By Patrick F. Cannon

Last week I wrote about the demise of the fedora. Of course, they’re not the only victim of a more modern and casual approach to men’s fashion. I remember being appalled when I first saw what looked like white tennis shoes on the feet of a man wearing a suit a tie. Now, of course, one is used to seeing all sorts of shoes paired with even formal dress.

            Looking back, I don’t have a clear memory of the kind of shoes  I wore until I started going to school. Sometime before classes started, you were taken to  the local shoe store to get “school” shoes. These would be made of sturdy leather, usually a size too large to allow for the inevitable growth during the year. By the time school was out, they were fit only for the garbage. I should mention that the trip to the shoe store had an added appeal. You put your feet in a kind of X-ray machine. You could see the bones in your feet! They eventually decided bombarding feet with deadly rays wasn’t a great idea.

            Summer vacation meant “tennies.” They weren’t like a classic tennis shoe, but more like today’s “high top” basketball shoes. Ours were usually black. I’m not sure, but I think Converse and Keds were the usual brands. By the  end of the summer, they were both worn out and had developed that classic never-to-be forgotten wet tennis shoe odor.

            It’s only when you reach high school age that you begin to care about shoe fashion. During my four years, I can recall owning a pair of blue suede shoes but later I decided that white buck and saddle shoes were more my style!  The “Ivy League” look had come in, even in the grimy Pittsburgh area (McKeesport in my case). I checked, and you can still buy all the above. I should warn you, however, that you must apply an occasional coat of shoe whitener when the white gets scuffed or grimy. Good old Kiwi of shoe polish fame still makes the stuff.

            Speaking of Kiwi, there’s many a man today who’s never used shoe polish. Nor availed himself of a professional shoe shine. Back when I worked in Chicago’s Loop, most barber shops had a shoeshine stand. When I was young, I worked for the New York Central Railroad at La Salle Street Station. Many men would get off a train and stop for a shine. Even though I was making little money then, I often had a shine. As I recall, it cost 25 cents (you tipped another 25).

            For most of my working life I wore what are now called “dress” shoes. They were either black or various shades of brown. While there were and are variations, the toes were either plain, capped, or wing tipped. Although some socks had subtle patterns, most were black, dark blue or deep brown. They were calf length, so that no skin would show when you crossed your legs. Now, to my horror (or maybe just bemusement) men have taken to wearing bright colored socks, or no socks at all!, with dress shoes.  

            When I retired 25 years ago, I owned four pairs of dress shoes – black cap toe; ox blood wing tips; brown slip in tassel wing tips; and standard loafers. All except the last were made by Allen Edmunds, a premium brand made in Wisconsin. Even in those long-ago days, most Allen Edmund shoes cost at least $300 a pair. The best dress shoes I ever owned were a pair of shell cordovan plain toe brogues. This leather comes from a small area of a horse’s rump and takes a shine like no other leather. Allen Edmunds offers a pair at $850, but you can pay much more.

            (By the way, if your Allen Edmunds shoes get tired, you can send them to the factory and for $150 they’ll replace heels, soles, etc., and send them back looking like new.)

            Anyway, I eventually had to give all those shoes away. Strangely enough, I outgrew them.  As you age, you shrink in height – I went from 6’2” to 6’1’ – but that inch is added to your feet, so I now wear a size 13 instead of size 12. If I keep shrinking, I may yet need clown shoes.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

Over the winter, I happened to be in Chicago’s Loop, and found myself walking past the Federal center, which includes an office building, the courthouse, and a post office, all designed by the famous German-born architect, Mies van der Rohe. The complex includes a plaza, notable for a striking red stabile by artist Alexander Calder. But it was something else that caught my eye.

            Two older men were walking across the plaza, clearly headed for the courthouse. Both were wearing dark blue full-length overcoats, with ties clearly visible. On their heads? Felt fedoras. When I first started working at a real corporate job in 1963, almost every man working downtown was dressed similarly. Now, they’re in the minority. I assumed these distinguished gentlemen were either Federal judges or lawyers practicing before them. The courts, it seems, are one of the last bastions of proper dress (although “proper” may now be considered an elitist word).

