Five Unrealistic New York City Apartments on TV & Movies

A born and bred New York City boy, I love real estate, and have seen thousands of apartments throughout the years.   New York is the greatest city in the world, and I am raising my kids in the city - but the reality of New York life is rarely as glamorous as it’s portrayed in the media.  Certainly NYC apartments are rarely as realistic as those from the movies.

Watching the season five premier of Mad Men, I felt compelled to write about the five most unrealistic New York City apartments in pop-culture media portrayals:  

• Don Draper’s new apartment in the new season of Mad Men:
• With immaculate fashion style, a new Cadillac, three kids and an expensive ex-wife, the recently divorced creative director of a recently struggling advertising agency couldn’t possibly have such a large, modern large apartment.

As The NY Times noted today in discussing Draper: “financially comfortable characters are hardly spared the mess of unhappy marriages and the toll of heavy drinking.” I think this comment in reality would be much more realistic in discussing Draper: “I feel stuck,” a marketing executive earning $350,000 a year said. “The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach.”

• Carrie Bradshaw’s Upper East side apartment on Sex In the City:
• One bedroom walk-up in a gorgeous brownstone with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, walk-in closet, and bedroom – And it’s on a tree-lined block with great views. Seems like a lot for a newspaper columnist who goes out every night, with an expensive shoe (and other) habits.

•  You've Got Mail Meg Ryan's character Kathleen Kelly:
• In an Upper West Side Brownstone, filled with light and with a nice sized apartment, how could a single woman struggling to keep a small  (and inherited) bookstore open afford an apartment like this?

• Monica and Rachel's Greenwich Village apartment on Friends:
• Amazing location, huge living room, balcony, great closets – the two bedroom apartment isn’t believable even with the explanation that it seems to be an illegal sublet. A struggling chef and a waitress couldn’t possibly afford such an apartment.

• Kramer’s apartment on Seinfeld:
• Estranged from his family, this unemployed HS Dropout seemingly would have no way to live next door to Seinfeld (although raiding his neighbors’ fridge could happen). Perhaps one could make the argument that Seinfeld’s apartment was realistic, but Kramer? No Way…

Owning a PR agency, for me as for many others one of the joys of watching TV shows and movies is the “escape factor”, and watching TV shows and movies one doesn’t see a realistic portrayal of NYC real estate.  But maybe that’s part of the experience.

Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5WPR, a leading Public Relations firm, and author of PR book “For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results with Game-Changing Public Relations.”

Shame on Peter Beinart: the EU, France & London All Anti-Israel – Solace To the Enemy

The despicable journalist Peter Beinart recently wrote that his “…mission is to launch a conversation not just about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.. but about the struggle to confront the ethical responsibilities of a world in which Jewish fortunes have radically changed.” While Beinart, the esteemed Yale Graduate raises his children on the posh Upper East Side of Manhattan, a few days after the massacre in Toulouse one wonders if the Jews in Europe feel the concerns of “..the question of what it means to live an ethical Jewish life in an age of Jewish power.”
 

Mr. Beinart and all of the wonderful Jews in J Street must feel overwhelming joy with their liberal friends statements on Israel:

n  Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London who is running for Mayor once again has been a persistent enemy of Israel & The Jews – he has stated on a number of occasions that it would be better off if Israel did not exist According to David Hirsh, “Livingstone sees Israel as a pariah state with a menacing and malign influence well beyond its borders.”

o    Just this week, he used anti-Semitic language in a meeting with the city's Jewish community leaders, the leaders said.  Livingstone said the Jewish community would not vote for him because "the Jewish community is rich," according to a letter about the meeting. They also said that Livingstone had used the words Zionist, Jewish and Israeli interchangeably and "in a pejorative manner."

§  Of course it’s nothing new for Livingstone who has vowed to “turn London into a “beacon” for the words of the Prophet Mohammed”;

§  Embraced Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a high profile member of the Muslim Brotherhood and avowed antisemite who in July 2003 spoke in favor of suicide terror attacks

§  Said the Likud party and Hamas are “two sides of the same coin”.

§  Has called for the forcible disarmament of Israel, said Israel's expansion has included ethnic cleansing, and said Jews had no right to be in Israel

 Mr. Beinart can you really believe if the world boycotts “the settlements” as you advocate then everything will be dandy, Jews won’t be killed in France, and Mr. Livingstone will love us ? Absurd.

n  EU Chief Diplomat Catherine Ashton compared the dead Jews in Toulouse, France, with the deaths of children in the Gaza Strip. Speaking at a conference on Palestinian refugees on Monday in Brussels, Ashton cited the tragedy of “young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances.”

n  Jenny Tonge, the Liberal Democratic Member of Parliament in the UK, and party whip resigned after refusing to apologize for saying: "Beware Israel. Israel is not going to be there forever in its present form. One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving £70bn a year to Israel to support what I call America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East – that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough. Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown."

