Tom Wolfe | The New York Observer

Wolfe Grins? Rosen Gets 980 Madison O.K.--for Stumpier Tower

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:54:48 -0400

It’s been a long three years for Aby Rosen.

The landlord and art collector has tried for that long to get approval for an apartment tower at Madison Avenue and 77th Street designed by British starchitect Norman Foster. He’s gone to hearing after hearing at the Landmarks Preservation Commission, repeatedly rebuffed with instructions to cut the building down and make it more harmonious with the historic Upper East Side that surrounds it.

Why Did Janklow Prince Eric Simonoff Defect to William Morris?

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:35:06 -0400

“Mort and I are far from retiring,” Lynn Nesbit said on Friday afternoon. “It isn’t a question on the table at the moment. It really isn’t.”

The night before, one of the stars at the boutique literary agency Ms. Nesbit runs with Mort Janklow abruptly announced that he was leaving for a job at the global, multiplatform talent agency William Morris. Eric Simonoff, who represents Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri and others, had...

The New Math of the Male Mind: One, Zero

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:53:15 -0500

One sunny afternoon a few summers back, some dudes gathered at Guy Mellitz’ studio apartment on 21st Street and Third Avenue to bro-out.

There was Ted, an aspiring James Taylor type; Jason, an aspiring TV editor, who occasionally played fiddle to Ted’s guitar; Subieta, a friend of Jason’s from his hometown of Iowa City; and Mr. Mellitz, a film editor by training who plays lots of video games....

At Big Rock Photographer Party, Tom Wolfe Channels Thorstein Veblen in Discourse on Hip-Hop

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:14:57 -0500

"Hey! There's Tom Wolfe," said the photographer Mark Seliger at the Ralph Lauren store in Soho last night where he was celebrating his latest book of photographs, The Music Book.(Mr. Seliger's built a noteworthy career as the staff photographer for Rolling Stone from 1992 to 2002, a tenure during which most of the photographs in the book were taken.)

Mr. Seliger, looking like a rock celebrity himself in dark jeans, motorcycle boots, and a...

Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss 'Will Spark the Second American Civil War. Blood Will Run in the Streets'

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:04:46 -0400

It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious.

A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo...

Landmarks May Vote on 980 Madison Next Week

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:27:53 -0400

The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission may vote on developer Aby Rosen's proposed Norman Foster-designed commercial tower at 980 Madison Avenue at its meeting next week, according to a Landmarks spokeswoman. Such a move would bring to an end a more than two-year debate over a planned tower at the site, which has sparked a firestorm of criticism in the Upper East Side from nearby residents and author Tom Wolfe (see our Q&A with Mr....

Tina Brown Catches Zeitgeist By Optioning Bush's Favorite Book From Four Years Ago for HBO

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:09:37 -0400

In May, The Observer's Felix Gillette looked at HBO's hiring of former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown and The New York Times' Frank Rich as "creative consultants."

At the time, he wrote:

Ms. Brown said that since January, she’s pitched two projects—an idea for a series and an idea for a movie—that the HBO executives liked and are in the process of 'taking a little further.'... 'If I collide with...

Writers, Editors, Friends Gather to Bid Farewell to Clay Felker

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:22:05 -0400

“He’s a one-off persona,” Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman told the Transom after Clay Felker’s memorial at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on Monday, Sept. 22. Mr. Zuckerman was hoofing it up four flights of stairs to a more intimate celebration for Mr. Felker on the fourth floor. “He’s the only person I would’ve walked up four flights for,” said Mr. Zuckerman, catching his breath.

Sir David...

Tom Wolfe Isn’t Worried

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:12:25 -0400

Location: In 2006, you went after the developer Aby Rosen’s plans for a glass tower at 980 Madison in The Times, writing that the Landmarks Preservation Commission would let him build whatever he wanted. They’ve since made him and his partners redraft and scale back plans. Are you glad you won?

Mr. Wolfe: Well, that’s not over yet. They did try again, with what was in effect a plan...

Clay Felker: Made New York Into A Magazine

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:25:14 -0400

After Clay Felker passed away Tuesday morning in Manhattan, The Observer spoke to some who knew him well.

Robert Benton

The first time I ever screamed “fuck” in front of a room full of women was when I got mad at Clay at the Esquire offices. We were having this argument that went up and down the hall and I reached my wits end; I just said,...

When Tom Wolfe Talks, People Listen

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:35:31 -0400

Two things we learned from reading Andrew Ross Sorkin's Dealbook column in today's New York Times: 1. Tom Wolfe rides the Hampton Jitney; and 2. He thinks Sherman McCoy, the protagonist of his 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities would be sunk in the current economic climate. (Join the club, Sherman!)