            When I got that first corporate job, I was fresh out of the Army. I owned one suit, which clearly would need a friend or two. For some years, I bought my suits either at Baskins (owned by Hart, Shaffner & Marx) or Marshall Field’s. When I retired in 2001, I owned eight suits and two sports coats. Now, I have one blue-made-to-measure suit, suitable for weddings and funerals; and two sports coats, a navy-blue blazer, which I occasionally wear and a patterned one which I wish I hadn’t bought.

            I lived for many years in Oak Park. When I moved back in 1974, there were at least five men’s stores – Baskins, Lytton’s, Marshall Fields, Bogarts, and Spaulding’s. Now? None. You must go across the street to River Forest, which has a Men’s Warehouse. The fashion in hats comes and goes, but you’re more likely to see baseball-like caps on men’s heads than fedoras, including the bright red version worn by the leader of the free world.   

            In addition to buying those suits in 1963, I thought I’d better get a hat too. Baskins had a hat section on the first floor of its downtown store, so I bravely ventured in. I didn’t see myself in the typical grey or brown fedora, so I chose something a bit younger and sportier (I thought). I remember it had a bright red band  and a jaunty feather. I wore it a few times, but every time I looked in the mirror it looked goofier, so I stopped wearing it.

As it happened, John F. Kennedy was president then and was often seen sans hat, which caused consternation in the hat industry. Concerned that he might lose the hat vote, he was thereafter occasionally seen sporting a fedora. But it was too late. You would be hard pressed to remember seeing subsequent presidents – even stodgy Richard Nixon – wearing anything but a golf hat.

There was a hat protocol. Gentlemen took their hats off in elevators and never wore them in a restaurant or other public place. Older churches still have hat clips in pews so they could be safely stored. On the other hand, Roman Catholic and other denominations required women to have a head covering. No longer. I suspect that’s one of the reasons the folks who belong to the breakaway Society of St. Pius X broke away from the  Roman church after Vatican II.

Fedoras make a comeback from time to time. Do hipsters still wear those tiny versions as they haunt the streets of hippier neighborhood like Chicago’s Wicker Park (or have they been gentrified out?)? And we can always count on black men and women to rise to the occasion, particularly on Sundays. The rest of us will just have to get used to seeing both men and women wearing baseball caps even in the finest restaurants. The ongoing vulgarization of American taste demands it.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon  

(This piece was first published 10 years ago. In a year when the Vulgarian in Chief turned the White House lawn unto his version of the Roman Coliseum, complete with bloody gladiators, we need to search for relief wherever we can.)

By Patrick F. Cannon

My contention that Fred Astaire was one of greatest singers of popular song of his era – hell, of any era – is often met with incomprehension or bemusement. Surely, people think, you mean one of the great dancers? That’s, of course, if they have any real idea of who he was in the first place. Like so many artists of even the day before yesterday, he has faded into the mists of entertainment history.

            A case in point: I give tours at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home & Studio in Oak Park, and mention that the actress Anne Baxter was Wright’s granddaughter. Most of the 15 or so people on the tour don’t have a clue who she was, since her heyday was in the 40s, 50s and 60s. The exceptions would be people older than 70 and cinema nuts. While Fred Astaire had a much higher status and fame than her, he is just as dead for most young people.

            Yet, he deserves their attention. In an age of increasing and unceasing vulgarity, he might offer an oasis of grace and elegance. Even his walk was worth watching. In one of his best musicals – and one of the best of all movie musicals – The Band Wagon, he has arrived in New York on the 20^th Century Limited. He is a Hollywood star whose career is in decline, and he has taken a role in a new Broadway musical. On the train, he meets Ava Gardener, playing herself. They chat a bit, but when they get off the train at Grand Central Station, reporters and photographers mob her, while poor Fred is ignored.

            Alone, he begins walking to the terminal, while singing “I’ll go my way, by myself…”  I urge you to go Google these opening lyrics, which should lead you to an outtake from the movie. Notice how Fred’s walk is gracefully attuned to the music, how this simple act becomes imbued with meaning and emotion. Notice also how beautifully the song is sung, how each word is presented clearly for your consideration.

