Gemma: cum grano salis

Gemma Restaurant
212-505-9100; breakfast, lunch and dinner
335 Bowery at E. 3rd Street (the Bowery Hotel)

The best thing about this over-the-top trattoria is the decor. The worst thing is that you can’t make a reservation unless you’re a hotel guest. It’s noisy, packed with trendies and serves great pizza and roast chicken (be sure to order the zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta). And not too expensive. Check out the adjacent hotel lobby, described by a fellow blogger as "the phantom of the opera retires to a Tuscan villa." With a grain of salt, indeed.

The Breslin Bar & Restaurant

The Breslin, inside the Ace Hotel, is a veritable pork festival.

Corner of Broadway & 29th Street
212-685-9600; reservations not accepted
100-seat restaurant serves breakfast (from 7:00a), lunch and dinner (until midnight); closed 4:00-5:30 pm daily
Bar (seats 40 or so) open until 4 a.m. daily
www.thebreslin.com

This is the place to go if you weigh about a hundred pounds and just can’t seem to gain weight. Cure guaranteed. From the same folks who brought us the famed and trend-setting Spotted Pig, the Breslin, named after the hotel that occupied this location for many years, is an extravagant gastro-pub that opened last December. The menu is a paean to pork (vegetarians will run screaming), but the hottest item seems to be the lamb burger with feta cheese and red onions, served on a cutting board with a side of thrice-fried french fries (chips, as listed on the very Brit menu) and cumin mayo.


Housed in a 12-story corner building (c. 1904), the restaurant echoes a British pub, with tavern green walls, dark tufted leather banquettes and unfinished wood floors. Coveted booths sport plaid curtains and red cubbies to charge phones and computers. Those who need a touch more privacy can close the curtains and press a button to request a server (a light goes on outside your booth to signal the wait staff). How cool is that?


From the bar, try a “pickle back” – a shot of whiskey with a pickle juice chaser. I swear I’m not making this up. If the weather is truly frightful, try the egg nog with rum on the bottom, calories be damned. A popular main dish? Pig’s foot for two. Bar snacks? Semi-shelled boiled peanuts fried in pork fat. I swear to God.

Tip: Come VERY early if you don’t want to wait hours and hours for a table. This place is beyond hip and so full of buzz you’ll need insect repellent.

Direct from Portland, and also off the lobby of the Ace Hotel, is the east coast’s only Stumptown Coffee. Check out the hats on the servers and admire the street-facing floor to ceiling windows trimmed in black lattice. Is this place handsome, or what? Doesn’t hurt that they roast their own beans in Brooklyn. As if you needed added enticement to come to the corner of Broadway and 29th Street, the popular lobby of the Ace Hotel, stuffed with leather Chesterfields and tartan plaid wing chairs, is a destination in and of itself. At last midtown is waking up from its decades-old doldrums.

De Lamar Mansion

233 Madison Ave at 37th St. (northeast corner)


Joseph De Lamar’s Beaux-Arts mansion at Madison Avenue and 37th Street is now the property of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland. One of the most opulent gilded age mansions surviving in New York City, the stone residence was designed in 1902 by Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert (1860-1952), a society architect whose stock in trade was extravagant private mansions; his list of clients included the Woolworths. The De Lamar house, distinguished by a particularly colossal French mansard roof, was awarded New York City landmark status in 1975.

De Lamar, born in Amsterdam in 1843, left home as a youthful stowaway, but went on to become a Dutch ship captain. He later settled in Martha’s Vineyard, where he operated a marine salvage business. By the 1870s he fell victim to Gold Rush fever and become a speculator in metals in Colorado, where he soon made a $20 million fortune, mostly in copper. He served one term in the Senate of the Territory of Idaho, and a southern Idaho ghost town, De Lamar, is named after him. By the 1890s he was one of the wealthiest men in the United States.

He relocated to New York City, and after a divorce from his wife, a direct descendant of John Quincy Adams, De Lamar moved to Europe to educate his young daughter and collect art in Paris. Upon returning to New York he lived with his daughter and eleven servants in his new French mansion from 1906 until his death from pneumonia at seventy five years of age, in 1918. Although aloof and taciturn in his professional demeanor, he was an avid yachtsman and the life of the party among the New York City social elite. He commissioned a private manor house, “Pembroke” located in Glen Cove, Long Island, also designed by C. P. H. Gilbert (demolished in 1968). See note at end of post.

