Norman Reedus, the star of The Walking Dead , moves fast. Reedus shares photographs–some shot while speeding down a road on his motorcycle–with Avenue
By Peter Davis
MUSES
In the flash f a strobe light, The Muses, a.k.a. Daniel Walters and Jack James Busa, have erupted as Warholian Superstars in New York’s exciting new nightlife universe. By Alexander
Hankin
58 ON THE RUNWAY
Natalie Kaczinski channels her art with Chanel’s latest collection.
66 THE WRITE STUFF
Conversations with authors Ione Skye, Mayukh Sen, Kim Hastreiter, Peter Som, and Sarah Hoover. 78 BROOKE
PARKER
Meet Brooke Parker–a private school’s secret weapon and the city’s number one early childhood admissions consultant.
By Peter Davis
CULTURE
14 THE ART STAR MAKER
Curator, critic, author, and man-about-town Antwuan Sargent has helped the careers of artists including Tyler Mitchell, Honor Titus, and Derrick Adams soar. BY JANET
MERCEL
20 CATHERINE DENEUVE
10 RUSSELL STEINBERG
Russell Steinberg threw celebrity-packed parties for years. Now with his new bistro Cecilia, he’s bringing that buzzy, nightlife-infused energy to Saint Mark’s Place. BY
PETER DAVIS
Catherine Deneuve returns to the screen in The President’s Wife, portraying Bernadette Chirac—the outspoken, trailblazing, and politically astute partner of former French president, Jacques Chirac. BY ZACHARY WEISS
AROUND TOWN
22 D&D DIRECTORY
A guide to New York’s eminent design hub.
JOURNEYS 84 ISLAND HOPPING AROUND THE GRENADINES
Sandals is upping their game with a new luxury hotel on the stunning island of Saint Vincent. BY
PETER DAVIS
NOTORIOUS NEW YORKERS
90 TOM WOLFE AND THE ART OF THE TAKEDOWN
New York’s most gleefully bitchy social observer would have been too good for us today. BY JANET MERCEL
92 Q&AVE
Jeff Klein ruls the social scene in Los Angeles—the charismatic hotelier, has taken over The Jane Hotel and created the city’s most lusted-after membership at SVB New York. BY PETER
DAVIS
SITTING PRETTY
Brooke Parker at home in New York, Bungalows at Sandals Saint Vincent.
Editor’s Letter
Istarted a book club that has become so popular, we now count 22 members, including James Frey who became famous with his controversial bestseller A Million Little Pieces in 2003. James’s new novel Next to Heaven—a murder mystery amongst the rich residents of a New Canaan-esque town that crave key parties and pink cocaine—will be in our next issue. I’m on a reading marathon, plowing through Amy Griffin’s The Tell (I’ll tell you this—I did not like the Oprah-approved book), Pulitzer Prize-winner Percival Everett’s Telephone (loved every page), and restaurant guru Keith McNally’s I Regret Absolutely Everything. In this issue, we talk to people with ‘the write stuff ’—storytellers weaving wildly different tales, from Norman Reedus’ photographic road diary to movie star Ione Skye’s risqué memoir Say Everything (Rock star boyfriends! Lesbian affairs! Madonna!) to Sarah Hoover (The Motherload), Mayukh Sen’s biography of Merle Oberon and Kim Hastreiter’s 450-page memoir-cum-pop-culture history tome STUFF: A New York Life of Cultural Chaos. Load up your Kindle. Our ‘Notorious New Yorker’ is the great American scribe Tom Wolfe who once said: “I think all writers have to do reporting. It takes a relentless willingness to act like a vagrant and [hang] out. And be there when things actually occur. You simply cannot imagine life the way it happens without getting out.”
Wolfe was spot-on. At Avenue, we are always here when things happen and even before they happen. We book a booth at Cecilia on Saint Mark’s Place and discover that café society is booming in the East Village. Russell Steinberg’s new boîte is already a favorite of Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, GriffiDunne, and Sam Rockwell. Steinberg says he’s bringing back New York from the days of Lucky Strike—Keith McNally’s late-night bistro. And speaking of scenes, a Youthquake is erupting in New York. At the center of this creative explosion of music, art, society and style are The Muses, James Jack Busa, and Daniel Walters, the DJ team pumping energy and fun into the city’s social landscape. Editor at Large Alexander Hankin, who covers every cool event for our website (sign up for our newsletter and you’ll never miss a great party again) reports on the Muses’ meteoric ascent, spinning dance music at The Frick, The Whitney, and Casa Cruz, to name just a few. “The Muses don’t just DJ a party. They transform it,” event maestro Bronson van Wyck tells Avenue. “They create a world where the party is the only place to be.”
Cheers!
PETER DAVIS Editor-in-Chief
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Peter Davis
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Natalie D. Kaczinski
ART DIRECTOR
Mickey McCranor
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Janet Mercel
DEPUTY EDITOR
Ted Hildner
EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Alexander Hankin
PHOTOGRAPHER-AT-LARGE
Landon Nordeman
COPY EDITOR
Christina Snyder
Faith Cummings
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Maggie Davis
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Mike Albo
Mickey Boardman
Ty Gaskins
Carson Griffi
Nancy Kane
Ray Rogers
Zachary Weiss
Constance C.R. White
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Ben Cope
Sophie Elgort
Edd Horder
Richard Kern
Jai Lennard
Nick Mele
Alexander Thompson
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ON THE AVENUE
LET HIM ENTERTAIN YOU Russell Steinberg at the entrance to his new bistro Cecilia in the East Village.
Meet Russell Steinberg, the New Keith McNally
Russell Steinberg threw celebrity-packed parties for years. Now with his new bistro Cecilia, he’s bringing that buzzy, nightlife-infused energy to Saint Mark’s Place by PETER DAVIS
Photography by ALEXANDER
THOMPSON
Keith McNally just published his memoir “I Regret Almost Everything,” written after he suffered a stroke. But the one thing McNally doesn’t regret is his massive restaurant empire—Balthazar, Pastis, and Minetta Tavern, to name just a few. In the late 90s, McNally had Lucky Strike: a late-night brasserie in SoHo. I lived a few blocks away and remember sharing cigarettes and steak frites with Kate Moss one night way past midnight. Lucky Strike’s bartender was Russell Steinberg—already downtown famous for his lounge singer alter ego Johnny Fayva and for hosting karaoke parties where you’d hear Jimmy Fallon, Liv Tyler, Michael Stipe, and Natasha Lyonne belt out rock anthems.
It’s 8pm at Cecilia, the buzzy new bistro on Saint Mark’s Place. Steinberg is seated in a studded green leather banquette he calls the Tony Bennett booth, table 41. “It makes you feel like a bigshot,” he explains. And at chez Cecilia—like McNally at Balthazar—Steinberg is a big shot. “Lucky Strike and the old New York neighborhood spot was a big influence on me,” he says, biting into a wedge salad. “All credited to Keith McNally. I’m picking up that New York vibe from 23 years ago.” That
“vibe” so far has attracted now-regulars Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, Sandra Bernhard, Marisa Tomei, and Christian Louboutin. Ione Skye had her book party at Cecilia with friends Beck and GriffiDunne.
Trendy restaurants usually die because of bad food. At Cecilia (named after Steinberg’s six-yearold daughter), the food is the star, even if Sam Rockwell is chomping a burger at the table next to you. Think comfort food—pure ingredients prepared with simple perfection—from a juicy steak au poivre to roast vinegar chicken, to salmon nicoise and a colossally good banana split. “The menu is delicious versions of things you know and love,” Steinberg says. “I’m not challenging people’s palate. I just want to make them happy.”
Steinberg also did the décor, which includes a batik painting of him as Johnny Fayva (think Vegas-era Elvis on stage at Don Hill’s) done by his daughter Antonia, whose mother is Tatiana von Furstenberg. “We picked the floor together and the mirrors were in my basement,” von Furstenberg tells me. “There are a lot of hidden Easter eggs everywhere, like a fake Basquiat painting and an old Xenon poster.” Steinberg’s daughter Cecilia goes to school next door. “Cecilia is friends with all the people that work here,” he says. “My daughter Antonia used to come to The Box when
At Cecilia—like Keith McNally at Balthazar— Russell Steinberg is a big shot.
I performed there when she was seven. It’s always a family affair.”
It’s the East Village on a Thursday night and the crowd swells. A guy in a navy-blue suit and white Supreme sneakers talks to what looks like an off-duty model at the bar by the entrance. A group of twenty-something girls in Louboutin heels hoist martini glasses and snap selfies. Cecilia’s new soju cocktail menu, created by Hannah Hulsey, who Steinberg calls “The Alchemist,” have names like Material Girl (soju, cranberry and lime) and Mama’s Medicine (clarified apple soju, lemon and Amoro de Vino Apéro Ibérico).
The music suddenly gets a little louder. Steinberg jostles through the young throng waiting to get a table. “When everyone leaves, you migrate down to Avenue A and it's like Mardi Gras,” he says. “The whole street becomes pedestrian in the summer, with a hundred people outside.” A couple stop him at the door to thank him for dinner. “I love my crowd,” he says with a big smile. “I’m just a guy who loves New York.”
