II. WHAT WE DIDN’T SEE
Howard Stringer, the president of CBS Broadcast Group and former president of CBS news, decided to broadcast the American League baseball playoffs in Oakland, which was strolling toward extra innings. Mr. Stringer called it a “Faustian bargain of epic proportions” and watched the debate himself. Somewhere, Dan Rather was chewing and spitting out wallpaper.
III. WHAT WE SAW
Uh-oh! Bill Clinton’s really John Bradshaw! This is pretty interesting since we support him, and even though we’ve had boring presidents before, we’ve never had self-help presidents. So this is what he does on the air. He is, among other things, purposefully calming—a soporific. He conveys self-taught inner worth. His attacks are gentle, never personal, and his self-defense is that of the universally aggrieved: “You were wrong to attack my patriotism. I was opposed to the war but I love my country and we need a president who will bring it together.” That’s political context but it’s family talk. He has a calming effect, Bill Clinton, like a counselor in some kind of program, and he uses Alcoholics Anonymous and psycho-language.
The president conceded. Mr. Bush had a choice to make, and he knew what it was. He could make a big noise or he could pretend he was finishing up his second term and deliver a valedictory, which is what he did. He’s been through these things before.
A Booth of Their Own: Tammy Faye Bakker, Imelda Marcos, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Leona Helmsley were sisters in scandal
Illustrated by Victor Juhasz
1993
Media mega-magnate Rupert Murdoch buys the New York Post—again
Truckload of explosives is detonated at World Trade Center, killing six
Former Le Cirque star chef Daniel Boulud opens his own restaurant
Details editor James Truman is crown prince of Condé Nast
Beauty Myth’s Naomi Wolf convenes salon of “culture babes”
Broadway is uplifted by Tony Kushner’s Angels in America
The aroma of Seattle espresso bars wafts over the East Coast
Updike up in arms at American Academy of Arts and Letters
NBC late-night goes Gen X with lanky Harvardian Conan O’Brien
1993
JANUARY 25, 1993 BY JAMES COLLINS
THE OBSERVATORY: LOUIS, LOUIS
UNTIL THEY ATE HAMBURGERS TOGETHER ON JAN. 14 AT THE Mark Hotel on 77th Street and Madison Avenue, Louis Auchincloss and Louis Begley had only had one encounter, an indirect one, of any significance. Mr. Auchincloss, of course, is the prolific, 75-year-old romancer of an all-but-vanished, brownstone-mansion New York and a former partner in the law firm of Hawkins, Delafield & Wood; his new book Three Lives has just been published. Mr. Begley, 59, is the masterly chief of the international department at Debevoise & Plimpton who two years ago wrote the most celebrated first novel in memory, Wartime Lies, which concerns a young Polish Jew’s experience of the Holocaust; his second book, The Man Who Was Late (Knopf), has also just been published.
“Your Great World of Timothy Colt,” Mr. Begley told Mr. Auchincloss, “almost stopped me from becoming a lawyer. It was the first book I read about the place I was headed, which was Wall Street. I had almost no idea what went on in those precincts and I said, ‘Holy mackerel, this is what it’s going to be like.’”
The Great World of Louis Auchincloss and The Great World of Louis Begley would be perfectly apt titles for novels in which each was the hero; for a couple of hours recently, bracketed by Mr. Auchincloss’ vodka martini and Mr. Begley’s second double espresso, these worlds orbited each other, as the two men discussed New York law firms, anti-Semitism, writing, writers, steak tartare and the perils of being named “Louis.”
“Oh please call me Louis,” said Mr. Auchincloss. “We have the same first name—you’re Louis not Lewis, aren’t you?”
“I’m Louis—”
“Yes, Louis, like me. I detest being called Lewis. Lewis is L-EW-I-S!”
“It’s an enormous problem. Either that or people call me Lou.” This prompted a knowing rueful laugh from Mr. Auchincloss.
“They say Lou right off!” Mr. Auchincloss broke in. “‘What’s your name?’ ‘Louis Auchincloss.’ ‘Oh, hi, Lou.’”
FEBRUARY 8, 1993 BY PETER STEVENSON
WNBC NEWS STAFF CHAFES AS BOLSTER DRAGS STATION INTO BUTTAFUOCO ERA
ON MONDAY, JAN. 25, THE LEAD story on WNBC’s 5 P.M. newscast was the murder outside C.I.A. headquarters in McClean, Va. But when the tape rolled, viewers instead saw 45 seconds of footage, of New York City police closing in on a hostage-taker in the Bronx.