By the time his fabulous Murray Hill residence was built, the neighborhood was past its prime, but he chose this location to taunt J. P. Morgan, who lived just one block south. De Lamar had approached Morgan on numerous occasions, seeking a business collaboration, but he had been rebuffed every time. To say that De Lamar’s house put Morgan’s to shame is extreme understatement. Madison Avenue, which did not open until 1836, was named both for the square where it starts and for former President James Madison, who died that year. This avenue was not included in the original 1811 plan of New York, which assumed that few people would want to live in the middle of Manhattan Island, far north of the commerce of the shoreline at Manhattan's southern tip.

The vastness of scale, its numerous parlors and elaborately designed and decorated rooms met all expectations for humiliating J. P. Morgan. The first floor housed an expansive dining room, library and a billiard room. The main oval staircase incorporated a fountain surrounded by exotic plants and marble figurines. The second floor boasted a ballroom, a concert hall, and an art gallery painted in Pompeiian red with Tiffany stained glass illuminated by electricity, which made this magnificent structure quite modern for its time (J. P. Morgan, founder of General Electric, had the first electrified private house in the city; electricity for Morgan was supplied by a power plant built in his garden by Thomas Edison). Above the fifth floor, behind a classical mansard roof, was a terrace which exists to the present day. Artist and decorator Louis Schaettle completed the interior design, including finely executed murals. It is amazing that so much opulence could be contained on a plot of land measuring only 50 by 100 feet, purchased for the then staggering sum of $250,000. De Lamar spent three times that amount to build his house.


An unusual feature was a large metal plate flush with the sidewalk along 37th Street. It is the roof of an elevator designed to lower a horse and carriage to the basement (later used for automobiles). These days it is used to receive freight and facilitate trash removal.

De Lamar’s obituary described him as a Wall Street “man of mystery” and mentioned that he was an accomplished organist. He left an estate worth at least $32 million. After a brief stint as offices of the American Bible Society, in 1923 the house became headquarters for the National Democratic Club for fifty years. The Polish government acquired the mansion in 1973 and has restored it from top to bottom.

The public may visit the extravagant second floor rooms for lectures and concerts sponsored by the Polish government. A concert series to inaugurate the Chopin Year Celebration begins with a piano and cello recital February 23, 2010. Click the following link for particulars and subsequent events.

www.polishconsulateny.org/index.php?p=267

Note: Mr. De Lamar had one of the country’s finest residence pipe organs installed on the staircase landing at Pembroke, his Long Island waterfront estate in Glen Cove; he was himself an accomplished organist, a fact mentioned in his obituary published by the Boston Globe. In 1920 this 50-room mansion, also designed by Gilbert, was sold by De Lamar’s daughter to Marcus Loew, a founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer. It was here that Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned with Richard Burton. De Lamar’s 47-acre Long Island estate had a palm court with a cave and waterfall, and all its "significant" windows were of stained-glass designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The basement contained a movie theater, squash court and shooting range. The house was demolished in 1968 by an owner who thought it too unwieldy; he built a new, much smaller house on the property.

Murray Hill Carriage House

Click photo to enlarge.

149 East 38th Street (between Lexington and Third Ave.)

This two-story stable building was constructed in 1902 for William R. H. Martin, a businessman and real estate developer active in the Murray Hill section of the city. Architect Ralph S. Townsend designed this small building in a distinctive Dutch Revival style, with an elaborate stepped gable and oversized white granite quoins and voussoirs, which set off the Flemish brickwork. Oval inset panels of horse heads allude to the building's original function, while a bulldog near the top of the gable adds a whimsical element.

The stable was purchased in 1907 by George S. Bowdoin, who lived nearby at Park Avenue and East 36th Street. Bowdoin was a partner in the banking firm of J. P. Morgan and Co. and lived close to Morgan's residence, which was at the corner of 36th Street and Madison Avenue. In an arrangement typical of private carriage houses, Bowdoin's stable housed his horses and carriage on the ground floor, and had living quarters for the coachman on the upper floor. Bowdoin's daughter Edith inherited the building from her father, had it converted to a garage in 1918, and held ownership until 1944. As a rare surviving stable structure in Manhattan, this building serves as a reminder of the period of New York’s history when horses were an important part of daily life and their care and housing had to be taken into consideration; when this carriage house was built, there were approximately 4,500 stables in the city, accommodating more than 70,000 horses.