THE
KING OF CAFÉ SOCIETY Russell Steinberg at Cecilia.
Tyler Mitchell's Jekyll Driftwood
Tableau, 2024
The Art Star Maker
Curator, critic, author, and man-about-town ANTWAUN SARGENT has helped the careers of artists including Tyler Mitchell, Honor Titus and Derrick Adams soar. JANET MERCEL meets the art world sensation (Gagosian’s secret weapon) and discovers that Sargent is just getting started.
There’s something cozy about Antwaun Sargent. Maybe that’s not a word that immediately springs to mind from his portraits in Vanity Fair, or images of him on the the red carpet at the magazine’s Oscar Party. Certainly not while he navigates Fashion Week in headto-toe pink suede Bottega Veneta, or slouches over a dinner table with Madonna. As an art-star maker, and consequently a star himself, one might expect some highbrow remoteness.
Today, he is curled up on a banquette in Soho, down the block from his apartment, donning a hoodie and beanie. In the tiny, train-carshaped coffee shop, he is warm, focused, and open. I begin to understand why so many people
Above: Rick Lowe's Untitled (TBD), 2024, Acrylic and paper collage on paper.
For over a decade, Sargent has leveraged his voice as a critic to interrogate and redefine the at world’s relationship with Black artists.
have put their faith in this man to shape their careers, livelihoods, and vision.
For over a decade, Sargent has leveraged his voice as a critic to interrogate and redefie the art world’s relationship with Black artists. As a writer and curator, he wears many hats—both literally and figuratively, as distinctive headwear is part of his sartorial signature.
At 36, his critical lens now extends well beyond the page, shaping the very institutions he once scrutinized. Virgil Abloh approached him to put together “Figures of Speech” at the Brooklyn Museum, which ultimately became a posthumous retrospective of the artist, designer, and architect. He’s been a gallery director at Gagosian since 2021, with exhibitions such as “Social Works”
and “Social Abstraction.” I was forty-five minutes before “Social Works” opened, he recalls, that he sat down with Frick curator Aimee Ng to discuss what would eventually become “Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick,” the institution’s fist solo show dedicated to a Black artist.
“Alison McDonald [the chief creative officer at Gagosian] who oversees publishing, was looking for new voices and valued my perspective,” he says. While that perspective is on display in his exhibitions and while writing for coveted house catalogs, it’s only one facet of the job. The relentless networking ping-pongs him from coast to coast and to overseas outposts. “The sun never sets on the empire, and all that,” There’s a good deal of A&R, and the daily management of the high-level careers that come with representing
Derrick Adams’ Pot Head 2, 2025 (left) and Pot Head 3, 2025 (right), acrylic on panel.
“I believe in the power and possibility of changing the world through art.”
—Antwaun Sargent
artists at this scale. In short, he says, everything he was already good at doing before the gallery came along.
“Initially, I was set to do four exhibitions a year and edit the corresponding books,” Sargent explains. “Now we’re in my fourth year and I’ve done something like over 25 exhibitions.” He concedes that this sounds wild. (Gagosian confirms it’s 30 shows, to date.) “I was introducing people to the gallery, like Honor Titus. My role working with artists, that’s the interesting part of working with Larry. It’s nonstop. We had Tyler Mitchell’s opening last week and Derrick Adams’s two weeks before that.”
Sargent is passionately verbal, periodically swatting at the banquette with his figertips. He is not afraid of people hearing him, looking his way, nor of taking up space. I don’t mind; I could listen to him all day. I like the sound of his voice. Which is good—he does, too. He, and his brain, are always working, never missing a conversational opportunity to champion an exhaustive list of artists: Henry Taylor, Mickalene Thomas, Deana Lawson, Kevin Beasley, Lauren Halsey, Cy Gavin, Rick Lowe, and countless others. The names fall from his mouth like handfuls of shiny coins, each accompanied by a relevant seduction point.
Sargent won’t be comfortable until Black art and Black literature are not a novelty. Not a trend, not merely passing through—but a commonplace, universal, and permanent fiture, a desire at the heart of both his books. The New Black Vanguard and Young Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists create space for many voices—artists, curators, collectors—to speak in words and images. He is someone for whom the art of words is primary currency, yet his roles have become so interwoven that they are inseparable from his persona—a contemporaneous expression of his talents. Is he a writer fist, curator second, or the other way around?
“A curator’s tradition is a writer’s tradition,” Sargent remarks. “A curator is telling a story, constructing the narrative, but using artworks instead of the written word. Although that’s a big
Antwaun Sargent photographed by Chase Hall.
part of it, too. Historically, the curator constructs the catalog essays, critical theory, wall text—a huge amount of text.”
You can almost see how he stitches his thoughts together, his writer’s mind tracing a path from one idea to the next to fid the hook. I suggest that years as a freelance contributor probably serve him well during pitch lunches with Mr. Gagosian. We agree that the practice teaches you to deal with constant rejection and roll with the punches—probably not a skill that coincides with the egos of most curators at his level. “No,” he says, grimacing. “It is not.”
“I’ve always been fascinated by the impermanence and ephemerality of printed matter, while extending the life of whatever it’s attached to,” Sargent continues. “The reviews, playbills, auction catalogs—that rich tradition of art and fashion
becoming part of the historical record. Maybe it’s in the form of copy for Calvin Klein, a letter for Gucci, or wall text at the Frick. All of which I’ve done.”
Very few things, he notes, offer such a vast opportunity to create a springboard for impact as writing does. “Cord Jefferson won an Oscar!” he exclaims. “And he started out writing for Gawker.”
For Sargent, the malleability of mediums— the ability to convey ideas across culture and platforms—is the point. He references Toni Morrison’s quote: You are not the work you do; you are the person you are. “I do believe the work reveals who you are,” he emphasizes. “I believe in the power and possibility of changing the world through art.” Social engagement is the throughline of it all, along with a commitment to ensuring the glass cliffphenomenon becomes a thing of the past— though not without a heavy dose of realism. “It’s literally the name of the show! Social. Works. ”
Lauren Halsey’s, Untitled, 2024, polymer-modified gypsum and stain on wood.
he says, sketching each word with a Klieg light punctuation of his hand in the air. He points to artists like Lauren Halsey, Rick Lowe, Derrick Adams, and Linda Goode Bryant: creators whose active participation and transformation of their communities is the essence of the work.
“But be real, I wouldn’t have been called upon to do 27 shows if they weren’t a financial success,” Sargent clarifies. “They were fantastically successful. And you know if the artists weren’t doing well, I wouldn’t be. I own an apartment in Soho. If they’re paid well out of the gate, it’s a more pure, sustainable model where they can take care of their families and communities. Then there wouldn’t be a need to be so protective in the secondary market. There is a different way to care about artists.”
Sargent does, in fact, care. At the opening of Tyler Mitchell’s “Ghost Images” at Gagosian last
February, he wasn’t just there—he was invested, ensuring the moment wasn’t just an event, but a statement. With the titan gallery owner in a leather jacket and jeans, and everyone else in various calculated cool kit, Sargent was in an impeccable suit from The Row with a Saint Laurent shirt and tie.
For someone seemingly just as at ease while naked under Burberry fishnet or in a tiger print fur coat, this was something else. It was earnest and a little endearing. He was working, giving his artists sincerity. He was showing up. Seeing him, you can’t help but want to do the same.
Back in Soho, the incessant pinging of his phone—despite a valiant effort to ignore it all morning—fially demands his attention. Life is calling, and I all but push him out the door. And so, he switches gears, unfurling his long frame from the banquette, stepping back into the world that keeps pulling him so eagerly into it.
Cy Gavin’s Untitled (Wall of the Tiber), 2023, acrylic and vinyl on canvas.
Cy Gavin’s Untitled (Marsh Marigolds), 2025, acrylic and vinyl on wood.
France’s First Lady of Cinema
CATHERINE DENEUVE returns to the screen in The President’s Wife, portraying Bernadette Chirac— the outspoken, trailblazing, and politically astute partner of former French president, Jacques Chirac.
ZACHARY WEISS speaks with an icon of international cinema.
For once, Catherine Deneuve is on a break. When she calls from Paris to catch up with Avenue, the sun is setting on a bright day in the city, and the silver screen legend is briefly au repos. It’s the eve of the César Awards—the French equivalent of the Oscars—where she presides over the 50th annual ceremony as president and will present the award for Best Film. In the coming weeks, her plans are strikingly less opulent: a visit to her garden at her country home. “When I can, I am a gardener,” she says. “I’m closer to the English in that way. I’ve been doing it for a very long time.”
Since her first roles in the 1960s, including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, (the original inspiration for La La Land), Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, and later, in the Oscar-nominated Indochine, Deneuve has ascended to the same mythical milieu of lauded French actresses such as Brigitte Bardot and Isabelle Huppert. All told, since 1962 she has starred in a staggering 146 fils, which surprises even the star herself. “Oh my God, really?” she exclaims. “I knew it was over a hundred, but not that many!”
to convince the public she is, of course, in touch with youth culture. In the scene, she sports a fur-trimmed denim jacket and blue jeans, a stark about face from Bernadette Chirac’s Chanel tweed skirt suits.
