Jay McInerney: The Upper East Side, Like, So Over
Craving even more information about things that are only relevant to Jay McInerney than you can get merely from perusing his latest thinly-veiled autobio or his House&Garden food blog? Boy, has New York Magazine ever got an article for you. In it, the leather-faced Voice Of Several Generations Ago dishes about a closely-guarded secret he's recently discovered: that the rich people whose parties he's invited to don't want to live on the Upper East Side anymore. No, they want to be downtown. But why?
Well, there there are "lofts with their vast expanses of wall on which to hang paintings," among other amenities. Consequently, Jay decides that he doesn't want to linger on the passe — who knew?— UES either: the end of the article finds him happily namedropping and social-climbing in a whole new zip code:
"We waved to at least a half-dozen of [my new rich fiancee Anne Hearst's*] friends, admired some major jewelry, winced at some unsuccessful surgery, and talked about acquaintances at nearby tables, people whose names regularly appear in W and Avenue and Quest, none of whom appeared to have any desire to be anywhere else."
We, on the other hand, are seized by a profound desire to be anywhere this fatuous oversharer isn't. UES here we come!
*he coyly refuses to reveal her identity in the article — calls her a "post-deb with a venerable surname," which to our mind is worse than just droppin' the name already.
The Death of the (Idea of The) Upper East Side [NYMag]