At the time the carriage house received historic landmark status in 1997, it served as a single family residence. Now owned by the Gabarron Foundation Center for the Arts since 2002, this unique space serves as a meeting place for organizations, corporations, government and individuals. The sun-lit contemporary interior is in striking contrast to the period facade. Recent bookings at the carriage house include product launches, culinary events, cocktail receptions, fashion shows, film shootings, private dinners, weddings, lectures and seminars. When not leased for special events, the Gabarron Foundation promotes Spanish and Latin American culture by producing public concerts, art exhibits, lectures, tastings and film screenings.

www.gabarronfoundation.org/Default.aspx?tabid=472


Trivia: A few doors down, at 133 E. 38th St., detective novelist Dashiell Hammett lived at this address in 1931, when he was writing The Thin Man. Across the street, near the corner of Third Ave., Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, lived at No. 166 from 1901-12.

Note: While many carriage houses faced the street, the vast majority were located in mews, off an alley (street front property being too valuable for a carriage house). Of course, most of the present day survivors have been converted into coveted private homes, a pleasant alternative to high rise living. A notable example is Sniffen Court (photo below), off 36th Street in Murray Hill, also between Lexington and 3rd Ave., where the former Civil-War era stables, designed by architect John Sniffen, were converted to ten residences during the 1920s. These homes are in high demand. Until she died while working in her Sniffen court studio, Malvina Hoffman (1887-1966), a New York City born student of Rodin who became an important American sculptress, kept a salon here, at the far end of the alley, where a hand pump once supplied water for the thirsty horses; Hoffman’s decorative plaques of Greek horsemen can still be seen flanking either side of the former studio's entry (bottom photo). Another American female sculptor, Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880-1980), also a student of Rodin, lived at Sniffen Court until 1937. The homes are privately owned, except for two that have entrances directly on 36th Street: The Amateur Comedy Club (now a private membership club not open to the public) and the exclusive showroom of habersasher Henry Jacobson (to the left of the gate). The Sniffen Court Dramatic Society, an amateur theater group, used to perform plays in a theater located within the court.

Trivia: the cover for the Doors 1967 "Strange Days" album was shot here. But you knew that.

The Colony Club

In 1903 Mrs. J. Borden Harriman (president), along with other wealthy women, including treasurer Anne Morgan, daughter of J. P. Morgan, raised the astounding sum of $500,000 and commissioned Stanford White, of the leading architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, to build a home for their newly formed women’s social club, known as the Colony Club. This structure, located on the west side of Madison Avenue just north of 30th Street and built between 1904-1907, was modeled on 18th-century houses in Annapolis, Maryland. The landmarked interiors, which still exist, were created by Stanford White's long-time friend Elsie de Wolfe, a former actress who had recently opened an interior-design business; her companion, theatrical agent Elisabeth Marbury, was one of the club's founders. Wolfe’s adept completion of this commission established her financially successful career as a society decorator. De Wolfe, who became known as America's first decorator, lived in the club during construction, designing interiors ranging from French reproduction to American neo-Colonial styles.

Miss de Wolfe’s later marriage to diplomat Sir Charles Mendl in 1926 (she was sixty-one and became "Lady Mendl") was front page news in the New York Times, which revealed that “the intended marriage comes as a great surprise to her friends.” Since 1892 she had been living openly in a lesbian relationship. As the Times stated, “When in New York, she makes her home with Miss Elisabeth Marbury at 13 Sutton Place.”

When the Colony Club opened in 1907, the interiors established her reputation overnight. Instead of imitating the dark, heavy interiors of most men’s clubs, de Wolfe introduced a casual, feminine style making liberal use of glazed chintz (immediately making her “the Chintz Lady”), tiled floors, light draperies, pale walls, wicker chairs, clever vanity tables and the first of her many trellised rooms. Among her innovations was the installation of ceramic stoves in lieu of fireplaces. The astonished reaction of the members to her iconic indoor garden pavilion (photo below) put de Wolfe’s name on many lips and led to lucrative commissions across the country. Her contract with Henry Clay Frick, which paid commissions on every item she selected, made her a rich woman. Later clients included Cole Porter, Condé Nast and the Duchess of Windsor.


The Federal Revival style building has unusual header-bond brickwork applied in what is known as a diaper pattern (click top photo to enlarge). Sold after the club moved to larger quarters on Park Avenue, the structure serves today as the east coast headquarters of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, housed at this location since 1963. The building was awarded Landmark Status by the City of New York in 1966.