It was only the latest of a series of on-air meltdowns for WNBC News. Last Sept. 18, anchorman Chuck Scarborough was left hanging for 30 seconds while producers scrambled to find the video for a Woody Allen story. And in November, during the crucial ratings sweeps, viewers who tuned in to the newscast one night found themselves staring at a blank screen for a full two and a half minutes—a television eternity.
Taken alone, these gaffes would be a large blotch on the record of a news operation that had until recently been considered the best in the city. But the on-air gaps are minor compared to the abyss that has opened up inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza between WNBC management—specifically, the new WNBC president and general manager, Bill Bolster, and the new news director, Bruno Cohen—and the correspondents, anchors, writers and producers who work for them.
Channel 4 has always prided itself on having reporters who not only won Emmy Awards, but were also local superstars—most notably Gabe Pressman and John Miller. This combination of grit and glamour brought the newscast five Emmies in a row in the late 1980’s. But since Mr. Bolster arrived in the fall of 1991, the station’s reputation has changed with remarkable speed.
FEBRUARY 15, 1993 BY WARREN ST. JOHN
Rrring! Rrring! Hello, Jerky Boys? Time Warner Courts Prank Callers
SOMETIMES, FAME IS THE RESULT OF YEARS OF DILIGENT WORK. Sometimes it arrives unbidden, a bolt from the blue. Take the case of Dr. Steven Rosenberg of Manhattan. For the past several years, Dr. Rosenberg’s name and the Upper East Side business address have circulated around the country on an underground tape recording of a prank telephone call to his office. In the call to Dr. Rosenberg, we hear the doctor trying to placate a dissatisfied customer who keeps claiming, in an annoyingly, high-pitched voice reminiscent of Bugs Bunny, “I bought some glasses there the other day and now my eyes is goin’ cra-a-a-zy.”
The principal architect of Dr. Rosenberg’s involuntary fame is Johnny Brennan, 31, of Flushing, Queens. He passed the tapes around to his friends, who copied them and passed them around to their friends. As the circle of listeners widened, so did the fame of Dr. Rosenberg and numerous other victims of the Jerky Boys, as Mr. Brennan and his cohort, Kamal (Kamal has “just one name, like Sting,” said an associate), call themselves.
MARCH 8, 1993 BY ROBIN POGREBIN
Former Le Cirque Star Returns
THE SPACE IS A SKELETAL SHAMBLES OF DUST AND debris. With power tools scattered among ladders and poles, and hulking workmen traipsing over temporary floors, it is difficult to envision a refined restaurant emerging out of so much rubble.
But Daniel Boulud doesn’t even have to use his imagination. The 5,200-square-foot restaurant that will open late next month on the street level of the Surrey Hotel on East 76th Street is his baby. Daniel, the restaurant, is the realization of what Daniel, the famed former Le Cirque chef, has been dreaming of for years.
Where there is now exposed insulation and chunks of cinder block, he sees a Maplewood bar with banquettes upholstered in red-checked burlap where customers can converge even at non-meal hours for afternoon tea or an after-work cocktail. Where there are metal pipes sticking up out of gauged concrete, he sees gleaming stoves, walk-in refrigerators and ice cream machines. In the dark, dim basement, he sees a florist, a prep station, a wine cellar.
“It’s getting more exciting,” said the French-born Mr. Boulud (pronounced BOO-loo), a diminutive man who looks
much younger than his 37 years. “The fun part is starting.”
Opening a restaurant at a time when others are still reeling from a recession that has withered expense accounts and discouraged New Yorkers from eating out, Mr. Boulud exudes a daredevil’s confidence. He signed a 20-year lease on the restaurant that was formerly Les Pleiades and insists his optimism is justified.
“I really feel it’s going to be a beautiful, charming restaurant,” he said in an interview at his temporary office in a second-floor suite at the Surrey. “I have a good feeling people will feel very receptive to what I will try to do.” Nevertheless, Mr. Boulud shares the concern of New York’s restaurateurs that President Clinton’s proposal to cut the percentage of deductible expense account spending to 50 percent from 80 percent will hurt their lunch business period. “Let’s hope it never happens,” Mr. Boulud said. “But I’m not trying to be on the upper, upper scale, so I’m not too worried about it.”
