell a story, like a novel. It has to be visual, like a film or a painting. I had no idea whether the Beatles would live on beyond the big show, the big splash. I wanted to watch them emerge in this ever-changing city, this city of spectacle, which is what Manhattan is and has always been.

  THE BEATLES WERE different from anything in the entertainment world, which was still in the era of the crooner. Frank Sinatra was thriving—he was very much a big story in 1964. But suddenly the Beatles were in the forefront. They were the latest arrival from switched-on London. They imported a clashing new culture. They personified the new fashion and styles, the long hair, this new kind of music.

  The British were undergoing a revolt against tradition, a revolt against the Establishment. They were an old colonial power in decline. Their royalty was in decline. Most of what was British was in decline, except the underclasses, which were surging in theater, fashion, and music. They made a profound impression on the American underclass, middle class and, as my article pointed out, even the upper, elite, moneyed class—the grandfathers of today’s hedge fund trillionaires.

  NEW YORK IS a city of big splashes. I had a lot of experience seeing people make splashes, whether it was Mickey Mantle hitting a home run, or the New York Knickerbockers winning the championship from Los Angeles, which they did around that time. I covered astronauts, ballet, defectors from the Bolshoi and the Soviet system. I covered all that stuff.

  More often than not the city gets tired of people who emerge as the latest fad. Performers and their music have their one night stand, then fade into obscurity. It’s much rarer to be recognized for a long time, as was the case with Sinatra.

  After I left the Times, in 1965, I spent a year writing for Esquire. One of my assignments was to write about Frank Sinatra. I went out to Los Angeles to try to see him, but he wouldn’t see me because he’d gotten mad. So I wrote the whole piece [the famous story titled “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”] without talking to him. I didn’t have to speak with him. As I’ve said, I wasn’t interested in talking with people anyway. When I work, I’m only into the story. I don’t sing, but when I was reporting the Sinatra story, I was imagining Sinatra. And just as I didn’t interview the Beatles and wrote about the scene instead, I didn’t talk to Sinatra because I wrote about the scene around him. All I wanted was to look. I was an observer.

  At about this time Sinatra’s press agent in Beverly Hills put out a press release about a television special that Sinatra did for NBC, which said something along the lines of “This is not the music of mopheaded young men.” Sinatra had been a celebrity since the post-WWII 1940s. Like the Beatles, he’d played the Paramount Theatre. In fact, the Paramount had been Sinatra territory, with his own screaming young people, known as the “bobby soxers.” He had been there, done that.

  Sinatra’s place had been somewhat challenged earlier, by Elvis Presley; now he had these foreigners—these “mopheads!”—coming in. There was this lack of appreciation, if not outright skepticism, about their talent. It was reflected in this press release, which was condescending in tone and secure in its position that Sinatra was king and that these other people, the Beatles, were sort of temporary court jesters.

  I thought of the Beatles as just a wondrous event of a day. But later, after months and months and months, I began slowly, as a civilian, to hear their music as it was repeated every day around the clock on the radio. I began to appreciate them, as I appreciated Puccini, Verdi, Sinatra, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley—I was open to everything. I was eclectic in my interests, then as now.

  My Four Friends

  by Cyndi Lauper

  WHEN I WAS nine, I got some Barbie dolls and two albums for Christmas. One was a Supremes album called Meet the Supremes, and the other was Meet the Beatles. I was glad to meet both of them. The Supremes sounded like they were my age, like they were my friends, and I would sing with them constantly. Their songs were memorable and easy to sing along to. And I guess that was the first call-and-response I ever sang. The Beatles, however, were intriguing in a different way because I had a crush on them. And because the media introduced them to us individually, and we were encouraged to pick our favorite Beatle, I picked Paul. My sister and I would dress up like the Beatles for our
family and perform with mops.

  My sister, Elen, always wanted to be Paul, so I was John. Whatever my sister was doing, I wanted to be with her. My mom told me that I was born to be her friend, and I took that literally. Besides, I didn’t mind being John, because he was married to someone named Cynthia. And that was really my name, not just Cindy. And I had a dream once that I was brushing my teeth with John Lennon and spitting in the same sink. (Later, I told that to Sean Lennon, but I think it scared him.)

