Fall Days in New York

A cloudscape on Bowery.

The last two days in New York City have been beautiful, with thin white clouds skittering across a clear blue sky like shallow water lapping at the shore. Fortunately I have some free time to enjoy it!

On Wednesday I went up to midtown to have lunch with my friend Abby and then I attended a reading at the library where my friend author Michael Gross was talking about his new book Rogue's Gallery, about the Metropolitan Museum of Art – more on that in a subsequent post. Later I went to a birthday party for my friend artist Richard Haines in a tiny, rockin' East Village gay bar.

Thursday, I hopped on the blue Schwinn and headed downtown along the Hudson River Park. The river sparkled through the green.


Fall colors are coming to the trees


and the grasses that line the park.


Downtown, I had lunch with my friends from the ad agency. It was great to see them.



Back on the bike, I headed to Soho to check out some stores. Opening Ceremony, on a little street called Howard Street, carries avant garde fashion for men and women. Odin, on Lafayette, has cool clothes for guys. Then I went to one of my favorite stores in New York, John Derian, on East 2nd Street.


I've been writing here about Rough Luxe, and John Derian is a master. The store has a country vintage feel, and he offers iron tables with wood tops, lamps made out of industrial parts, and tee shirts printed with nineteenth century images.


The front of the store features tableware and handmade decoupage objects.


There is peeling paint and a weathered edge but still everything is very refined.

Next door he has another store which sells textiles and is a little softer. It's always fun to visit John Derian. And it was a pleasure to be outside enjoying the city on these afternoons. I still get amazed by the sheer power and population of New York. Uptown, downtown, east side, west side, day or night, the city's energy and its people go on in every direction. I've lived in New York for twenty-six years but sometimes on the street I still look around and think to myself, "I love New York so much."

Style on the Shelf

The post that I wrote below about Suzanne Tucker's book got me going to my library shelves of books and magazines to look at pictures of my favorite rooms and schemes. Let's fire up the scanner, shall we?

The picture above is from the World of Interiors, March 2004 (photographer Francois Jussaud), and shows a home in an industrial warehouse in Antwerp. This room is an orangerie – I think everybody should have an orangerie – and features a collection of old canary bird cages and garden chairs.

The photo below is an apartment in Paris (World of Interiors, January 2003, photographer Guillaume de Laubier). The cover line says, "Chateau on a Shoestring: the flat that thinks it's a manor." Eighteenth century furniture and colorful textiles are jumbled together on bare wood floors.


This is the Tribeca loft of designer Liz Dougherty Pierce (Country Home, September 2000, photographer Reed Davis). The industrial space is filled with a seven-foot table found in Vermont.


The Paris apartment of French actress Isabelle Adjani decorated by Jacques Grange is pictured in the Tashen book Paris Interiors. Pale blue walls, mismatched chairs, a tapestry over the table, and the requisite bare floors create a room which is beautiful and elegant but also comfortable and natural.


I also came across this painting, An Interior in Venice, by John Singer Sargent, which is one of my favorites. I love the mystery of the room as it recedes into darkness.


No matter what the size of the space, candlelight always creates an old-fashioned, romantic aura.

Antiques, plants, flea-market finds, "furniture with legs" (nothing overstuffed), bare floors and mix of wood and iron are all things we like to live with in the apartment.
I wrote about Rough Luxe below, and I would like to find more industrial antique pieces which lend a hard edge but are clean-lined and airy at the same time. I'd like to live like a nineteenth century botanist in a loft by the river. I'm trying to get to something I picture in my mind.

The Sumptuous Style of Suzanne Tucker

Carolyne Roehm and Suzanne Tucker at Christie's. (Photo: Gregory Partanio)

The other night I stopped in at Christie's in Rockefeller Center for a party for the California decorator Suzanne Tucker who has just published a lavish new book called Rooms to Remember.


