vip in the city, page 24

It is remarkable how much this transit hub at the southwest entrance to Central Park has changed over the years. I remember a time not too long ago — more than five years, but less than ten — when I would detour well out of my way to avoid this gritty roundabout and its forbidding maze of scaffolding. Columbus Circle was home to a shantytown in the early 1990s, and as recently as 2002, the surrounding area was still considered “a little seedy, bits of pre-Giuliani New York.” Enter one shiny 2.8 million square foot complex with its pricy residences, five star hotel, world class performance venue and (of course) shopping mall and it’s an entirely different scene. These days, Columbus Circle sits within (money) throwing distance of three of the city’s most expensive restaurants: Masa, Per Se and Jean Georges.

And of course, just a couple blocks north: starchitect Robert A.M. Stern’s ultra-luxury condominium tower 15 Central Park West, where former CEO of Citigroup Sanford Weill acquired a $42.4 million penthouse in August — low floor maids’ suites sold separately.

So where did all the homeless go?

Renovations to the circle itself were completed in Summer 2005 and included new benches, plantings and water fountains by WET Design, the firm responsible for the Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Fun fact: The Christopher Columbus monument at the circle’s center is the point at which distances to and from New York City are officially measured; just as in Boston, the highway miles are measured not to the city limits, but to the Massachusetts State House dome.

Flickr preview: glimpse a less sanitized New York at the graffiti artists’ reception at Ye Olde Carlton Arms Hotel (November 1, 2007)

At the Met tonight for our first opera of the 2007-2008 season: Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida.

The last time I saw Aida on stage, it was not the 1871 opera, but the Tim Rice and Elton John musical based on it. In that Tony-winning Disney version, Canadian R&B singer-songwriter Deborah Cox portrayed the eponymous princess; we got our tickets as part of the 2004 Republican National Convention swag package that NL received for her duties as a California delegate.

The general outlines of the story, though, remain pretty much the same. Verdi’s opera was itself based on an outline of a story by French scholar and Egyptologist Auguste Mariette. At its crux is the love triangle between Aida, an enslaved Nubian princess, Amneris, an Egyptian princess, and Radamès, the Egyptian soldier they both love. Aida has all the elements one expects from grand opera: tragedy, love, betrayal, melodrama, conflict. And once more, The Met trotted out its traditional 1988 staging; the climactic Act II spectacle was resplendent with its moving pillars and platforms, and its procession of a cast of dozens: singers, acrobats and dancers, piles of corpses, and at least half a dozen horses.

I tried to get a surreptitious shot here, with only limited success. I had to turn off the video display on the digital camera so as not to emit that telltale glow.

We were informed by a paper insert in our programs that Sicilian-French tenor Roberto Alagna would be subbing for Marco Berti as Radamès that Tuesday night. The Times ran a review of the Met’s rotating cast of male leads this season. When Berti fell ill, Alagna stepped in as his last-minute replacement, withdrawing from his starring B.F. Pinkerton role in Monday night’s Madama Butterfly to prepare for the vocally demanding challenges of Aida — his third major role at the Met in as many weeks. (Alagna is also starring in this season’s Roméo et Juliette.)

Alagna had considered retiring the role of Radamès from his repertory after his infamous mid-performance walkout at La Scala last year. No such problems this night though; as the tenor finished the celebrated first-act “Celeste Aida” — the role’s most famous aria (and the number after which he received boos at La Scala: tough crowd!) — the Met audience responded with loud, appreciative cheers.

Below, the plaza from which French soprano Natalie Dessay‘s performance in Lucia di Lammermoor debuted on screens and in Times Square on opening night last month. Lucia’s famous third-act mad scene has made Dessay the face of this Metropolitan Opera season. Her wild-eyed visage has been printed on the cover of every Playbill I’ve seen so far.

First look: flickr photos from the Halloween performance of Fuerzabruta — now in its 18-week limited run at the Daryl Roth Theatre.

Back at the Donnell Library Center across the street from the MoMA for The 2007 PEN/Beyond Margins Awards presentation and reception. As with last year’s event, the evening celebrated outstanding books by writers of color, with the goal of increasing visibility for non-mainstream groups and ensuring that current literature represents the diversity of the American people.