  By singing with my sister like that, and listening to John’s voice, I learned harmony and the structure of songs. By the time I was eleven, I began writing with my sister. When Elen graduated from junior high school she got an electric Fender guitar and amp and I got her acoustic guitar when I was graduating from sixth grade. Our first song was called “Sitting by the Wayside.” I guess if I heard my kid write that now I’d be worried, but we were living in the protest era.

  Before that, I was always singing along to Barbra Streisand from my mother’s record collection. I also performed for myself a lot with my mother’s Broadway albums: My Fair Lady, The King and I, South Pacific. I was Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin. I was also Richard Harris in Camelot. At times when I sang I would act like my relatives, because they were always very dramatic. (They were Sicilian, after all.) But mostly I liked the way it felt to change my voice, and when I sang I could imagine the leading man right in front of me. My interior life and my play life were so real to me that I could make up anything. I guess the saddest thing about being introduced to the Supremes and the Beatles, though, was that all of a sudden there was a difference between my mother’s music collection and mine.

  In high school I listened to Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Sly and the Family Stone, the Chambers Brothers, the Four Tops, and Cream. Motown was king, and, of course, Beatles, Beatles, Beatles. When I got older, they came out with The White Album, and I put each of their pictures on the walls of my room. That’s where I’d daydream, write poems, paint, write songs, or play other people’s songs on my guitar. Sometimes I’d hear my mom call out to me to clean my room and I’d try to ignore her. Once I must have pushed her right over the edge because she finally came in and said, “I want you and all your friends (pointing to the pictures on the walls), to clean this room up right now.” It was not easy for her.

  MY MOM WAS pretty cool. When I was eleven and the Beatles were coming to New York, my mother drove my sister, her friend Diane, and me to the Belt Parkway where the Hilton Hotel is, by the airport, so we could see the Beatles drive by, and she left us there for a while. She knew we weren’t going to run into traffic. So we waited. And waited. All of a sudden we saw cars coming and it was them. So I started screaming, and I shut my eyes, and by the time I realized I should open my eyes, I’d missed it. I was dressed all nice, too. I had dark jean clam diggers with pointy shoes and a sleeveless green blouse, and black plaid shirt with a man-tailored collar.

  A Facebook Encounter

  Vickie Brenna-Costa, fan

  (the girl second from the left in the photo)

  I WAS VERY young, only twelve or thirteen, when I first heard the Beatles. We were living in the Wakefield section of the Bronx. I don’t remember reading about them but I do remember the first time I heard them on my little pink Zenith transistor radio. I didn’t know what they looked like yet. I just wanted to hear more music. I had to own the 45 of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” with “I Saw Her Standing There” on the flip side. After I got it, I played it to death.

  I used to see my best friend, Joann Pugliese, all the time because she lived in my aunt’s apartment building, five blocks from where I lived; it was really my second home. It was one of those old Bronx buildings with two entrances off the vestibule. My aunt’s apartment was on the first floor in the left wing and Joann lived on the third floor in the right wing. My aunt’s kitchen window and Joann’s kitchen window overlooked the back courtyard. If I looked out my aunt’s window and Joann looked out of hers we could see each other. When the windows were open we would call out to each other.

  One day Joann called out and then came down from her apartment to my auntie’s. She was waving her arms and shrieking, “I’ve got the album! I’ve got the album!” It was the long-awaited Meet the Beatles. We were finally seeing them for the first time. We went ballistic! Well, now we REALLY loved them! I immediately had a crush on George and she on Paul. That’s when we started trying to convince each other which one was cuter . . .

  What made them so special? Their sound had a rhythm or beat like we’d never heard before—they named themselves The Beatles, after all—and their words just spoke to us. For me, they were in step with a young girl just becoming a young woman. “I Want to Hold Your Hand”?—a very big deal back then, holding hands. And the lyrics to “I Saw Her Standing There”? “My heart went boom when I crossed that room and I held her hand in mine”? We lived those words at St. Mary’s sock hops! Elvis, Dylan, and Motown were all great, but the Beatles thrilled us to the core.

  When they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show we had to have more pictures. We filled our little Brownie cameras with black and white film, shut the lights and took pictures of the TV. This was Joann’s idea. We didn’t know if it would work but it did, they turned out great. (BTW . . . she’s quite a photographer today.)