                Two of the greatest composers of American song of the 20^th Century – really of all time – Irving Berlin and George Gershwin both were quoted as saying that they preferred Fred above all others to sing their songs. Why? Because they could count on him to sing the song as written, to annunciate the words clearly, and to be in tune and on pitch. I should also mention that the late great Tony Bennett many years ago mentioned Fred as one of his inspirations.

            I have a CD of some of his greatest songs. I keep it in my car and play it often. Like Bach’s Goldberg Variations, I never tire of listening to it. If you don’t know Fred as a great singer, I’m sure you would be able to find albums on Amazon or any of a number of music sites that would convince you. While we all should keep up with contemporary music (selectively!), we should also find time to honor the great art of the past.

             Finally, if you get a chance to watch any of his movies, you’ll discover that he could dance a little, too.

Copyright 2016, 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

When I was a mere lad of four or five, my dear sister Kathleen often took my brother and me  to the movies. At that time, Braddock, PA – where I  was born – had three theatres. As I recall, the Capital got the big features after their downtown Pittsburgh run. We typically went to the Paramount, which showed mostly westerns, serials (which we called “chapters”), and occasionally a horror film or two. One day, the bill featured The Mummy and The Wolf Man.

            Boris Karloff, that versatile British actor who also starred as Frankenstein, was the Mummy and Lon Cheney Jr was the poor soul who morphed into a hairy creature every time there was full moon. I remember vividly, after more than 80 years mind you, being unable to sleep that night, thinking every sound  was either the mummy or Dracula (or both) creeping up on me. Thanks, Sis!

            When I was ten, I saw the best of all the horror movies, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. During this classic film, the boys run into not only Frankenstein, but our old pals ‘Dracula, of course played by Bela Lugosi; and the Wolf Man, still the hairy-faced Lon Cheney, Jr. Funny stuff, as I recall.

            The horror movie has never gone out of fashion, and often with the same suspects. Director Guillermo del Toro just last year released his own take on Frankenstein, based as all are the others on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. My favorite is Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, starring Gene Wilder as Doc Frankenstein (pronounced Frank En Steen!), and Peter Boyle as a song and dance monster.

            Interest in creatures like these comes in waves. The novelist Anne Rice put vampires front and center in 1976 with the publication of Interview With a Vampire, which featured the blood sucking escapades of a French noble named Lestat de Lioncourt. In case you aren’t up on these things, vampires are creatures who never die, so long as they get a regular fill up of human blood, which they usually get from a comely blonde, who  then becomes a new vampire. And so on. The moral? Beware of people with longer than normal canine teeth. Proving his versatility, Lescat was played by Tom Cruise in the movie version.

            Mummies are a sub species of the walking dead. The idea here is that they rise from the dead to  wreak vengeance on the raiders who have desecrated and robbed their tombs. Brendan Fraser appeared in a series of movies based on the idea; and our stalwart actor Tom Cruise showed up in 2107 in a  remake of 1932s The Mummy. Not sure whether he played the mummy or his intended victim (or maybe both?)

            A Zombie is a reanimated corpse from the Voodoo tradition of Haiti (I think). But it is the “walking dead” of the good old USA that should cause the most concern. I’ve lost count of the number of movies and TV series that have set thousands of the gaunt and pasty risen dead loose on communities throughout the country. They are of particular concern to me as I live in the Village of Forest Park, which because of the number of cemeteries within its borders, is said to have far more dead than living residents. If some day they all rise from their graves, we’re in big trouble, particularly if their leaders look like Tom Cruise.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon   

By Patrick F. Cannon

As I write this, President Trump has announced a cease fire in our war with Iran. Whether it finally leads to a lasting settlement is unclear, but it made me think about how many wars or military “actions” our country  has been involved in just in my lifetime.

            Born in 1938, I was three when World War II began for us with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Aside from the Civil War, it was our most consequential war, and the last waged after a formal Declaration of War by the Congress. It was the 11^th and last time Congress has done so, despite the Constitution giving them that exclusive power. Giving up that power to the executive is perhaps its most glaring dereliction of duty.

            I was about to enter the 7^th grade when the Korian War started in June of 1950. Although it had all the hallmarks of a war, it was characterized as a “police action” waged under the auspices of the United Nations, which continues to labor away on its goal of ending wars. It has been just as successful in this noble goal as was the League of Nations.

