Los bares de los periodistas The journalists’ bars Nora Ephron también mantuvo vivo el espíritu de lo que fue Nueva York en títulos como Algo para recordar, con prota-gonista periodista, aunque antes de ser directora y guionista de cine fuera cronista de la ciudad. Nada escapaba a su lúci-da mirada desde su apartamento en el legendario Apthorp, donde residió dos décadas, y al que describió como una his-toria de amor. “Mi apartamento en el Apthorp parecía un milagro urbano. Había encontrado un refugio. Y la arquitec-tura del edificio añadía a esa ilusión”. A ella, como al resto, el ladrillo de sus rascacielos también le parecía poético. Journalism became so important in New York that it had its own street: Newspaper Row. That’s how Park Row was known in the mid-nineteenth century. Nowadays, there’s nothing special about this small street in front of City Hall in Lower Manhattan. The 41 Park Row building was the headquarters of The New York Times and is the only one still standing, now converted into a university. Further down, 15 Park Row housed the first offices of the Associated Press news agency. But there’s no trace of the Tribune, World, Sun or the historic Herald, a newspaper founded in 1835 to lay the foundations of journalism without political ties and with a fixed editorial department. With the turn of the century and the emergence of the typewriters that would revolutionise the sector, the com-munication media followed the city’s natural direction of growth, towards the north. Once again, the Herald was the first to leave Newspaper Row and occupy larger offices on 34th Street, at the crossroads of Broadway and Sixth Avenue. Its building was demolished in 1921 but a number of trac-es still remain. In the square named after it, Herald Square, stands the James Gordon Bennett Memorial, a monument commemorating the newspaper’s founder. The southern half of the park also has a journalism theme. Greeley Square is named after Tribune editor Horace Greeley, who bought the rival publication to create the newspaper Herald Tribune. Alongside the mass-circulation papers, specialist maga-zines appeared on the newsstands, offering another way of looking at reality. The New Yorker soon became a beacon not only of journalistic essays, but also of fiction by authors such as Ernest Hemingway and J. D. Salinger. The origin of Times Square and Superman The media also played a key role in the revitalisation of New York. The city council invited the prestigious The New York Times to occupy Longacre on 42nd Street, back then the cen-tre of the carriage industry. The reward was to change the name of the square to that of the newspaper. That was how Times Square came about in 1904. Although its current head-quarters is opposite Port Authority bus terminal, the original building still stands, covered with LED screens and with a new viewpoint under construction. But there’s probably no better sanctuary for journalism than the News Building on 42nd Street, very close to Grand Central Terminal. This was the base for the editorial department of the Daily News and also for the fictional Daily Planet and its two top journalists, Clark Kent and Lois Lane, in the film Superman (1978). Inside there is a small museum about journalism. Newspapers soon became obsolete when television burst onto the scene. The three main channels broadcast from New York. NBC was the first to broadcast in the United States and in 1933 they opened their studios in 30 Rockefeller Center, from where they continue to produce some of their flagship shows such as Saturday Night Live. CBS jumped from radio to television on the same set used in the 1950s in the Grand Central Terminal offices and ABC has its own at street level in Times Square. The legacy of Truman Capote and Nora Ephron The social and countercultural explosion of the 1960s gave way to a new, more creative and literary impetus in jour-nalism associated with names such as Norman Mailer, who lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, or Truman Capote, a resi-dent at 70 Willow Street, Brooklyn Heights. This was where he served his Breakfast at Tiffany’s and gave a master class in the real-life events genre with the novel In Cold Blood. Those were also the days of Gay Talese’s society portraits, immor-talising the new era of New York in his chronicles. The jour-nalist frequented La Goulue, his favourite restaurant, where he had his own table, number 7. “I like restaurants not so much for the food and the atmosphere but because they’re show business, like theatres, with the comings and goings of customers, good lighting and dialogues that one hears from nearby tables”, as he described his fondness for eavesdrop-ping. What these authors captured with their words, Bill Cunningham did with his camera. This visual chronicler treated anonymous New Yorkers as models and, for decades he pedalled from his apartment with his camera around his neck to the junction of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, his favourite spot for keeping his finger on the pulse of New York fashion. In his words: “If you feel depressed, there’s noth-ing better than picking up the camera, going out to hunt for well-dressed people and photographing them”. Memorable snapshots were also taken by one of the first paparazzo pho-tographers, Ron Galella, whose lens was always focused on the celebrities who frequented Elaine’s, a restaurant that sadly only lives on in Woody Allen’s films. Nora Ephron also kept alive the spirit of New York’s past in films like Sleepless in Seattle with its journalist lead char-acter, although before becoming a film director and screen-writer she produced some great work as a chronicler of the city. Nothing escaped her lucid gaze from her apartment in the legendary Apthorp building, where she lived for two dec-ades and which she described as a love story. “My apartment in the Apthorp was like an urban miracle. I’d found a refuge. And the architecture of the building added to that feeling”. To her, like the others, the bricks of the city’s skyscrapers also seemed poetic. ENG © Mario Ruiz/Getty Images nueva york Nora Ephron en su apartamento en el Apthorp. // Nora Ephron in her apartment in the Apthorp. En Nueva York, los locales de moda cambian como las estaciones pero si hay un bar que actúa de imán para profesionales de los medios es Pebble Bar, en el Rockefeller Center. Precisamente sus propietarios trabajan en televisión: el cómico Pete Davidson y el actor Justin Theroux, entre otros. En Hell’s Kitchen se encuentra Ink 48 (en la foto), un hotel que ocupa el espacio de una antigua imprenta. Sus dos bares son de lo más literal: Press Lounge y PRINT. Punto de reunión más informales son Toad Hall y Jimmy’s Corner para esos reporteros que apuran los deadlines. ENG In New York, trendy venues change like the seasons but if there’s one bar that acts as a magnet for media professionals it’s Pebble Bar in the Rockefeller Center. Its owners actually work in television: come-dian Pete Davidson and actor Justin Theroux, among others. Hell’s Kitchen features Ink 48 (pictured), a hotel that occupies the space of an old printing press. Its two bars are very literal: Press Lounge and PRINT. More informal meeting points are Toad Hall and Jimmy’s Cor-ner for reporters pushing deadlines to the limit. Los bares de los periodistas The journalists’ bars © Kris Tamburello nueva york Vuelos desde // Flights from: MADRID La ciudad de los rascacielos está conectada con Madrid con cuatro frecuencias a la semana gracias a Air Europa. ¡Es tiempo de conocer la Gran Manzana! // The city of skyscrapers has four flights a week connecting it with Madrid thanks to Air Europa. It’s time to get to know the Big Apple! www.aireuropa.com