As Mr. Wolfe tells Mr. Sorkin: "He would be eating his heart out wanting to run a hedge fund, but...

Tom Wolfe Responds to Aby Rosen's Anti-Semitic Charge

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:54:25 -0400

Tom Wolfe responded in this week's Observer to Aby Rosen's allegations of anti-Semitism in Mr. Wolfe's 2006 New York Times op-ed about Mr. Rosen's plans for 980 Madison.

Here was Mr. Rosen in The Observer last week:

I like productive criticism; I try to criticize things all the time, not because I’m so important. … I want equal criticism; it’s just the way you deliver it. It had a nasty undertone that I...

Morning Memo: Cindy McCain Metes Out Swift Justice; Death Comes to Sex and the City

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:15:44 -0400

A spokesperson for the McCains said that the intern that was supposedly responsible for recipes lifted off of the Food Network site, has been "dealt with swiftly," which we find scary. [AP]

And now Cindy McCain will co-host The View next week to say that she had no idea the recipes were plagiarized and laugh about the whole thing so that America's housewives can forgive her. Perhaps Bill Clinton will undermine her by saying...

Our Critic's Tip Sheet on Current Reading: Tom Wolfe's Steamy New York; The Nation's Gastric Obsessions

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:51:07 -0500

Let’s give a warm New York welcome to the 10th anniversary edition of Phillip Lopate’s essential Writing New York: A Literary Anthology (Library of America, $19.95), now in paperback and expanded to include material from the past decade.

We’ve seen many changes since 1998. The twin towers are gone. Rudy, too. The Yankees have quit winning the World Series. The rich got richer, again. Mr. Lopate detects a vein...

Tom Wolfe On His New Book and His Decision to Leave FSG

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:02:12 -0500

As reported earlier, Tom Wolfe is working on a new novel set in Miami called Back to Blood, which will be published in 2009 by Little, Brown.

According to a press release, the book would deal with "class, family, wealth, race, crime, sex, corruption, and ambition." The overriding theme, though, based on an interview with Mr. Wolfe, will be Miami's immigrant population, which he said includes Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, and...

Tom Wolfe Leaves FSG After 42 Years, Will Publish New Novel With Little, Brown

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:22:58 -0500

Tom Wolfe, who has published all thirteen of his books since 1965 with Farrar, Straus & Giroux, is taking his business to Little, Brown for his upcoming novel, Back to Blood.

Why did Mr. Wolfe leave his home? According to FSG editor-in-chief Jonathan Galassi, it was a question only of money.

"We just couldn't agree on the price for the project. That was the only thing," Mr. Galassi said. "We love Tom. He's a...

Help! My Project Is Failing!

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 08:25:26 -0500

Would Ken Fisher, the former City Councilman-turned-blogger, be able to help a developer get a real-estate project through a gridlocked bureaucracy? City Hall, the monthly published by the folks who bring you Our Town and The West Side Spirit, at one time thought so. And maybe he could. But more so than a Sandy Lindenbaum or Ross Moskowitz? The 10-month-old newspaper is about to come out with "The Land Use Power List: 10 People Who...

The Sheriff of Landmarks

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 19:00:00 -0500

LOCATION: The controversy over 980 Madison Avenue has yet to be resolved, but the Landmarks Preservation Commission made it clear in late January that developer Aby Rosen will have to change the scope of his planned 30-story condo tower atop the historic building. What has been the commission’s thinking on 980 Madison? TIERNEY: It’s the process that we go through on any major proposed change in the historic district, whether it be a proposed...

The Afternoon Wrap: Friday

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 12:39:55 -0500

One can tell critic Martin Fuller doesn't like Tom Wolfe by modest statements like: "From Bauhaus to Our House [is] perhaps the most ill-informed book ever written about architecture." [House + Garden] If you fit into the "bonus buyers and moneyed type" category, DUMBO is surely a perfect fit. And a chilly February weekend is surely the perfect time to see the open house of those "once-decrepit warehouses turned luxury lofts." [NY Mag] The Mayor has...

Why Wolfe Goes After the Landmarks Commission--A Theory

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 06:55:21 -0500

Is author, sartorial superman, and sometime journalist Tom Wolfe milking the Landmarks Preservation Commission for publicity? Some think so, according to the Village Voice. Mr. Wolfe, an Upper East Sider through and through, has made a hobby of late lampooning and lambasting the commission, dubbing it ineffectual and a pawn of powerful mayors. But his opinions might be planted on shaky statistical ground. - Tom...

