National Arts Club apartments will finally return to the market.

They don't look very good right now, but ten Gramercy Park apartments formerly controlled by ex-president Aldon James and his brother John will soon be returning to the market. Relatively soon, that is, following gut renovations that were much-needed after the apartments' time in the hands of the two hoarders.

Last week, Real Estate Weekly reported that the National Arts Club had finally reached a settlement with the Attorney General's office allowing it to tidy up the club's governance, financial controls and the filthy apartments. Today a state appeals court upheld the National Arts Club's decision to boot the James brothers, the New York Post reported.

The James brother still have some issues to work out with the Attorney General's office, however, which filed suit against them in late September for mishandling $2 million in club funds. The bulk of the badly managed monies—some $1.5 million—from the rent deals Mr. James gave himself and his friends, thereby depriving the club of significant income.

Mr. James allegedly commandeered more than a dozen apartments when he was president and rented them to his cronies for far below market value. He also kept a number for himself and his brother. The brothers, who are hoarders, told the court they needed the apartments to hold all the belongings they compulsively bought at auctions and antique stores.

The apartments are said to be in horrible shape, with holes in the walls and urine-caked bathrooms—hence the gut renovation. And there may be more rehab needed in the future. "The James gang" still controls four apartments in the building, although they have not been allowed to return since being ousted.

The revamped apartments will, according to terms worked out with the attorney general, be rented at market rate. Unfortunately, they will not be available to the open market, but only to club members. Much like the coveted keys to the Park!

kvelsey@observer.com

The line, extending west on Gramercy Park South, was filled with feigned flappers and charlatan philosophers donning shift-y, fringed dresses, red lip stains, paperboy hats and three-piece tweed suits. The theme was “Midnight in Paris,” and, like the film of that name, the crowd appeared as histrionic iterations of ’20s ex-pats and salonnieres, a sophomoric vision of the rich interwar milieu. Each guest, member or no, was required to pay $40 at the door; credit cards were accepted.

Inside the oakey space, echoes of shrill laughter could be heard. Bobbed ladies sucked on electric cigarettes beneath a vaulted stained-class ceiling, chatting and gossiping in hushed tones about the recent turbulence at the club. The institution’s former president, O. Aldon James, had been ousted very publicly amid reports that he misused club funds, was a compulsive hoarder and kept scores of exotic birds on the august premises.

For all his flaws, Mr. James would have been in good company at the fête last Wednesday. Eccentric members inducted at birth into the leisure class flirted with one another, bragging with vaudevillian one-upsmanship about recent quail hunting excursions, real estate deals closed and Caribbean resorts visited. In the witching-hour lighting, we could just make out the busts of patriarchs unknown lining every shelf and inch of mantel space, interspersed with delicate bronze nudes.

“I’ve owned this since high school,” said screenwriter Robert Chafitz, looking down at the lapels of his red silk robe. His two-piece Dali-esque mustache began to droop. “I must have been one of those freaky kids at high school that was just attracted to vintage stuff,” he readily informed The Observer. “But I was also making money on the side, street performing as Charlie Chaplin in Paris.”

We inquired about his synthetic whiskers. “I procured it years ago,” he said, “because of course as Chaplin you have to do various mustaches. It’s getting a little droopy with the alcohol.” He was quick to inform us, however, that he could grow ample facial hair of his own. “I just had a full beard about a week ago. I looked like a rabbi. I had to shave it off.”

Just then, we spotted a bedazzled, bespectacled pinup girl whose crystal brassiere and bare stomach were attracting furtive glances from gentlemen throughout the room. “My name is Hazel Honeysuckle,” she proclaimed, perky bust thrust forward with unabashed pride in her craft. Somehow, from the rhinestone unmentionable, she produced a business card, which we accepted. Ms. Honeysuckle, a burlesque dancer, had just finished her first performance of the evening, which, sadly, we had missed. Fortunately, she would cavort for the crowd once more before the evening was through. We asked what her routine entailed. “Getting mostly naked, in a classy fashion,” she qualified. We pressed Ms. Honeysuckle on both points. “Mostly naked is down to pasties and underwear, and classy being, I guess, a lot of rhinestones.”

We took a spin around the space, taking stock of the leather couches and enjoying the museum-lighting over each of the paintings, the leopard-print rugs and the hobnobbing gentility. “I love the headband,” one guest said to her friend (though we wondered about her sincerity). “It really works,” she bluffed in a sing-songy voice, touching the sequined accessory.

After seeing several guests with what appeared to be mascara smudged on their foreheads, we soon remembered that it was in fact Ash Wednesday, and adding to the phenomenological fodder, many of the guests bore faded ashen crosses beneath their flappergirl garlands and Homburg hats. It wasn’t blasphemy, it was blissful unreality, an opiate haze of duty and decorum.

As a songstress crooned a throaty jazz song, amplified through a period microphone, The Observer met Jane Folds, a white-haired club member and professional puppeteer. “It’s a fabulous club. It’s old New York,” she exclaimed. Imploring us to join, she lowered her rose-color glasses to explain the institution’s merits. “It’s not very expensive, in the greater scheme of things, it’s, I don’t know, about $1,000 a year for membership,” she said.

