CENTRALPARK WEST W e s t o n UPPER EAST SIDE THE R ye
TRiBeCa m a g a z i n e SOHO NYC
ALP i NE W estchester
greenwich Westport NewCanaan hamptons Longisland Litchfieldcounty COUNTRY CAPITALIST
TRAIN OF THOUGHT
Saint in the City SEEKING THE STARMAN ON THE STREETS OF SOHO By Michael Gentile
Editor & Publisher Eric S. Meadow Editor Celia R. Meadow Art Director TimHussey Executive Editor Debbie Silver Travel Editor Susan Engel Editors at Large PaulaKo sky, HerschelMeadow, Rich Silver, Simone Bonnie Adler, JacobM. AppelMD, JD, Elise Black, Roz Chast, Suzanne Clary, J.C. Du y, Michael Gentile, BarryHimmel, JimHood, EthanKnight, SusanRieger, Carly Silver, IrisWiener, DanWoog Cartoons BobEckstein Contributing Photographer LaurenGreen eld Cover Illustration CamilloFerrari Web Designer Alexis Tiganila DistributionManager Man inMotion LLC Advertising Sales Manager Libby Rosen Advertising Sales Representatives JensenFrost, DianeHomer, Casey Edison, Mike Edison, PaulMcNamara, Bart Smidt, InnerstreamMedia Advertising & Editorial Inquiries (203) 451-1967 Weston Magazine, Rye Magazine, Westport Country Capitalist, Greenwich Country Capitalist,NewCanaanCountryCapitalist,HamptonsCountryCapitalist,Westchester Country Capitalist, Long Island Country Capitalist, Litch eld County Country Capitalist, TriBeCa Magazine, SOHO NYC Magazine, The Upper East Side Magazine, Central Park West Magazine, and Alpine NJ™, Issue #61, are published 4 times per year by WestonMagazine, INC. P.O. Box 1006, Weston, CT 06883. Tel: 203/451-1967. Email: eric@thewestonmag.com westonmagazinegroup.com Copyright 2017 by Weston Magazine, INC. All rights reserved. Weston Magazine/Country Capitalist/ Rye Magazine/The Upper East Side Magazine/Central ParkWest Magazine/TriBeCa/ Soho NYC/Alpine NJ™ are trademarks of Weston Magazine, INC. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in whole or in part without the consent of the publisher. Weston assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Print subscription rate: four issues, $100. Back Issues, $10. Attention Postmaster: send address corrections toWeston, P.O. Box 1006, Weston, CT 06883. Printed in Canada. General Counsel Bruce Ko sky, Esq. Contributors astudio/Shutterstock.com Social Media Director
IT’S STRANGE when you yearn to return to another time and place, realizing the past is not the way you tend to see it, and most likely not the way things occurred. On a recent late spring day I caught myself immersed with mixed emotions, mostly nostalgia, walking along the curvy brick wall that surrounds St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral on Mulberry St. David Bowie lived in Manhattan at 285 Lafayette Street from 1999 on. e back of his building faces that churchyard. I wondered, when Bowie sipped his morning tea, was this the view contemplated out his window? Maybe, or it’s just my imagination. Or maybe Bowie thought about the Venerable Pierre Toussaint, a devout religious Haitian once buried in St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral cemetery, who’s a current candidate for canonization. at’s when the Catholic Church declares that a person who has died is worthy of becoming a saint. Possible connections? Early one winter morning in 1990, in a crow’s nest seat facing Mulberry St., the graveyard visible from the top oors located in the Puck Building, I watched Toussaint’s body being exhumed. e Catholic Church started the disinterment on November 1st, “All Saints Day.” e purpose was to verify Toussaint’s remains before proceeding with the sainthood process. Pierre Toussaint was brought to NewYork City as a slave and eventually gained his freedom. He took the name Toussaint to honor Toussaint L’Ouverture, the leader of the slave revolution who liberated Haiti from the French. Toussaint is French, meaning “all saints.” All Saints was also the name of Bowie’s instrumental compilation released in 2001. I played that record for ve days straight a er 9/11. e album also includes an obscure song he wrote called All Saints . Cherry picking? You decide. In July 1895, Nikola Tesla was investigating and performing experiments with x-rays and a radio-controlled boat located in his 46 E. Houston St. laboratory, less than a city block away from where Bowie lived. In another strange twist, Bowie’s stunning portrayal of Nikola Tesla in the 2006 lm e Prestige , shows how his creative endeavors keep intersecting with the lives of his memorable neighbors. I worked for the New York Press during the 1990s as their founding art director in the Puck Building, a distinctive Romanesque revival landmark on the Houston and Lafayette St. corner. e Puck Building is awash in publishing and print history. Standing above the building’s entrance, the troublemaking gold cherub, “Puck” still greets you. e New York Press o ces were on the ninth oor. e o ces’ previous tenants, Vanity Fair ’s E. Graydon Carter and WNYC’s Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen, co-founded and produced Spy magazine in the same space. My publisher Russ Smith had Carter’s old o ce, the oor’s prime location
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