As expected for Deneuve—a fashion icon and longtime Yves Saint Laurent muse—the film’s costuming becomes its own character, echoing her legacy on and offscreen. “My husband at the time, [photographer] David Bailey, told me about Yves Saint Laurent when he was quite new, and I asked him to make me an evening dress to meet the Queen in London,” she reminisces. “I think I was maybe 25.” (The year was 1966, and she was, in fact, just 22 years old.)
Saint Laurent would go on to design much of Deneuve’s personal wardrobe, as well as the costuming for fils including Belle de Jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967), La Chamade (Alain Cavalier, 1968), La Sirène du Mississipi (François Truffaut, 1969), Liza (Marco Ferreri, 1972) and The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983). “This lasted for a very long time, and I was so fulfiled,” she says of their friendship and creative partnership.
“My husband at the time, David Bailey, told me about Yves Saint Laurent when he was quite new, and I asked him to make me an evening dress to meet the Queen in London.
I think I was maybe 25.”
—Catherine Deneuve
Most recently, she stars in The President’s Wife, a politically satirical jewel of a debut from first-time director Léa Domenach, chronicling the swift rise of Bernadette Chirac, the formidable wife of French President Jacques Chirac. Deneuve portrays the First Lady of France as the subservient housewife-turned-political operator, hellbent on taking on the old boys’ club that once ran the country.
“It's a period that I knew quite well,” Deneuve recalls of the Chirac presidential terms, from 1995 to 2002 and 2002 to 2007. “To prepare I looked up some archives, and I also read the book that Bernadette wrote in 2001, Conversation, which became very popular and very successful. It changed her relation to the country and to the people.”
The film offers barbs of comedic relief too, with playful portrayals of fellow First Lady Hilary Clinton, a young and ambitious Nicolas Sarkozy, and a pantomimic version of designer Karl Lagerfeld, whom Chirac accompanies to a Paris discotheque filled with half naked young men
While her effortless style from that era lives on as a blueprint—just look to Instagram fan accounts like @Deneuveness and @Catherine_Deneuve_ Magazines, a digital trove of her magazine covers— Deneuve herself places little value in looking back. Instead, she continues to create relentlessly, often choosing to collaborate with new directors that tell disruptive stories—stories that, like The President’s Wife, are grounded in real history. “For a fist feature film,I feel truly lucky,” says director Léa Domenach. “From the beginning, we entered into a real working relationship, which quickly helped me get rid of my shyness and apprehensiveness. She is completely invested in the work. And if her presence on set demands high standards, through the respect that people have for her, it does not preclude joy. Her joy of being on a set, of trying new things, of always wanting to reinvent herself, is contagious.”
“The script is always the most important thing to me,” Deneuve explains. “[Working with new directors] is not really a risk. When I did the filmwith Polanski, nobody knew him at the time. They just gave me this script to do this film, so for me, I am driven by curiosity and the desire to do something very original. If the script is good, I think that’s enough to be a good film. After that, it can happen that the filmis not really very popular because it's so peculiar, but still, that makes it very important.”
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Introducing the
SCOUT FOLDING YACHT COLLECTION
photo from the book Rose Tarlow : Three Houses
THROUGH NORMAN’S EYES
When he was 28, Norman Reedus hung out on the balcony of my suite at the Chateau Marmont. He had just shot a Prada campaign and a few indie movies. “I’m so camera shy,” he told me then. “I know nothing about fashion so it’s good someone’s dressing me.” Fast forward 20+ years and Reedus headlines The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, a spinoff of AMC’s horror series ratings juggernaut. Slaying zombies with a crossbow has made him very, very famous. Reedus may be “camera shy” but he is rarely without a camera, shooting on set and offand often while driving one of his many motorcycles.
“I do it when I’m feeling good,” Reedus says of snapping images from a motorcycle. “I’ve lost a lot of phones that way. But it’s my private time. I can escape and turn it all off.” Reedus shares images— some shot while speeding down the road—from his new book In Transit with Avenue
TERRORIZING EVERYONE. I THOUGHT HE SEEMED COOL, SO I YELLED: ‘YO SPIDER-MAN’ AND HE WEBBED ME. “ ”
I SAW THAT KID JUMPING
AROUND
LEFT: Spiderman; right: Late Night #2
LEFT: Italy In Transit; right: San Sebastian
I WAS AT THE FILM FESTIVAL ON A BALCONY IN A RAINSTORM, JUST KIND OF FEELING MYSELF. I WANTED TO REMEMBER IT.
IN THE FLASH OF A STROBE LIGHT, THE MUSES, A.K.A. DANIEL WALTERS AND JACK JAMES BUSA, HAVE ERUPTED AS WARHOLIAN SUPERSTARS IN NEW YORK’S EXCITING NEW NIGHTLIFE UNIVERSE.
ALEXANDER HANKIN
AMUSE BOUCHE The Muses are ready to entertain you.
YouthquakeWelcome to the
“We’ve got the ancient and the alien stitched together. Often with 8-inch platform shoes.”
—Jack
James
AYouthquake is erupting in New York. The sprawling lobby of the Whitney Museum pulses and vibrates. The stylist phenom Micaela Erlanger spins—her mirrored mini dress catching beams of light from the disco ball overhead. OG
nightlife It Girl Dianne Brill, all va-va-voom in a red Jessica Rabbit-esque dress, throws her long arms in the air. It’s all very Warhol 2.0.
At the center of the explosive scene are Daniel Walters and Jack James Busa, the duo known as The Muses. The pair command the DJ booth and
stage like their own VIP room. The fashion designer Jill Stuart jumps up to tell the boys (clad in head-to-toe, black and white lace, feathers and polka dots) that they look “absolutely fabulous.” In a New York minute, the city’s newest nightlife princes have begun their reign.
“They are true icons of New York’s creative spirit,” Stuart tells Avenue. “They’re reigniting the magic of the city’s nightlife—bringing back its energy, soul and sophistication. And their music is electrifying.” Brill, her hair a shock of platinum, nods with approval. “They’re a cultural movement,” she says. “Jack and Daniel are artists. They make you feel cooler because you’re here.” The current maestro of event planning, Bronson van Wyck, agrees. “The Muses don’t just DJ a party. They transform it. They’re entertainers who are utterly magnetic and unstoppable. They create a world where the party is the only place to be.”
A few days later, I’m hosting a football party for a group of fabulous friends that know absolutely nothing about the sport. Mischa Barton is here and so is Meredith Marks of Real Housewives fame. I serve my version of game day chips and salsa: champagne and caviar. Walters and Busa make a dramatic entrance to Donna Summer’s Love to Love You Baby.
I pull the boys towards a couch and Walters tells me that he moved to New York to model when he was eighteen. Bored with the job after a few fashion weeks in Milan and elsewhere, he worked his way from intern to editor-in-chief of Joonbug, a digital nightlife destination. “I was yearning for something more than just beautiful
HOW AMUSING Jack James Busa and Daniel Walters photographed in a Park Avenue apartment.
SHADOW DANCING: Jack James Busa photographed in New York by Landon Nordeman.
“I was yearning for something more than just beautiful faces and runways.”
—Jack James Busa
faces and runways,” he reveals. Meanwhile, Busa had moved to Liverpool, also at eighteen, from Austin, Texas to pursue acting. His agent told him to relocate to either Los Angeles or New York City.
“I always wanted to be like Debbie Harry from Blondie,” he says. “It had to be New York.”
Busa met Walters at a modeling shoot. “He was like a beautiful alien,” Busa gushes, his blue eyes glowing. It was love at fist sight, and soon after, a creative partnership. “I was desperate to perform,” Walters says. Busa chimes in, “And I thought DJing was a side gig for cool kids that loved vinyl. I had no clue how large this world was, but Daniel believed we could become something big.”
Et voila, The Muses were born.
“Our sound is disco noir—sexy and captivating,” Busa explains. “People want to escape reality, and we provide that. Art and creativity can change communities.” The Muses have played with Questlove and Ellie Goulding, and at New York City hotspots Indochine and Casa Cruz. Their following in New York City is growing more massive by the minute. “They are the kind of artists who merge music, entertainment and fashion
in a way I haven’t seen for quite some time,” says actor Michael Imperioli.
The Muses’ otherworldly, haute-couture fashion looks are inspired by art history and Greek mythology, not to mention David Bowie, Grace Jones and Cher. “We’ve got the ancient and the alien stitched together,” Busa says, “often with eight-inch platform shoes.” Walters gazes out the window at the view of the Hudson River, punctuated by stacks of skyscrapers. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously,” he points out. “The goal is to get everyone dancing—freeing them from their worries. But we’re more than DJs. We envision becoming a creative powerhouse—a blend of music, fashion and film”
Busa and Walters excitedly tell me about their upcoming EP, to be released this fall. “It’s a different world from rock and roll,” says Busa. “The orchestral elements and cinematic sounds are pushing us to new frontiers.”
