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 A Halloween Weekend
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Halloween townhouse decorations on 83rd Street between Park and Madison. 9:00 PM. Photo: JH. |
11/3. Sunny and slightly chilly autumn weekend in New York. Halloween and the New York Marathon dominated the city. Halloween is an old celebration formerly preoccupying children. About fifteen or twenty years ago it entered the “adult” consciousness venting masquerade.
On Friday morning, my friend Schulenberg who is in town went down to Michael’s to sketch the room.
Knowing I’m a regular customer, he called me on his cell when he got there and said: “You didn’t tell me they had transvestites on the waitstaff.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about.
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| Billy on his way to "in drag" at Michael's, Friday lunchtime. |
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“There’s a guy here wearing his hair like Sarah Palin, with plucked eyebrows and full makeup,” he continued. “I think he’s pre-op.”
“What he’s wearing?” I asked trying to get a picture of this person.
“Big tall guy. Khakis an a pink shirt.” That’s the waiters’ costume at Michael’s.
“Is the hair his?”
“Yup.”
I figured out it was Billy, a surfer dude from California who works the lunch shift. That’s when I realized it was Halloween. NO doubt it was like that all over town.
Schulenberg being from L.A. ought to know about these things because on Halloween you can’t go into a bank or a supermarket out there where everybody on the staff isn’t in costume, often very elaborate (after all, it’s Hollywood).
There were all kinds of parties all over town. A cab driver told me it was almost as big as New Year’s. Me, I went to Swifty’s in jeans and blazer. My costume ad infinitum. By the time we got out from dinner, the Upper East Side was empty with nary a cab in sight. All downtown, no doubt.
Saturday night I went to Swifty’s again - with different friends. The conversation was all about the financials. The Times ran an article on Saturday about the possibility of deflation. If you read the financial blogs, you’ve known about this for a long long time. Why is that?
Last week at a big dinner dance at one of the smarter clubs on Park Avenue that always prefers to remain nameless in the press, I was talking to a woman who does financial reporting for one of the major tv news outlets. We were talking about the financials. I was surprised how knowledgeable she was. Why don’t I hear that in your financial news reports I asked. “Because,” she replied, “no matter what you plan, they come back requesting (requiring) an “up” spin on everything.” The car went over the cliff; all passengers died. But it was a beautiful day.
At that same party a real estate broker told me about the sale of the $30 million dollar apartment of a wealthy tycoon who’d just passed away. I’d asked if it had been sold yet. ”We got a buyer who put down a $3 million deposit. And then changed their minds and walked away.”
“You mean forfeiting the $3 million?”
“Uh-huh.”
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Alice Waters, Bette Midler, Drew Nieporent, David Chang and gang at the New York Restoration Project's annual Hulaween Gala. |
Friday night was Halloween city but down at the Waldorf, in the grand Ballroom before a crowd of 1000 guests, Her Nibs, Miss Bette Midler held forth with her annual New York Restoration Project (NYRP) Hulaween Gala. Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine entertained, along with Emmy award-winning comedian Kathy Griffin performed her “D List” stand-up comedy throughout the evening as Michael Kors took in the crowd looking for winners of the annual costume contest.
A big boldface crowd they were too; such as: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Martha Stewart, Pink, The B-52’s, John McEnroe and Patty Smyth, Suze Orman, Jimmy Buffet, Gloria Gaynor, Christine Ebersol, Sandra Lee, Stevi Perry, Miss Teen USA 2008, and Crystle Stewart, Miss USA 2008.
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Bette entertains the crowd. |
They honored Alice Waters, Chez Panisse chef from San Francisco who has deeply influenced Americans about feeding themselves, advocating locally grown and sustainably harvested food.
