vip in the city

High style @ MCNY

Visited the Museum of the City of New York this morning for “The high Style of Dorothy Draper” exhibit. Once a household name, Draper’s influence as a decorator continues to reverberate as fashion moves away from stark minimalist spaces towards her signature explosions of exhuberant color, oversized accessories, vivid cabbage roses, bright stripes and baroque flourishes. A true style icon and pioneer in interior design, she dominated the field from the mid-1920’s until her retirement in 1960, when she was named America’s most influential tastemaker. The exhibition at MCNY is the first-ever major restrospective of her life and career.

Born Dorothy Tuckerman in 1889 to a prominent and wealthy family – her great-grandfather was a signer of the Declaration of Independence – Draper was raised in the affluent enclave of Tuxedo Park, one of the first gated communities in the United States. (The tuxedo was invented there by Pierre Lorillard in 1886.) Draper was a six-foot tall debutante with an outsize personality to match. After marrying George (Dan) Draper, a doctor from a similarly prominent family, she started up a fledgling decorating business in the 1920’s – essentially creating a new market for packaged style in the heretofore male-dominated construction industry. Her marriage eventually foundered, though, and after three children, her husband asked for a divorce. (Ironically, he married another decorator five years later.) Once freed from the bonds of marriage, the 40-year old Draper’s ambition took off: she renamed her company, and through her society connections (particularly, real estate magnate Douglas Elliman) and distinctive style, was able to score several highly visible commissions: the Carlyle Hotel lobby, a row of Sutton Place tenements (which resulted in the quadrupling of their offer price), and the project which put her on the map: The Hampshire House (now a coop) on Central Park South. She designed the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s cafeteria, the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, the Arrowhead Springs Hotel and Spa in Southern California and the Camellia House Supper Club restaurant at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.

Far from limiting herself to commercial contracts, Draper lent her design sensibilities to projects as varied as the 1952 Packard, a fleet of airplane interiors and the International Hotel at Idlewild (now JFK) Airport. By the 1940’s, her name had developed such cachet that she expanded her empire to make interior design more accessible to the post-War generation of American housewives through the publication of (ghostwritten) books like “Decorating is Fun!“, “Entertaining Is Fun!” and “How to Be a Popular Hostess.” She lent her name to a line of household products, wallpaper, textiles and furniture. She had a nationally-syndicated advice column entitled “Ask Dorothy Draper” — also ghostwritten — that ran in 70 newspapers, 3 times a week.

The company Draper founded is still in existence — over forty years after her death — and her “modern baroque” sensibility has enjoyed a recent renaissance of sorts. Towering achievement for an Edwardian era woman with no formal design or business education.

Afterwards, I stopped for brunch at Itzocan Bistro, a wonderful (and well-reviewed) French-Mex restaurant at 101st and Lexington. The limited brunch menu — a terrific deal at $8.50, including coffee — offered a few intriguing options. I had difficulty deciding between the “Omelet with huitlacoche mushrooms, jalapeno & brie” and the “Baked Eggs with chorizo, poblano peppers & mushrooms.” When in doubt, ask the server; a man who appeared to be the owner (Anselmo?) advised me that while both were good, he personally preferred the baked eggs, though they did entail a bit of a wait. No worries there: I was in no rush to be anywhere else. Overhearing our exchange, a diner at the next table enthusastically seconded the recommendation. He would be in the position to know: I saw remnants of the dish on his plate.

No salsa and chips here: I was tided over with slivers of warm, crusty French bread and butter. Twenty minutes later…

The “baked” eggs were in fact just barely set atop a bed of roasted potatoes with buttery mushrooms and wonderfully spicy chunks of chorizo. C’est si bon! (Or is that: Qué bueno!)

Brooklyn’s Outernational at Summerstage in Central Park:

Sheep’s Meadow on a lazy Sunday:

The Morgan Library

The Morgan Library (now the Morgan Library and Museum ) reopened in late April 2006 after a three year renovation and expansion during which the exhibition spaces were doubled by the construction of Renzo Piano’s four-story, steel and glass atrium. We visited during Friday’s late evening hours, after a round of beers (Harp and Magic Hat #9, not Kiuchi Nest) at nearby Ginger Man.

Piano is the Pritzker-prize winning Italian architect, most famous for designing the Centre George Pompidou in Paris. The Morgan Library’s $100M addition is Piano’s first major work in New York City, but there are others planned in the years to come: the new headquarters building for The New York Times Company in Times Square, the Whitney Museum extension and a possible Northern extension of the Columbia University campus.

Renzo’s design links together the original 1906 library, the 1928 Annex, and the 1850s brownstone on Madison and 37th Street. The house was the home of J.P. (Jack) Morgan, Jr. until his death in 1943, after which it served as the headquarters of the Lutheran Church in America. The Morgan Library purchased it in 1988. Prior to the Morgan’s ownership, the house was home to wealthy philanthropists (and married cousins) Helen Phelps and Anson Stokes; their son, Isaac Newton Phelps-Stokes, was born in that house, and grew up to become a historian-author and architect of St. Paul’s Chapel on the Columbia University main campus. In 1966, the chapel was among the first buildings to be designated an official landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

But back to the Morgan. A windowless cube gallery sits off to the South of the airy, new Gilbert Court (below) and serves as a showcase for Morgan’s considerable medieval art treasures, the most important of which is the mid-9th century gold and jeweled Lindau Gospel Book. The room also holds the mid-12th century copper gilt and enamel Stavelot Triptych.