If the album is anything like the Youthquake they’ve erupted in New York, The Muses are destined to have a smash hit. “They’re the life of the party,” declares jazz musician Brian Newman. “If you’re not dancing, it’s your fault.”
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THE WRITE STUFF
The coolest private club to join? A book club. I started one that counts enfant terrible/author James Frey as a member and a long waiting list. Avenue is here to help with your homework. Meet 5 storytellers that everyone its talking about. —PD
KIM HASTREITER
BY PETER DAVIS
Full disclosure: Kim Hastreiter, the writer, editor, curator and founder of the seminal downtown publication Paper, is my mentor. I met Kim when I was in high school and became Paper’s fist intern. And if my parents hadn’t forced me to find a summer jo, I would never have become a writer and then an editor. I learned a ton from Kim— the ultimate NYC insider and style soothsayer who can predict trends in art, fashion and design way before they happen. She’s also a living, breathing pop culture encyclopedia.
Kim has “amazing friends” as she calls her coterie of creative, cultural pals like director Pedro Almodovar (who shot scenes from his latest film A Room Next Door in Hastreiter’s apartment on Lower 5th Avenue), art powerhouse Agnes Gund and musician David Byrne to name just a few. Post-Paper, Kim has released STUFF: A New York Life of Cultural Chaos, a photo-packed 450-page memoir told through Kim’s collection of well, stuff:art, clothing, objects, furniture, and incredible people.
As a teenager at Paper, I not only learned to write, but you also schooled me in everything cool in NYC. Reading STUFF is like an anthropological, historical, fist-person account of the city’s cultural high points. The week I sold Paper, my mother died. It was this crazy week. They said to me: clear out her apartment in a month. So, a month came, and then at work they said to me, ‘you have to clear out all your stuff ’ (from 32 years of making Paper) in a month. It was intense. I had all this stuffin my house. I gave things away. I sold things. And I realized, oh my God, I have this amazing stuff. A lot of historical things, even the ephemera and of course, my art.
Is that what inspired the book?
First, I was thinking a documentary just about the stuff, not necessarily about me. My friend Alexandra Cunningham, a curator from the Cooper Hewitt came over and said, do a book, and it should be a memoir using your stuff. Bingo!
That’s a big undertaking.
It's the history of New York told through the stories of my stuff. I went around to publishers. When you don't have a definiton of what you do—Paper never even had a definiton—they always say no, no matter what it is. Every single publisher said, no, you have too many ideas. Nobody's going to want it. James Jebbia from Supreme came over. He loved the book. That gave me confidence. I needed someone that I trusted to say it's fantastic. I started a little imprint called Amazing Unlimited with my friend Karla Arria Devoe so we could do the book ourselves, and in the future do other projects. Then randomly I met this smart woman, Eleanora Pasqui from the small family-owned publisher Damiani who stopped by and really loved the book, and it wasn’t even done yet. Damiani proposed to take care of the printing and distribution and be our co-publisher. It was great because they really got it.
It's a mammoth book.
Creatives like me rarely make money from books and my book didn’t fitinto an existing category. Damiani, most known for their photography books, had never published anything like it. I wanted it to be beautiful and have beautiful photography, but I also wanted it to have words (I wrote 75,000 of them). Jim Joe, one of my favorite artists, did the two covers. It’s a big deal because Jim Joe has this huge cult underground following as a street artist. The young skater and art kids are dying for it, as it’s collectible to them and they want the book just because it’s a limited edition Jim Joe.
It really is a history book in many ways. It was so complicated. The narrative had to be nailed down. I had catastrophes. I had people, art, music, fashion. And I had a memoir. The whole book is geared towards asking how do you keep history truthful? That's really what the book is about.
You put it together during the Covid catastrophe.
Partially. It took me five years to finih. I wasn’t allowed to have anybody come into my building during that time. I worked on it for a few years all alone. I must have looked at the book 500,000 times. I would dream about the pages. I'd get an epiphany in the middle of the night about moving something. It was a big jigsaw puzzle I had to figure out. I also called in help from my many smart friends. Kristen Naiman gave me such great advice that I asked her to be the editor. In the end, it’s a hybrid. It is beautiful but it's definiely not a coffee table book.
STUFF has it all, from John Waters to Bill Cunningham to Jean-Michel Basquiat to 9/11 and the AIDS crisis. You bore witness to so much.
My life has always been a mix—from people
to how I live to how I dress. Life would be so boring if everything was the same. I hate when you go to someone’s house, and everything is in perfect taste or when everything is kitschy. I love a yin yang, high-low moment—a thrift store skirt with a Prada bag. My friends are yin and yang. They’re old, young, crazy, restrained, hilarious and even serious. Everything is better if it’s mixed. That is my whole philosophy of life. Paper was about a mix. Drag queens talking to people in hip hop culture. It’s like great cooking. You balance salt and sweet, crunchy and smooth, acid and fat. Life should be like a big, delicious soup.
Looking back on life must be cathartic. The biggest thing I learned is that I'm an artist. I never knew what to call myself. I’ve always been an outsider, never belonging to one particular club. I was always an outsider in the publishing world. I was an outsider in the fashion world. In the design world. In the art world. Because
I never did just one thing. This book made me realize that I'm an artist and my medium is my life. Paper was part of it. STUFF is part of it. My Substack is a part of it. My home is a part of it. I live my art. That was an epiphany. My book was rejected from every single publishing company. It's an outsider-published book. Homemade. Once again, DIY.
There is melancholy in the pages too. You lost so many friends to AIDS, like Keith Haring. I lost over a hundred friends. People just disappeared. It was surreal. It was slow motion. It took 10 or 12 years. And people died different ways. Some killed themselves. Some denied they were gay. I was constantly going to fundraisers, funerals and memorials. You can't relate to death when you're 23. Look, I wasn't a gay man. I didn't have the personal trauma of oh my God, I'm going to die. Or my lover died. I was a straight 23-year-old girl who had a lot of gay friends. Now that I recently turned 70,
it was a big moment for me because I could see the end. I had so much in my head and felt compelled to get it all out and explain everything to everybody.
I hear STUFF is going to be the basis of a documentary about you. It’s not going to be a normal documentary. A young, super-talented director I met named Waylon Bone has been tailing me during this crazy time of launching my memoir for the past six months and is continuing on tour with me. New York, L.A., San Francisco.
SARAH HOOVER
BY JANET MERCEL
A self-described “cultural octopus,” It Girl and author SARAH HOOVER is at every cool party on the planet. She is living the New York dream: Midwestern girl moves to the big city, climbs the ranks of the art world, marries art superstar Tom Sachs, and becomes a regular in the pages of Vogue. Avenue speaks with Hoover about her new bestseller, The Motherload: Episodes from the Brink of Motherhood
Your experience with postpartum depression was severe.
I hadn’t realized how far gone I was. I was basically driven mad. When I read my journals from that time, it was years and a lot of therapy later. By then, I was just laughing at it. I was aghast at how much worse it was then I remembered. Those entries were so emotional and impassioned, at points even my handwriting was a gruesome scrawl. But writing the book wasn’t triggering at all. By then I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I was in control of it.
The wild rage you felt at the world after you gave birth— at your husband, your doctors, your mom—was palpable. It brought me back to the fist days after my 2-year-old was born.
I had a very clear vision of what I wanted the reader experience to be. I read a lot of Sylvia Plath when I was in middle school. It was not easy to understand why someone so talented would end up sticking her head in the oven. It was my goal in the book to carry someone through the roller coaster of that kind of depression, to a point where they understand the experience and say, I get it now.
“I read a lot of Sylvia Plath when I was in middle school. It was not easy to understand why someone so talented would end up sticking her head in the oven. It was my goal in the book to carry someone through the roller coaster of that kind of depression, to a point where they understand the experience and say, I get it now.”
—SARAH HOOVER
You and your husband, the artist Tom Sachs, were able to heal your rupture enough to stay together and have another baby. Do you feel like you’ve gained more empathy for him, or is it still like, come on, man, you can do better?
Men’s lives are just easier. They don’t understand our points of view because they haven’t had to. I know what it’s like to try and be a mother when you’re profoundly depressed and disconnected. It’s hard to be a good mom in those conditions; you can’t raise functional, contributing members of economy or community. It felt urgent to give women the language to feel seen and be more vocal when their interactions with men didn’t serve them. I also wrote it as a kind of tutorial for men.
Speaking of interactions with women—you wrote about a French actress insulting your looks at a dinner and a stylist trashing your hair while prepping you for your son’s baby shower at Chateau Marmont. Why did those moments of casual cruelty stick out? What do you think was behind it? Because you’re Tom Sachs’ wife? Or because you seem so comfortable in your own skin?
It’s so funny to hear you say I’m confident in my own skin, because I’m very not.
dent, then. The energy you put out is of someone in control. Living in this patriarchy, women are trained to be insecure. They learn to inflct small cruelties on each other. And men weren’t any nicer to me, they were just cruel in different ways. At the time I internalized those comments, but now I can laugh at women like that. What is your inner monologue like if you’re putting
You’re not 25 years old anymore, either. You’ve made an effort to grow into someone who doesn’t take her issues out on other women. I have other shit to worry about—I have two kids. I don’t want to be the kind of bitter woman who puts her worst, most insecure self on display just to get a marginal sense of comfort from slinging insults. I worked hard not to become that person. I feel sad for her.
