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Vampires and Nostradamus are in vogue this year. Is this a sign of the end of days and our longing for eternal life or a reflection on the recent hard economic times? In any case, NYC is a perfect place for the un-dead as we await the apocalypse! Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx and Green-wood in Brooklyn are two beautiful resting places to rival Pere Lachaise in Paris for celebrity haunts. These were in a sense, our first urban landscaped parks where the Victorians would picnic on a Sunday and stroll the lanes admiring the tombstones and visiting the dearly departed. The rich and famous are all buried there in stunning mausoleums complete with Tiffany glass windows (Louis Comfort is in Woodlawn). You are all invited to visit Gary and my final resting place in the Columbarium at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine up in Morningside Heights. We are in compartment # D51. We will let you know when visiting hours start (in a few years!).
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The Pierre, the iconic flagship of Taj Hotels on New York’s Fifth Avenue
overlooking Central Park, came back to life on June 1, 2009 following a
meticulous $100 million renovation to create new guestroom and bath
interiors and reconfigure first floor public areas to accommodate a new
restaurant and lobby lounge. It shed its matronly cocoon and turned
into a modern elegant establishment. The ballroom, which was renovated in
2007, is always the scene for upscale society cotillions, Bar Mitzvahs,
weddings and political fund raisers. The tower rooms offer splendid views
of midtown but if you look up to the very top of the hotel, what are
those funerary urns doing up there?
Hotel Openings:
Trump
Soho
W
Downtown
Hotel Closings:
Milford Plaza (for renovations)
Hotel
QT reborn as Room Mate Grace
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One of the highlights on our Harlem Tour is the historic Morris-Jumel Mansion up on 160th Street. Built in 1765 as a summer home for British Colonel Roger Morris and his wife, the Morris-Jumel Mansion is the oldest remaining house in Manhattan. Several ghosts are reputed to haunt the mansion: Eliza Jumel, former mistress of the mansion, has been seen wandering the house in a purple dress, rapping on walls and windows; the ghost of a young servant girl who committed suicide by jumping out a window has been seen in the mansion's servants quarters; and a soldier from the American Revolution, who's picture hangs on a wall in the mansion, has also been seen.
Venue Openings:
American
Wing at the Metropolitan Museum
Carnival
at Bowlmor Lanes
Venue Closings:
Tavern on the Green
The
Rainbow Room
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The apostle St. John was the author of Revelations, the psychedelic book on the cataclysmic end of the world. After a disastrous fire in the nave, in 2001, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine has risen like a phoenix from the ashes on Morningside Heights. Besides being my future home, it is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. The beautiful stain glass windows feature American secular saints including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. This still unfinished cathedral is a stunning setting for a gala dinner with full seating for up to 2,000 guests. On October 31st, the annual Halloween Extravaganza and Procession of the Ghouls will wind its way down the long apse. It will be a “Chiller” evening as the huge newly restored organ accompanies a screening of the silent film classic, The Phantom of the Opera starring the “man of a thousand faces”, Lon Chaney.
Restaurant Openings:
Aureole
Oceana
Daniel's
Restaurant Closings:
Chanterelle
Café des Artistes
John
Dory
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The Phantom lives on! Love Never Dies is a musical with a book and lyrics by Glenn Slater and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. A sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, it will be directed by Jack O'Brien and is scheduled to open at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End on 9 March 2010, on Broadway on 11 November 2010, and in Australia in 2011. It will be the first time a musical sequel is staged in the West End. The musical is set a decade after the end of Phantom. Christine is invited to perform at Phantasma, a new attraction in Coney Island, by an anonymous impresario. With her husband Raoul and son Gustave in town, they journey to Brooklyn, unaware it is the Phantom who has arranged her appearance in the popular beach resort. Another ghoulish delight opening this spring is the new musical adaption of The Addams Family starring Nathan Lane as Gomez and Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia.
Broadway Openings:
Royal
Family
Finian's
Rainbow
Bye
Bye Birdie
Broadway Closings:
Avenue Q (resurrected Off Broadway)
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