I stay with my godmother for the first 3 days. Her name is Mary Yates Wallace and I was named after her. Imitation is the ultimate form of flattery. One always hears that New York is such a happening place. Well, I hadn’t been in town for 24 hours when I shook hands with a presidential candidate. It was early morning on “Super Tuesday”, the day a large number of primaries take place. At 7:30 in the morning Bill Bradley was making his final pitch was on a corner of the upper East side talking to everyone and anyway who would listen. Despite being rather sweaty from my morning jog, I sprinted up to shake his hand. He is a BIG guy – you can see why he played basketball. And he’s got a nice firm handshake – which is rather amazing when you think of how many hands he’s had to shake in the last few months. I think I met him in the last few hours where he had any hopes of winning. By the next morning the papers were full of the race between George Bush, Jr. and Al Gore. They were clear winners of the day.
Friday, March 10
I went to see Placido Domingo & Frederica von Stade in the Merry Widow at the Metropolitan Opera. It was so exciting to be swanning around the grand but slightly tired Lincoln Centre. New Yorkers showed their respect by dressing up for the occasion. I think it is so sad that the English think it is elitist and no longer politically correct to dress up for the opera. The sets were magnificent, the costumes gorgeous and Domingo and von Stade were such good actors as well as singers.
Saturday, March 11
Today my long time friend Tracy Chevalier’s 2nd book, The Girl with the Peal Earring made into the New York Times Bestseller list. Alvin and I were so excited that we were hopping up and down waving the newspaper around. We then went in search of a bookstore with a display of the bestseller list. We found both Tracy’s book and Alvin’s.
Alvin and I went to see a number art galleries. He does the circuit regularly. We saw Janet Borden, who specializes in photographs and George Adam who represents Leslie Dill who I was particularly interested in. Her work is often about women and usually includes quotes from Emily Dickenson poems. Later in the week there will be an auction of art at the Montgomery Museum of Art and I may bid on one of her photo/collages.
Monday, March 13
My museum day. I went to the new Rose Centre for Earth and Space at the Museum of Natural History. This really needs a lot of time. I only had 2 hours and you can’t really get much out of such a short visit. But it looked very impressive and I would like to go back. I also popped into MOMA and saw an exhibit of 1880-1920 art. I visited my old buddy Chris who trades USD swaps at Nord LB. They have a magnificent view of Manhattan from their offices. You can see the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State building and both sides of the water. He took me into his trading room and it all looked so familiar. I even sat down and sent a few Bloomberg messages to market friends.