MARCH 15, 1993 BY IAN WILLIAMS
SHEIK PROBED IN TRADE CENTER BLAST GIVES INTERVIEW TO REBUT SUSPICIONS
SHEIK OMAR ABDUL RAMAN’S demeanor can only be described as jolly, although his smile is somewhat disconcerting. The milky white irises of his eyes show the blindness that has afflicted him since infancy. The shiek’s disfiguring disability notwithstanding, he and his followers have been accused of involvement in the assassinations of, among others, the late Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Rabbi Meir Kahane, and now in the bombing of the World Trade Center. In Egypt, Sheih Abdul Rahman is held responsible for murderous attacks on tourists and assaults by Muslims on the nation’s Coptic Christian minority.
When I spoke to him on Feb. 20, the Saturday before a truckload of explosives went off under the Trade Center, he denied all knowledge of such crimes. Besides, Sheik Abdul Rahman has an obvious defense to all the charges involving his followers: Was the pope guilty because Al Capone went to mass? In turn, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has ventured its own exotic variation on the Federal Government’s Capone gambit. Unable to prove substantive criminal charges, they eventually got the mobster for tax evasion; more recently they have been trying to deport the sheik for, of all things, polygamy.
APRIL 5, 1993 BY JOHN DIZARD
WALL ST. DIARY: Clues Behind Murdoch’s Post Gamble Point to Foxy Media Plans in Boston
WHY WOULD ANY SANE PERSON want to buy the New York Post?
Let’s rephrase that question: Why would Rupert Murdoch want to buy the New York Post? We already know the answer his friends are giving—that he loves the Post, that he hated the idea of being run out of New York in 1988 by the likes of Teddy Kennedy, and that there’s nothing he enjoys more than ripping up a front page at the eleventh hour and dictating a new story and a new headline.
His triumphant return to South Street certainly emphasized the emotional benefits mentioned by those close to the Australian media baron. “He’s full of beans,” said a friend, one of several associates who asked that their names not be used. “Never been happier—he loves the idea of Mario Cuomo and Teddy Kennedy and Ernest Hollings calling him and begging him to do this. At the time he was forced to sell it, the Post was nothing better than a $50 million executive toilet. But if it makes him happy, then the whole organization will work better.”
“None of us thought he should buy it,” added a business adviser. “[His wife] Anna was arguing against doing the Post right up to the last minute. The only way we were finally persuaded that it was all right for him to go ahead with it was by being convinced he could limit the time he’ll spend on it—Fox [the TV network and the movie studio] has to be the priority.”
NOVEMBER 15, 1993 BY PETER STEVENSON
‘CULTURE BABES’ FILL GODDESS ROLODEX; SALON OF WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLF
LAST WINTER, SEVERAL DOZEN women working in media in Manhattan received a two-page invitation printed on hot pink paper. The letter opened with “Dear Babes,” and contained phrases such as “Babes! We love you for your minds,” and was signed “Yours in babehood.” The letter was co-written by Naomi Wolf, 31-year-old best-selling feminist author (The Beauty Myth and a new book due out this month) and scourge of Camille Paglia. It was an invitation to an upcoming meeting of “Culture Babes,” the name of Ms. Wolf’s feminist networking salon that convenes at various apartments and bars in Manhattan once a month.
According to the pink invitation, a typical Culture Babes gathering would be “a good place to eat excellent food, drink good wine, smoke by the window and play in the Zeitgeist toybox.” The target of Culture Babes, according to the letter, was “the white boys’ Rolodex.” Ms. Wolf proposed instead “the Goddess Rolodex.”
Illustrated by Barry Blitt
The first gathering of Culture Babes was held at Ms. Wolf’s apartment on a snowy afternoon in February. Ms. Wolf’s plans for Culture Babes called for a projected $20 million escrow account to back women’s projects, sponsorship of debates on gender issues and a “women and politics” talk show (she called it “an anti-McLaughlin Group”). While those projects are still being discussed, the gatherings have evolved into essentially an all-woman cocktail party, with Ms. Wolf as Hostess, and networking and mentoring the main thrusts. Most Culture Babes seem to prefer it that way and are pleased to have a venue in which to meet other women in positions of power.