The recipients of the 2007 Beyond Margins Awards are:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Half of a Yellow Sun
Ernest Hardy for Blood Beats: Vol. 1
Harryette Mullen for Recyclopedia: Trimmings, S*PeRM**K*T, and Muse & Drudge
Alberto Álvaro Ríos for The Theater of Night

Authors Jaime Manrique (pictured below) and Sonia Sanchez (minus her signature dreads: she cut them off after a debilitating bout with the flu a few months ago) offered the welcoming remarks and introduction before ceding the stage to the three readers who would be excerpting the winning works.

Monique T.D. Truong read from Nigerian author Adichie’s political epic, which in June also won the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Marie Ponsot, who like Sanchez is a Frost Medal winner for “distinguished lifetime service to American poetry,” presented the poetry readings by Mullen and Ríos. I especially liked “Explaining a Husband” from Ríos’ collection of poems, which follows a couple in a United States-Mexico border town through their youth, marriage and old age.

Author Adam Haslett, who in 2006 shared the PEN/Malamud Award with writer Tobias Wolff, counts author (and former teacher) Jonathan Franzen among his fans — which swirled up some controversy when Franzen picked Haslett’s debut story collection as the second book club selection for The Today Show‘s series in 2002. Tonight, though, Haslett was here to read from Hardy’s book of essays.

Afterwards, Hardy and Mullen joined Sanchez on the stage for a conversation about their inspirations (James Baldwin being a major one, across the board) and the challenges facing writers of color today.

The PEN website carries excerpts from the winning author’s books, audio clips of the readings, and photos far better than the ones I was able to take from the audience.

In Battery Park this brisk Autumn afternoon for the seventh annual CultureFest — a “celebration of the City’s magnificent and diverse cultural offerings.” More than 125 cultural organizations were on site to showcase their new exhibitions and offer performance highlights at this weekend-long festival, complete with two stages, a park full of exhibits, scientific demonstrations and interactive activities — sort of one-stop-shopping for upcoming cultural events.

Giant bubbles:

The human graffiti wall:

Among the usual scads of glossy brochures, postcards and magnets, several of the tables were sprinkled with colorful metal enamel pins. I picked up my first from the French Institute Alliance Française (a hot pink “Bisous!”), which I attached to my new knitted scarf, eventually adding a “Gaga” from the Goethe-Institut New York, one from the New Museum of Contemporary Art (reopening at 235 Bowery on December 1, 2007), an “I *heart* Orpheus” from the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and a square green one from StoryCorp, the national oral history archive project (“tell your story, pass it on”). The motherlode, though, was to be found at the NYC Visit booth which had bins and bins of brightly-colored pins emblazoned with the names of neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs, as part of the new “Just Ask The Locals” tourism campaign. Almost every area I could think of… except for mine. (Spuyten Duyvil is represented but not the Upper West Side? What’s up with that?)

By afternoon, I had built up quite a collection of flair.

Of course, no family-friendly festival is complete without clowns:

Performers like Empire Opera soprano Jamila Amala Sockwell entertained us all through the park, while on the dual stages, a roster of live acts cycled through. Here, on the “Kids Stage,” spritely Irish step dancers from The Niall O’Leary School of Dance moved at least one member of the audience to her feet.

Despite having lived in New York City all my life, I continue to be amazed at the diversity of offerings around the city: the sheer number of museums, music, theater and dance companies, educational and historical organizations, is staggering. I only very recently came across the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden on the Upper East Side; the historic carriage house is just a mile and half from my apartment, and according to the website, one of the seven oldest buildings in Manhattan. And I never knew The Museum of American Finance existed until this afternoon; the collection will be moving to 48 Wall Street in January 2008, just a block’s walk from my office.

New discoveries: that’s what keeps us coming to these events.

Check out the rest of the CultureFest set on flickr.

MB and LW were newly returned from their trip to Nuit Blanche à Paris, so we arranged to meet for crêpes at the original (“Chapter I”) location of Alice’s Tea Cup on West 73rd Street.  (There are two newer spin-offs on the Upper East Side.)  I’d been to Alice’s several times for afternoon/evening tea, but have never before ventured for brunch. We found this ultra-feminine Wonderland to be the perfect place to take a four-year old girl (and her somewhat older dining companions.)