What book changed your life?
We already talked about Sylvia Plath, so The Bell Jar. Especially the fist part when she’s in New York—that exciting, nostalgic version of New York City. Virginia Woolf. They were my entry into writing from the female experience. Valley of the Dolls, and I know what a trope that is, but it’s real.
Contemporary writers?
I read Stephanie Danler’s memoir Stray while I was writing my book. Prozac Nation, too. And Sex and The City. I read my mom’s copy. I’m sure the show was already out by then, but we didn’t have HBO.
I love the idea of your mom [James Beardrecognized restaurateur Martha Hoover] reading and loving Sex and the City in Indiana in the ‘90s while living a very different life. Right? A very different life.
Ok, fashion question. The media makes it seem like you only ever wear head to toe Chanel. I have no control over that! I wear plenty of other designers. But I am really impressed by Chanel. It’s still made by hand in the same workshops, where someone’s granddaughter works—that’s rare. They could produce more and make more money, but they keep things limited because quality matters so much. I love those ethics. When I was a kid in Indiana, reading Seventeen , I was smitten with Chanel ads. In high school, a girl asked me, do you even own anything Chanel? I was like, yeah, a lipstick that I stole from my mom! When I experienced the brand firsthand, I thought, “I had good taste and I was right!” I have Chanel from my mom, and I’ll pass mine down to my kids. It’s a throwback to a better time in quality.
Is Balthazar still your emergency go-to for martinis?
Of course! I have a feeling I’ll soon be adding San Vicente Bungalows to that list.
Uptown?
The Carlyle, obviously. And they have a leg up on Balthazar because if things get rowdy, they have hotel rooms.
PETER SOM
BY TED HILDNER
The Chinese American fashion designer Peter Som is most famous for making beautiful actresses—Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Rashida Jones, Anne Hathaway—look even more beautiful in his elegant evening wear. He dressed Michelle Obama when she was First Lady. A staple on the New York social scene, Som loves to entertain in his chic, art-filledWest Village apartment. And even when there are movie stars at Som’s dinner parties, his cooking always steals the show. Family Style: Elegant Everyday Recipes Inspired by Home and Heritage is Som’s love letter to his family and friends, his heritage, and his passion for entertaining.
Peter Som, the chef, not the fashion designer. I'm definiely not a trained chef. I consider a chef to be somebody who's gone to culinary school and worked in a restaurant. I’ve never worked in a restaurant. I mean, when I was a kid, I was a dishwasher. And then I worked at Jack in the Box as a fryer. It was terrible. But cooking has been part of my whole life. The whole time I was working in fashion, I was cooking. Cooking was therapy. It's always been that parallel kind of thing to fashion.
Now you have a cookbook.
I found recipe notebooks from my grandmother, who had passed away 20 years ago, that we had never seen. Many were in Chinese writing, dating back to 1960. It was a time capsule. It really sent me on this journey—getting to know my grandmother through her food as an adult is a totally different kind of thing. It was a way to honor my grandmother and pay tribute to my mom. I started cooking when I was a kid with my grandmother: I was her sous chef. I was always in the kitchen with her.
Fashion and cooking go hand in hand for you. I've always said I design happy clothes, clothes that you'd want to wear again and again that bring you joy. That's the same approach I have to recipes. I've made recipes that are easy enough that they become favorites, like the sweater you want to wear every day.
Your dinner parties are legendary. The world's a little crazy right now. People take refuge and comfort in cooking, being at home, and surrounding themselves with the people that mean the most to them. Food is a salve for the stress of life and what's going on in the world.
What do you cook on the run?
A lot of tofu when I'm home just by myself. Tofu is the little black dress. You can dress it up with just about any spices and seasonings.
Your cookbook reads like a memoir too. Cookbooks transport you to a place and a time like a good novel. There is joy in food. The goal with my book is to have a recipe that somebody's going to want to make once a week, or they make it every time a certain season rolls around. That is the ultimate compliment. It's the same when I see a woman walking down the street wearing my dress. Oh wow, that dress has a life beyond what I created. I want my recipes to do the same.
IONE SKYE LEE
BY PETER DAVIS
In 1989, Say Anything made Ione Skye an overnight movie star. The scene of a teenage Skye in her bedroom, John Cusack blasting Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes on a boom box, was instantly iconic. Since then, she has co-starred with Madonna, Keanu Reeves, and her friend, the late River Phoenix. Her father Donovan, the Scottish musician and Flower Power movement poster boy, named her for the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Though he was largely absent, the fuse had been lit—many of the men (and a few women) in Skye’s life have all been musical masterminds. At 16, she dated Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis (he was 24), and then at 21, she married Adam Horovitz of The Beastie Boys. These days, Skye lives in Sydney with her husband, the Australian musician Ben Lee.
When I fist met Skye at a dinner party in SoHo in the early 90s, she was at the center of everything cool in New York and Los Angeles—racing around town with SofiaCoppola, Kate Moss, and her brother, Donovan Leitch. A few decades later at 54, she has published a brutally honest memoir, Say Everything. And she’s not 100% sure that everyone she writes about is going to love it.
Say Everything is funny and painful—a lethal literary combo. It’s also very sexy. I was like, wait, am I really going to have sex scenes? I just didn't want them to be cringe or sleazy in the wrong way. Sex scenes are so tricky. You can use the wrong words, and they
become gross. I wanted mine to be good. For example, the Jenny [Shimizu] strap-on scene. Who else has that in a book? Of course, my mom was going to read it. I don't think my kids, Kate or Goldie have read the book, which is cool because I don't really need to talk to them about it.
You’re very open about being bisexual and having dated some high-profie women including model Jenny Shimizu, musician Alice Temple and Madonna’s gal pal Ingrid Casares.
It was the 90s model era in New York and it was such a fun scene. I was just swept up. The L Word is what it felt like, but better. Alice said she wasn’t out then. It is so interesting: people that didn't know they were gay but were totally living in queer life. Alice was thrilled though. She said, ‘You made me seem so cool.’ It’s funny, back then my brother Donovan said that he was concerned about me. He said, ‘It's not the drugs, it’s the girls.’
I met you when you were married to Adam Horovitz from the Beastie Boys. The failure of that marriage, and your infidelity, was tough to read about. Has Adam read Say Everything?
I don't know. I'm scared to fid out, but I'm curious, too. I think I was kind. His sister Rachel told me I shouldn’t write the book, but I can write a memoir if I want to.
You write about your father, the musician Donovan, and growing up having almost zero relationship with him. Has he read the book?
I don't think so. I want to send him a signed book. I'm working on the dedication to him. When the New York Times reached out to him, he responded late, and they didn’t put it in. He said something sweet like, ‘I'm proud of her’ or something, which was nice. I was hoping writing the book would be therapeutic and helpful, and it was.
You were a child star and the family breadwinner. That’s a lot of pressure for a kid. It gave me confidence. I wasn't getting that confidence in school the way some people might if they felt supported by being academic or sporty. It felt good to be working, creative and making money. But looking back, it was a lot of responsibility to keep it going.
Are you a bookworm?
I love English books. I love Jane Eyre. There's this book The Magic World by E. Nesbit, which is sort of Victorian, an English fairytale. It was published in 1912. I like fairytales. I read a lot growing up. Even Flowers in the Attic had a profound effect on me. I went high and low with my reading.
You’ve been living in Sydney for a year. It's the most gorgeous lifestyle. Unreal, beautiful days. I live near the ocean, but it's almost like a gilded cage. You do feel a little trapped. I'm far from my friends. Growing up I thought I'd be living in Paris. I didn't think Sydney.
You’ve been married to Ben Lee since your wedding in India in 2009.
After Adam, I thought I’d be one of those people that fids love at an old age. With Adam, I did love being married, but I was way too young. With Ben, another musician, I really lucked out with someone who loves me and is supportive. Finding someone you admire and feel romantic about— it's hard to get the right combination in a person. Ben was somebody I wanted to read everything to as I was writing the book. A lot of the stuffwas painful, but Ben is a confident person. All the Adam stuff. He knew how hard the loss of that friendship was. I struggle with those feelings, but Ben is thick-skinned. He knows me well. He knew he wasn't getting any surprises.
MAYUKH SEN
BY JANET MERCEL
Acclaimed author MAYUKH SEN’s Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star is a meticulous biography of the fist Asian woman nominated for an Academy Award. Infectiously charming, Sen, a James Beard Award winner, speaks with AVENUE about bringing Oberon’s mostly unknown story to light
This isn’t your fist time at the rodeo. In 2021, Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America, your debut book, came out and won a slew of accolades.
