Q.What was the first movie shot on location in New York City?

问：第一部在纽约市实地拍摄的电影是哪一部？

A. While Thomas A. Edison’s Kinetoscopes had been introduced in Manhattan in 1894, those films, which ran on a loop, were enclosed in a wooden cabinet and viewed only through an eyepiece.

答：1894年，托马斯·A·爱迪生(Thomas A. Edison)的活动电影放映机(Kinetoscopes)被引入曼哈顿。这个机器的原理是：胶片被封闭在木柜里，在一个循环的回路上转动，只能通过目镜观看。

The first film shot on location that was made to be projected on a screen was probably “Herald¹ Square,” which was shot on May 11, 1896, by an Edison assistant, William Heise. He used a new camera that had been designed by Edison for shooting outdoor scenes, according to “Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies,” by James Sanders (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002). Just three weeks earlier, America’s first projected motion pictures were being shown near Herald Square in Koster & Bial’s Music Hall on 34th Street, where Macy’s now sits.

第一部实地拍摄、计划投影到银幕上的电影很可能是《先驱广场》(Herald Square)。它是1896年5月11日由爱迪生的助手威廉·海斯(William Heise)拍摄的。据詹姆斯·桑德斯(James Sanders)的书《电影天际线：纽约与电影》（Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies，克诺夫出版社，2002年）说，海斯当时用的是爱迪生设计的一款用于拍摄户外场景的新摄像机。就在三周前，美国的第一部投影电影在先驱广场附近第34街上的科斯特&比亚尔音乐厅(Koster & Bial’s Music Hall)放映。如今，先驱广场是梅西百货(Macy’s)的所在地。

“Looking out at the bright spring scene, he could see the energetic heart of a great city, bursting with life,” Mr. Sanders wrote of Mr. Heise. “Well-dressed pedestrians² mingled³ with the surging traffic along 34th Street. The elevated train roared periodically along tracks above Sixth Avenue.”

“透过窗外灿烂的春天景致，他能看到这座伟大城市充满活力与生机的心脏，”桑德斯写道。文中的“他”指的是海斯。“穿着考究的行人与第34街上汹涌的交通工具混在一起。第六大道上方的铁轨上不时有高架火车呼啸而过。”

These documentary films, just a minute or two long, were called actualities; they had no plots, stories or characters. They were soon supplanted⁴ by story films, Mr. Sanders wrote, especially chase scenes with police officers and criminals.

这些纪录片只有一两分钟，它们没有情节、故事或人物,当时被称为现况片(actualities)。桑德斯写道，它们很快被故事片取代，特别是警匪追逐的场景。

One of the earliest on-location efforts to present a story on screen was shot on Aug. 21, 1901, for Edison: “What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City,” starring Alfred C. Abadie and Florence Georgie. It was an actuality film with a short staged scene. A man and woman are walking when the wind, blowing upward through a sidewalk vent⁵, lifts her skirt and exposes her stockinged legs. The astonished passers-by were ordinary New Yorkers who got into camera range.

最早为了在银幕上展示故事而进行的实景拍摄发生在1901年8月21日，电影名为《纽约第23街事件》(What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City)，主演是阿尔弗雷德·C·阿巴迪(Alfred C. Abadie)和弗洛伦丝·格奥尔基(Florence Georgie)，由爱迪生公司拍摄。它属于现况电影，有一小段表演场景。一个男人和一个女人在散步，人行道通风口的风吹起了她的裙子，露出了她穿着长筒袜的腿。惊讶的路人只是无意中走进镜头的普通纽约人。

Does that scene remind you of another? It would be repeated, famously, by Marilyn Monroe in 1955 in “The Seven-Year Itch,” on Lexington Avenue at 52nd Street. According to the Internet Movie Database, the noise from the thousands of spectators (who included an irate⁶ Joe DiMaggio, Monroe’s husband) made the footage unusable, and the scene was reshot in Hollywood.

它是不是让你想到了另一个场景？1955年，玛丽莲·梦露(Marilyn Monroe)在拍摄影片《七年之痒》(The Seven-Year Itch)时在第52街的列克星敦大道上重演了那著名的一幕。据互联网电影数据库(Internet Movie Database)称，由于上万名围观者的噪音（其中包括梦露丈夫乔·迪马乔[Joe DiMaggio]愤怒的声音），这段镜头无法使用，只好在好莱坞重拍。

Q. Some friends have opened a coffee place near me in Astoria, and they’ve got a license⁷ so they can sell wine and beer. They’ve asked me to come up with a few cocktail⁸ recipes for them, but I can’t use any spirits, because their license doesn’t cover hard alcohol. It got me wondering, though: What’s the highest-percentage alcohol one can sell in New York City while still complying with a beer and wine license? Would sherries, ports and other fortified⁹ wines qualify?

问：我的一些朋友在阿斯托里亚我家附近开了一个咖啡馆，并获得了销售葡萄酒和啤酒的许可证。他们让我帮忙设计一些鸡尾酒配方，但是不能用任何烈酒，因为他们的许可证不包含烈酒。不过我在想：在纽约市，符合啤酒和葡萄酒许可证标准的最高酒精浓度是多少？雪利酒、波特酒和其他加强型葡萄酒符合标准吗？

A. The magic number is 24. William Crowley, a spokesman for the New York State Liquor Authority, explained: “The Alcoholic¹⁰ Beverage¹¹ Control Law limits the alcohol content in wine to 24 percent. Consequently, most sherries, ports and other fortified wines may be sold and served by licensees that hold a restaurant wine license. If a wine is fortified with liquor and is above 24 percent, it would be classified as a liquor and could only be sold by a business with a full liquor license.”

答：答案是24度。纽约州酒类管理局(New York State Liquor Authority)发言人威廉·克劳利(William Crowley)解释说：“酒精饮料管控法(The Alcoholic Beverage Control Law)规定，葡萄酒的酒精浓度最高为24度。所以，大部分雪利酒和波特酒等加强型葡萄酒可以在拥有葡萄酒许可证的店铺销售或供应。如果在葡萄酒中加入烈酒，导致酒精浓度超过24%，那么它将被列为烈酒，只能在拥有完全酒精许可证的场所销售。”