I was pinching myself last night when I suddenly found myself at a private party in the gorgeous Chelsea home of William Ivey Long, sipping sparkling water and hefting an actual Tony Award. Long is a 5-time Tony Award winning costume designer for Broadway plays such as The Producers and Hairspray, and the sweetest man you could meet. The occasion of the party was because both he and the Director of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Larry Wheeler, are being presented with awards this weekend for their accomplishments, (I'm sorry I'm not exactly sure what the awards are... I'll have to check that fact--the important thing is that I got to go to the party!) and so a lot of prominent North Carolinians were in New York for the occasion, and Long decided to throw a fabulous holiday party and have everyone over to his house. And I got to tag along with one of the prominent North Carolinian guests.
Long's house is absolutely gorgeous. It is full of beautiful Victorian antiques and art from his family--many portraits from the 18th and 19th centuries. Five levels include guest rooms, a library, and a huge work area where he works on his costume designs. Everything was decorated festively for the holidays, beginning with the enormous tree in the front window entirely covered with a mixture of delicate Victorian glass ornaments and strings of popcorn. The chandeliers had bright red shades put on them to match the masses of holly-berries and greenery piled up over every mantel and mirror-top. Mistletoe was strategically hung in an archway, and even the mounted deer-heads (I told you--very Victorian) had Rudolph-red pom-pom noses.
But you couldn't really see the decorations because of all the people. I was too busy trying to figure out who they all were, because I knew that some of them just had to be famous. In fact, Lee Radziwill was there (but I didn't realize it was her because I'd never actually seen her before, only read about her in Vogue) and Susan Stroman (also a Tony-award winner, for choreography and directing), whose hand I shook. Caroline Kennedy was invited, but I didn't see her there--shucks! I actually met a lot of people, but I need to learn how to remember names better. I can tell you what jewelry everyone was wearing, but I can't remember any of their names!
The most fun was meeting someone new--usually an elderly, respectable North Carolinian--who would politely ask what I do and why I came to New York. Then they would inevitably ask where I live, and I would say "Harlem." Without fail, there would be a slight pause, followed by something like, "I hear its really quite gentrified now..." Because there's no way a girl like me could possibly live in the 'hood.
We could have stayed at the party for dinner, because although the invitation said there would be refreshments, we didn't realize that after two hours of appetizers proffered by attractive young Russian waiters, a full-scale buffet would be brought out for the guests to feast upon. However, dinner reservations awaited us at Craft Work, a hip restaurant nearby, and we had a lot of catching up to do. So we slipped away from the fun party, and out into the chilly night.
A couple hours later, after a delicious dinner, and walking my friend back to his swanky hotel, Cinderella's magic had disappeared, and I found myself back down in the subway, waiting for the late night train to come take me back home to Harlem. Of course, late night trains don't ever come... at least not until you've listened to the local subway musician play about ten Eric Clapton songs that threaten to put you to sleep while you are simultaneously fighting to stay alert because its midnight and there are strange guys walking around looking at you because you're all dressed up, staring at your legs like they've never seen a woman before. But of course, I made it home intact, and today have been enjoying the memories of the beautiful party.
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