Amazingly, in London, Paris, and the halls of the European Union one doesn’t hear about Peter Beinart or J Street – nor are they active anywhere in the Arab Middle East. Since they are so proud to be Jewish they should don their proud kippas and build their movement in these countries – let’s see how long they last.  In fact, my PR Firm would be happy to announce to the media of their arrival to any Arab country as long as they don their religion outwardly. I’ll even buy Beinart airfare to any of the countries opposed to Israel’s existence he thinks Israel should negotiate with.

Perhaps these awful liberals like Beinart (who did his post grad in was born in Oxford, and was born in the liberal Ivy League town of Cambridge, Massachusetts) are in fact ideologically in line with Livingstone, Ashton and Tonge. 

I hope while they continue to “struggle to confront the ethical responsibilities of a world in which Jewish fortunes have radically changed” they realize the sin of their ways and pray for forgiveness. Jew-hatred is still prevalent and people like Beinart and J Street do nothing other than give solace to the enemy.

Ronn Torossian is the CEO of 5WPR, 1 of the 25 largest Public Relations Firms in the U.S..

Why football players should wrestle

By Matthew Wernikoff

Recently I was asked by a parent whether or not his son should continue to wrestle.  A Junior, for a good football program in NY, he was already receiving several scholarship offers from Division I football programs.  The father felt that his son benefited from wrestling but the son felt that he should just focus on the sport he was going to play in college.  The father asked me to outline the benefits of wrestling for football players and attempt to “prove” to his son that his scholarship offers would only increase if he continued to wrestle his last two seasons.  I happily agreed as there is no doubt that wrestling greatly benefits football players on all levels.

“I love wrestlers; they are tough and make great Football players.” –Mike Stoops National Championship Football Coach at Oklahoma University.

Physical Skills
Wrestling is one of the most physically demanding sports that any athlete can partake in.  It is a total body sport requiring athletes to be flexible, strong, explosive, agile; to have a great sense of balance; and have the level of conditioning that rivals any other endurance sport.  Wrestlers, through the course of their training and competition, are often subject to physical discomfort and pain at a level that far exceeds most sports.  These skills benefit football players at all levels, from the ability to move laterally, keep a man in front of you and close the distance quickly, to driving a 225lb running back into the ground and forcing the fumble.  There is no doubt that a wrestler’s physical-ness is a skill set desired by all coaches.

“Wrestlers make coaching football easy, they have balance, coordination, and as a staff we know they are tough.”  -Tom Osborne College Hall of Fame Coach for the University of Nebraska.

Stephen Neal- New England Patriots, 1999 World Freestyle Champion

Mental Skills
Weight management, the discipline to maintain a healthy diet for 6 months or more out of the year, the drive to give a 100% every practice, and the drive it takes to wake up early everyday to get an extra run in are just some of the mental skills that it takes to be a successful wrestler.  But none compare to the mental toughness it takes to walk out on a mat, alone with no teammates to help you win and take on an opponent one on one.  Nothing compares to that feeling; whether  you have a broken finger, bruised ribs, strained or torn knee ligament, a wrestler knows that for 6 minutes nothing else matters but putting his opponent on his back and getting his hand raised in the end.  What football coach wouldn’t want an athlete on their team that is always going to give them 100%  An athlete that they never have to tell, “hit the weight room,” or “you should get extra laps in after practice?”  A true wrestler always wants to be the first to arrive and the last to leave.  A wrestler is self reliant and will never blame his teammates for his loss.  Wrestlers are mentally tough.

“I draft wrestlers because they are tough, I’ve never had a problem with a wrestler.” –Joe Gibbs Hall of Fame Football Coach.

Physiological Skills
Hand eye coordination, proprioception and anaerobic conditioning are three skills that are vital to both wrestling and football player!  The definition of proprioecption is, “the ability to sense the position and location and orientation and movement of the body and its parts.”  It utilizes all of the senses in the body.  It is the ability to know where your body is in the space you are in, without having to look at your body.  In other words, when a wrestler is in a scramble and his head is stuck underneath his opponent and without looking he is able to move his whole body, all four limbs, often in different directions at the same time, while simultaneously keeping track of his opponent’s entire body and staying in-bounds to finish the takedown; this is proprioception.  On a football field an offensive linemen, for example, has to keep track of the man in front of him, his body, the bodies to his right and left and the quarterback behind him all at the same time.  A wrestler is forced to hone this skill everyday in a competitive practice environment.  This repetitive practice can only benefit a football player.

“I would have all of my offensive linemen wrestle if I could.” –John Madden, Hall of Fame Football Coach and Broadcaster

Anaerobic conditioning is defined as as your ability to perform at a rate faster than can be met by oxygen supply.  Short bursts of intense exercise tax your anaerobic system.  Wrestling is a combination of Anaerobic and aerobic metabolisms however, it relies heavily on anaerobic conditioning within a match or tournament.  It is because of this that wrestlers are often saught after by football coaches because they are in superior shape to athletes who do not work their anaerobic system.

“Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy.” –Dan Gable Hall of Fame Wrestler and Wrestling Coach

Matthew Wernikoff is a premiere Wrestling Coach based out of Bergen County, New Jersey