I had a recognizable set of credentials in the food world, had already won the James Beard award, and that was the avenue I could take to break through. For Queenie, I had to slough offthe “food writer” and rewire my brain. I could have done a second book in the genre, but I didn’t want to look back on this moment and think that I took the easy way out—it would have killed me! I owed it to myself to pursue this passion project; I grew up in a cinephile household. I’ve always written about film
There’s an obvious throughline, though. Both books center on complicated, powerful women—or rather, women you saw as powerful in their own way—making their mark against cultural odds. That absolutely extends to Merle. I wanted to fid the emotional touchpoints in these women whose work didn’t stand the test of time for reasons beyond them. I fist encountered her in high school in New Jersey around 2009, as Cathy in Wuthering Heights [1939]. I always devoured Entertainment Weekly. I studied the histories of Oscar-nominated actresses—but this was not a name I’d grown up hearing, like Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, or Greta Garbo.
And yet, she was the fist Asian Best Actress nominee—for 1936’s The Dark Angel—preceding Michelle Yeoh by 87 years, all while “passing” for white in 1930s Hollywood.
She was the fist performer of color to be nominated for an Oscar, period. Growing up in a Bengali household, she was my diva of choice. I had so much sympathy for her—I mean, I cried when Keisha Castle-Hughes lost the Best Actress Oscar to Charlize Theron. It was hard for my young mind to process living with such a painful secret. When I got older and was avidly reading Oscar blogs, I was surprised that everyone seemed to trash her, dismissing her as not much of an actress.
You wrote that one said she “had a disquieting resemblance to an egg.” I think people today struggle with her refusal to openly embrace her identity. But, of course, it’s not that simple. I came of age in a Tumblr world, where there’s no understanding of human frailty or nuance. They couldn’t make her into a Barbie doll like Anna May Wong, but she was, in reality, more relatable. Merle had her flws, she was human. She was not a straightforward role model, but we have those stories already! It’s so boring just to make a hero.
You write about Merle’s skin bleaching; how careful she had to be with makeup and hair to downplay her “almond eyes” and bronze skin. But it was more than the standard pressure on a filmstar to fi in. She had escaped extreme poverty in [then] Calcutta, plus there were real-world
consequences if she were found out. She was so young, and she was given this golden ticket of a new biography. It was barely her decision to “pass.” The Hays Code forbade miscegenation between white performers and performers of color. And it went far beyond the casting room—the Immigration Act of 1917 prevented U.S. citizenship for Southeast Asians at all. I wanted to give her that context. Her story is a true slice of American history that’s largely under told. She had such determination, especially if you tried to keep her down. A real “I’ll show you” attitude. There's so much we can learn from her.
What are the women like in your life?
There must be someone who inspires you to tell these stories.
Well, like any good gay boy, my mom is my best friend. She had an arranged marriage to my late father and grew up in poverty in a village. I’ve seen her completely remake herself in this new, unfamiliar country. I would think of her, decades ago, learning how to ride the subway, wearing saris in public, her accent, and the hostility she may have faced. Her imprint on this book is quite deep.
What writers or books changed your life?
In 7th or 8th grade, I picked up Sophie’s Choice without knowing what it was. I was struck by the immense scale of the story; how granular William Styron was in the rendering of each character. I was still dabbling in fiction and thought how amazing it would be to write an object of that majesty. Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things moves in so many directions I did not anticipate, playing with and subverting language. There’s this youthful ability to play on the page.
And most recently?
Cynthia Carr’s Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar bio from last year. Do you ever read a book that is just so deft…the way she worked with archives and public papers. As a biographer, I wish I possessed this. It’s so artful, while always keeping the humanity at the center of the narrative.
Forget legacy—getting into kindergarten at one of New York’s private schools has never been more cutthroat and competitive, PETER DAVIS discovers. Scoring a spot at a nursery school or in a fist grade class in New York City is a challenge akin to being accepted at Yale. Enter BROOKE PARKER, the city’s number one early childhood admissions consultant who every in the know parent has on speed dial.
A Private School’s Secret Weapon
At a dinner party recently, a friend asked me with whispered urgency where I had gone to nursery school in the city. I told her The Brick Church School, on Park Avenue and 91st, and she audibly gasped.
“That is our absolute first choice for our son,” she excitedly exclaimed. “It’s so competitive. Brick Church is like the Exeter of kindergartens. And our son is so smart, too. We speak French to him and we’re thinking about starting Mandarin.”
The next week at a fancy black tie fête, another mother moaned that getting her daughter into Spence was much “scarier” than she expected. “I mean, I went to Spence and so did my sister and mother, but legacy just doesn’t seem to matter anymore,” she revealed. “I should get Gwyneth Paltrow, who was in my graduating class, to write a letter. Anything to get her in.”
As the September school start date creeps closer, getting your children enrolled into private school in New York is harder than being accepted at Robin Birley’s new member’s club, Maxime’s
“At the end of the day, you want a child who is confidet. And if you’re at a school that isn’t right for you, that can be a recipe for disaster.”
—Brooke Parker
on Madison Avenue—and just as pricey. Your child may be fluent in one of the Chinese languages or they might be a star lacrosse player, but that doesn’t guarantee admission to schools like Spence, Buckley, or Brick Church anymore. And don’t bother trying to buy your way past the door at Horace Mann or Nightingale-Bamford either.
“There is so much money in New York right now,” one dad told me with an audible sigh. “You can’t cut a check and get your kid into a top-tier school anymore. Those days are long gone.”
Hence the rise of a secret weapon for would-be private school parents—the priceless discovery of Brooke Parker. A native New Yorker (she went to Nightingale-Bamford and Riverdale Country School), who after years of experience as a teacher and tutor at almost every covetable school in the city, has built a career as NYC’s number one admissions guidance guru.
“Parents would ask me all these questions and I knew their children so well that I could give insight into their application essays and how to tackle an interview,” Parker says. “It all evolved from there.” Word of mouth spread and Parker had a fast-growing list of clients.
BOOKED UP Brooke Parker can recommend what children should be reading.
Brooke Parker Consulting focuses on admissions starting in preschool and isn’t limited to the Brick Churches of the city, like the popular Garden House School or 92nd Street Y Nursery School. She stresses that it’s a family affair, as she’s working with the entire family and not only the child, because the parents are being interviewed and scrutinized just as intensely.
“I only work with families that are going to be team players with me,” she says. “Sometimes, I’ll get a family that just wants one specific school because they Googled it, and they think it’s prestigious. But I won’t work with a family if they say they only want one school, especially if I fid it’s not going to be a good fitfor the child’s learning style. I speak my mind, and I don’t believe in sugarcoating things because honesty is always the best policy. At the end of the day, you want a child that is confident. And if you’re enrolled at a school who isn’t right for you, it can be a recipe for disaster.”
Before taking on a new client, Parker has them fill out a confidential intake form she created, which includes information she needs about the child and the parents. “You can learn a lot about the child from their parents,” she says, from how they put together their child’s schedule to the types of activities the family does together. “The parents are the ones that need a lot of coaching for the interviews.”
Parker does a learning style assessment, and even ensures the child has a selection of age-
appropriate books and toys to help foster their development. “Every child has their own challenges, and I like to figure out how I’m going to reach them in a meaningful way,” she explains. “The strategies and games we play are things I’ve created and adapted. To get through to a child that was really into Ninja Turtles, I would create a lesson that centers on Ninja Turtles, so it doesn’t feel like we’re working. I want to introduce a new concept in a way that feels natural and makes sense.”
Fill out your intake application pronto: Parker is almost always booked solid. “I’m putting in 150% of myself,” she says, her eyes widening. “Parents who sign up for my ‘full package’ are getting texts from me daily, with constant access to anything that has to do with their child, not just the admissions process. In fact, some people even hire me when they are pregnant so I can help them prepare for everything they need in place when their child is born. And I also work with many families after the admissions process has ended. Type A New Yorkers want to make sure their child is engaged in A+ activities and seeing all the right specialists. They know that they can count on me to guide them.”
Parker is acutely aware how daunting and difficult the private school admissions game has become to play. “The kindergarten tuitions have become more than some colleges,” she adds. “The prices and demand are higher than ever before.”
Years of being in the trenches of New York’s private schools as a student herself and then as a
TOY STORY Brooke Parker makes learning a fun game for her young clients.
“You can learn a lot about the child from their parents. And the parents are the ones who need a lot of coaching for the interviews.” —Brooke Parker
teacher and an admissions coordinator, coupled with graduating summa cum laude from Tufts in Child Development and Spanish Literature, followed by winning an academic scholarship to Columbia University for Early Childhood Education, make Parker an expert in her field. Plus, she’s the parent of two young children who both attend highly competitive schools in the city. “My kids are my guinea pigs, so I can try approaches out on them,” she says with a laugh. “I look at the whole child through both an educational and parental lens. I’m very particular about things and people know that about me, so they trust me.”
Bottom line: it's never ever been tougher to get into a private school. “It has gotten harder, so you need to know how to navigate the system,” Parker tells me. Her extensive experience has led to a perfect enrollment score for her clients, giving both her and her business an A+. Beyond getting prospective students into school, Parker also teaches parents about what books a child should be reading (she’s a fan of non-fiction) and which toys are appropriate for play (she isn’t big on too much iPad screen time).