There was a special committee formed to honor Waters by making their signature appetizer for the cocktail party before the dinner. Such as: April Bloomfield, The Spotted Pig and The John Dory; David Chang, Momofuku Noodle Bar; Tom Colicchio, Craft; Lisa Fernandes, Mai House; Kurt Gutenbrunner, Wallse, Café Sabarsky, and Blaue Gann; Jonathan Waxman, Barbuto; and Andrew Zimmern. |
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The Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf=Astoria. |
In presenting the award to Waters, Midler called her “an entrepreneur, a pioneer, an activist, and quite simply a force of nature.” She likened her image of that of Rachel Carson, or Jane Jacobs.
The invitation read: “Costumes of Else.” Robert Isabell, the event creator gave the vast room an ambiance that he themed “A Ghoulish Green Market,” again kudos to Waters. |
| 1st Place: Mona Lisa and Leonardo da Vinci. |
3rd Place: Disco Ball & Chain. |
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2nd Place: The City of Las Vegas. |
| Michael Kors |
Just engaged! |
Deborah Morales |
| Bette Midler |
Cindy WIlson of the The B-52’s |
Steve and Daryl Roth |
| Gloria Estefan and daughter Emily |
| Sandra Lee |
Veronica Kelly |
Pink |
| Nina and Tim Zagat |
Kathy Travis and Suze Orman |
Christine Ebersole |
| Gloria Gaynor |
Crystle Stewart and Stevi Perry |
John McEnroe |
| Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kathy Griffin, Bette Midler, and Gloria Estefan |
Kathy Griffin, Suze Orman, and Bette Midler |
| Jimmy Buffett |
Andre Leon Talley |
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar |
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Down on Sixth Avenue at 12th Street, JH took a snap of the 35th Annual New York's Village Halloween Parade. Friday night, 9:45 PM. |
Meanwhile. Sunday was the New York Marathon. 39,000 people running. You want optimism? There’s optimism. The real thing. That’s the kind of optimism that will rescue us in the end. Not the “optimistic” spin on the bad news.
One of the things some New Yorkers are disappointed in every year is the lack of foliage we’re used to seeing in the countryside. I deal with it by enjoying the subtler changes. There’s a tree just a block down from me in front of 60 East End that is my favorite tree in the neighborhood. It’s tall and stately, yet lithesome and delicate with some low lying branches at its peak.
In the springtime when it’s first budding, and the sun hits it in late morning, it’s like looking at a Seurat. You want it to just stay like that. |
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| My favorite tree on East End Avenue on the corner of 82nd and East End, in front of 60 East End. |
Yesterday morning when I was making a quick walk to Coleman’s Deli I noticed a school of yellow leaves on it, as if swimming amidst the green hanging low, all resplendent in the sun.
I took a picture of it, looking north. In case you ever wondered what the avenue looks like on a Sunday morning. I’m always amazed at how quiet it is, right here in mid-(not quite midtown) Manhattan, with a six lane highway running alongside the East River. But the picture says it. |
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Late Sunday morning looking north on East End Avenue between 82nd and 83rd Streets. |
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Just down the street, the Virginia makes her way up the East River channel, heading north. |
Just beyond the “favorite tree,” to the left in the picture where you see the treeline, is Carl Schurz Park. It’s from there I love to look at the river and watch the boats pass.
Yesterday there was a fifty foot yawl sailing south with the wind (most often the sailors motor through this channel). Paradise passes the eyes of this observer. On this one I could see a man and woman – in windbreakers, hers orange, his blue; I would guess in their fifties, maybe more. Midway along the railing on either side of the deck was a small sign attached: “Homeward Obama.”
This part of town was where early 19th century New Yorkers came to spend the warmer months of the year, away from the city’s smells and heat, by the riverside with its hefty breezes. It’s hardly pastoral now but it’s close enough to “feel” like Sunday, the day of rest. For some of us.
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| Saturday JH and I took a brief walk through the East 70s between Park and Madison where we found several indications of hte presence of goblins and ghosts and a few ornery pumpkins among the cobwebs and varmints and skeletons. |
| Photographs by Ann Watt (Hulaween) |
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