Bobby Steggert of “Mothers and Sons”

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Bobby Steggert is now wowing the crowds on Broadway in Terrence McNally’s “Mothers and Sons.” But here’s Bobby in 2010 at the Drama Desk Nominee Cocktail party, where he had the unique honor or being nominated for TWO Drama Desk Awards in the same season! Best Actor for “Yanks” an Off-Broadway musical and Best Supporting Actor for the revival of “Ragtime” on Broadway. He was also nominated for the Tony Award in that category for “Ragtime.”

The New Year Begins. Barnes & Noble ends…

Well,2010 is now as dead as Marley’s Ghost. The weather in New York got into the balmy 40’s. Almost 50. A million people came to Times Square to watch that stupid ball drop. WHY?

I never got that.

It’s usually freezing although this year it wasn’t. It just seems the stupidest of rituals to me. A ball? Dropping? OK, it’s lit up, but you’re crammed in there with hundreds of thousands of other people and YOU CAN’T GET OUT!

Also, there’s nowhere that I can discern that you can use a bathroom. And you have to stand there for something like six-plus hours. It just seems idiotic and extremely uncomfortable to me.

But it’s free. And I think that’s the attraction, really. And the press covers it. And you might end up on television. A face in the crowd.

It’s idiotic. I went once, many years ago and didn’t even get close to the actual Times Square area. And the crowds even on 8th Avenue were, of course, all drunk. And in person, scary.

I guess I have to admit I watch it at home on TV. But seeing Dick Clark this year a palpable stroke victim, trying to enunciate, and not really succeeding. And Ryan Seacrest jumping up and down…As if we didn’t see enough of him on a daily basis on TV ANYway…

I remember Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians on TV playing “Auld Lang Syne” from the Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria. Now THAT seemed like a place I’d want to be on New Year’s Eve….but Guy Lombardo is no more…

The saddest moment, unexpectedly for me, was going to the lovely Barnes & Noble book store on W. 66th, right near Lincoln Center, and finding out that, yes, it’s actually closing…

I had heard something about it, vaguely rushing by on some evening news program, I guess, but I thought I had mis-heard it.

But there, a forlorn, print-out piece of paper, scotch-taped on the door, confirmed the unbelievable news, that, yes, after Jan.2, that particular branch of Barnes and Noble would be forever gone.

I used to live up in that area with the late David Summers, who died of AIDs, nearly a quarter of a century ago…and that area always seems like “David’s area” to me. W.68th, between Columbus and the Park. Barnes and Noble wasn’t even there then. Back in the ’70s….

I thought for a bit when I went there a few nights ago that it was doubly sad because David and I had spent so many happy hours there, but no.

He had already moved on to Manhattan Plaza, when it just opened, where he eventually died…

And now that particular branch of Barnes and Noble which was four stories of books and a generally cheery place is now going to be gone forever…and replaced by…what?

I shudder to think…but the essence of life is change…

And that is certainly the essence of New York. Constant change. There was a blizzard. Then there wasn’t. Then the temperature went up. Then it’s New Year’s Eve. Then it’s not.

And now we’re in the SECOND decade of the 21st Century…