Her job can also be a kind of de facto therapy for harried parents who are biting their nails as they wait for that fateful admissions letter to arrive. “There is always an element of nervousness that comes through when you’re applying to anything,” she says. “The reason I’ve had success is that I'm not picking schools that are easier to get into, because that doesn't even exist in New York anymore. It's fiding the right fitand when things are the right fitand the child and family are prepared, that's when you have a positive outcome.”
MOTHER KNOWS
BEST With two children attending top private schools, Brooke Parker has hands-on experience.
ISLAND HOPPING AROUND THE GRENADINES
Sandals is upping their game with a new luxury hotel on the stunning island of Saint Vincent. PETER DAVIS checks in.
VILLA-FIED The over the water bungalows at Sandals Saint Vincent have private pools and a 24/7 butler.
TPATHFINDER The
he grand Hall des Lumières, the former Emigrant Savings Bank on Chambers Street, is packed. Zuri Marley, the granddaughter of Bob Marley is there and so is actress Michele Hicks and models Sophie Sumner, Alex Lundqvist and Carol Alt. The walls are projected with moving images of swaying palm trees and the crystal blue Caribbean Sea. A turtle swims over the marble columns. Dancers in jewel-encrusted corsets and huge feathered headdresses shimmy by the bar to a reggae tune. At the center of what looks like a Caribbean beach carnival is handsome 44-year-old Adam Stewart, the Executive Chairman of Sandals Resorts. Stewart takes the stage and proudly announces that his family brand, Beaches Resorts, is opening three new locations in Barbados, Exuma, and Turks and Caicos. Glasses of fruity rum cocktails are raised, and applause fillsthe room.
Soon after Stewart’s party, I’m invited to check
wood walkway to the secluded Princess Margaret Beach, a birds eye view of Sandals Saint Vincent.
A WOMAN WITH A LONG BRAID IN A RED FLOWERED
SUNDRESS GRABS
THE MIC AND BELTS OUT JIMMY BUFFETT’S “VOLCANO.” I TELL MYSELF THAT SINGING TO THE VOLCANO WILL KEEP IT SLEEPING ALL NIGHT.
out his newest (and fanciest) Sandals resort in Saint Vincent—a verdant, tropical island in the Caribbean. I fly direct to Saint Vincent’s Argyle International Airport via American Airlines. Direct flghts from JFK to Saint Vincent started in 2024, thus Saint Vincent and the surrounding Grenadine islands were once very hard (and expensive) to get to.
Speeding along precariously winding, heavilyforested roads to the resort, I feel like I’m in Hawaii—lush flora falls over houses perched on steep cliffs high above the sea. The gates to Sandals Saint Vincent are tucked in a remote, private cove surrounded by a rainforest with a sprawling strip of white sand beach. It feels a bit Fantasy Island as my “butler” greets me and we golf cart it through a maze of paths to my villa. My island house is huge with an eat-in kitchen and screening room. I would have invited my sister and her kids, but children are a strict no-go at the resort.
After an almost six-hour journey, I’m hungry. I’ve never been to an all-inclusive resort (or all-inclusive anything for that matter). There
are tons of restaurants—seafood (Scrimshaw), steak (Butch’s Island Chop House), sushi (Gatsu Gatsu) and a Jerk Shack, not to mention late-night brick oven pizzas and coffee shops everywhere. It’s like a Disney World of food. I decide to go “local” and have the tuna crudo (with coconut, sweet potato and red onion) and broiled spiny lobster with a peanut-chili sauce at Scrimshaw. Conch is a big item on the islands, but I avoid the marine snail whether grilled, fried or in a Bahamian chowder. I have a frightening memory of unknowingly chewing conch as a child on some vacation. Snails are a hard no. But there is nothing better than fresh local coconut, and the semolina cake is moist with a mango sauce, guava caramel, and a scoop of coconut sorbet. Back at my villa, I fall asleep in my king size bed within seconds of hitting the pillow.
The Grenadine islands are famously chic. Years ago, I spent a Christmas in Mustique with family and friends. I went to the gym every morning at Cotton House, which is basically the only
hotel on the island. Mustique is a veritable hot spot, filed with celebs like Tommy Hilfiger, Bryan Adams, Paul McCartney, and oodles of Royals. At the Cotton House fitess center every morning I’d see Kate Middleton, who was dating Prince William and a year later would become the Princess of Wales. Mustique is that kind of place.
From the ultramodern Sandals dock, I take a boat—fast and choppy—to Mustique’s tiny marina. We dock by Basil’s Bar: Mustique’s very clubby above-water hot-spot. Basil’s has greatly expanded since I was here last. It’s twice the size and now boasts a pricey gift shop (I buy a pale pink Basil’s tee shirt for $60). Thankfully, the scene hasn’t changed. Sienna Miller, in Jackie O shades and a nautical stripe tee shirt, is having lunch with her paramour Oli Green. Two Italian couples in lots of Gucci nearby devour plates of grilled fih. After lunch, I go for a snorkel right outside of Basil’s before I indulge in more island hopping. Next stop: Bequia, the largest island at seven square miles (and my favorite) in the Grenadines.
We dock in Port Elizabeth, and I immediately hunt for Princess Margaret Beach. “Great Aunt Margo” as Princes William and Harry called her, had a house in Mustique and would visit Bequia in the 1950s. The path to the Princess’s beach is beyond scenic: a wooden walkway over the sea curves around the coastline to a pristine stretch of sheltered beach and Jack’s Beach Bar, which is Bequia’s answer to Basil’s. Jack’s is like a beach club, complete with lounge chairs and blue striped umbrellas. The members? Anyone smart enough to fid it. I have an early dinner of the chef’s locally caught sashimi and “Jack’s Signature Vegetable Curry,” a West Indian coconut curry with cinnamon sugar plantains, house-made roti, and steamed basmati, which is the ultimate island comfort food.
As I’m walking back to the boat on Princess Margaret’s most scenic stretch of walkway, it starts to pour. I hustle, and the rain thankfully stops minutes later. I discover a hobbled path near
AT THE COTTON HOUSE FITNESS CENTER EVERY MORNING, I’D SEE KATE MIDDLETON, WHO WAS DATING PRINCE WILLIAM AND A YEAR LATER WOULD BECOME THE PRINCESS OF WALES. MUSTIQUE IS THAT KIND OF PLACE.
the port where a few super yachts are docked. The makeshift sidewalk with broken stones hugs the sea. I pass by ramshackle fihing huts and then boom: Whaleboner, a local watering hole with an entrance shaped like Moby Dick’s jaw. I ignore the long menu of rum cocktails and pizzas, spot what looks like a fashion atelier tucked in the back. I open the door and meet the house designer Ruthie, a petite woman with a toothy smile. Ruthie designs wildly stylish prints that Marni or Miu Miu would eat up. She hand screens her designs on shirts (I buy two), dresses, children’s clothing, and bags. The prices are too good to be true, so I buy two baby blue Whaleboner tee shirts with graphic whales on the back.
Back at Sandals, I’m surprised that nothing is ever overcrowded. I bike around the whole resort, stopping to get a cappuccino and coconut macaroon to go, and rarely see a soul, save for smiling employees in golf carts. Maybe I shouldn’t be that surprised. The two-story “Vincy” overwater bungalow with a 24/7 butler and private infiniy pool
goes for $1,614 per person a night. I was sold by the endless supply of perfectly made cappuccinos.
My favorite meal at Sandals (I didn’t have a bad one and the freshly plucked fruit salad every morning had me up early) was at Buccan. I meet friends from Miami, and we sit at a long wood table. An Arawak and Taino word, “buccan” is a wooden framework on which meat is slow-roasted over a fie. It’s chef’s choice: dishes of fih, skewered chicken, charred salad, and lamb curry arrive every few minutes. Plates of mango chutney crisp and fire roasted pineapple are set down. I start to worry about fitting into my couture Whaleboner shirts. I take a bite of each dessert, then fid a bike outside and pedal back to my villa.
My last day in Saint Vincent is action-packed. After breakfast, I join a kayaking group, and we paddle out to sea for a long time before we round a bend and are immersed in a lush cove. The guide tells me that bats live in the caves, cupping his ear for some kind of bat call. In boarding school at Pomfret, a swarm of bats flew around my friends
BLUE ZONE Basil’s Bar on Mustique is famous for live music.
and I when we were doing something frowned upon. Bats have terrified me ever since. Far from an expert kayaker, I deftly turn around and swiftly book it back to shore. I beat the rest of the group by 25 minutes.
On dry, hopefully bat-free land, I clear my brain by booking a hike of the Soufrière Volcano. The guided trek goes from sea level at Richmond Beach through a gorge known as Wallibou River to a summit of 3000 feet. It’s a workout and worth it for the sight of the enormous crater and panoramic views of Saint Vincent. I feel like I’m in Jurassic Park. On the way down, I learn that La Soufrière erupted four years ago. 16,000 people were evacuated. I think I am more freaked out by volcanos than I am by bats.