Carolyne Roehm was there and I said hello to New York designer Bunny Williams who I interviewed years ago for Architectural Digest. Her office at the time was in the 60's off Fifth Avenue, and it was one of the most amazing rooms I have ever been in – a fantastic mix of impressive antiques but still very comfortable and familiar.

The author and designer Suzanne Tucker lives and works in San Fransisco. As she explains in her book, she signed on in the 80's as the assistant to designer Michael Taylor who really invented the "California style" – upholstered white furniture, bare floors, nature brought indoors with rocks and trees, and an overall open, airy, light feeling. After he died in 1986, she and a partner purchased his business.

This book showcases her work and covers a range of grand houses including a Tuscan villa in the Sonoma Hills, an Arts and Crafts home in the mountains, a French Provence-inspired villa outside of San Fransisco, and a charming, historical Edwardian house. Gleaming antiques, sophisticated colors, tactile materials and rich fabrics like silks and velvets create a rarefied level of luxe.

A graphic Jim Dine drawing hangs over an eighteenth-century Chinese altar table.

(Photos: The Monacelli Press)

The simple lines of an Italian neoclassical walnut settee contrast with a swirling arabesque iron railing.


A completely romantic green and white French toile covers the walls of a guest bedroom as well as the nineteenth-century beds.


A European cloister, complete with a tile roof and ivy, was added to a 1920s house to create an outdoor dining pavilion.


I was really taken with the scale of these houses – very large rooms, very high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows. One client said to Suzanne, "Design a house that I can get lost in." We don't see a lot of that here on the isle of Manhattan, but it's fun to look at how some other people live. I like the idea behind Suzanne Tucker's book: Think Big.

Anthropologie, or Rough Luxe

A rusty bicycle piled high with old leather suitcases in the window of the Fifth Avenue store.

I was invited this week to preview a new television series which will follow Keith Johnson, Anthropologie's world-wide shopper. The series will be on the Sundance Channel starting October 7th, and in each episode, Keith will travel to a new country in search of unusual decorative objects, furniture and textiles for all the Anthropologie stores, as well as artists and crafts people to hire. That sounds like a great job! I'm looking forward to this show.

Keith Johnson is the partner of Glen Senk who is the CEO of Urban Outfitters, which is the parent company of Anthropologie. Their apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan is featured in the current issue of Elle Decor magazine. This couple met when they were nine years old. Ok, that must be a record! The end of the article gave me goose bumps.

I'm a big fan of Anthropologie. Although it's a women's clothing store, I love their items for the home and their store displays. They also have a great selection of style and travel books. Their windows and in-store designs often feature a clever use of paper which I think is charming. I guess other shoppers like Anthropologie too: even during the economic downturn Anthropologie is enjoying healthy growth both in terms of retails sales and stores opening across the country. Whenever I'm in the store on Fifth Avenue there is a line at the cash register.

The home merchandise is like a trip to a Paris flea market. Glasses and dishes are piled on wood and iron displays which are also for sale. I love the antique industrial combination of wood and iron.


I recently came across this article on The Wall Street Journal.com about "Rough Luxe" which celebrates this style. Peeling paint, rusting metal and hewn wood can be romantic when treated luxuriously. The style evokes the past, but in a clean, airy way which is not musty or overstuffed. It's what they do so well at Anthropologie, and it's an inspiration.

This metal painted table in Anthropologie looks like our coffee table which I found at the flea market for $25.


One year at the Jane Street Sale, I spotted this metal lamp shaped like a flower, below. Our next-door neighbor fashion designer Zac Posen asked the seller if he would come down from the $65 price, but it was non-negotiable. I came back later and got it for $40 – sorry Zac! My sister-in-law Tracy who works in retail and knows about these things said I should re-sell it to Anthropologie and they could reproduce it.


But I like it too much.