The poached eggs in Alice’s version of Eggs Benedict are served up on a split scone (choice of buttermilk or ham and cheese) instead of the more traditional English muffin, and come with a generous side of potato-chicken hash.

HM had “Alice’s Curious French Toast,” baked bread pudding style, infused with apricot brandy tea and topped with fruit coulis and crème anglaise. I have to admit that it looked pretty tasty, and I’m usually not one for sweet breakfasts. And of course, we each ordered our own personal pot of tea from the extensive tea menu. After such a meal, is it any wonder there was no room left for crêpes?

In Greenpoint tonight for dinner at The Queen’s Hideaway. I’ve been wanting to revisit this sweetly idiosyncratic eatery for the past year, particularly after being thwarted over the summer due to the restaurant’s vacation schedule.

B and I made our way to the burgeoning “hot spot” of Franklin Street where chef/owner Liza Queen (the “Queen” of “The Queen’s Hideaway”) transformed what was an unassuming storefront on a quiet residential street into a tiny restaurant with a garden that on warmer days is a destination unto itself. (New Yorkers put such a high premium on outdoor space that it matters not at all that the garden is less Olmsted and Vaux and more Overgrown Yard.) Tonight, though, was not one of those warmer days, so we took up one of the tabletops in the narrow, cozy dining room.

Despite its distinctly off-the-beaten path locale, Queen’s interpretation of Southern home cooking had earned her a lot of buzz when the restaurant first opened back in 2005. Critical raves from The Times and New York, in addition to a three-star rating in the magazine’s “Cheap Eats” list for 2006 made her restaurant a Greenpoint destination. For some, the homespun charms might be almost too aggressively quirky: semi-open kitchen, no-frills furniture, speakers blaring classic rock, a wall shelf lined with dog-eared cookbooks, mismatched plates, no stemware (though the restaurant acquired a liquor license since the last time we were here)… but one taste of the food, and you realize that there is no pretense here.

The Queen’s Hideaway starts things off with a bowl of warm, boiled peanuts (instead of the usual bread basket) which is both tastier and spicier than one might expect. The menu, handwritten on brown paper, is mostly a creative spin on comfort food, emphasizing local produce and seasonal ingredients. I know, cliché alert, but bear with me here, it’s all actually really good: full of hit-the-spot sides and entrees like these okra fritters with zingy Hideaway hot sauce — hot, fluffy, perfect — and a generous wedge of skillet cornbread with homemade pickles. The daily-shifting menu is based equally on Queen’s whims as on her trips to the Union Square Greenmarket.

This night, it seems that Queen had procured a supply of fresh venison; I don’t often get the opportunity to eat game, so it was an easy decision to go for the stew topped with fresh ricotta, Mission figs and hazelnuts. (Blurry photo, I know, but I just couldn’t wait to dig in.  It was delicious!)

A couple years into its tenure, the restaurant continues to impress, recently making Gawker’s TODO list. Gourmet magazine’s October 2007 issue features The Queen’s Hideaway in its guide to “America’s Best Farm-to-Table Restaurants.” One small quibble, though: while the food is as satisfying as ever, a meal is far less of a deal than it used to be. For starters, the restaurant is no longer BYOB, and entrees which once ran in the $10 to $12 range, are now $16 to $20 — a rather significant jump over just two years. Gridskipper keyed into this last year and I’m surprised that the upward price drift is not mentioned more in the recent reviews. Still, I want to throw some support behind this gem of a place; Queen is, after all, one of the small handful of women chefs to head up her own New York City restaurant. It’s 2007: why is that?

Swing Space is a space grant program, matching artists and arts organizations with temporarily vacant commercial space throughout downtown. The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council program offers short-term occupancies (typically for two to four months) for studio, rehearsal, office, and exhibition spaces. Artists apply for stipends and raw space to develop, create and present their work.