Preservationists Cry Wolfe; We've Got Their Numbers

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 19:00:00 -0500

“ … The Landmarks Preservation Commission has been de facto defunct for going on 20 years,” he wrote in The New York Times. “Today...

Preservationists Cry Wolfe; We’ve Got Their Numbers

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 19:00:00 -0500

On the sleepy last Sunday in November, Tom Wolfe flipped a middle finger at the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. The writer, still angry about the commission’s decision last year not to landmark 2 Columbus Circle, essentially called the commission pawns of the developer class in the city’s booming real-estate market. “ … The Landmarks Preservation Commission has been de facto defunct for going on 20 years,” he wrote in The New York Times. “Today...

The Round-Up: Wednesday

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 02:26:07 -0500

Manhattan Mall, air rights selling for $689 million. [Crain's] Thor buys Coney Island's Astroland Amusement Park. [AMNY] Stroll through the Modern's newest expansion. [NY Times] Hotels whip in-house gyms into shape. [NY Times] Spiff up the lobby, attract new office tenants. [NY Times] Why Reckson-SL Green merger no longer a sure thing. [NY Times] Mack-Cali joins Icahn-Macklowe bid for Reckson. [WSJ] Two Herald Square on the market for $500 million. [NY Post] Commercial hub coming to downtown Jamaica. [Daily News] Construction vacating fewer...

Aby Loves Tom - Not!

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 12:42:19 -0500

Wolfe "works with the insult factor." In a conversation on Tuesday with The Real Estate, the developer Aby Rosen did his best to besmirch the knight in a white suit who tried to rescue 980 Madison in the Times this weekend: Tom Wolfe loves to rant and he's been ranting against the city and the Landmarks [Preservation] Commission and the commissioners left and right. I think the commissioners are doing a fantastic job. They do...

Obsessed Scientist Finally Throttles 'Em! Non-Paternity Potion

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Dr. Chuen-yan Cheng, senior scientist at the New York headquarters of the Population Council, and inventor of a drug that could spark the next, long-awaited phase of the sexual revolution—or, conversely, an age of mass male panic attacks—sat in his tiny lab overlooking the East River, beaming like a new dad.

“You can say I’m obsessed; I think about it all the time,” he said of his new discovery, laughing. The 52-year-old Dr....

Obsessed Scientist Finally Throttles ’Em! Non-Paternity Potion

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Neighborhood White Boy Stalks Billion-Footed Beast

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Who is Eddie Hayes?

If you have to ask, he hasn’t done his job. Mouthpiece, the title of his lively, entertaining and utterly unapologetic autobiography, makes him sound like a flak, but he’s actually a lawyer—a “big-city lawyer,” he likes to say—with a colorful history of high-profile clients who come to him because, as he repeatedly insists, he gets things done: “You have a problem, you call me, I’m there.” Hotheaded,...

Neighborhood White Boy Stalks Billion-Footed Beast

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Who is Eddie Hayes? If you have to ask, he hasn’t done his job. Mouthpiece, the title of his lively, entertaining and utterly unapologetic autobiography, makes him sound like a flak, but he’s actually a lawyer—a “big-city lawyer,” he likes to say—with a colorful history of high-profile clients who come to him because, as he repeatedly insists, he gets things done: “You have a problem, you call me, I’m there.” Hotheaded, tenacious and...

Rambunctious Heyday of Gonzo, When Journalism Aspired to Art

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

I was a high-school and then a college student when the startling literary boom dubbed “The New Journalism” happened in the late 60’s and early 70’s. To me, it might as well have been happening on a distant, colorful planet. I was a teenager stalking the paltry magazine racks of the small drugstores of my Maryland suburb—this was long before the advent of big bookstore chains—waiting to pounce on each new issue of...

Rambunctious Heyday of Gonzo, When Journalism Aspired to Art

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Lynn Nesbit

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

“Obviously, the National Book Award was very gratifying,” Lynn Nesbit said, “but can it possibly make up for the loss?”

The literary agent was reflecting on her client Joan Didion’s memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. It was, she said, a difficult subject to address. Ms. Nesbit, 67, has had more than an agent-writer connection to Ms. Didion and her award-winning meditation on death and its effects—she is entwined with the book’s...

