New York Footnotes

Epstein stalkings, Sidewalk Judging, Clinton Rants & Court Dates

New York is many things, dull is never one of them.

The weather, especially in summer, is moody and theatrical, prone to lightning storms that erupt out of nowhere without any warning and shock my hair into a frizzed style statement I never mean to make. The only option is to embrace it. New York, after all, loves wild-haired women.

As for wardrobe, I'm an awful packer so I suffer the consequences whenever I travel.  I have little hope that will ever change. I’ve accepted that I will always be a last-minute suitcase stuffer because I can't ever seem to talk myself into carving out time to prepare my selections in advance, like a respected adult. Like all you clear-headed, overly organized, well-rested A-types. And Joan Didion. 

God bless.

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“Quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean “love” in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again.” - J. Didion

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Caron Callahan Mary Janes

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What I do get right, is mingling work with pleasure, keeping a healthy balance to accommodate brownstone stalkings, court day hearings, podcast recordings, hotel happy hours, and lingering dinner dates with my East Coast favorites. Productivity mixed with sidewalk adventures and mid-day spritzers. But of course, I still get distracted. Like when someone mentions Jeffery Epstein’s closed smile is because of frightful teeth - that I google immediately, in the middle of answering emails, only to lose my focus entirely. This is not to suggest anyone here should do the same.

• But on the topic, we recorded - what I think - is a unique conversation with Lauren Siegal regarding her thoughts on Ghislaine Maxwell, told from a Jewish woman’s perspective. Which I’ll be sharing soon.

• We met up with Todd, my beloved college friend who married us and is a new NYC resident as of three weeks ago.

• Strolled by Joan Didion’s old apartment, which looked dismal until the doors swung open and a long grand entryway was revealed. I breathed a sigh of relief.

• Hosted a quaint (ill-planned) cocktail party on the terrace one night, watching famous folk shuffle in and out of the hotel while sipping Palomas and discussing our horoscopes.

• And on my last afternoon, I posted the photos of Gia’s shredded dress paired with Amber’s text admission of the violent incident, where, for a few fleeting hours on Twitter, her army put down their swords.

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The crew scrolls in unity

The MM tell all I can’t put down

The personalized planner you asked about

Guilty pleasures and rotating ray bans

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This time around we stayed two nights at Jess's tiny loft, a shoebox apt in a great neighborhood, working full days before heading out for dinner in the evenings. Then we made our way to the darkly lit, handsome Bowery Hotel which was a first for us both. The view from the 8th floor framed a scene filled with skyscrapers dusted by heavy storm clouds and an endless scattering of twinkling city lights.

From this viewpoint, everything looked purposeful and alive in a sweeping, cinematic sort of way. 

The bedside tables were missing a bible though. Noteworthy only because it was the first thing Bri noticed when we settled into our room. "There are no bibles at the Bowery," should be your title," she said, wrapped in a plush white robe with hair bigger than mine. 

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What makes up for the fact that the hotel doesn't provide you with any facewash (more criminal than the missing bible, if you ask me) is the tiny tray of cookies they deliver in the evening without any request. A quaint touch that makes you feel like a well-behaved child being rewarded with sweets before bed. The pink-trimmed duvet covers are cute, but the teddy bear in the middle of the bed is … a bit odd. Jess felt inclined to cover him up every night with a blanket on a chair across from us because it felt weirdly cruel to leave him alone and untucked, staring back at us.

But I don't want to coddle a stuffed animal in a fancy hotel room. Give me facewash. Spare me what I imagine to be a semen-stained bear in a top hat.

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On the third day, we swung by Epstein's house to scope out ongoing construction intended to physically and spiritually cleanse the property. I pictured carpet-sized bundles of sage rolled out on the sidewalk, but that wasn't the case. And the giant fans Bri spotted last month, pushing seedy airflow outward, all replaced by plywood boarding hung over the windows. 

The mystery buyer is Michael D. Daffey, a former Goldman Sachs executive who snagged it for 51 million (a quick cash buy.) He and his wife, who have still never seen the place in person, are moving to New York from London with plans of making this 40-room property on 71st st their primary residence. 

Can you even imagine?

Daffey called the purchase price a "steal" considering it was listed at 88 million. 

“Mr. Daffey had never previously been in the home nor ever met its owner, but he is a big believer in New York’s future and will take the other side of all the people who say the city’s best days may be in the past,” said Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Daffey.

Top brokers tell The Post the price is a steal, considering that any similar Manhattan property that did not have a connection to one of America’s most twisted sex criminals could have easily fetched $100 million. 

“I think it is half off,” said top broker Dolly Lenz, who had been among those trying to sell the property. “It is 28,000 square feet. That’s less than $4,000 a foot for the most magnificent mansion on the best block, just off Fifth Avenue. It’s the very best in New York.”

“We offered it to a lot of people who said, ‘We don’t want to go near that place,'” Lenz said. “Fancy international people who are always in for a deal said, ‘No way.'” 

- Via the New York Post

Bri and I, determined to catch a peak inside, made friends with the construction worker standing outside, guarding the entrance with two sculpted angels on either side of the bearded devil above him, in a wife beater smoking a cigarette.

He gave us the low down; about the entire house being gutted months ago and all of the marble gone, with plans for a modern revamp to replace Epstein's (Ghislaine's) lavish antiqued preferences. Their motto seemed to be, “The more marble, the better.”  

All profit from the sale is going to the victim's fund. Art and most of the furniture went to a hushed auction. But the mural, the whole length of the back terrace, of a prison scene, is still there.

“R. Couri Hay, a publicist who visited Epstein at the house after his arrest, said “he has a mural on the terrace, the whole length of the building, of a prison yard with barbed wire and guard towers. The inmates are out exercising, and he pointed to one and said, ‘That’s me. That’s to remind myself that I could go back there.”

Across the street, in two touching Brownstones, Bill Cosby lives beside the Princess of Greece.

“Who is she?" I asked the worker, "Does she look like a princess?"

"She acts like one." He scoffed. 

He said he stands outside to guard the site when people (like us) are loitering. Because of all of the "crazy shit" that goes down. “People shit on the sidewalk or spray paint words like 'Evil' across the door," he said. Explaining that the massive wooden doors are being refinished after someone "hacked them all to shit."

When we questioned him in detail about the layout, he smirked, "no tunnels, I checked." 

From Epstein’s, we timed the walk to Maxwell's old townhouse that Epstein purchased for her in the late 90s. A ten-minute jaunt (tops) because convenience was key. All of his "lieutenants" lived a short distance from his place. 

The entrance to the second door of the townhouse was open, so I walked inside to peak at a bare, bright first floor with a spiral staircase and stacked balconies on each level outside. Maxwell sold the property in 2016, likely anticipating impending legal fees.

The next day, Bri would revisit Epstein's house on her own, handing the same worker a cigarette hallowed out with rolled-up cash and my contact information inside. A slick (last-ditch) effort to snag a few photos of the inside (in the state it currently stands) because, why not?

"Don't smoke it," she said, as she handed it over. 

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We tried

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The court day was tragic, listening to heartbreaking stories about unjust guardianships draining people of their life savings while severing family members from loved ones. The gross levels of corruption aid these imprisonments and protect the tactics used to prey on the elderly. A bind that is nearly impossible to interfere with once guardianship is secured under these laws.

The speakers, all demanded a push for more transparency.

I went specifically to get better acquainted with the Peter Max story, a lawsuit fought by his daughter Libra, but each story presented proved equally jarring.

“According to court documents, Libra Max says Lissner’s guardianship is “inhumane and predatory” and has caused her father “crippling emotional trauma” due to “isolation” and “medical neglect”. The complaint goes on to accuse Lissner of being a financial predator, billing Max’s estate $2m at a rate of $550 per hour and causing Libra “severe emotional distress” by refusing to allow her to take her father to a pulmonologist for his respiratory problems. “He is now on 24/7 oxygen, can barely talk, and can no longer walk,” the complaint reads. “Peter Max is at the end of his life.”

More details on this, are to follow.

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In other highlights, I unleashed a short rant about Chelsea Clinton proudly announcing how she removed Kanye's music from her playlists because of how he speaks about women. Did she not consider how hypocritical this sounds, coming from her?

I did.

The rant made a lot of people mad, and a bunch of other people really happy. As the internet can do. But honestly, who needs a lecture about the treatment of women from a Clinton right now? Read the room, Chelsea. Pick another subject. Wrangle another cause. Especially when these little blubs are meant to stir up headlines to sell a show about you and your mother - who gaslit every victim that ever came forward with claims of sexual misconduct by your father. I would have said the same thing about Ivanka. 

Kanye is the least of any politician's (or politician’s daughter’s) problems.

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Notable spottings at or near the Bowery Hotel:

Tom Sachs at a table with friends

Bozoma Saint John

Keane Thompson relaxing on the couch w two other guys

Chris Rock walking by us, dressed in all white 

Bo Burnham seated with another comedian whose name I can’t remember