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Driving down Fifth Avenue behind a taxi. 8:30 PM. Photo: JH. |
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| 12/9. The talk was real estate. Rumors and/or realities. One rumor which was running through the industry yesterday was that Corcoran, the real estate brokerage with more than 800 brokers, was closing with its biggest producers moving over to Brown Harris Stevens. This is untrue. Earlier NYSD references to the matter were simply false. These rumors probably stem from the fact that the major brokerage firm, which was acquired and expanded several years ago by Cendant’s Henry Silverman, is in the middle of a divorce from his wife of more than 30 years, Nancy Silverman, and doesn’t need any more aggravation. Whatever Mr. Silverman's matrimonial issues, Corcoran is NOT an issue.
Not closing, but moving, is Alice Mason who is basically down-sizing, giving up the million dollars-a-year lease on her big Madison Avenue office space which is coming up for re-negotiation anyway. Mrs. Mason who has been consistently one of the most prominent high private residential brokers in the last half century, will continue to operate her business with her brokers, all of whom, like herself, working out of their homes with their computers, Blackberries, iPhones, etc. As it is, most of Mrs. Mason’s brokers, like many in the business, tended to work out of their homes. Brokers working in-office are a big city phenomenon, with smaller office brokers around the country working mainly out of their homes. There were rumors circulating yesterday about Edward Lee Cave closing. This is FALSE. My friend Kathy Steinberg, President of Edward Lee Cave, confirmed this morning that there is no change in the firm's status or business plans, and in fact they are looking forward to a strong New Year in the New York real estate market. |
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| The high end real private residential real estate business in Manhattan has been under pressure for several months now because of the Wall Street situation. Part of the problem has also been the building co-op boards, many of which remain, despite the stressful financial atmosphere, extremely strict about allowing new people into their buildings. One couple, friends of mine, put their seven figure apartment on the market, found a buyer, moved out so as to allow the buyer to begin work on the apartment, only to have the board turn down the buyer. This has happened twice to the couple who, after several months of renting, have moved back into their old apartment. The financials and their first cousin real estate are now on the minds of many amongst the social set in New York, although a friend from out of town told me that the anxiety is either not as apparent or doesn’t exist when you get out of the metropolis. Last night at dinner I was talking to a woman from London who told me that it has already had a tremendous effect on that city.
The piece starts out: “Over the past month, I have picked up 247 men. Fast work in just four weeks ...” Ms. Kellaway goes onto explain her involvement was provoked by research she was doing on “internet adultery” for a book, a novel, she is working on, and soon discovered that the “adultery web site” is one of the hottest recessionary activities in London. “Among my new boyfriends are a formerly powerful hedge fund manager, scores of newly idle bankers, a few entrepreneurs, various company directors, a well known musician, some corporate lawyers, a couple of barristers and a rather dishy builder.” Illicit Encounters, she explains, is a “Turkish Bath” of a site where 230,000 “mainly professional, married people leer at each other through virtual steam searching for ... a suitable lover.” After posting her “details” on the Illicit Encouners site, under a pseudonym (Sophie Scribe), she had “20 boyfriends” within a half hour. The men used names like “Alpha 123” or “Civilized 1” or “City Gent” and lots and lots of them were in the financial services/banking business. And, of course, as it is with most of us in the market, they were looking for the “excitement/love/romance/casual sex. After a little research Ms. Kellaway learned that the number of the site’s London-based men working in the financial world had risen by 300%. Many, she found from her brief exploratory research were “first-timers” or “balding next-door banker” types. Further research led her to one John Quelch, a Harvard Business School professor of marketing, whom she asked about these “adulterers” motivation. Hugs, was his basic answer. In hard times, people want hugs, which of course is what most of us want and/or need under stress. But bankers, Mr. Quelch offered, also like the lure of the risk. Among other things, I would think. Ms. Kellaway also learned that what these guys wanted more than women was Adultery. And they pay for it, even on the worldwide web. Illicit Encounters charges the guys 119 pounds a month for access to the treasure trove of allure and ... adultery (potential of course). |
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The entrance gallery table with placement cards at last night's dinner party at Kathy and Billy Rayner's. |
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| Meanwhile, for something entire off-the-subject, back in Little Ole Manhattan where this sort of thing would never go on, at least not in the Wall Street Journal (so far that is), last night I went to a little oasis of piece and beauty -- an exhibition of watercolors by our town’s William Rayner, known to one and all as Billy at Mallett’s on Madison Avenue and 74th Street. This exhibition, entitled “Watercolors of Travels and Gardens” was done over a period of months on the Rayners’ travels through the Middle East and India. |
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| From William Rayner's “Watercolors of Travels and Gardens.” |
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| Afterwards, Kathy (Mrs. R) gave a dinner in her husband’s honor for about 70 of their friends at the Rayners’ Upper East Side townhouse. The Rayners’ evenings are always very cozy, no matter the number with a great menu, wines, and dessert and a very conversational crowd of old friends and new. |
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| Joan Hardy Clark | Alfred Taubman and Jane Stanton Hitchcock |
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| Stanley Weisman and Tim Lovejoy | Judith Guest | Grover Mouton |
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| Frannie Scaife and Frances Hayward | DPC and Shelley Wanger Mortimer |
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| Peter Duchin and Joan Hardy Clark | John Rosselli and Danny Marentette |
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| Sharon Sondes and Geoffrey Thomas | Virginia Coleman and Jane Stanton Hitchcock | David Ladik and Megan Boody |
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| Carol Mack, Grover Mouton, and Robin Hambro | Pat Patterson |
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Post-script on the life of Sunny von Bulow: a friend from Europe, wrote about yesterday’s Diary entry: “Prince Alfie von Auersperg was around everywhere in the 1970s in Europe. He was a dashing and very handsome man with great natural charm and very masculine without being macho. Although he was a tennis instructor when Sunny met him, he did have an authentic title (Prince) and a real family Coat of Arms ... but no money. However, within a year of their marriage he had a torrid and very public affair with Gina Lollobrigida.
Alfie was later injured in an automobile accident that left him also in a coma from 1983 to 1992 when he died. Alfie was as much in his own way a newsmaker as Sunny was. Although she had the money, he was not some kind of boy-toy for an American heiress. He held his own and showed her a fabulous period of her life in Europe where he was very respected and knew everyone. “I met Claus at a ball at their house in Newport the summer before Sunny’s accident that led to a coma. It was a brilliant party. As we entered the house into a long marble gallery that ran from entrance to the back terrace overlooking the ocean, Claus stood at the end of the impressive room as the official greeter and host, all turned out as a German military officer in full regalia with metals and all, clicking his jackboots as he greeted his guests. I’d never seen anything quite like that before.” |
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Links:
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