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 Over the River and Through the Woods
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A garden rose on an Upper East Side sidestreet. 4:40 PM. Photo: JH. |
June 16, 2009. Another overcast day in New York with moments of sunshine. Temperatures in the high 50s, so it’s the kind of weather where you might wonder if you needed a sweater or a jacket. Or a light one or a wool one. I love this weather. It casts a beautiful light on the green. The trees become almost forests. And it rains a lot.
There was a steady heavy rain late yesterday afternoon, washing down the streets and sidewalks, cleaning the flowers planted around the trees, brightening everything. It might sound like I’m idealizing. Maybe so but only half, no more. The climate right now casts a spell over the city. People are less agitated or frenetic. Ma Nature has stepped in. She’s easing the angst that is floating everywhere. The city is beautiful.
Early last evening I took a cab over to DUMBO (popular acronym for Down Under The Manhattan Bridge Overpass) to a book party David Walentas was giving for Michael Thomas and his new novel “Love and Money,” two areas very familiar to the author.
The grey clouds from the storm hadn’t completely cleared and the air along the river was a light silvery dark blue as we rode down the highway from East 79th Street to the Brooklyn Bridge exit which is about ten or twelve minutes in regular evening traffic moving at a pretty good clip. The sun was getting close to the horizon but its glow continued bright. |
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| Riding in the cab down the FDR approaching the turn-off for the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance. |
| The mighty bridge, 125 years old next year, as seen as we descend to the main ramp. |
I hadn’t been to Brooklyn in a long time and I can’t remember when’s the last time I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. I love the Brooklyn Bridge. I can’t even look at it without thinking of its triumphant history and its effect on the people of New York who for the first time got to see the land the way we see it all day every day – looking down on it.
I think of the Roeblings’ saga in its construction and the lives lost and limbs scarred. It’s powerful stuff, the stuff of the great American legend. Which remains pure in concept if not in fact. So for me, the Brooklyn Bridge is like the flag, the flag of New York. It’s now been a landmark (and a milestone) for more than 125 years. Next year is the 125th anniversary of its opening.
I took shots of the world surrounding the entry way onto the great Bridge. And in the almost twilight (7:30-ish) the views out into the harbor, to Governors Island, Ellis Island and the Lady Liberty, are stupendous. |
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| The great Municipal Building on the square across from City Hall. |
| The scene after turning off the exit on the Brooklyn side. |
The air was clear as we crossed over into Brooklyn. DUMBO is just north of the bridge on the River. David Walentas has been developing this part of Brooklyn for years. I think his earliest interest extends back decades long before any Manhattanite would have thought of Brooklyn as an upscale residential real estate opportunity.
Those were the days when SoHo was just a hip new acronym for the still dank and scuzzy section of Manhattan where artists could rent large industrial spaces cheap. Few would have imagined that it would ever be high rent either.
The result is these very cool, very architecturally interesting locations tucked into the metropolis, with strong historic overtones and often populated mainly by prosperous, dynamic residents.
Once inside the area called DUMBO you know it’s a very cool place to live. Quiet. Old cobblestone streets so bumpy you have to slow down. Large former industrial buildings of the last two centuries converted into business and residential spaces, as well as stores and restaurants. And down at the end of the block is the River and the Manhattan towers glistening like a country kid’s dream of the big town across the way.
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| The view from the Walenta "clocktower" apartment in DUMBO, of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Financial District and in the distance in the island you can just about see the tiny image of Miss Liberty. 8:15 PM. |
Okay, I’ll stop. I loved being there. You can tell. The party was held in the “clocktower.” The clocktower turned out to be a triplex apartment at the top of the building at number 1 Main Street. The apartment is newly completed (by Mr. Walentas) and is about to go on the market. Talk about rooms with a view: I didn’t ask the price. I agree with JP Morgan who is said when asked about the cost of his newest biggest yacht: “if you have to ask the price you can’t afford it.”
I can’t afford it although I couldn’t resist getting shots for the memory, of the views from this post-modern palace overlooking Manhattan and the harbor. What most New Yorkers do not have daily residential access to is The River. Vast and wide, a channel really to connect the Harlem River and Long Island Sound to the harbor and the Atlantic – that part of New York that is the reason it even exists today – one of the greatest harbors in the New World.
I’ll stop. Michael Thomas drew a large crowd from over the bridge. I was surprised which shows how provincial I am. There was a substantial buffet of cheeses. Dips, meats, and booze. The place is large and bright and white, and the views are ... So the mood was very up. People were glad to be there. It was a writer/media type crowd, suits and non-suits, lotsa drinks and friendly conversations with people just glad to see each other and in such favorable circumstances. |
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| Michael Thomas with a copy of Love & Money. Click to order. |
Grace and Chris Meigher. |
| The party and it's quarter to eight with Brooklyn in the background. |
Many New Yorker know Michael through his long time column Midas Watch in the New York Observer with his commentary on literature, politics, money and occasionally society. Son of a legendary Wall Street banker, alumnus of Exeter and Yale, art historian, investment banker. He grew up, for me, in the world chronicled by John O’Hara and he himself personified it. The White Shoe version of A Rebel Without a Cause. I haven’t read “Love and Money” yet but I’m going to find more evidence of those fascinating characters whom Michael knows so well, who lined the corridors of power (and politics), as well as a few other darker corridors in those glistening towers across the East River channel from where we were standing last night. Fact became fiction.
