Aby Spends More on Caviar Than You Make in a Year
The Observer's Max Abelson sits down with high-rolling, art-guzzling real estate plutocrat Aby Rosen, who makes no bones about the extravagant lifestyle he shares with his socialite wife Samantha Boardman Rosen, their two babies, and Rosen's two kids from his first marriage. Hey, did you know you can buy caviar by the wheelbarrow?
You can't actually. (Or if you can, you should call Aby to let him know.) But Rosen is famous for regularly throwing parties with "industrial quantities" of the stuff. Herr Rosen's response: "When I throw parties, I blow a lot of money, you know what... that's what I like to do." That's what we'd like do, too, if we had millions of money. And no shame!
- On the Basquiats hanging in his kids' room: "The kids chose them. The kids choose what they want to hang. I think those days are over where you tell the child [which multimillion-dollar masterpiece of contemporary art to hang in his room.]" Totally, Aby! Those days are so over. Have you thought about a parenting column in Cookie? Let us know. We'll get Chuck on the phone forthwith.
- On Tom Wolfe's famous takedown of Rosen in the Times: "It had a nasty undertone that I didn't care much for. I grew up in Germany postwar as a Jewish child; I did not need an anti-Semitic undertone."
- On just how Wolfe could be anti-Semitic considering his wife is Jewish: "I've seen a lot of anti-Semites who mingle with Jews left and right."
