NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD PUZZLE

Eric Berlin, of Milford, Conn., is the assistant publisher of Penny Publications, a puzzle- magazine company, and the creator of the website Puzzlesnacks. He is the author of ‘‘ The Puzzling World of Winston Breen’’ ( Penguin) and two sequels. When he started constructing, Eric says, ‘‘ my goal was to sell exactly one puzzle to The New York Times, just to say I did it.’’ That was almost 20 years and more than 40 Times crosswords ago. — W. S.

ACROSS

1 Its logo has a blue, red, orange, yellow and green ‘‘ M’’ 6 Win every game 11 Blitzed 17 Beethoven’s Third 18 Snoopy sort? 19 You can scratch with it 20 Materials from mollusk shells 21 Tried to respond, as a ‘‘ Jeopardy!’’ contestant 22 Gave the latest news

23 Very short- lived gemstones 25 Nicolas ____, standout player in soccer’s Premier League 27 Drake’s output 28 Thinly veiled criticism, in modern slang 29 Blow off steam, say 30 Possible fallout of a controversy, informally 31 RR stop 32 Name shouted in ‘‘ The Chipmunk Song’’

34 TV quiz program about an epic poem

37 Handed a hand 40 Bully’s threat 42 World view you might open up to?

43 Suffix with towel 44 NoDoz, for one 46 Help with the dishes 48 Fragment 50 Look back fondly 52 Disney- owned cable channel 56 Ask to be handed a hand? 57 Vereen who won a 1973 Tony for ‘‘ Pippin’’ 58 Prefix akin to mal59 Haphazardly organized 61 Having four sharps, musically 62 ____ Regal, big name in Scotch 65 ‘‘ And so on and so forth’’ 67 Expected 68 General Motors division until 2010 70 Resident: Suffix 72 One- named singer with the 2019 Song of the Year nominee ‘‘ Hard Place’’ 73 Some ‘‘ Babe’’ characters 75 Designer Gucci 76 Beat box? 79 A brother of 32- Across 81 Zing 83 ‘‘ Concentration’’ puzzles 86 Reasonable 87 ‘‘ The Divine Comedy’’ poet DOWN 1 Plot lines?

2 Coffee variety named for a Mideast city 3 Emergency situation caused by a terrier 4 Pre- snowstorm purchase 5 Hit with a beam, maybe

89 Brand of cologne with a literary name 91 Jazzed ( up) 93 Magnificent plan of action

95 Bone in the leg 96 Key to get out 97 Maya Angelou’s ‘‘ And Still ____’’ 98 Nev. neighbor 100 Cloth used in theater backdrops 104 ____ Defense ( classic chess opening) 106 Cozy home 107 Dance celebrating 2010 legislation 109 Glad ____ ( good news)

111 Turn up 113 One of 17 in Monopoly 114 Manages, barely 115 Bibliophile 116 Tightfisted sorts

117 Back up again 118 Hip- hop’s ____, the Creator 119 First name in cosmetics

6 Makes watertight 7 Mascara applicators 8 Dozens of them are sold 9 Actor Wallach 10 Friends you may never have met

11 Salon job named after a comic book hero 12 Danson of ‘‘ The Good Place’’ 13 Building girder 14 Actress Lyonne 15 Compulsive thieves, informally

16 ‘‘ An apple a day keeps the doctor away,’’ for one 17 Hydrocarbon suffixes

18 The thought is there 19 Serving of tea, to Brits 24 River near Rotterdam 26 Some lawn maintenance tools

30 Who wrote ‘‘ Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation’’ 33 Recipient of special treatment, in brief

34 Very cold 35 Klingons, e. g., for short 36 What Hypnos is the Greek god of 37 ____ Plaines, Ill. 38 Liquor component 39 Over 40 Outdoor 41 Part of a glass ... or glasses 45 Before: Abbr. 47 More dangerous to drive on, in a way 49 Metric prefix 51 Natural bridge 53 Supporting musician in a jazz band 54 Guest’s guest 55 Family tree word

57 Chin- up target, informally 60 Leaders of the pack? 61 Bitter brew, for short 63 Pounding on a pie topping 64 Cloud ____ 66 Followers of bees 69 SpongeBob SquarePants and others 71 Opposition 74 Entertainment host Ryan, that smart aleck!

77 To wit

78 Belt in judo 80 Mustachioed Springfield resident 82 Baseball’s Mel 84 One of the Schuyler sisters in ‘‘ Hamilton’’ 85 One sharing a bunk bed, briefly 87 Animosity 88 Places to play Skee- Ball 90 Turn off and on again, say 92 With regard to 93 Get worse through neglect 94 ‘‘ Give it ____!’’

95 Need in Boggle 98 Withstand 99 Dancer with glow sticks, often 101 Actress Zellweger 102 Get accustomed ( to) 103 Fannie ____ ( some securities) 105 Charging option 107 Said aloud 108 Showed up 110 Cyber Monday mo., usually 112 Daisy Ridley’s ‘‘ Star Wars’’ role

New York may have been the city Frank Sinatra wanted to wake up in, but Chicago would always be his kind of town. And in 1975, it became his town officially.

Mayor Richard Daley made Ol’ Blue Eyes, who was born Dec. 12, an honorary Chicago citizen on Sept. 24, 1975, bestowing upon him a gold medallion and a framed proclamation naming him an “ambassador of goodwill for our city” for popularizing the Second City with “My Kind of Town.”

The next day’s edition of the Chicago Sun- Times and the Chicago Daily News provided a recap of not only Sinatra’s award ceremony but also his concert at Chicago Stadium, where listeners “indicated that he’s always been their kind of guy.”

Sinatra’s appearance outside the fifth- floor mayor’s office at City Hall caused an “enormous commotion,” the Sun- Times reported. About 150 people — including “the most clout- heavy departmental city secretaries” and a number of plainclothes police officers and bodyguards — crowded the room.

A Daily News reporter noted Daley introduced Sinatra to several of his colleagues, including city consumer sales commissioner Jane Byrne, who would go on to serve as Chicago’s mayor herself. She said she thought the singer “looked pretty good.”

“Hello Jane, how are the markets?” Sinatra asked her upon their introduction.

If anyone felt nervous that day, it was likely Daley. On his way to hand Sinatra the medal,

Daley dropped it at the rostrum but “quickly recovered it,” the Sun- Times reported.

The “genial, gracious crooner” told reporters, “I’m delighted. This is a marvelous moment. I have been coming to your city for many years now ... and have always had a good time — I don’t mean in the sense of rah- rah good time — but in the sense of being accepted warmly by everybody in the audience and having lots of friends privately and in the sense of being accepted as a human being.”

Later, Sinatra showed he “still has what it takes to turn on an audience” when he performed that night, along with Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald, the Sun- Times said. One woman nearly fell over a balcony trying to touch him while others handed him flowers.