That night, I meet my Miami pals at Three Jewels Rum Bar for a nightcap. The long bamboo bar has been transformed into a stage for karaoke. I can’t carry a tune—Miss Casio at Buckley School told me to “just lip sync” during Christmas carols in 2nd
grade, ruining my chance as a singer slash songwriter. A guy who looks like he should be reporting the weather on TV with perfect hair and pearly teeth sings, Unbreak My Heart by Toni Braxton with more flair than actual musical talent. A couple attempts Shallow but Lady Gaga they are not, and it fizzes, fast. The rambunctious crowd of around 40 party people is forgiving. A woman with a long braid in a red flowered sundress grabs the mic and belts out Jimmy Buffett’s Volcano—perhaps an ode to the temperamental La Soufrière. Her beautiful voice sounds suspiciously professional, and we decide she might work at Sandals. Either way, I tell myself that singing to the volcano will keep it sleeping all night.
Saint Vincent is truly paradise, which is becoming increasingly rare on Planet Earth. Mr. Sandals himself, Adam Stewart, is smart to open here. For now, Sandals is the only resort in town. My advice: go now before the island’s charming capital Kingston, is overrun by tourists.
BASIL’S OR BUST
Scenes from Mustique’s famous Basil’s Bar.
Tom Wolfe and the Art of the Society Takedown
Tom Wolfe, New York’s most gleefully bitchy social observer, would have been too good for us today, opines JANET MERCEL. But oh, how he would have reveled in our arenas of social media and news ticker tape—click click—a relentless spectacle lifted straight from one of his onomatopoeia-stuffed novels.
At points in his career, Tom Wolfe was regarded as the most famous writer in the country—which is no easy feat for a golden moment in American literature. Annoying people was often reason enough for him to do anything, and he cheerfully counted among his legendary squabbles and enemies The New Yorker, J.D. Salinger, John Updike, and John Irving—literary contemporaries who spent their airtime either lamenting how much time they wasted thinking about Wolfe, or making sure the American public knew he was on the wrong side of entertainment versus literature. When they sniped that his main talent was “kitsch,” he pointed out that what really made them grumpy was that he’d sold too many books.
“You’re nobody until somebody hates you,” Wolfe liked to say. “With a pen, he was a terrorist,” his old friend, Gay Talese, tells Avenue. “He could cut a man in pieces with a single sentence,”
“‘YOU’RE NOBODY UNTIL SOMEBODY HATES YOU,’ WOLFE LIKED TO SAY.”
WOLFE IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING Portrait of Tom Wolfe (1990) by Yousuf Karsh.
“A LIFELONG PREOCCUPATION WITH THE ‘STATUSPHERE’ WAS CEMENTED BY WOLFE’S BELIEF THAT JOCKEYING FOR SOCIAL POSITION IS A STRUGGLE THAT CEASES ONLY WHEN YOU’RE DEAD.”
another critic described. But for someone who spent five years at Yale getting his PhD, he still— or maybe because of it—ended up with a chip on his shoulder the size of a construction site. For Wolfe, the Marx-ism, “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member,” was less a joke than a guiding principle. Despite his insistence, he spent an awful lot of time convincing himself and everyone else that he wasn’t a hick.
A lifelong preoccupation with the “statusphere” was cemented by Wolfe’s belief that jockeying for social position is a struggle that ceases only when you’re dead—not in solitude, not even in the privacy of the toilet. At least when faced with death, particularly sudden, violent death, he was confident that you don’t think about where you come from or “what restaurants
will give you a good seat.”
His own perceived accident of birth (quantified only by being born south of the Mason-Dixon line) ensured that with each soaring success, he made sure to bring himself safely back to Earth. Not for him an anonymous account—ahem, column — that trolls the chic intelligentsia or fashionable philistines. He put it all out there and proudly attached his name, taking the piss out of decorators, politicians, captains of industry, philanthropists, and corporate magnates, taxi drivers, mindless teenagers—mindless anything —and people who put too high a value on interiors and landscape gardening. And if anyone made the mistake of putting too high a value on, God forbid, themselves, Wolfe was there to remind them. His books and papers covered more ground
than a rambunctious kudzu, and he loved to hate it all. The lowbrow: NASCAR, strip clubs, ambitious district attorneys, Hugh Hefner’s bedroom (with Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare— “If you don’t swing, don’t ring,” carved on the door). And the high—art collectors, starchitects, Leonard Bernstein. His life’s work was maintaining the difference between journalism and PR, blowing the boring, whitewashed astronauts of Apollo 17 out of the water by exposing their secret lives of sex and boozing—and therefore getting himself kicked out of NASA. He used the ground rules of spelling and typography as mere suggestions when portraying the human condition. And name another author who could use an epic battle with a dachshund while escaping to visit your mistress in the rain (The Bonfire of the Vanities) as a tool to convey the Odyssey-level struggle that captures the anxiety and absurdity of being alive (on Park Avenue).
Wolfe despised both the avant-garde and the bourgeois, but perhaps most of all, those who used other people to feel more alive, more real— or worst of all, hip. In Wolfe’s eagle eyes, nostalgie de la boue was the eighth deadly sin, an indulgence for which one should be prepared to repent—just ask the Roquefort cheese-eating guests of “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s.” He was never even invited to that party, after all, but pilfered the RSVP phone number offthe desk of his wife’s colleague at her office. From there, he continued breaking the rules, torching both the Bernsteins’ well-meaning liberal overtures, and their streetcred-seeking cultural flirtation with the Black Panther Party in New York Magazine. The Panthers may not have cared all that much about the attention, but the former camp and their set never forgave Wolfe for the indiscretion.
BOMBSHELL BOOK
Wolfe’s
New York portraits in The Pump House Gang like “Bob and Spike,” about husband-and-wife pop art patrons who use collection as the most direct means of social entrée, is so painfully on the nose it could have been written yesterday, with only small shifts in the who, what, and wheres from 1968. I’d give a lot to see the same guy who mocked the unfortunate eyeliner of pineapple blonde socialites, and the “raggy little puberteens in white Courrèges boots,” turn his attention to Dimes Square and “Get Ready With Me” videos. (Though, frankly, from the vantage point of a contemporarily keen pre-1990 Wolfe, not the somewhat bewildered Wolfe of 2012.)
So how did he survive and thrive while pulling out the innards of everyone he knew, while Truman Capote’s life unraveled after one little story at La Côte Basque? Why didn’t the haute monde come after him with torches? Well, they did—but Wolfe was never sorry, and never stopped, and after a while, it was just easier for everyone to pretend they were in on the joke…even if every hostess of note from here to Santa Monica was quaking in her boots at the mention of his name.
fist novel about society, class, race, and greed in 1980s NYC was compared to Edith Wharton.
JEFF KLEIN
JEFF KLEIN has ruled the social scene in Los Angeles—with Tower Bar and two locations of his sexy member’s club San Vicente Bungalows—for years. PETER DAVIS speaks to the charismatic hotelier, who has taken over The Jane Hotel and created the city’s most lusted-after membership at SVB New York.
Everyone in New York wants to join San Vicente Bungalows!
We’re seeing that with applications. There’s a lot of interesting people. We definiely have the rich bankers applying. But also, a lot of colorful people doing interesting things with their lives. We want media people, fashion people. We’re set with Hollywood.
New York is thrilled you are here.
I’m a New Yorker, born and raised. I always knew L.A. would be a chapter in my life, not
my whole life. I waited for the right project in New York. And this is everything: the location, the history of the building, built in 1908, the architecture. These projects are like children. You need to spend a lot of time and attention in the beginning, then you let them become their own thing. I still love Los Angeles, but they’re very different lives. In L.A., the weather is always nice, and you drive everywhere. I hate driving. I can’t get into car culture. I either take an Uber or my husband drives. At this moment, New York is more thrilling to be a part of.
The famous Sunset Tower maître d’ Dimitri is in New York too.
Tom Ford introduced me to Dimitri 20 years ago. And he was so right about it. I’m really like a movie producer or director. But it’s every single minute of your life. You can’t call cut. I’m always thinking: what will be exciting for my customers?
The disco at SVB is so chic and just what New York needs.
The designer Rose Uniacke had never designed a disco. I said I want it to feel like a place Madonna would’ve gone to in the Eighties. She got an artist from London, and he did this whole Jackson Pollock thing to the walls. He splattered different colors of pink, blue and yellow paint. It feels like you’re inside a Pollock. It’s so cool.
The SVB stickers guests are required to put over their iPhone cameras are now legendary. I’ve seen them stuck on laptops in London!
Each one has its own color. The stickers in West Hollywood are green. Santa Monica is blue. And New York is maroon. I was in Italy, sitting next to this couple, and they had the stickers on their phones. It was the funniest thing. Of course, I didn’t say anything. I got such a kick out of it.
I’ll take a picture of anything, but the strict no-photo policy is so smart.
One of the things that I offer is privacy. And it’s really the ultimate luxury today. You can have your own plane, your own boat, your own chef. It doesn’t matter. No one gets privacy. I wanted to create a space that enforced that. You don’t have to be a celebrity to appreciate that. You can’t take photos, period. We suspend people. We kick people out. If you talk about what you see there, you get kicked out.