I got a picture of Michael’s host, David Walentas with another Michael, Michael Gross whose newest book is Rogues Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money that Made the Metropolitan Museum. You’ve read about it here before. It’s a wonderful history of that gargantuan culturally iconic institution that sits on the edge of the Central Park facing Fifth Avenue in the low 80s.
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| Goerge Gurley with brothers-in-law Tim Hatch and Spencer Morgan. |
The official reception for Michael’s book has been very cool. The New York Times, which mentioned his previous book, 740 Park, ninety times in print, has mentioned this one notta jotta. Let alone review it. The established ones who preside as cultural assessors of the first order have declared the history “rubbish.” They, of course, would know, having concealed any number of secrets themselves.
Michael is one of those fellows who is the writer’s version of a vertical operation. He gives birth to it, nurtures and grows it and sets it out on its natural course with loving hands. The strange brouhaha over “Rogues” has kidnapped the baby, so to speak.
Evidently the Post is also placing an embargo on the work. It’s like Nobody Wants to Know about it. Which is odd, considering what a great historical document it is. It will definitely spawn greater studies of the Met. |
| Another view from the clocktower of the Manhattan Bridge with the Empire State in the distance. 8:20 PM. |
So what’s the problem? It seems difficult to determine. Some tell Michael he’s being “paranoid.” I’d tell Michael he’s onto something although where it might take him may not be worth the trip.
It is true that there are people in this town who have what is generally recognized as power. Can they kill people? I don’t know about that. Maybe with kindess or a harsh Fifth Avenue froideur.
Annette de la Renta is the name that comes up first and foremost in the Michael Gross/Met biography business.
Mrs. de la Renta and her mother, the late Jane Engelhard, figure in the Met’s history. Their profiles in the book describe two very strong and determined women who also happened to be rich and elegant in presence and bearing. Mrs. de la Renta, who is a little bit of a thing with a waist to rival Scarlett O’Hara is always beautifully turned out with just enough thrown away to rustle the taffeta, and gracious in appearance. She’s also a woman that other women and some men are intimidated by. I’m not quite sure why that is. Perhaps it’s reflected in the company she keeps, which includes men like Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, etc., men and women on the world stage who represent “power.” |
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| Michale Gross and David Walentas. |
Phaedra Philippoussis and John Dizard. |
| Hiary Heard and Katherine Morgan Hatch. |
Peter Lattman of the WSJ and the author. |
I think it’s just the woman’s personality. It’s strong, and she’s used to being in charge of her life. And perhaps lives of others for all I know.
That said, Michael Gross had problems with this book from the outset. They did not want him to be the writer of the history of their museum. They being whoever the “they’s” are at the moment. At the moment Annette de la Renta is one of the “they’s.” That happens to be the role she’s come into as she’s gained public prominence – which ironically has come to her mainly through her work for certain institutions, like the Met where she sits on the Board of Trustees and works.
It is also true that Michael Gross’ profile of Mrs. de la Renta and her equally elegant mother, Mrs. Engelhard, is not altogether pristine in the Puritan sense. This is not surprising. Mrs. Engelhard began adult life in Europe on the edge of Hitler’s precipice. She had a Jewish father (her mother was Irish Catholic). All lives were at stake. Jane Engelhard’s early years are a portrait of wit, cleverness, courage and true grit. And ready for the Best Dressed List to boot. She got herself to America and she got her infant daughter to America. From there, like so many, she made a big life for herself.
I liked Michael Gross’ Rogues Gallery. The story of the making of the Met is massive, complex yet simple and dynamic. His research is especially excellent considering that the Met set up roadblocks all along the way. |
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The Met was begun as an elitist institution. Those Old Boys (and a few of the Old Girls) with the dough wanted a museum for themselves. They were certainly not in the mood for entertaining the great unwashed. This was in 1870, harrumph.
It took years before they were forced to open on Sundays so that the working man (his only day off in the 19th century) could visit the galleries. The fear of the riff-raff gave way to the romance with the hoi-polloi and their box-office numbers.
Nevertheless, the atmosphere at the Met still retains more than a few strains of the elitist attitude. Elitist has changed in the new century. Anna Wintour, for example, for God’s sake, is elitist. It should be remembered that the art world is elitist. The connoisseurs and their advisers and their minions and their minions’ sycophants tend toward the elitist. Big time. I am and you’re not. It no longer matters what they’re wearing, of course, but the attitude remains. The game comes from childhood: I-know-something-you-don’t-know. In this great big town, like any great big town, it’s called power. |
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