It
was icy cold last night in New York. I went
down to Rockefeller Center with JH and the Digital to have
a look at the “Tree.” JH
thought it was smaller than previous years. There were clusters
of people moving along everywhere including a lot of families and
lots of children. The Center’s skating rink was well attended
also. From there, looking east you could see the Fifth Avenue façade
of Saks Fifth Avenue all five floors of which is entirely decorated
with large white images of snowflakes. Every few minutes Christmas
music would burst forth and the snowflakes turned into a light
show.
The
viewing line for the Saks windows
Across the avenue
there were lines and mobs of sightseers visiting the Saks windows.
It was very well organized. You waited by the
northern most entrance of the store until you got the go-ahead
to enter the cordoned-off area of the four or six main windows
of the holiday display at the center storefront. The displays are
so intricate and complex that everybody, including the children,
took their time in looking. The displays were brilliant fantasies
for children of all ages, especially the young ones who can easily
lend themselves to the otherworldliness. I could imagine as a child
wishing I could possess one of the displays, and playing with it
for hours on end.
After JH finished,
he left to have a look at the Lord and Taylor windows twelve blocks
south and I walked (it was impossible to find an empty taxi) the
ten or twelve blocks up to the Pierre where Tory and Chris
Burch
were throwing a holiday drinks party for their hundreds of friends.
Looking
towards the Fifth Avenue façade of Saks Fifth Avenue
After
three quarters of an hour at the Burchs’ festive congregating, it
was back out onto the cold pavement hunting for a cab to take
me up to the Georgian
Suite on East 77th and Fifth where Lorna and Larry Graev were
hosting a huge holiday dinner party for about 120 of their friends. The Graev
dinner was climaxed
with a performance by a half dozen gospel singers who entertained and rocked
the room for a half hour, closing with a melodious “Amen, Amen, Amen,” with
the guests joining in. It’s holiday time in New York and the mood is operative;
everyone’s beginning to feel it.