Lynn Nesbit

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

“Obviously, the National Book Award was very gratifying,” Lynn Nesbit said, “but can it possibly make up for the loss?” The literary agent was reflecting on her client Joan Didion’s memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. It was, she said, a difficult subject to address. Ms. Nesbit, 67, has had more than an agent-writer connection to Ms. Didion and her award-winning meditation on death and its effects—she is entwined with the book’s narrative. Ms....

Brown Bag Protest

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 05:16:00 -0400

Tom Wolfe’s preservationist friends are taking their “Save 2 Columbus Circle” campaign to the street this Thursday. A lunchtime demonstration is planned to take place outside the Center for Architecture, at 536 LaGuardia Place. The Center for Architecture/AIA New York Chapter will be gathering for a private reception in support of the new Museum of Arts and Design. The protest begins at 11:45, and those who attend get fed. So, even if you have...

The State of the State of the Novel

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 04:40:00 -0400

Another decade, another lengthy Harper's state of the novel essay. In the October Harper's, Ben Marcus offers a lengthy state-of-the-novel essay, subtly titled Why Experimental Fiction Threatens to Destroy Publishing, Jonathan Franzen, and Life as We Know It: A Correction, in which he spends 13 pages beating up Jonathan Franzen--snubber of Oprah and William Gaddis alike--and the middlebrow fiction establishment he represents. Marcus' essay follows Franzen's own Harper's state-of-the-novel essay, Perchance to Dream, from...

For The Love Of Ranch

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 06:58:00 -0400

Mo Rocca and Tom Wolfe enjoyed the flight they shared from SFO to JFK the other day. "Mo Rocca went out of his way to be a fawning little fan girl," says one of their co-travellers. Well, it's hard not to admire a man who travels in white. And? "Both inexplicably chose ranch dressing." Yes, yes, of course they...

People's Hearing

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 13:06:00 -0400

"Ladies and gentlemen of the commission, I hope somewhere, wherever you are, that your ears are itching to what has been said today," exclaimed white-clad author and 2 Columbus Circle enthusiast Tom Wolfe. Of course, the ladies and gentlemen of the Landmarks Preservation Commission were nowhere to be found. Yet, each commissioner's name was scrawled on eleven empty chairs at today's "People's Hearing" on the fate of architect Edward Durell Stone's iconic building. Several...

Wild West, Part II

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 09:57:00 -0400

Landmark West (which is hereby on notice that we're not using the exclamation point that is a part of their name! the people have spoken!) is holding a "people's hearing" this Thursday, starting at 1 p.m. at the General Society for Mechanics and Tradesmen Library (20 West 44th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues). The group has been taking the Landmarks Preservation Commission to task lately for the commission's refusal to schedule public hearings...

'Bye, Nan Kempner: Grand Socialite Loved City Game

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Grand Nan Kempner. Now there was a woman who knew how to live.

“Here, at last, was somebody who came right out and said, ‘I enjoy the good life because I enjoy the good life,' rather than having some more profound approach to the subject,” said Tom Wolfe.

Ms. Kempner died Sunday at the age of 74 after a life of glorious and conspicuous indulgence. She was a New York socialite, a muse to geniuses, a happy hostess on...

Today's Paper: We Knew Murray Hill Sounded Suspicious

Wed, 06 Jul 2005 13:17:00 -0400

The Transom has forgotten to direct your attention to items of interest in today's paper: Tom Wolfe, in remembering Nan Kempner in today's Transom, said: "She loved to say that she was the basis of my creature in The Bonfire of the Vanities known as the ‘social X-ray.' In fact, she wasn't. But she loved that so much that I was more than willing to cede it to her." This The Transom did not know. Following our...

You Know What? Tom Wolfe Book Is Lots Of Fun

Sun, 14 Nov 2004 19:00:00 -0500

I am Charlotte Simmons , by Tom Wolfe. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 676 pages, $28.95.

Michiko Kakutani carpet-bombed this novel nearly two weeks before it reached your neighborhood bookstore: "flat-footed," "tiresomely generic,""dated," "stale," "lackadaisical," "merely gross," "cheap, jerry-built," "messy and predictable," "disappointingly empty." The barrage was relentless and cruelly timed, calculated to cause maximum damage, to reduce the book to rubble before anyone else even had a chance to look at it. A sturdy, 676-page...

Reading Lips

Sun, 14 Nov 2004 19:00:00 -0500

Does New York need another library? The kids behind the Accompanied Library seem to think so. The Morgan, Society and Mercantile-not to mention the multiple branches of the NYPL-notwithstanding, Accompanied claims it is the city's first library "dedicated purely to literature." And some bigwigs in the book world, like The New Yorker's longtime poetry editor Alice Quinn, Bomb magazine editor and founder Betsy Sussler, novelist Jonathan Ames and notoriously skeptical Knopf editor Vicky Wilson...