Silverstein Properties has participated in the program since its inception, donating unused portions of my office building the past few years; currently, eight temporary studios sit high up on the 29th floor with its dazzling, unobstructed views over downtown Manhattan. Every few months, the studios are open, and the public is invited to tour through and meet the artists.

This season, the visual artists hail from three continents. Williamsburg-based Erik Guzman uses computer programs to cut and shape pieces of metal to create sculptures with light. Christian Croft’s work harnesses public data flows, filtering their contents to reveal changes in how people communicate. His Swing Space installation is entitled “the ‘is our machines learning?’ machine” — so inspired by a George W. Bush malapropism. Danish-born Lars Mathisen’s video installations were disorienting and oddly compelling.

Strolling through the financial district this afternoon, I found Wall Street buzzing with even more activity than usual. Yesterday, the street was awash in Tiffany blue. Today, we saw this giant red banner draped over the pillars of the New York Stock Exchange — I can’t resist these ads! — and the street in front lined with regal red carpet leading up to a giant LCD screen, broadcasting Virgin Mobile promos on continuous loop.

All this pomp was to commemorate the cellphone services company’s initial public offering. In honor of the occasion, Virgin Group Founder and Chairman Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Mobile USA CEO Dan Schulman rang the market’s opening bell. (The company’s shares, trading under the “VM” ticker symbol, closed at $15.75 — up 5.5% for the day.)

Also thrown into the celebratory mix, a quartet of nubile angels, cheerfully handing out bottles of Virgin-branded water and causing more than one trader’s head to swivel. The girls, though, remained strictly hands-off, unlike their naughty animated Canadian counterparts.

In the interests of equal opportunity family time, I met J for a concert at Carnegie Hall tonight. The thirty-year collaboration of composer/performer Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin was being honored at an all-star tribute to benefit Music for Youth — UJA-Federation of New York’s initiative to support music education for underprivileged youth.

Now that J is back in New York, it seemed only fitting to introduce him to the midtown non-secret that is the Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien, since they apparently serve “one of the 20 hamburgers you must eat before you die.” Despite the continuing onslaught of coverage, the faux-dive behind the hotel lobby’s brown curtain seemed somewhat less packed than usual. Perhaps the price increase had something to do with it. $7 for a cheeseburger now — outrageous! And since when did the Joint start offering grilled cheese sandwiches ($5)? It’s still a pretty good burger, and a relative bargain for the neighborhood, but these days Shake Shack is looking better and better.

J and I collected our tickets and took our seats in the Dress Circle as we waited for the parade of performers to take the stage. Producer/promoter (and Knitting Factory founder) Michael Dorf‘s second Music for Youth concert was typically grand in scale: 21 artists, emerging and established. The first concert, on April 5, honored Bruce Springsteen. Unlike Sir Elton, though, the Boss actually showed up for his own tribute, even performing with the other musicians in one grand finale.

Elton was with his longtime friend Billie Jean King in the Philadelphia area that night, hosting the 15th annual Advanta World TeamTennis Smash Hits at Villanova University. The annual charity event raised more than $400,000 for the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Philadelphia-based ActionAIDS. Bernie was on hand, though, and seated across the concert hall from us in the first balcony — within clear view of our binoculars, which we used to gauge his reactions after each performance.

The eclectic and talented group of musicians chose their material from the duo’s extensive song catalog, unearthing songs from the famous (Naked Eyes lead singer Pete Byrne’s kick-off rendition of “Rocket Man“) to the more obscure (“Friends” as sung by Roger McGuinn of the Byrds). The fourth performer, Phoebe Snow brought the crowd to its feet with her poignant rendering of “Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny),” — Elton and Bernie’s tribute to John Lennon — all the more touching if you know anything about Snow’s backstory.

Other stars of the evening included “Godfather of Acid Jazz” Roy Ayers, Page McConnell of Phish (performing “Amoreena” solo on piano), Jill Sobule (who sang “Levon” with a string quartet), Shawn Colvin (“Sacrifice“), and Aimee Mann, seen here performing “My Father’s Gun” from Elton’s “Tumbleweed Connection” album. (As J observed, she is very tall.)