            When I was in the Army from 1961-63, I dodged the bullet. Both the Berlin Wall and Cuban Missile crises happened on my watch but thankfully come to nothing. In early 1963, I was offered the opportunity to extend my tour of duty by one year and work on civilian status at the US Embassy in Saigon. Our commitment to South Viet Nam was in its early stage, but I felt no urge to travel to distant lands, so declined. The next year brought the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and the beginning of the Viet Nam nightmare, which was not to end until March 1973.

            Before I go on to more major conflicts, let me pause to remember the military actions that might be considered less than all out wars. In October 1983 we sent troops to little Grenada to rescue American medical students from the clutches of the Cubans. In early 1990, we invaded Panama, snatched its leader Manuel Noriega, indicted and convicted him of drug and other charges. Just this year, we sent troops to Venezuela to arrest Nicolas Maduro on similar charges. He awaits trial in New York, but  his regime remains in power, since they seem willing to grant American energy companies’ greater access to their vast oil reserves. One could be forgiven for thinking that was the point all along. The people of Venezuela had perhaps hoped for more but should be used to disappointment.

            Iraq has been the target of more consequential wars. After they invaded and occupied neighbor Kuwait in 1990,  then President George H.W. Bush put together a coalition that early in 1991 recaptured Kuwait and soundly defeated the Iraqi army in Operation Desert Storm. The president was criticized by some for not occupying Iraq and removing Sudam Hussein from power.

His son, George W. Bush, decided to do just that in 2003, when operation Iraqi Freedom removed Husein from power, but failed to find the weapons of mass destruction whose existence were the reason for the war in the first place. It was the end of 2011 before the last troops left. Can I suggest the years between were something of a mess? And that Iraq remains so?

There was widespread public support for the invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11. While we didn’t find Osama bin Laden then, we did remove the Taliban from power. By the time we left chaotically in 2021, the Taliban was lurking in the wings and soon returned to power. By the way, Osama bin Laden was finally found not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan, where he was found and killed in May 2011.

Now Iran. But let’s have a look at our record so far. World War II, victory. Korea, stalemate. Viet Nam, loss. Grenada, success sort of. First Iraq, success. Second Iraq, ambiguous. Afghanistan, failure. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Noriega, Maduro), success. Iran? Who the  hell knows. We were told weeks ago that we won. So why do we just have another truce? When you win, you get a peace treaty, not a truce to negotiate possible peace.

Through all this, the American military has done its best. The politicians? Not so much.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

After many delays, the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago will open on June 19^th. The date was chosen because it coincides with “Juneteenth,” which commemorates the day in 1865 when slaves in Texas were informed of their freedom, the last to hear the news.

The center is in Chicago’s Jackson Park. This was a controversial choice, since parkland was considered sacrosanct by many Chicagoans, including me. The resulting lawsuits delayed the site acquisition, but the courts – dominated by Obama’s Democratic Party – decided it could use park land. The cost? $850 million, raised from donors and grants.

To be fair, the new center provides more than the usual presidential library and museum. It includes a  Chicago public library, community meeting facilities, extensive walks, and gardens and even an indoor regulation basketball court. Aside from the museum itself, access is free. But it isn’t a typical presidential library. Obama chose to send his papers to  the National Archives in Washington, where they will be available in digital form. The National Archives directly operates all the other presidential libraries, but not  this one.

I imagine attendance will be high, at least for the first year. The most popular (in 2024) was Ronald Reagan’s with 258,000 visitors. Next came John F. Kennedy with 147,000. The least visited, with 25,000 visitors, was, predictably, Herbert Hoover’s. Both the Nixon and Clinton libraries were among the lowest, with about 50,000 each. One wonders why. Anyway,  total attendance for all 13 was just over 1,000,000.

The design of the Obama center has received mixed reviews. As you can see, most structures are unobtrusive, with the exception of  the tower, which has received the most criticism.  It reminds me of those great stone monoliths one sees in Utah’s Monument Valley. This great rock is covered with Obama quotes, which many people have found difficult to read. But there it shall stand, occupying 20 acres of a park designed by  the great Frederick Law Olmstead; a park where I played and rambled as a child. Most memorably, it’s former football field was the location of my greatest athletic triumph – playing parish football for St. Phillip Neri, I once intercepted a pass and ran it back 80 yards for a touchdown!