Lit Crit as It Ought to Be: Open-Eyed, Recklessly Committed

Sun, 06 Jun 2004 20:00:00 -0400

The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel , by James Wood. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 312 pages, $24.

Here it comes: yet another love letter to James Wood. People (including me) have been saying for years that he's the most promising young critic around, but now that he's pushing 40, let's drop the qualifiers and say it loud and clear: He's the best. This transplanted Englishman is a blessing to the culture. Confirmation...

Breslin Bites Back

Sun, 18 Apr 2004 20:00:00 -0400

It was only a small headline, buried deep in the Metro section of The New York Times on April 8-"Minister Says Breslin Falsified Interview About Homosexuals"-but as a sign of the newest chapter in the history of American journalism, it might as well have been a front-page splash.

The minister was the Reverend Louis Sheldon of the conservative Traditional Values Coalition, who claims that he never met legendary columnist Jimmy Breslin or told him that...

Dining Out with Moira Hodgson

Sun, 21 Mar 2004 19:00:00 -0500

Can Venerable Trattoria

Claim Title as the City's Best? When a friend of mine recently told me that he thought Sistina was the best Italian restaurant in New York, I was surprised. It had been years since I'd been to this chic little trattoria on the Upper East Side. What about L'Impero, Cesca or Babbo? "They're not Italian," he replied. "The chefs are American-Cesca is as Italian as you are. Sistina is the real thing." ...

More of the Right Stuff

Sun, 09 Feb 2003 19:00:00 -0500

On the morning of Saturday, Feb. 1, Tom Wolfe got a phone call from NBC's Today show. "I had just gotten up," he said. "They said, 'Can you come on and talk about the shuttle?'" He was confused. "At first, I thought they were talking about the shuttle between Washington and Boston. I had no idea."

Soon, it became all too clear: The space shuttle Columbia , with its seven astronauts, had burned up re-entering...

Oh, the Fools I've Suffered! Still, I Love Men

Sun, 23 Jun 2002 20:00:00 -0400

Shortly after I separated from my husband six years ago, I was inducted into the Unofficial Man Hater's Club. A group of several divorced women I knew got together once a month to have dinner, drink wine and bash men. "Men suck," they would tell me. "They all think with their"-well, you know. "I love men," I would protest repeatedly. They soon banished me from their club, but assured me that I would be...

For a Merry Prankster, A Day-Glo-Free Funeral

Sun, 31 Mar 2002 19:00:00 -0500

It was a fitting night for a Prankster's wake. Halloween jack-o'-lanterns glowed in the windows of farmhouses draped with American flags; plastic tombstones leered up from the dark lawns. Exactly the way Ken Kesey-if not my Uncle Sandy-would have staged it.

As the mourners poured into the Stewart Murphy Funeral Home in the quiet upstate New York town where Sandy spent his last years, I felt as if we were burying not only my uncle,...

Smart, Decent Mayor Elected! (Okay, So It's a Comic Novel)

Sun, 06 May 2001 20:00:00 -0400

Dog Bites Man: City Shocked! , by James Duffy. Simon and Schuster, 302 pages, $24.

There will be only three New York City newspapers that matter a couple of years from now, according to James Duffy's entertaining comic novel about the downfall of our next Mayor. One is The Times , thank goodness, which will remain "restrained and fair." The second will be called The Post-News –a merger of the two tabloids. That name is...

Scourge of the Tiny Mummies Embalmed in His White Suit

Sun, 29 Oct 2000 19:00:00 -0500

Hooking Up, by Tom Wolfe. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 293 pages, $25.

With Tom Wolfe it mostly goes like this: The better he is, the more powerful his pyrotechnic prose, the more you hate him–the more you hate his hard-nosed politics, his fancy personal style, his magnificently self-assured talent. Ever notice how nobody cares anymore about Wolfe the art critic? He can diss modern painting and modern architecture till the starched collar on his white...

Going Bust: Dot-Coms Break Out the Coffins

Sun, 15 Oct 2000 20:00:00 -0400

There may not be much new material in Tom Wolfe's latest collection, Hooking Up , perhaps accounting for why the only type on the book cover is the author's name (bright red over a canary-yellow background, with a string of interlocking rings running vertically across). The title piece, an essay on life at the millennium, is just 10 pages. A republished novella, Ambush at Fort Bragg , originally appearing in Rolling Stone in 1996,...