New York New York!
30 April 2009
Crossing the Atlantic is always a mission, doing so sitting in Economy is pure hell. I felt exhausted and jetlagged and not in the least bit enthusiastic about being back in London as I touched down last night. What a great weekend I had spent in New York. The weather was hot, almost tropical, and after the English sun deprivation the stuffy heat makes me instantly feel alive. In fact everything about New York makes me feel alive. You see there really is no city like New York. I can’t put my finger on it. I love the hustle and bustle of the street life, the stinky food stalls, the trashy jewellery and sunglasses and all the other knick knacks sold along the sidewalks. I love the diversity of people: their different styles, shapes and shades. I love the sheer range and the quality of restaurants.
Even though so much happens, grows and changes there are certain places which just stay cool. Munching the tuna and wasabi (or the truffle) pizza in the lobby of the Mercer for example is not only delicious but a sure bet to see who is in town. I always see Marc Jacobs there – I think he practically lives there! I have seen Benicio del Toro, Tim Roth and many more.
When I was a teenager my mother took us to New York on holiday. We were staying at the Mercer. As it turned out, Madonna was staying on the same floor as us. Of much more interest to my sister and I was the fact that Leonardo di Caprio was staying in the room next to ours. No one was considered hotter than Leo at that point. It must have been around the time he played Jack in Titanic. My mother is utterly shameless, which can be excruciatingly embarrassing and/or very useful. By chance (or by Mercer) she bumped into an old friend of hers, Tony Shafrazi, the art dealer who discovered Keith Haring and others. She immediately asked him if he knew Leonardo. He said “Of course I know Leo, don’t worry about it he is a doll.” True to nature my mother didn’t leave him to simmer in his boastful statement but dragged him upstairs. It so happened she was wearing her dressing gown by the way. I’m not sure what I was wearing but I remember feeling totally uncool and the fact that I was with my mother in her dressing gown and a chubby older man (he would die were he to read this) didn’t exactly help. We knocked on Leo’s door and Tony could barely squeeze in his whole “Leo baby” spiel when my mother was already jumping between the two introducing herself in her thick German accent: “My name is Gloria and I am a princess from Germany and these are my daughters and they are princesses too. I bet you’ve never seen so many German princesses now have you?” Luckily Leo was very charming and clearly found the bizarre scene quite amusing. While my sister and I stood both thrilled and cringing in the background ready to run for our lives, he very politely gave my mother a warm handshake and Tony a hug. Then he very politely said hello to us and took off. I don’t really remember much more other than bumping into him around the hotel on occasion. He was always wearing a baseball cap and a leather jacket which looked pretty cool back then. He looked as if he knew exactly where he was going each time he dashed out into the buzzing New York City night. I remember wishing to be a few years older, to also be able to dash out and be part of the cool scene. Maybe that is why I moved to New York a few years later and worked on exactly that, an in depth research project on the city’s nightlife. This became an almost a full time occupation by the way. Mostly my day job at the gallery got very much in the way but since the art world is a party friendly environment I just about managed. After all, it was part of my job to be out seeing and be seen (wink).
Since that time New York is very much familiar territory for me. I spent almost eight wild months there “working” in a gallery. My mother at the time I believe felt that she should keep a closer eye on me and bought an amazing loft downtown speculating that we could both live there. Of course by the time the loft was finally ready I had long packed my bags and gone.
I’m at the end of my weekly blog and I barely mentioned my recent trip. Let’s just say that I went directly from the airport to an all black music joint called Sugar Bar tucked away uptown for open microphone night. The dark place that smelt of fried chicken and sweet and sour shrimps was part club, part restaurant, part karaoke dive and was definitely not your typical night out in New York. Then again, is there even such a thing? I found my mother right by the stage, of course, next to an old pal of hers Andre Leon Tally (American Vogue’s style guru). The place is owned by legendary Motown producers Valerie Simpson and Nick Ashley, aka Ashley and Simpson who have written songs for Diana Ross and many others. Almost every single person in there sang like a superstar. It was breathtaking, the whole place was boogying. My mother is not only tolerated in that place she has befriended the whole crew hanging out at Val and Ashley’s house.
I will be back to New York very soon, at the latest in August. I completely forgot to mention that before leaving I interviewed another legend, theatre mogul Michael White who produced The Rocky Horror Picture Show amongst others. He was perfectly charming and invited me to stay at the house he shares with Jack Nicholson in the Hamptons this summer. This invitation feels almost as exciting as rooming next door to Leo. Actually its much more exciting – after all no one beats the Jack!