Diva Style

Good news mes amis, I started freelancing yesterday at a major midtown ad agency.
Over the weekend, we enjoyed watching the Emmys. I loved seeing Gossip Girl Blake Lively dressed in a scarlet dress by Versace with a plunging neckline. The dress really doesn't show up so well here on the red carpet but when she came out on the stage during the program she really looked pretty geat. Her sleek hair was in a long blonde braid, and when she opens her mouth she has a deep dusky voice; this girl's got it going on.


The dress reminded me of the Versace frock which really put Jennifer Lopez on the fashion map. That Donatella Versace knows her way around a plunging neckline.


We also caught VH1 Divas which was quite entertaining. While I love watching high fashion on the red carpet, this song below called "Video," sung by Adele and India.Arie, offers the opposite take on Rachel-Zoe-like celebrity styling:
"I'm not your average girl from your video
My worth is not determined by the price of my clothes
I know my creator didn't make no mistakes on me
My feet my thighs my lips my eyes I'm loving what I see."
Now that's beautiful.

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

I just like watching this video.

J. Crew Knows Best

The good people over at J. Crew sent me a video clip about a new service they are offering for men called "Jack Knows Best." Their in-house style consultant will be answering sartorial questions for men who need some style help.
The video clip which you can watch below is pretty cute – I only wish it went slower so I could see all the clothes. It looks like we move through all four seasons and from casual to formal – fun!
I have said here before that I really like what is going on at J. Crew now. For men, it's classics with a nip and a tuck so that shapes are narrower and more fitted. For women, it's pretty clothes in cheerful colors like pink and yellow plus the sparkle of jewelry for a style that is happy and optimistic. There is not a lot of black at J. Crew – I'm with Anna Wintour, and Michelle Obama, on this: black is for funerals. Going into J. Crew is like walking into a candy store, and I like that.

September 11, 2009

The ad agency where I have been working since April in a great job as senior copywriter is located downtown in a tall building near the World Trade Center. You might remember hearing during the spring about a 747 flying around downtown Manhattan causing buildings to be evacuated. I was there for that scare which turned out to be a misguided White House photo shoot.
The office overlooks Ground Zero so on Friday I could see far below the ceremony for the eighth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. A circular reflecting pool had been built in remembrance, and family members were allowed to surround the pool in small groups. It was raining all day, and round black umbrellas covering the mourners echoed the shape of the reflecting pool.
(photos from Reuters)

We were busy working on a presentation but I paused twice to look down below at the memorial. It was sad. The dark rain made it seem like the sky was crying.

At the end of the day I was called into the human resources department and told that my work had come to end due to the business climate. They said they would call me again when things picked up. Twenty minutes later I was on the sidewalk going toward the subway station carrying a few personal items in a paper shopping bag. It was still raining.

A Weekend on Fire Island

I had a challenging week at work at the ad agency so no chance to blog but I want to return a minute to last weekend, Labor Day weekend, when we went to visit our friend Philip on Fire Island. Ted and I were also celebrating our anniversary – we met in Fire Island Pines on Labor Day weekend twenty-four years ago.

Philip bought this house on Fire Island six years ago. It was designed by pioneering architect Andrew Geller and when it was built in 1961, it was the first example of modernism in the Pines. This important house had deteriorated and been altered but Philip completely restored it and brought it back to life. The design flies upward with bright expanses of glass windows. The walls were not built at ninety degrees but slant inwards instead which further emphasises the upward feeling. As a result, all of the corners and joints fit together inside like a wooden jigsaw puzzle. It's kind of like being inside a beautifully crafted boat.


The heated lap pool always entices.


Inside, modern furniture complements the architecture.


Chicness itself, as we say.


Through the guest room is a spiral stair case...


which leads up to a fantastic roof deck...


with spectacular views of the ocean...


and the bay. Really divine.


My favorite walk: the walk to the beach.


We set up camp...


and Ted and Philip took a dip.


