Friday, September 27, 2004. Early Autumn’s yesterday in New York with temps touching the 70s occasionally and amidst occasional mini-sprinkles — never quite rainfalls.
The city is still under siege by the United Nations members visiting and our having turned up the “security” for them. You know of course what we can do; sorry but that’s the language. That means streets are closed off, parts of avenues and whole neighborhood are under tight “security” because of the “guests” staying nearby. If you’re an historian, there are your notes.
I went down to 59th and Fifth to the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, to Doubles where Quest magazine was hosting its annual cocktail party celebrating the “The 400” which is published annually at this time.
The party is an opportunity to see some of our neighbors, seeing other neighbors (New York version), and neighbors rarely seen. Chris Meigher, the owner and publisher of Quest, invites lots of friends and friends of friends.
Wendy Carduner, the director and manager of the club, has an excellent staff including the kitchen, so even the “hors d’oeuvres” are excellent of course – including those mini hotdogs in mini rolls irresistible for a lot of us.
I got there fairly quickly with a good cabdriver. Although many streets and avenues in that part of the East Side were practically at a standstill with cars jamming the roads. Because of that I was surprised that there was a big and excellent turnout for this annual affair.
I actually started the List about thirty years ago. Chris, who had acquired the magazine a couple of years later, started the “tradition” of this particular issue with its the annual “400” List.
I’d been writing for Quest when it was owned by its creator Heather Cohane. And I didn’t have an article for the following issue. And I needed the rent money. So I had to think fast. My deadline was One Day.
I thought of the famous Mrs. Astor of the late 19th century who had the 100 List for her annual ball in the ballroom of her brownstone mansion on Fifth Avenue at 39th Street. If you weren’t on the List, you weren’t there; and never would be. Although I don’t recall it being a tough idea. Quest was the perfect magazine for the matter a century later.
Heather and I made up the first List. I wrote down every (obvious) name I could think of who was long regarded as having such prominence. Then Heather got out three old shoe boxes filled with the black and white party pictures which she herself took when covering social parties. Snaps, they called them, of prominent (usually or sort) people at parties.
Going through her collection of snaps, if there were more than one photo of a person, we put that person in the List file.
I remember very little about the making of it, but I put John Kennedy, Jr.’s name at the top of the list. He was, it turned out, in his prime and I figured that if someone saw his name they’d think the List was legit and buy the magazine. Well, I was right. They did. Although they thought his placement officially declared that he was the most Important socialite.
What he was, I learned from its reception, was the most important name to promote a New York magazine at that moment in our history. He was that popular. This new “biography” of him, JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography by Liz McNeil and RoseMarie Terenzio, is excellent.
It’s long but a very fast read and when you finish you’re left with a sense of a whole person whom you actually could have/might have known, who was the son of that man and wife at that time in our history which changed everything. He was also, like his parents, very well liked and popular with all kinds of people. His memory reflects the great sadness of that time in our history.
What personally interests me about the Social List is that its existence is now valid, of these times from an historic point of view; and important in considering New York as a major world city, and how its presence portrays its world.
Meanwhile, back at Doubles which drew about a hundred or more attending, many of whom walked — in order to get there — and loved seeing everybody. I also had a brief conversation with Wilbur Ross whose best-selling book, Risk and Returns, is about the financial world and how it works so simply.
His book was very effective in teaching you something that you may have regarded as too complicated and un-learnable. Well, not anymore. I used that made up word to describe how I felt about the subject after reading the book.
I wrote about it here a couple of weeks ago. It is very popular unsurprisingly having read it myself. Last night Wilbur told me that Yale University School of management and the Harvard U undergraduate Seminar on Entrepreneurship are distributing the books to all of their students.
Wilbur and Hilary have been traveling (and were leaving in the morning for the West) promoting the book.
The Quest party lasted until almost nine. Once outside the Sherry, there was no transportation available that was going north. And the traffic moving east on 59th Street was jammed and barely moving. So I walked from Fifth over to Third and up. It was a nice night temperature-wise, good with a jacket. It was very New York at night with sidewalks crowded with restaurant-goers, lighted by the businesses along the path I was taking.
Park Avenue north was closed; same with Lexington, so I walked up Lex to 65th where I caught a cab moving east. He drove me up Third to 71st Street, with very heavy bumper to bumper traffic on all roads; and he took a left down to Lex to Sette Mezzo. Where I went to have a quick dinner.
Sette was mobbed. It was close to nine. I had that quick dinner and caught another cab to take me up to 83rd and East End. He told me that this UN week, especially these past three days have killed the cabbies’ business.
Cabs are also now very expensive in New York and cabbies are not overpaid. All tips matter. More than ever. The fare for the 12 blocks north, four double-length blocks to East End, was $20. I wouldn’t ordinarily mark this matter but I gave him $30 and told him to keep the change. He was shocked but he was obviously touched because the nights have been so bad that it’s has been tough.
And so it was for this writer in New York on a Thursday night in late September and the year 2024. And the leaders of the world have come to Manhattan for which we blockaded the place where we live, enough to make people wish they’d leave. Although this is New York, one of our humans’ centers of the universe that we call the globe. Irony is our possession universally. At least in New York — which is a major collection of the universe in our citizens.
