Who's In the Monkey Bar Mural?
Wispily pompadoured Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's new midtown venture Monkey Bar is a bar/restaurant for rich people. There's even a giant mural commemorating some of between-wars New York's bestest richies. So who's in it?
One of our foodiest friends, erstwhile Gawker Joshua David Stein, recently spoke with Ed Sorel, the fellow who crafted the large, backroom mural. Per Carter's request, Sorel created an olio of various 1920's and 30's notables—society scenesters, publishing demigods, and showbiz types. He told JDS:
we decided essentially on a who's who of who is in New York between the wars. We have Fred Astaire, this is the Fred Astaire who appeared on Broadway with his sister. There's also Henry Luce, Herb Ross, Conde Nast, Blanche and Adolph Ochs, the Fitzgeralds—Zelda and F Scott, Billie Rose, Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber.
So basically the type of people who just won't ever exist anymore because instead of somehow (knew a guy!) getting a table at Monkey Bar and sitting in proximal awe of these storied people, we can just lie on our couches in Brooklyn and type incessantly about them, thus rendering them kinda unfabulous, so why would we want to stare at them at Monkey Bar in the first place? It's kind of a Lost-style time loop sorta thing.