  The Beatles were coming to Forest Hills. The problem was, How do we get there? It was an evening concert. We were young and couldn’t travel the subways alone at night. We felt so isolated in the Bronx. I pleaded with my parents for days. “You have to take us! You have to take us!” Finally, they said “Okay, okay, we’ll take you!” We ended up in the top row crying and screaming our heads off. We couldn’t hear a word they sang. After their helicopter takeoff, we looked at each other. We hadn’t heard anything. We left hoarse but ecstatic. My parents picked us up. We rode home in a daze.

  Our next chance to see them was at the hotel where they stayed after the Forest Hills concert; we heard they would be staying there at the Delmonico Hotel on Park Avenue and 59th Street. Joann’s cousin Linda joined us. We met at Joann’s house and that’s when Linda rolled out this huge sign that read BEATLES PLEASE STAY HERE 4-EVER. I remember being embarrassed by it. I thought it was childish. I was, like, what are we doing with this big sign! But she had made the sign and we took it and the number 2 train down to Manhattan. We stood in front of the hotel and every time someone opened a window we would start screaming even if only the blinds moved.

  We were crazy and that’s how you and I met. We both loved George. We connected over that. You said you had also gone to Forest Hills and had been high up like we were in the stands. I remember you were very energetic and you had curly blond hair. I remember very distinctly talking to you all afternoon. I really liked you and remember saying to myself, “I could be her friend.” I was kind of sad thinking I wouldn’t see you anymore. It sounds crazy but it’s true.

  And then came the man with the camera. I remember he just crouched in front of us, clicked, and walked away. I had no idea he was with a newspaper, because he just had a little Pentax or something. Later, I discovered his name was Jack Manning and was on staff at the New York Times and that was just how he worked, with very little equipment and very few shots. He didn’t take many, but he took this one! If it wasn’t for that sign, he would not have taken our picture. You and I are sitting here because of the sign.

  By the way, the picture wasn’t taken at the Paramount, as noted in the Times’s caption. Our photo was taken in daylight and the theater event was in the evening of the same day.

  YEARS LATER I saw Paul McCartney on the street in Manhattan. That was really wild. I was nineteen at the time. I was on Fifth Avenue. I worked on Sixth Avenue at Lowenstein Fabrics; I was on my lunch break. I was crossing Fifth and he was approaching the same corner that I was coming to. My heart was pounding! He had married Linda and they were with her daughter Heather. I was very shy at the time but I knew I had to say something. There was no way I
was not saying something.

  When we met at the corner, we made eye contact and I said, “Congratulations,” because they had just gotten married. He said, “Thank you ‘veddy’ much,” just the way he does. And the little girl looked up and said, “Do we know her?” She was looking at me like . . . who are you? He said, “Yes, don’t you remember?” He was making up a little story. It was so sweet. It was something like, “Don’t you remember when we . . .”

  I stayed back to see people’s reactions as they walked by. People were asking each other, “Was that Paul McCartney? Was that Paul McCartney?” It was really quite a thrill. I immediately went to a phone booth and called my boyfriend. It was exciting, really wild, but it could have been George. If it had been, I don’t know what I would have done.

  EACH TIME I tell the story of how I found you and the famous photo, I’m amazed at the whole thing again. It’s so surreal to me, the way it happened. The odds were so against it. I don’t subscribe to Vogue. Sometimes my cousin will say, “Take this,” and give me a copy, but that didn’t happen all the time. And I’m not like a fashionista, although I did study fashion illustration many moons ago at the High School of Art & Design. I can’t afford Vogue-wear.

  I look at the magazine just to see what I will not be wearing. I always look at it from the back. I read it from back to front. I don’t get into it that far. Once the editorials and ads start, I just leave it, I throw it away. I don’t waste time on it.

  After I saw the picture that night, that story went viral with people around here. My son called me for some other reason, I said, “David, I’m in Vogue magazine.” He said, “I’ll be right home.” All of a sudden I was kinda cool. When I showed it to my cousin, who had given me the magazine, she was angry that she hadn’t noticed it first. She was disappointed that she couldn’t see my reaction to it. She said, “I used to see that picture all the time (in the New York Times and elsewhere) and I never even looked at it closely.”