The Kingdom of New York by Observer The New York

Author:Observer, The New York [Observer, The New York]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
ISBN: 9780061959660
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 7107055
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Published: 2009-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

Illustrated by Barry Blitt

THE CONDÉ NAST CAFETERIA has only been open a week, but it’s already clear which part is Siberia.

The 10,000-square-foot, Frank Gehry-designed, track-lighted, fourth-floor space is dominated by a raised dining area enclosed by thick glass petals. The effect is slightly vaginal, accented by hanging chrome lamps that look like Fallopian tubes or sea anemones. Approximately two thirds of the restaurant’s 200 diners will be eating inside this elevated region. Huddled therein on an ecru banquette with one’s morning paper splayed out on a sunny yellow table, watching the late-morning rush of young mermaids picking up their fruit smoothies ($2.75) against a backdrop of sinuous titanium-blue walls, one might conclude that the architect had achieved a peaceful underwater effect.

But at the height of lunch hour, 1 p.m., noise collects inside the aquarium, and fast. Suddenly you’re trapped amid the peasantry, with its lunch pails and clattering forks. Glancing down at the unfinished pale wood floors, you realize you’re at the Royalton by way of Ikea. The occasional loudspeaker announcement of “fire drill on the 32nd floor” does not add to the atmosphere.

The cafeteria—called, of course, Cafeteria—is run by Restaurant Associates, a company that owns some dependable, two-star restaurants in New York such as Cafe Centro and Brasserie, and R.A. has stocked the room with lots of employees in matching gray shirts who lurk and linger, like a troop of super-efficient Oompa-Loompas, ready to wipe down your table the instant you make for the door. You bus your own table, by the way, depositing your tray on a three-tiered conveyer belt. Some Condé Nast employees seem to think this beneath them.

JULY 17, 2000 BY TISH DURKIN

The Hidden Hillary: First Lady Speaks, Very Carefully

THERE WAS SOMETHING about the sunglasses. “I think that one of my problems in communicating effectively is that I assume too much,” mused Hillary Rodham Clinton, her eyes obscured behind a pair of electric-blue lenses. It was Sunday, July 9. The first lady was seated at a picnic table at a park in Van Buren, New York, after what felt like her 40th—but was in fact her fourth—Democratic picnic during a five-day upstate campaign swing.

“I have been around so long, I have been in so many battles…I think I assume that people know more about what I believe and what my deepest convictions are and what motivates me to do this than perhaps it is fair to assume,” she said.

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