A New Day Dawns

A scene from Madame Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera House. 8:30 PM. Photo: JH.

11/5. Sunny and cool election day in New York. Polls busy. Long lines much of the day. Excitement in the air wherever I was. A certainty among many that Mr. Obama would win. An anxiety among others that there might be a disappointing surprise.

By 8 o’clock when I went down to the Rainbow Room to go with Kathy Sloane to the Election Night Party being given by Irene and Bernard Schwartz. Certainty was in the air. The cabdriver, a young second generation American asked me very gingerly what I thought of Obama. I asked him who he voted for. Obama.

By the time the cab got to 49th and Fifth, there was a traffic jam. I got out to walk the next block. The Rockefeller Plaza skating rink was surrounded by flags. The Red White and Blue was projected onto 30 Rockefeller Plaza. On either side of that building, across the street from the Today Show studios (with the windows), there were two giant screens projecting NBC News. The crowds were gathering in the chilly air. The energy was warm and stirring. People were glad to be there. Excitement was in the air.

Up on the 65th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the Rainbow Room, Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz had taken over the entire floor including the bar/restaurant as well as the Rainbow Room. From the floor to ceiling windows you could look out on Manhattan and New York and New Jersey to the south, southeast and southwest. The Empire State Building, fifteen blocks south was lit up in blue with tips of red on its towers. The city and the surroundings were like a field of jewels.

Looking south from the Rainbow Room.

In another part of the room many had already begun to gather. The dress was black tie. At the entrance on either side were two long tables of (faux) straw boaters with red, white and blue bands, six deep for the hundreds of guests.

Mr. Schwartz is a very influential businessman in New York. He and Mrs. Schwartz are supporters of many causes and are often seen at important cultural affairs and charitable galas. He’s a tall man, and by the way he carries himself, you could almost think he was shy. In his public life he serves on the boards of several colleges and universities as well as Channel Thirteen, New York Hospital and the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the New-York Historical Society and the New York Film Society. Pretty good for a kid from Bensonhurst. Mr. Schwartz, who was born in Brooklyn 82 years ago, celebrated his 71st birthday in the White House of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

In my part of the room at the Schwartz party, in the bar, everyone was watching the flat screen TV with the results coming in -- Obama 194, McCain 69. Mr. and Mrs. Spielvogel had front row seats. Judy and Peter Price were right behind. George and Mariana Kaufman were behind them. And Jill Spalding, Rita Gam, Susan Silver, Barbara Goldsmith, Dalia and Larry Leeds. The Jimmy Nederlanders, Margo McNabb Nederlander, Hilary and Wilbur Ross, Ann Rapp and Hunt Slonem. Soon the place was filling up running on quiet anticipation. Talk filling the air but never too high to drown out the commentary coming off the TV screen.


	Scott Olson / Getty Images

I left the Rainbow Room about 9:30 to go up to another Election Night Party at Paul Beirne’s apartment on Central Park West. Mr. Beirne is an influential businessman also and quite active in the Democratic Party (he was once a fundraiser for the Republican Party many moons ago). Like Mr. Schwartz, Paul also has many other interests both civic and cultural in New York and the World. He is about three decades younger than Mr. Schwartz, quite conceivably not as rich, but likes people, and often opens his house to entertain, including political events. This party he was co-hosting with Paul Gunther, a friend who by day is the President of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America.

Small buffet of pasta and lasagna, chicken and salad and cupcakes in red, white, or blue icing, thick and horrendously sweet. I took three. And people talking and watching. By 10 o’clock it looked like it was gonna happen. It looked like we would be saying President Obama. I was in the taxi heading across the park to home when my friend Schulenberg called me on my cell to tell me that Obama had just won. He had to tell somebody (besides the people he was with).

JH had been over at the Met watching the new Madame Butterfly (with costumes by Han Feng who was one of our first interviews when we started the NYSD eight years ago). Occasionally I texted him the ongoing numbers.

At home I turned on the radio (the sound on my TV isn’t working – don’t ask…) to hear his speech. I hadn’t heard a lot of his speeches during the campaign. I heard the first one in Springfield. I was reminded of the power of young John F. Kennedy’s gifts of oration.

Senator Barack Obama with his wife, Michelle, and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. with his wife, Jill, in Chicago on Tuesday night. By ADAM NAGOURNEY.

Last night, listening to his words in Chicago after he’d won, I heard The Man. Grace, Humility, Exhortation. Yes We Can. I couldn’t resist wondering how the whole flavor and image of the Presidency is going to change symphonically. Because it is. About a year and a half ago I heard Michelle Obama give a speech at the annual Strawberry Festival luncheon at the New-York Historical Society. (See NYSD 7.27.07). I went to that luncheon because of her husband’s candidacy and what I had heard through the grapevine about her. Before Senator Obama announced that he was going to run, I was told, one of the issues he might have to deal with, it was presumed, was his wife. Because, as it was explained to me a couple of years ago when he considering the race, his wife was a very strong minded woman who felt she was just as qualified to be the President as her husband.

Listening to her speech that day at the New-York Historical Society, I concluded that, from my humble judgment, Michelle Obama demonstrated that indeed she was just as qualified. And just as smart. And maybe smarter. And no-nonsense. Like a schoolmarm. I liked her.

Last night listening to President-elect Obama’s speech in the Park in Chicago, I couldn’t help thinking about Michelle Obama, wondering how she will approach her role as First Lady of the United States. I have a feeling she will do us proud, accede to the stature, and take us with her. A new day dawns in America.

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