It had been several years since I last set foot inside to view the objets d’art culled together by the senior John Pierpont Morgan, and I was impressed all over again with the breadth of his collection. A large portion was donated to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, of which Morgan was one-time president, but a select few remain here. The original Italian Renaissance-style Library building was built next to Morgan’s brownstone residence (since demolished) as a three-room showcase for his treasures at a personal cost of $1.2M. The East room, actually known as “Mr. Morgan’s Library,” is a majestic yet intimate space with a leaded skylight and vaulted ceiling murals by commissioned artist Henry Siddons Mowbray, head of the American Academy in Rome. The three tiers of dramatic floor-to-ceiling encased shelves are filled with some 5000 leather-bound volumes dating from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

No photos allowed: this one somehow made it into my camera while B stood in between me and the guard’s line of vision.

One highlight of the Library are the Gutenberg Bibles — one was on display in this room. The Morgan collection includes three of the ten copies in the United States — one vellum, and two paper, more copies than even the Vatican (which owns just two). Only sixty or so copies are known to still be in existence worldwide. The only other copy in New York City is owned by The New York Public Library. Yale, Harvard and Princeton Universities each own one copy, as does Bill Gates.

Below, the Rotunda, which sits between Mr. Morgan’s Library and Mr. Morgan’s Study — which with its red damask silk-covered walls and imported 16th century carved wood ceilings was once called the “most beautiful room in America.”

So much to see: drawings by da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Rubens, Dürer, Rembrandt, Degas and Picasso. Upstairs, an astonishing collection of literary and musical manuscripts: the only existing transcription of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Thoreau’s 40-volume journal, personal correspondence by Benjamin Franklin, crazily cramped early writings by all four Brontë siblings, Austen’s first unpublished novel, and works by Steinbeck, Balzac, Dickens, Poe, Burns, Byron, Keats, Shelley… sheets of music by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Mahler, Wagner…

It’s almost too much to take in during one visit. I, for one, am thrilled to have my — okay, our — Pierpont Morgan Library (and Museum) back.

Factotum at The W

Attended a screening of Bent Hamer’s Factotum tonight at the W - Union Square hotel’s Grand Ballroom.

In its previous life, the 20-story in Beaux Arts–style building now housing the W New York - Union Square was known to 20th century New Yorkers as the Guardian Life Insurance Building. Originally named The Germania Life Insurance Company (after its founding by German immigrants), the company was renamed to “Guardian” after the German association became a liability during World War I. And not coincidentally, the name change did not require changing any of the decorative “GLIC” masonry carved throughout the building.

The company headquarters was built in 1911, and boasted one of the early versions of neon signage on their distinctive four-story mansard roof. The current “W Union Square” sign is a tribute and close style reproduction of the old sign.

In 1998, the Related Companies, LP paid $45 million for the landmarked tower at Park Avenue South and 17th Street when Guardian decided to move its operations downtown to Hanover Square. The company spent an additional $100 million to transform the Union Square building into a boutique hotel, while maintaining some of the original old–New York charm, including the marble stairwells and moldings, original tiled elevator landings and a spectacular marble-columned, plaster flower ceilinged, double-height ballroom on the second floor that once had been Guardian’s bank hall, then employee cafeteria.

Here, the ornate white marbled grand arcade, with elaborately scrolled arches and overhead domes (with “GLIC” detail):

The Rockwell Group designed the space to accommodate old and new. The modern main staircase emerges from the sleek lobby, following the arch of the original one, which was removed during the years-long renovation.

At the pre-screening reception, CS and I were treated to an open concessions bar: funky glassed Voss water (Norwegian water in honor of the Norwegian director?), sodas, Twizzlers, M&Ms, Junior Mints, Red Hots, Pirate’s Booty, popcorn – the works. Also some tasty Crème de Cassis-concoctions in martini glasses, but those seemed like potential trouble, so we demurred after just one each.

As the title frame informs: “Factotum” means “man of many jobs.” The film is an adaptation of prolific cult author Charles Bukowski’s 1975 novel and incorporates elements from his many short stories. A portrait of the artist as a young drunk, the film is a series of booze-soaked vignettes revolving around the debauched misadventures of Bukowski’s alter ego, Henry (Hank) Chinaski (played by Matt Dillon) — a self-destructive, self-proclaimed story writer who burns through a series of menial jobs in his quest for the fleeting satisfactions of gambling, women and drink. For a time, he maintains a relationship of sorts with Jan, another hard-living, vulnerable soul, played to raspy effect by Lili Taylor (who is in my mind indelibly associated with her role as would-be folk singer Corey Flood in one of my favorite movies, Say Anything. “The world is full of guys. Be a man. Don’t be a guy.”) Hank and Jan’s rushed coupling seems doomed from the start, yet despite being fueled by mutual drunkenness, loneliness and brutality, there are surprising flashes of tenderness, such as when Hank stops in the street to place his own shoes on Jan’s feet when she can no longer walk in her high heels. The movie as a whole was like that, too, and despite suffering through repeated indignities and failures, Hank seemed to view his life with bemusement rather than rage or desperation, while making no apologies for his degeneration.

After the film, we enjoyed tasty chicken salads, al fresco at Republic on Union Square.