I don’t mean to single former President Abama out. Frankly, I wish none of them existed. They are increasingly ego trips, efforts by the former presidents to write their history in the best possible light. Only the judgment of history should decide which presidents should be memorialized. That 1 million visits to all the existing museums pales in comparison to the 8 million who visit the Lincoln Memorial every year; or in another sphere, the 5.7 million who annually enter the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  

In both cases, the occupants earned their way into our esteem. Can we say the same for all those presidents?

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

That’s my picture up there. To be honest, it was how I looked about 15 years ago. Taken in front of architect Louis Sullivan’s Krause Music Store on Chicago’s North Lincoln Avenue by my partner Jim Caulfield, it was cleaned up a bit (or maybe a lot) to remove blemishes and scars. If someone asks me for a photo for an article or presentation I’m doing, it’s what I send. Why not put your best mug forward? Anyway, I couldn’t find my high school graduation picture.

            Historically, rulers and politicians have enjoyed seeing their faces as they wander about their domains. Roman emperors couldn’t wait to put their profiles on coins and their entireties in marble and bronze. In latter days, Henry VIII kept both Holbein’s (elder and younger) busy painting his portrait, making sure they emphasized his fancy duds and commanding presence. His daughter Elizabeth I made sure her portraits eliminated her pock-marked face and snaggly black teeth. 

            The visage of the late Elizabeth II appeared on coins, currency and stamps in the UK and its dwindling empire, but they are now being retired in favor of  her long-suffering son, Charles III.  In fairness though, it must be said that communist leaders like Stalin and Chairman Moa never tired of seeing their big heads plastered over every blank spot in their largish countries. Like the first Queen Elizabth, Stalin had a seriously pockmarked face, which disappeared in his photos. Mao, who killed tens (or is it hundreds?) of millions of his own people, looked like a kindly grandfather.

            Our own republic doesn’t permit images of living people to appear on currency, or stamps for that matter. If you check your wallet or purse (if you’re in the money) you’ll mostly find images of Washington ($1), Lincoln (5$), Hamilton ($10), Jackson ($20), Grant (50$), and Franklin ($100) on your paper money. Larger denominations are no longer issued.  This could change, however, as the Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent has suggested a new $250 bill be issued with President Trump’s image on it.  Bessent no doubt produced this idea on his own, with no prompting from his boss.

            The president himself proposed a gold commemorative coin for the country’s 250^th Anniversary that will feature his manly figure on it. Although never done before for a sitting president, it was approved by his Commission on Fine Arts (?). Apparently, it’s OK because it won’t be legal tender. This should be some recompense for having his name removed from the Kennedy Center.

            Even though the $250 Trump bill is  unlikely to be approved, you can order any number of phony bills with his face on them. If you’re so inclined, you can order some with your own face! A fellow I knew many years ago used to pass out $3 bills with his silly grin. I guess that’s where the old saying – “there’s nothing phonier than a three-dollar bill” – came from. Except of course one with President Trump’s face on it.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon       

By Patrick F. Cannon

If current trends continue and our luck holds, it looks like the interest on the national debt will reach and slightly exceed $1 Trillion for the first time in our 250 years of fiscal ups and downs. In case you’re wondering, interest payments are now 15 percent of the Federal budget. Here are the amounts per year starting in 2020 (in billions):              

2020                315

                        2021                352

                        2022                476

                        2023                659

                        2024                852

                        2025                970

                        2026                1.04 Trillion (est.)      

It seems to hardly matter which political party controls Congress or the White House – the number keep going up in a non-partisan high-speed elevator.

            I confess I had some hopes for fiscal restraint when champion father and avenging angel Elon Musk  — and his teeny bopper army – descended on Washington to drive out the money spenders. Alas, it turned out he was robbing Peter (and the rest of the Apostles) to pay Paul. Although it goes up minute by minute, the current national debt is $39.07 trillion, or $113,792 per person, including newborns. This year, the projected deficit will be $2 Trillion. Onward and upward!

