New York is incredibly diverse, but that doesn't mean you'll see half the people who live here. There's a whole superclass of rich folks who don't take the subway, don't walk the streets, and don't eat in restaurants unless there's a maitre d' with a bad attitude guarding the door.
Every once in a while, though, you'll catch a glimpse of them. A cocktail skirt disappearing into a taxi. Through the glass at Diane Von Furstenberg's store. Last night, though, thanks to a misguided invitation, I was thrown right in their midst.
The event was a joint production between the New York City Ballet Junior Founder's Circle and KiptonArt, in their gallery on Wall Street. Socialites and stockbrokers. Which naturally made
somebody think, "Hey, I'll bet some bloggers would love to come!" If you hold some weird kind of belief that this sounds like fun, here's part of the invite:
Yes, the "after party" began
one hour after the "party" started. You can almost picture how that came about:
TINSLEY: And we can have an afterparty!
FABIOLA: Let's start it early, because it's always the funnest part.
And then the whole thing shuts down at ten, because stockbrokers have to get to bed early. Coincidentally, right about the time the gays settle down to their disco naps.
In England, rich people are well-bred. They have posh accents, noblesse oblige, mansions and stables and gardens. Here the nouveau part of the riche was glaringly obvious. The men looked like frat dudes in suits, while the women were glossy, cocktail-gowned orange things somewhere on the continuum of East Coast feminity that stretches from Snooki to Ivana Trump. You know at some point their moms have dragged them to speech therapists to try to shove them farther down that line.
The odd thing is how simple all these people were. The guys were intent on finding and consuming alcohol, apparently practicing for their forthcoming years of Absent Fatherhood. The women networked. Honestly, believe it or not, the phrase I heard most often was a variation of, "Hi! You don't know me, but I think you're dating my ex." Rather than flinging drinks or throwing tantrums, though, these women were pragmatic. They bonded over their plight and typed phone numbers into iPhones with manicured nails.
Naturally, I loved it. The afterparty was so devoid of intelligence it was like taking a Quaalude. I made six trips to the dessert bar and, totally drunk and stoned at 9:45, started to wonder if one could fatally overdose on berry crumble with Madagascar vanilla sauce.
And c'mon, look at the view from the 42nd floor, as captured by a pay-as-you-go cellphone:
Yes, that's the Chrysler building!
On the subway home, I sat across from a burnt-out broker who could barely keep his eyes open. When a hot Asian woman in a skintight dress got on, though, he perked up. From the way he stared at her, I thought he was going to stuff a twenty into her bra. Four stops later, when she finally got off, he handed her his card with a word. She looked at it, smiled, and placed it in her bag.
That should be Wall Street's motto: When you make the money we do, you don't need small talk.