APRIL 12, 1993 BY RICH COHEN
CURTAINS OPEN FOR WINDOWS ON THE WORLD, OR OPEN IN TIME FOR MOTHER’S DAY?
FOR A RESTAURANT, THE ONLY thing worse than rats in the kitchen is bombs in the basement. “It may be even more damaging than food poisoning,” said Michael Bartlett, the editor of Restaurants and Institutions magazine. “Being blown up, that’s a serious setback.” Mr. Bartlett was referring to Windows on the World, the landmark restaurant that has topped One World Trade Center since the tower opened in 1976. Unlike other tenants forced to cease operations in the wake of the recent terrorist attack, some in the restaurant business say Windows on the World, in its current configuration, may never reopen. “In the end, it might prove the tragedy’s biggest loser,” said an industry insider. “The Port Authority, who owns the space and has long been unhappy with its management, may use the bomb as an excuse to remake the restaurant.” Windows on the World management insists the restaurant will reopen next month—a claim the Port Authority disputes.
APRIL 19, 1993 BY CANDACE BUSHNELL
THE OBSERVATORY: MANHATTAN TRANSFERS
ON ANY GIVEN DAY, IT IS POSSIBLE TO WALK INTO A coffee shop in Minneapolis and find the sort of trend-setting Armani-draped New Yorkers you’d expect to see hanging out in Miami’s South Beach. You might even see, for instance, Nick Beavers, the youngest of the Manhattan Beaver brothers (famous for operating the Surf Club in the 80’s), who, along with his sidekick, Terry Prem, a former model and fashion stylist, is opening a nightclub called the Rogue Bar in Minneapolis’ landmark warehouse district—and has hired Dante, the former doorman at Tatou, to be his head bouncer. Then there’s Andrew Zimmern, who used to manage Elio’s and Petaluma, and is now the chef at Minneapolis’ own Un Deux Trois (a satellite of Un Deux Trois on West 44th Street), and a regular on the local TV show, Great Chefs of Minneapolis. Other displaced Park Avenue offspring include Taylor Burr and Josh Holland, of the Burr/Holland recording studio (their motto: “We’re Burr/Holland. We’re from New York”), photographer Adam Gaynor, securities broker Billy Grace and lawyer Josh Levy.
They are not here for the scenery, although some grow to appreciate and even like the long straight roads that stretch right to the horizon, and Minnesota’s many lakes have a certain austere beauty. Nor are they here for the weather. On a recent morning in late March, for instance, it was 83 degrees in Miami versus a whopping 1 degree in the Twin Cities.
Rather, this gang of the formerly glamorous have come to Minneapolis as night-life refugees, lured by the area’s famous drying-out facilities such as Hazelden Foundation and the Fairview Riverside Medical Center. And once on their feet, they are kept here by the
abundant halfway houses and coffee shops, and by the continued presence of rehabbed sophisticates like themselves. Here New York sends its partied-out, its drug-addled, its rich kids yearning to be addiction-free. New Yorkers go to Miami because they want to. They come to Minneapolis because they have to.
“They don’t call this state Minnesober for nothing,” said Michael Morse, a craggy-faced bearded man in his early 40s who peers sharply over the top of his reading glasses. Mr. Morse used to manage Un Deux Trois in Manhattan. He came to Hazelden to kick heroin in 1989 and now owns the Minneapolis version of the restaurant, which is a second home to the city’s displaced East Coast natives. There are dozens of treatment centers and halfway houses in Minneapolis. The New Yorkers who have settled here have been through “the program” at Hazelden or Fairview Riverside (some, several times), and they’ve been advised that it would be a good idea if they remain in Minneapolis (overcutely referred to by many as the “Mini-apple”), if not for the rest of their lives, then at least for a year or two. “When they tell you this, you just get really angry, especially if, like me, you just came here to look reasonably healthy again,” said Billy Grace.
“Right now, most of us don’t have a choice. We have to stay here,” said Mr. Zimmern, 31. He lives in a Victorian house in St. Paul near Summit Avenue, where F. Scott Fitzgerald used to wander drunkenly from house to house, crashing dinner parties. “Back then you could get in anywhere if you had the right accent,” Mr. Zimmern noted wistfully.
The Kingdom of New York: Knights, Knaves, Billionaires, and Beauties in the City of Big Shots Page 10