            Aside from 1998-2001, when we miraculously had budget surpluses, deficits have been a way of life for most citizens alive today. At the same time, income tax rates rarely have been lower. The mid-1980s had GDP growth rates averaging about four percent a year with a top rate of about 50 percent.  Today’s top rate of 37 percent applies only to the amount of table income that exceeds approximately $640,000 for a single payer. That same prosperous person only pays 10 percent for the first $12,400; 12 percent for income from $12,400 up to $50,000; 22 percent for the amount from that $50,000 up to $105,000 – well, you get the idea.

            Not everyone earns enough to pay any Federal income taxes, but everyone pays the payroll tax of 7.65 percent —  which includes Medicare – on incomes up to $184,500. And our local and state governments grab their share. The average American pays nearly 30 percent of his or her income in taxes (the top ten percent of earners bear 90 percent of the total tax burden). Nevertheless, if governments were businesses most would have to declare bankruptcy.  (Let’s pause to give a shout out to these states, which are tops in fiscal stability: Utah, Delaware, New York, Iowa, and Georgia.)

            The easy answer to the fiscal mess it to either spend less, tax more, or a bit of both. Neither seems attractive to our current set of politicians.  Maybe one of my faithful readers has an idea that will get us out of this mess. If so, please do share it with us and your congressman and senators . It could win you Nobel Prize for economics and the undying love of your fellow Americans. Or be ignored until the bubble bursts, as it inevitably and eventually does.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

Biggest Apple

By Patrick F. Cannon

Chicago would strike most visitors as a big, crowded city. It’s America’s third most populous with a bit over 2.7 million residents. 12,000 or so people occupy each of its 235 square miles. I’ve lived in the city and surrounding suburbs most of my life, and sometimes the traffic and congestion can be annoying.

            Just above it on America’s population ladder is Los Angeles. It’s more spread out at nearly 500 square miles for its population of 3.9 million. Each of those square miles is home for about 8,210 “Angelanos,” as they like to call themselves.

            Top of the heap, of course, is New York City. It’s slightly smaller than Los Angeles at 472 square miles, and encompasses five distinct boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. With a total population of 8.8 million, it has more people than Los Angeles and Chicago combined. 29,303 people live in each of its square miles.

            Although Brooklyn is gaining in popularity among tourists, when most people think of New York, they really mean Manhattan. It has a population of 1.7 million in its 22.83 square miles, each of which is home to 74,782 souls. On an average weekday, add 1.6 million commuters and 750,000 tourists and you have about four million people fighting for their share of the streets and sidewalks. That’s nearly 174,000 per square mile.

            Although New York has some complicated real estate laws, unless you live in a rent-controlled apartment, a studio apartment in Manhattan will rent for $3,300 a month; a one bedroom at $4,130; and a two bedroom at $5,500. Rents in the best neighborhoods in Chicago would be $1,750, $2,300, and $3,200, respectively. And from what I’ve read, the Chicago apartments will be larger on average than those in Manhattan.

            There are some single-family homes, generally townhouses, but most people live in apartment buildings, which are getting taller and taller. When I first went to Manhattan in the late 1950s, the Empire State Building dominated the skyline. No longer. Now it seems lost among newer skyscrapers, particularly the so-called “pencil” towers that now dominate.

            Mostly surrounding Central Park, these ridiculously thin apartment buildings take advantage of anomalies in the building codes to reach as high as 1,550 feet (Central Park Tower); and 1,428 for Steinway Tower, the thinnest with an astonishing height to width ratio of 24 to 1. Many of  them are used as a “pied-a-terre” or a home away from the owner’s main residence, usually in another state. Apparently, even the finest hotels aren’t acceptable to very richest among us (or not among us actually). The proliferation of these apartments has encouraged the state and city to propose an added tax on these getaways for out of state billionaires.

            Anyway, it’s getting increasingly expensive to live in Manhattan. Frankly, it has become the very definition of “I love to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” While even a visit can  be frustrating, where else are you going to find such riches? Take museums for example. While Chicago has the Art Institute and Museum of Contemporary Art (and a few smaller university-related museums), New York boasts the country’s largest art museum, the Metropolitan. Not too far away on Fifth Avenue are the Guggenheim, the Frick Collection, and the Neue Gallery. A bit further south are the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

            As to restaurants, New York boasts four Three-Star Michelin restaurants (Chicago has two). But really, you would be hard pressed to find a block in Manhattan that doesn’t have at least one restaurant, and the  sidewalks are full of food carts offering all manner of exotic fare. You could certainly visit Des Moines for less money, but why would you?