Though the original purpose of the club was to provide athletic facilities, its elite status cemented the social standing of the original 500 subscribers when it opened in 1907. The New York Times published a complete membership roster on the first anniversary of the club. Included were four Vanderbilts, four Whitneys, Mrs. John Jacob Astor and Mrs. Walter Damrosch (her father, Republican politician James Blaine, ran for president of the United States against Grover Cleveland). The ground floor had receiving rooms, and the second floor contained a double-height gymnasium with a running track on the balcony, and an elegant French-style ballroom at the front, with a musicians’ balcony above. In the basement was a swimming pool, which still exists, surrounded by white marble walls and floors, with an illuminated trellised ceiling.

However, there arose a significant problem within a month of the club’s opening. A law prohibiting liquor licenses within 200 feet of a church, without the church's consent, had not been taken into account. Across the street was Madison Avenue Baptist Church, which refused to grant such permission, reflecting its denomination’s strong stance on temperance. While club officers denied that the club even served alcohol, stating that members brought in their own, the presence of a wine room in the basement ran counter to that claim. Further, a disgruntled employee leaked receipts and other documents to the press, including a menu reading, “All wines will be charged by the bottle.” In fact, the club was not able to get a liquor license until it moved north to larger quarters on Park Avenue (photo below).


The club eventually replaced most of its women employees with men, because, as the New York Times reported, “A club officer said that the female employees put themselves on an equal plane with the members and talked too much.”

When vacated by the Colony Club, the original building soon became a WWI hospital, then a club for Catholic girls and later an arts center. When the American Academy of Dramatic Arts moved in, it converted the gym and ballroom to theaters, but made few other major changes. They have recently repaired and cleaned the exterior, and original custom lighting fixtures remain intact. Original mirrored walls also remain unaltered. Fortunately, the limited financial resources of the owners have prevented disposing of original decor and architectural elements. For instance, when the academy considered installing modern windows, its contractor priced new windows at $9,000 each, whereas repairing the original ones cost only $3,000 per window. Also, students do not live in the building, which decreases wear and tear associated with most college structures.

The Academy in New York was founded in 1884 to train actors for the stage, becoming the first school in the United States to offer a professional education in the acting field. Numerous students of the Academy have gone on to distinguished careers throughout the entertainment industry, receiving awards and nominations for Tonys, Oscars and Emmys. Graduates include Lauren Bacall, Anne Bancroft, John Cassavetes, Hume Cronyn, Cecil. B. DeMille, Brad Davis, Danny DeVito, Kirk Douglas, Christine Ebersole, Ruth Gordon, Anne Hathaway, Florence Henderson, Grace Kelly, Agnes Moorehead, William Powell, Robert Redford, Edward G. Robinson, Rosalind Russell, Gene Tierney and Spencer Tracy.

Lincoln Center Exhibit: Celebrating 50 Years

LINCOLN CENTER: CELEBRATING 50 YEARS
OCTOBER 15, 2009 - JANUARY 16, 2010

After nearly five decades of artistic excellence and service, Lincoln Center has embarked upon a major transformation initiative to fully modernize its concert halls and public spaces, renew its 16-acre urban campus, and reinforce its vitality. The complex, bordered by Columbus (9th Ave.), 62nd St., Amsterdam (10th Ave.), 66th St. and Broadway, includes the Juilliard School and Damrosch Park in addition to fines arts spaces (Jazz at Lincoln Center is south of the main campus, at 60th St and Broadway, Columbus Circle). Thirteen arts organizations are in residence at Lincoln Center.

To that end, the first exhibition to focus on the evolution and influence of America’s first performing arts center, “Lincoln Center: Celebrating 50 Years” features a collection of some 400 historic and contemporary objects: photographs, correspondence, costumes, set pieces, props and video recordings.

Images and memorabilia from the May 14, 1959 groundbreaking ceremony, including a signed photograph of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the site as well as the shovel he wielded at the event, are among the items on display. A selection of architectural renderings and photographed models offer a full look at Lincoln Center’s architecture and planning from the original vision of the late 1950s to the current revitalization projects now underway. Rare performance images, video excerpts and personal correspondences are on display, including Leonard Bernstein, Beverly Sills, Julius Rudel, John D. Rockefeller, George Balanchine, Pierre Boulez, Rudolph Bing, Placido Domingo, Leontyne Price, Luciano Pavarotti, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Wynton Marsalis and Jessye Norman, among many others.

