The Metropolitan Spirit


Secrets of the Jazz Age

Fitzgerald reveals how sudden good fortune, flappers, and the midnight frolic belied the secrets of the Jazz Age.

— Excerpts from “My Lost City”
1

As I hovered ghost-like in the Plaza Red Room or went to lush parties in the East Sixties, I was haunted by my other life — my drab room, my square foot of the subway, my shabby suits.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
2
Photo: MCNY    

I was a failure —  mediocre at advertising work and unable to get started as a writer.  Hating the city, I got roaring, weeping drunk on my last penny and went home.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
3
Photo: Samuel Gottscho, MCNY

Incalculable city.  What ensued was only one of a thousand success stories of those gaudy days, but it plays a part in my own movie of New York.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
4

When I returned six months later the offices of editors and publishers were open to me, impresarios begged plays, the movies panted for screen material.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
5
Photo of F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1921

For just a moment, before it was demonstrated that I was unable to play the role, I was pushed into the position of spokesman for the time.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
6

A dive into a civic fountain was enough to get us into the gossip columns, and we were quoted on a variety of subjects we knew nothing about.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
7

The first speakeasies had arrived.  The plays were Declasseé and Sacred and Profane Love, and at the Midnight Frolic you danced elbow to elbow.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
8
Photo: Tallulah Bankhead by Cecil Beaton, Getty Images

Later, I realized that behind much of the entertainment the city poured forth into the nation were only a rather lot of lost and lonely people.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
9

When bored . . . a quart of Bushmill’s whiskey, then out into the freshly bewitched city.  At last we were one with New York, pulling it after us through every portal.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
10
Photo of Ina Claire

My first symbol was now a memory, for I knew triumph is in oneself; my second one had become commonplace — two of the actresses I had worshipped from afar had dined in our house.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
11
Photo: Wurts Bros, MCNY

But it filled me with a certain fear that the third symbol had grown dim — the tranquility of Bunny’s apartment was not to be found in the ever quickening city.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
12

By this time “we knew everybody” but we were no longer important.  The flapper upon whose activities the popularity of my first books was based, had become passé.

F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"

Next → Roaring Twenties


Fitzgerald’s Lost City


The Metropolitan Spirit


My Lost City

The full text of F. Scott Fitzgerald's “My Lost City,” quoted here, is included in the small anthologies, The Jazz Age and The Crack-Up, both published by New Directions.


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Celebrating the phenomenon of the Metropolitan Spirit breathing life into the City and nourishing its people.


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Walks

Some of the most magical walks in New York begin at Cedar Hill in Central Park near 5th Av. and 79th St.


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Metropolitan Museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th Avenue at 82nd Street breathes life and joy to visitors from around the world.


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Bandshell

Classical Music Concerts have been presented at the Bandshell in Central Park since 1905 as described by E. B. White in  Here is New York.


Turandot at The Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center annually presents the works of Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, and Puccini.


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Concert Reviews

The Who played Madison Square Garden and Jones Beach Theatre.  Van Morrison returned to Forest Hills Stadium.


Photo: Ric Burns’ New York Documentary
Films

Ric Burns’ film The Center of the World  is one of the most graceful and moving responses to the events of September 1, 2001.


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Writers

E. B. White and Paul Goldberger stand with F. Scott Fitzgerald as perhaps the most enchanting writers of New York.


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September 11

In the days after September 11 thousands of flyers and bulletins went up in public places around New York City.


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The Streets of Rome

The Metropolitan Spirit of the Eternal City is evoked in Bob Dylan's “When I Paint My Masterpiece.”


Rosemary Williams | Photo: Stanley Kubrick, LOC
Women of the
Beat Generation

In the 50's a few high spirited women haunted the Beat cafes in Greenwich Village and went on to live as ex-pats in Paris.

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The Metropolitan Spirit


F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1921 Declasse and Sacred and Profane Love Tallulah Bankhead - Photo: Cecil Barton, Getty Images Ina Claire Photo: Wurts Bros., Museum of the City of New York Flappers
The Jazz Age and The Crack-Up: F. Scott Fitzgerald on the Metropolitan Spirit