Grazing the news for Gripepad obsessions
Noted without comment: The last few days have seen several of Gripepad’s obsessions flitting hither and yon in the news. Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour , who appears on the cover of Rogues’ Gallery, has been rewarded for her fundraising and cheerleading efforts on behalf of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute with […]
Met Museum lease amended: Better late than never!
Forty-plus years after the Metropolitan Museum of Art instituted its Pay What You Want But You Must Pay Something admission policy, it has finally been formalized by the city of New York, which has amended the museum’s lease to allow it. And so, one of the museum board’s long-standing misstatements (the lease was already amended […]
Met Museum money mystery: Solved!
A longstanding mystery about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s much-debated pay-what-you-wish-but-you-must-pay-something admission policy is solved at last in an understated story on the fracas on the front page of today’s New York Times The Arts section. First reported in the New York Post, the mystery hinges on whether New York City ever formally approved “recommended” […]
The new old condo
The Marquand on Madison Avenue is the subject of my latest Unreal Estate column in Avenue magazine. Built on the site of the long-since-demolished mansion of Henry Marquand, second president of the Metropolitan Museum, the current Marquand, erected before World War I, has been reimagined for a new generation of plutocrats.
Anthony Marshall wins parole
The New York Times has just reported that Anthony Marshall, only child of the late Brooke Astor (pictured), has been paroled for medical reasons after serving six months of his sentence of one-to-three years for looting his mother’s fortune before her death. Gripepad has noted under-reported aspects of the Brooke Astor story, some of which […]
Message in a cyber-bottle: Rogues’ Gallery reviewed.
Four years post-publication, Rogues’ Gallery endures and has just been reviewed in The Epoch Times. James Grundvig says the book is “a tour-de-force” full of “dead-on observations” that “brings [to] life an unseen dimension of New York City in the show and lore of high society.”
House of Outrageous Fortune: Now available for pre-orders
House of Outrageous Fortune: Fifteen Central Park West, the World’s Most Powerful Address is now available for pre-orders on Amazon by clicking here. Publication date is March 11, 2014. I’ll post a bn.com link as soon as it, too, becomes available.
Rogues’ Gallery: Still censored after all these years
Ada Louise Huxtable, the late, great architecture critic who died in January, was remembered yesterday at a memorial tribute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an institution she both praised and criticized. So on the way in, I visited the museum’s store to see if by some miracle, Rogues’ Gallery–my history of the museum’s founders, […]
How do you really feel, Gwyneth?
Did someone say, how was your weekend? Well, busy. First we were unwillingly evacuated from our home. So I didn’t have time to post about NASCAR champ Jeff Gordon listing his apartment at 15 Central Park West, subject of my just-completed next book, or about France selling the home of its UN ambassador at 740 […]
Mo’ money, mo’ problems for Metropolitan Museum
In a followup to its revelation yesterday that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has charged admission for forty-plus years in violation of its lease, reporters Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein offer up Art of the $teal , a Sunday feature stuffed with more examples of the museum administration’s contempt for the public that owns its […]