            And last, but by  no means least, you can pay your fare on buses and the subway by just tapping your credit or debit card! No special transit cards or cash. Chicago’s CTA, Metra, and Pace should take note!

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

I visited the Frick Collection during a recent trip to New York City. The museum is in Henry Clay Frick’s former mansion on Fifth Avenue. It re-opened last year after renovation and expansion and I was eager to revisit one of the world’s great private art collections.

            Frick was a partner of Andrew Carnegie in what became US Steel. I was born in the Pittsburgh area, and I can tell you that he was hated by those who labored in its mills. In 1892, he sent barges with strikebreakers and Pinkerton agents to break a strike at the Homestead works (where I briefly worked). It turned into a battle in which 16 people were killed. In the end, the Pennsylvania state militia restored order, but it was the end of the union. Since Carnegie was in Scotland at the time, Frick became the villain to steelworkers ever after.

            While he eventually decamped to New York City, he did leave behind his former mansion – now a museum – and a 644-acre park. Since the steel industry is largely gone from the area, few people associate him with anything else. With his fortune, and advice from famous dealer Joseph Nuveen and expert Bernard Berenson, he  amassed an art collection that includes Rembrandt, Valasquez, Goya, Titian, Vermeer, El Greco – well, I could go on and on. It also includes paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger of Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540) and Thomas More (1478-1535). They hang in the same gallery, separated by a fireplace.

            We can be sure the paintings are good likenesses, as they were painted in Holbein’s studio (that’s the More portrait above). Both served as Lord Chancellor for King Henry VIII. Both ended up on the king’s wrong side and were beheaded. The reasons for their executions are quite different and have been explored endlessly in history and fiction.

            Robert Bolt’s 1960 play and 1966 film, A Man for All Seasons, focused on Sir Thomas More’s failure to get Henry’s marriage to Queen Catherin annulled so he could marry Ann Boleyn, whom he hoped could bear him a son and heir; and then More’s refusal to sign an oath recognizing Henry as head of the church in England instead of the Pope. Cromwell is the instrument of More’s downfall. The wonderful Paul Scofield played More in both the play and film and won both a Tony and Oscar for  his efforts. In the film, Cromwell was played by the portly Leo McKern, who somewhat resembled Cromwell in Holbein’s portrait.

            In the television adaptation of Hillary Mantel’s Booker Prize winning novel, Wolf Hall, which appeared here on PBS, Cromwell was played by another great English actor, Mark Rylance. Both Bolt’s play and Mantel’s novel shade the truth a bit. Wolf Hall suggests that Cromwell’s father was a loutish and violent blacksmith. He may have been violent, but he was a reasonably successful local businessman. More’s father was of a higher social class, being a successful lawyer who was knighted. His son was an Oxford-educated lawyer who rose to be Henry’s Lord Chancellor.

            While Cromwell is treated more sympathetically in the novel and television series, there is no question that he is willing to compromise his principles to get ahead. He makes it possible for Henry to marry Ann Boleyn by getting Parliament to declare Henry head of the Church in England. This not only makes the marriage possible but lets the king seize the property and thus the wealth of the Roman church. By this time, More had left public life, but refused to sign the Oath of Supremacy that acknowledged Henry as head of the church.

            There is a scene in Wolf Hall where Cromwell tries to convince More to sign the Oath. Set in a cell in the Tower of London, More, wonderfully acted by Anton Lessor, explains to Cromwell that God has made the Pope head of the church and no one, not even a king, can change that. The irony is that while More is beheaded for keeping the faith, Cromwell later meets the same fate when he rises too high and his jealous associates convince the king he has committed treason. Henry later regrets killing his old friend, but too late for Cromwell’s head to be reattached.

            In 100 years or so, the English would behead King Charles I, setting a precedent later kings wisely remembered. If there is a lesson in the story of the two Thomases, now sharing a wall at the Frick, it’s that it’s better to die with dignity than pander to the king’s fancies and die anyway.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon