November 19, 1999
My ears popped twice as I rode the elevator up 30 floors to the 5th Avenue penthouse overlooking Central Park. With me were the beautiful, young Manhattan socialite, Antonia Antonopoulos, and her dapper young beau, Steve Sorensen. "You should come with us," they said. So I did. The occasion was a cocktail party for New York’s junior Senator.
The view from this three-story apartment was amazing. The outer walls were made almost entirely of glass, giving one a 360 degree view of the entire metropolitan area. Just to the west and below, was the magnificent Plaza Hotel. The Empire State and Chrysler Buildings were more at eye-level than I normally see them. We were above almost all of the lights in the city, looking down on a seemingly silent world of people bustling about in the whirlwind of their own dreams and anxieties. From that height, those individual dreams and anxieties seemed quite inconsequential. All that worrying and scurrying would never amount to a hill of beans. It would never get them the keys to this 30th floor penthouse.
For a moment I thought of the places on the horizon. Places just beyond the lights of Manhattan. Places like Bayonne and Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. In the dark of night, I couldn’t make them out from up on high, but I knew they were there, squatting in the dirty shadows.
But who could think long about the poor and disenfranchised with all that good food and great booze in front of me, and with the wonderful music coming from the grand piano in the living room. Everyone was red-faced with laughter. Many backs were clapped. Many warm, meaty handshakes were exchanged. Silver trays floated by, on which were lamb chops and caviar and some strange bread that had been twisted, then toasted around a stick.
Labels pasted across lapels bore the names of some of the world’s most prominent families. I spoke with a Rockefeller and flirted with a member of the Italian royalty. (Which I thought was a joke at first.)
"Where do you summer?" a gentleman asked me with a pleasant smile.
I guess the question was reasonable. While 99.9% of Americans can’t afford to know the verb "to summer", everyone in that room probably summered.
Perhaps someday, I will live like they did, in a tall tree sprouting out of the jungle. But for now, about the only thing I own is the truth.
"I summer in Jersey City" I replied.
The man scrunched his face in confusion.
"In fact," I continued, "I winter in Jersey City, too."
Broadway Jim Sosnicky