The landmark performances and commissions that have come to define Lincoln Center as one of the world’s leading performing arts centers are documented in photographs and set pieces as well as signed scores, programs, memorabilia and selections of costumes and set designs. Behind-the-scenes photographs, video clips and documents illuminate Lincoln Center’s historic and continuing dedication to innovative technology. From its pioneering role in introducing opera super-titles to its award winning broadcast series Live From Lincoln Center and The Met: Live in HD, Lincoln Center’s pursuit of state-of-the-art technology has been and continues to be a vital ingredient in Lincoln Center’s defining synthesis of innovation and tradition.

Lincoln Center’s strong commitment to arts education is also highlighted. Photographs of artists who trained and studied at Lincoln Center include a youthful Martin Scorsese (winner at the Film Society’s first National Student Film Festival in 1965), a young Darci Kistler in class at the School of American Ballet with teacher Suki Schorer, as well as Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone during their Juilliard years. Also on view are student art work and letters as well a listing of musical cues for a 1962 Young People’s Concert notated front and back with Leonard Bernstein’s own edits.

The Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center is located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza (between the Metropolitan Opera House and the Vivian Beaumont Theater; see map below). Exhibition hours through January 16, 2010, are Monday and Thursday from 12:00 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; closed Sundays and holidays. Admission is free. For exhibition information, call 212.870.1630 or visit the Library’s website at www.nypl.org/lpa.


On October 1, 2009, the Lincoln Center Revson Fountain, the centerpiece of Josie Robertson Plaza, returned to a fully functioning state. WET Design, the company responsible for the landmark fountain display at Bellagio Las Vegas, redesigned the Philip Johnson original fountain. A ring of water jets that can rise 12 feet high “dances” at various heights and configurations. High pressure water cannons shoot columns of (recycled!) water up to 40 feet into the air.

King Cole Bar at St. Regis Hotel

King Cole Bar
After a $100 million restoration, New York's St. Regis Hotel is just as much of an old-school New York icon as it’s always been. Pass by Italian marble, gilded moldings and a gleaming chandelier in the hotel's lobby to the King Cole Bar, which houses a famous 1906 Maxfield Parrish Art Nouveau mural, complete with "fiddlers three." Mixological lore has it that the so-called "Red Snapper" drink came over from Harry's New York Bar in Paris and eventually morphed into the Bloody Mary, King Cole's signature cocktail. Beyond this claim to fame, this is the place for making good impressions and stimulating conversation, and even if you’re capable of neither, be heartened that the lighting will flatter you, the beer nuts are the best you’ll ever have (almonds, macadamia nuts and green wasabi peas are on offer), and your top-shelf liquor cocktail will be stiff (as will be the bar tab – trust me on this; about $125 for 4 cocktails including tax and tip). The scene can be subdued and tinkling or downright hectic at peak hours, since this is a rather small space. If you're lucky enough to secure a table at the banquette, settle in and sip slowly as the Old Guard and the Well-Maintained parade in and out. They serve the best Cobb salad I've ever had in my life.

On my latest visit I noticed a lot of “older” gentlemen in bespoke tailored suits flirting with/being courted by much younger unaccompanied women, if you get my drift. Dress Code: No shorts or sneakers after 5pm. No hats at any time. Don't come here if you can't make an entrance looking like one of the monied set; you'll spoil the ambiance.

If "mere alcohol doesn't thrill you at all," a celebrated afternoon tea is served in the hotel’s Astor Court room to the accompaniment of the requisite harpist.


The St. Regis is a Starwood hotel property located at 2 East 55th Street (at 5th Avenue) in mid-town Manhattan. Built in 1904 by (Colonel) John Jacob Astor IV, the great grandson of the country’s first multi-millionaire, the St. Regis is a Beaux Arts landmark. When it was built, this was the tallest hotel in the city.


The front desk and lobby are all marble and gilt (check out the ceiling frescoes), and even the standard guest rooms boast elaborate chandeliers (and a nightly rate of $850 or so; Internet access is extra, and you’ll have to upgrade from a basic room [lowly shower/tub combinations] if you want a genuine soaking tub). The hotel’s 24-hour butlers wear tails and white gloves and anachronistic charm on their sleeves, but they can also help with any and all modern conundrums, such as hooking up your iPod to play through your room’s surround sound system (in case you left the kids at home). Reassuring, no? The lobby seating areas boast elaborate period paneling and carved marble fireplaces, just like home. In a demonstration of silly pretension, door handles in some of the public spaces are marked with brass rectangles in French, so you’d better know a “tirez” from a “poussez.” I’m not kidding.