When Ted and I met on Fire Island twenty-four years ago, we actually had already been introduced earlier that summer at an event for the Road Runners, the gay running club. When we met again on Fire Island, I was visiting a house on the ocean with friends and up from the beach came Ted who was part of that house. Last weekend I went for a run on the board walk and then I walked down to the beach. I stopped in front of the house where we met. A new house is now built on the site but ironically the owners still wave the Fire Island Pines flag which Ted designed for the community. I was standing there on the beach looking at the house thinking about the day that my life changed, when up from behind me came Ted. Just like twenty-four years ago.

The Garden Downtown

It's a great joy to live and work near the Hudson River. I love water and the wide river that runs along the west side of the island of Manhattan is a beautiful thing. Down at the southern end of island is a little park called Wagner Park but it's really a garden.

It was created by garden designer Lyndon B. Miller, America’s foremost public garden designer who is also the brilliant designer of Bryant Park behind the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, and the Conservatory Garden in the northern reaches of Central Park, one of the most beautiful places in New York City. If you go in the spring when the tulips are blooming you’ll faint from the sight.

Lyndon Miller is dedicated to well-planted and well-maintained city parks, and her organization, Public Garden Design, works to create city gardens, stating that they “soften and civilize city life." Yes, that is exactly right.

I've noticed that in her work she uses a limited palette – it's not every color in the book. Her gardens often feature flowers and plants that are blue, purple, pink, green and white, which I personally like. It's a soft country palette that is not jarring to the eye. The plants are placed together in a wonderful collage of colors, textures and shapes. Lyndon Miller is really an artist, and her medium is plants.


Pink, purple and white on a background of green.


The city crowds in at the edges.


The garden is adjacent to a pier which is being renovated.


Purple flowers similar in color but different in shape.


Sea grass the same color as a faded wooden bench. From this bench is a wonderful view of New York Harbor.


On the way out of the park you follow a path through the trees. It's almost like being in the woods.


And out into the city.

A visit to a New York City park is almost like a short vacation.

Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend! TD and I are off to Fire Island and we will be celebrating our anniversary – our 24th!
Enjoy the last days of summer.

Hair!

TD and I recently went to see Hair on Broadway. I'm telling you, go see it if you can.

This revival of the 60s musical was staged last summer at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. This year in March it moved to Broadway. We had heard good things about it from last summer, and the number that was presented at the Tonys in June on tv (pictured above) was sensational. That night Hair won the Tony for best revival of a musical, beating out Arthur Laurents' re-staging of West Side Story. I decided we should high-tail it up to the box office for tickets.

Hair was first presented off-Broadway in 1967 at the Public Theater run by Joe Papp, and moved to Broadway in 1968. The rock musical told the story of a band of anti-war hippies and included plenty of sex and drugs which was very controversial at the time. It was the precursor to later rock musicals of the era like Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar.

The colorful production up now at the Al Hirshfield Theater is infused with irresistible joy. The cast has the most tremendous energy, spinning and dancing around the stage like whirling dervishes in choreography created by Karole Armitage. The show eliminates the line between the stage and the audience so the cast is in the theater a lot dancing in the aisles and on the seats. I love the clothes from this era and the hippie costumes are an inspiration. The music is great, and of course there is all that long glorious hair waving around.

I had a long hair moment. I always wanted long hair or a pony tail for a Martha's-Vineyard-hippie/Irish poet sort of look so I did grow my hair long for a while. One day I was at the gym and a woman approached me. She said that her husband was a photographer and they were shooting pictures for stock houses. She told me that there was a demand for guys with grey hair and they would pay me to model for a session. She thought I could sign up with an agency. I didn't pursue that but I did do one shoot with them. Here is a picture:

Eventually I cut my hair shorter and shorter. Someone said to me cut your hair shorter so you look younger on job interviews. Oh dear. That's not why I cut my hair, but I suppose you have to be about eighteen, or live in 1968, to pull off a pony tail.

At the end of the Broadway show the cast invites the audience up on to the stage to dance and sing to a reprise of "Hair." Everyone was on their feet for a thrilling curtain call (click on my photo to enlarge).

TD was speechless, and he's seen a lot of Broadway shows.
Let the sun shine.