William Monahan gets chummy with a New York City locksmith for an HBO TV series

Just a few chapters into Joel Kostman's memoir Keys to the City, it was clear to me that his memoir was a giant-assed metaphor about discovering New York City one keyhole at a time. Through his trade as a Professional Locksmith, Mr. Kostman encounters all sorts of characters. Ever since Keys to the City was published back in 1997, there have been enthusiasms about bringing it to the screen. Dennis Duggan reported in his 1997 Newsday article that Mr. Kostman was "at work on a novel" and taking calls "from a talent agency in Hollywood that wants to turn [Keys to the City] into a television series."¹ Well, recently it was announced on Deadline.com that Keys to the City is set to be produced as an HBO TV series with writer-director William Monahan adapting. "Finally!", you heave, but what vexes me is that Keys to the City is really not that dramatic of a work. What Mr. Kostman has done really well in his memoir is to capture what it is like to be a locksmith in New York City, but you'd be hard pressed to get a single episode out of it. That's probably why memoirist-locksmith Joel Kostman has been signed on as a consultant for the show. Mr. Kostman has written his own screenplays, albeit unproduced and probably unsold, so he will be eager to collaborate with Mr. Monahan who, I will note, is about ten years younger than him. Together, these two men have the opportunity—and excuse me for setting some goals for them—to create one of the greatest dramas in modern history.

At that they will surely fail, having long ago passed the age in which one can summon their inner-genius, but the opportunity is there, nonetheless. Mr. Kostman, in a way, has already succeeded merrily with his memoir. There's nothing wrong with it. It's an intriguing little thing, coming in at 136 pages in my edition. He's been writing a sequel to his memoir ever since, in the form of additional stories, and hopefully HBO does some kind of marketing campaign that puts some of his unpublished locksmith-writing onto the web. Assuming Mr. Kostman has continued working as a New York City locksmith all these years, he has now got about 32 years of locksmith-experience to draw upon. And then there is Mr. Monahan, who does not like high concept fare, having been quoted in The Boston Globe, "I generally hate high-concept stuff," who is unlikely to turn Keys to the City into a TV series about a locksmith who goes to work for the mafia, CIA, or other type of exciting organization. We can rejoice in the great probability that every attempt will be made by Mr. Monahan and Mr. Kostman to tell the actual story of a professional New York City locksmith, without much in the way of exaggerations. Jeepers, what fantasticness! Yippee.

I've been wondering in what year the HBO TV series will be set, because locks have changed since the memoir was published in 1997. Having worked as a writer at New York Press during the period 1994-2001, Mr. Monahan knows New York City pretty well, but he may be more comfortable with the New York City of the 1990s, rather than the New York City of today. Details. But it is such details that interest me, such as did a New York Press writer ever review Keys to the City when it was published in the 90s, and which studio executive is it that's been hoarding a secret love for this memoir for the past decade and a bit? Maybe the producer behind the project, John Lesher, should be asked such questions? Mr. Monahan probably read Keys to the City back when it was first published, though. I've imagined Mr. Monahan with a subscription to Publishers Weekly back in the 1990s, scrutinizing every single book that was being published at the time, while trying to get his own novel, Light House: A Trifle, published. His friend Bruno Maddox has said of him, "He's read everything and seems to approach writing as sort of filling in the gaps in the Western canon."  Well, if Mr. Monahan has been hoarding a secret love for Keys to the City all these years, good on him for bringing it to fruition.

So what ever happened to that other TV series whose pilot was reportedly being written by Mr. Monahan for a CBS time slot backed by Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Productions? It was also set in New York City. That would normally be my take-away question, but I'm actually more interested in Mr. Kostman by the end of the writing of this blog entry, so the focus to him!

Take-away question:  Is Joel Kostman still working as a locksmith in New York City?

Sources:

1) Dennis Duggan (1997-11-02) "A Way With Words and Wayward Locks", Newsday.