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 Warm with a strong breeze
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Looking East across West 13th Street between Washington and 9th. 1:30 AM. Photo: JH. |
July 13, 2009. Another beautiful weekend in New York; sunny, warm with a strong breeze and a late night heavy shower on Saturday.
Not Responsible and Anything You Want. In Staten Island, a teen-age girl fell into a cover-less manhole and landed in raw sewage. She was texting at the time and so she didn’t notice where she was going.
The girl complained that there was no orange plastic cone to warn her. It is quite possible that had there been a warning she might have fallen down the manhole with that too. People on their cell phones notice nothing. They walk into oncoming traffic unaware. It doesn’t even occur to them to watch where they are going, or that it’s even a personal responsibility.
Texting has become even more popular than phoning, so as a result people even drive and text at the same time. |
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Robert Isabell, the highly successful floral designer/events and party planner was found dead last week in his Greenwich Village townhouse by a doctor who had been sent to check on his whereabouts. He had been expected in the South of France the weekend before at a dinner given by former US Ambassador to Belgium Anne Cox Chambers, and when he didn’t show up, without ever calling before or after, someone called the doctor.
The New York Times reported that he was found on Wednesday although some friends claimed to have learned of his death last Tuesday. At first it was reported that he died of natural causes. Later it was reported that he died from a heart attack in bed the previous Saturday. He was 57 this past June 2nd.
One of three sons (and a daughter) of a power company lineman from Duluth, Minnesota, a boy from the heartland, he came to the big city in his early twenties to seek his fortune. He started out working for floral designer and party planner Renny Reynolds – still in business at his Park Avenue establishment. Through Reynolds, he met Ian Schrager, partner with Steve Rubell in Studio 54. Schrager liked the “razzle-dazzle” of the young man’s work and hired him. They remained friends for life.
Eventually, working independently, Mr. Isabell became part of a quartet of event creating talents who worked independently although often in affiliation with each other – George Trescher, the public relations and public events organizer, Sean Driscoll, owner of the East Side caterer Glorious Foods, and Tom Finn, the society DJ.
From the Reagan era through the 1990s, until the death of George Trescher six years ago (at age 77), these four men had a profound impact on the entertaining style of high social life in New York. They created many of the most important philanthropic events and private celebrations. Their work had an imprimatur. They set the standard in New York. George Trescher was their impresario, and Robert Isabell’s vision was their most noticeable aspect. He had the talent to amaze.
As a creative being, Robert Isabell will be remembered for his showmanship and innovative designs and decors. He became hugely successful, eventually owning a complex of Greenwich Village real estate now worth in the tens of millions.
As his star rose, possibly because of the pressure and demands of his prosperity, Mr. Isabell could be difficult to work with, and noticeably less than cordial or gracious with those he evidently didn’t consider his equals. He had developed a mercurial temperament around people working on projects with him. This is a not an uncommon characteristic among some who either work under great stress and pressure, or think they do. At best it is disruptive and non-productive. By the peers it is excused or even defended. At worst, it is what one can be remembered for, as it marks the memory of the man or woman.
In time, Mr. Isabell’s business became a small industry with commissions all over the world. He designed, decorated and contributed to all kinds of public private events from my late friend Judy Green’s annual Holiday/ Christmas parties, to weddings (both Caroline Kennedy’s and John Kennedy’s weddings) to Met and Ballet openings to birthdays, debutante parties, private parties, to Jackie Onassis’ funeral, Saudi Arabian banquets and Macao casino openings.
In the past several years Mr. Isabell’s business has not been as prominent on the social scene where several others have followed successfully in his footsteps. However, his business flourished both nationally and internationally.
Several years ago through George Trescher, he was introduced to Mrs. Paul Mellon, known to the world as Bunny. Mrs. Mellon who is now in her late nineties is famously rich, as well as famous in social and design circles for her passionate interest in the decorative arts. A veritable patron, a nod or a commission from Bunny Mellon was (and still is) tantamount to being anointed.
Mrs. Mellon has also long been known for her spectacular as well as charming generosity with friends she is fond of. There was the occasion, reported several years ago in these pages, when her great friend Mrs. Onassis had taken up watercolor painting, and Mrs. Mellon sent her a gift of a paintbox. When opened, Mrs. Onassis discovered in each color section, two precious stones marking the color – emeralds for green, sapphires for blue, rubies for red, etc. And where the paintbrush would fit were two gold earring clips on which to attach the “color” of the artist’s choice.
Almost on meeting, Mrs. Mellon and Mr. Isabell became very good friends. Despite the forty year difference in their ages, a bonding took place, and it is safe to say they became very important in each other’s lives, almost in a way reminiscent of Harold and Maude.
They spent a great deal of time together over the past several years, the younger man no doubt learning from connoisseur, as well as contributing his own masterly thoughts to hers. There were rumors of marriage or adoption. True or not, the stories corroborate the shared closeness of the two. Mr. Isabell, in fact, it has been said, will be laid to rest at the Mellon family plot next to a church that Paul Mellon built in Upperville, Virginia.
The tale of the wide-eyed country boy from the Middle West who comes to the Big Town and hits the Big Time is classic New York, and indeed Robert Isabell’s story.
The Big Town changes the boy, indeed transforms him as an artist, just as Thomas Wolfe wrote in his “You Can’t Home Again.” But the boy now belongs to the world -- a flash of energy that dazzled and amazed the Big Town. Its own reward; that was Robert Isabell’s life. |
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