I was impressed with some of the less established artists, many of whom were performing songs released well before they were born. Newcomer Joshua Radin, who counts Zach Braff among his devotees, reintroduced me to the loveliness of “Border Song (Holy Moses).” Los Angeles-based recording artist Buddy offered up a stripped down, wispily introspective rendition of “I’m Still Standing,” giving the song an entirely different feel. Jazz singer Lizz Wright delivered chills with a sultry “Come Down in Time.” And Raul Malo of the Mavericks put his smooth baritone through the paces with “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” — one of the few times J and I saw Bernie show any enthusiasm.

But my favorite moment of the evening came when English singer/songwriter Howard Jones took the stage. HoJo launched into the familiar tinkling intro to “Tiny Dancer” at the electronic keyboard, but a minute in, when faulty speakers continued to burst through with loud pops and crackles, he halted the performance mid-verse. Abandoning the keyboard entirely, he gamely decamped for the grand piano on stage right as he declared: “When you’re in Carnegie Hall, you’ve gotta play the Steinway!” The audience erupted in cheers (and gave him a standing ovation.)

(Of course, I cannot mention “Tiny Dancer” without referencing my second favorite musical moment from a Cameron Crowe film. My favorite being… well, c’mon now.)

Throughout the evening, we were teased repeatedly with hints of a “special guest” to come, and until the end, J at least still held out hope that Elton John would emerge from the wings. But no. The show closed out with the unbilled British Invasion-era pop duo Peter & Gordon. J and I had no idea who they were – and judging from the buzzing around us, we were not alone in our ignorance. I googled their names at home later that night, and learned that the men are longtime friends of Elton John’s, best known for their 1964 hit “A World Without Love,” which happens to be the only song Paul McCartney ever wrote for another group while with the Beatles. But perhaps more interestingly, if you check out their website, you will note that the man on the right in the vintage photo, Peter (Asher), is totally the original Austin Powers! Yeah, baby!

When the snow falls
And Central Park looks like a Christmas card
I just looked beyond the bagman
And the madness that makes this city hard

— “Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters, Part Two,” Elton John and Bernie Taupin

After my adventures — or sometimes: misadventures — in crochet class last summer, knitting seemed like the logical next frontier. So tonight, J and I took part in a knitting circle event, hosted by Wenlan Chia of Twinkle Knits.

We met at the Rockefeller Center Anthropologie, which not coincidentally, carries Chia’s popular clothing line. (Her signature knits are also available at Barneys New York, Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. ) The airy space was decked out with about a hundred white wooden chairs, divided into sections for “beginner,” “intermediate,” and “advanced” knitter levels. No question there as to which group I belonged. J gamely joined me in the newbies area, though as the night wore on, she would emerge as the clear ringer of our section.

We were each provided with cloth knitting bags containing one fluffy skein of Twinkle Soft Chunky wool, and either a pair of bulky wooden needles or a set of fat circular needles. Chia provided an introduction, describing how she began her fashion career as a self-taught knitter, creating her own designs while at FIT when she was unable to find just what she wanted in stores.

Chia launched her Twinkle line in Fall 2000 with a collection of modern-shaped handknit sweaters and accessories. In February 2002, her ready-to-wear clothes made their runway debut at the “Gen Art Fresh Faces in Fashion” show, earning praise from critics and audiences alike. Since then, she has shown each season at the Bryant Park tents during New York’s Fashion Week. Her Fall 2007 collection featured a neutral palette and prints inspired by 1950’s abstract expressionism. Chia has since expanded her line to include a home collection, Twinkle Living.

The knitting lessons began, and instructors demonstrated the steps using comically giant props: a ball of oversized yarn, hot pink plastic needles and their own arms. Tonight’s projects were chunky-chic scarves of varying levels of difficulty, culled from Chia’s pattern book Big City Knits, and divided among the knitters according to expertise. Chia and her assistants spent most of their time working with the beginners, providing one-on-one attention as needed. And some of us needed it quite a lot! Even J was pressed into service.

Rather disheartening, by the way, seating the beginners across the aisle from the experts – look at ‘em go! But good fun was had by all anyway. The cases of sparkling hard cider and trays of warm, gooey cookies helped, certainly.

By George, I think I’ve got it!