Turning a dimly lit corner, we ran into an elderly man wearing a suit and a massive medal on his chest. Our interest piqued, we were introduced to Vincent McConnell, a former judge whose business card now reads “Counselor/Therapist/Screen Actor.” Despite his shiny cranium and well-weathered face, Mr. McConnell is in the process of applying for membership to the National Arts Club. We wondered why such institutions were still relevant. “Well, the arts, the arts, I mean we must preserve the arts, otherwise our civilization is doomed!” he said. Unable to resist, we inquired about his medal. “I am a member of an order of knights and dames called the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order,” he said, his voice lowering with dignified pride. “They’re not crusaders, not killers. They don’t use the sword, although I was dubbed with a sword,” he said, with a hammy nudge. “I believe in peace and honor and decency and integrity and helping people rather than hurting people,” he explained. Mr. McConnell then launched into a discussion of his 24 years as a colonel in the Air Force.

Woozy from the intoxicating pretense, The Observer prepared to go. A group of young hedgefunding bucks were headed to the nearby Rose Bar for a nightcap or three. We politely declined invitations to join; we had seen quite enough.

And so we hailed a cab, making the traffic-heavy trip home, wondering whether we were witnessing another lost generation take shape.

eknutsen@observer.com

Ms. Bernhard.

The National Arts Club sent out a press release today that sought to counter victorious statement made by former president Aldon James, and the document really reveals how contentious things have become in this case.

The club was dealt a blow this week when a Manhattan Supreme Court judge put an injunction on the club's internal attempts to evict Mr. James from his apartments in the building. Mr. James responded to this by declaring that he and his cohorts were "taking back the club."

Now, from the desk of the new president, Dianne Bernhard:

“O. Aldon James, currently under investigation by the New York City District Attorney’s office and the State Attorney General’s office for alleged financial misdeeds while at the helm of The National Arts Club, told the press: ‘We’re taking back the Club.’ But we’re asking: From whom is Mr. James taking it back? From the Members, to whom this Club rightfully belongs, who pay annual dues that support this public institution? Or is he taking it back from the democratically-elected Board of Governors that he himself voted for this past May?

And for what purpose is Mr. James taking back the Club? So that a quarter-century of neglect can continue until the building falls down around us, or law enforcement appoints a receiver? Or maybe he’s taking back the Club so he can continue using the Members’ dues to write questionable checks from the Club’s bank account without any oversight?

Yikes! Looks like there's no end in sight here. Your move, Mr. James.

Though it may be slightly out of your price range, the National Arts Club is planning to open its doors to renters for the first time ever, Real Estate Weekly reports. Ten apartments in the Tilman Mansion will undergo a major renovation, and may even go for as much as $80,000 per year.

It’s a move that clearly departs from the low-rent shenanigans of recently ousted president Alden James, though new president Dianne Bernhard says the club isn’t hard-up for cash.

“We’re getting them all cleaned up,” she told REW. “We have to work on the electricity and the plumbing, but it’s early on in the process.”

Dressed in a frilly black camisole and a neon pink cardigan, the weightless and elegant 70-year-old author spent the pre-dinner cocktail hour floating around the century-old Gramercy Park den of culture’s densely decorated parlor, athletically greeting guests and posing for photos, but never straying too far from the critic-novelist Edmund White, whose office in the Princeton creative writing department is right across from hers, or her soon-to-be second husband, the bearded Princeton neuroscientist Charles Gross.

As club members milled about and ate from the luxurious spread of cheeses and berries, Ms. Oates asked Mr. White conspiratorially if he’d noticed the “princely looking young man” in the handsome kurta who was sitting quietly by himself against the wall. “I wonder who he is,” Ms. Oates said, sneaking a glance across the room at the man’s regal-looking dress. “He looks like he’s just waiting for someone to come up and talk to him!”

Intrigued, Mr. White suggested introductions. Ms. Oates agreed but asked meekly if he would please make the first move. “Well, sure!” Mr. White said, cheerfully. “I’ll just say, ‘What an interesting shirt!’” Soon the lot of them were talking happily. Turns out, the young fellow was a former financier from India--and a club member, at that!

Mr. White was to deliver one of the evening’s dinner-time speeches in praise of Ms. Oates; he said he had been asked by the evening's organizers to keep his remarks brief. Others in Mr. White's boat: Ecco Press publisher and Ms. Oates' longtime editor Daniel Halpern; the painter Gloria Vanderbilt, whose work Ms. Oates has hanging all over her home; and former New Republic literary editor (and otherwise accomplished man of letters) Roger Rosenblatt, who served as the evening’s designated emcee.

When it came time to pack into the dining room for the evening’s main event, all of them sat together at one table. They were joined by National Arts Club president O. Aldon James, wearing a rosy bow-tie and his trademark pink spectacles, as well as Cherry Provost, the white-haired chair of the club’s literary committee.

“I look on this as my escape from the suburbs,” said Ms. Provost, who was born in Montclair, N.J., and currently resides in Glen Ridge. She became a member of the National Arts Club while a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, when the club sent a letter out to students offering them affiliate status for the low price of $100. “A year later they canceled the affiliation because some RISD people probably got drunk and caused trouble,” she said. “At the bottom of the letter saying I was no longer affiliated it said, ‘if you truly want to become a member, call this number.’ It went to the bottom of my pile on my desk till I wanted to get out of the suburbs, and then I called up and got an application.”

As chair of the literary committee, Ms. Provost said, she has been working on booking authors and poets for events at the club, and had grown rather fed up with all the unhelpful publicists and agents she had encountered in the process. Her husband, she said, had procured for her some authors’ home phone numbers, so now she just uses those.

“Do you have any biographers in your stable?” Ms. Provost asked, turning to Mr. Halpern. He said there were probably one or two, yes. “Because here’s why,” she said, and told him about an art collector she had heard about whose life story would make a really terrific book.

At the conclusion of the three-course meal of salmon salad, lamb chops, and meringue with blackberries, and all the charming, complimentary speeches from her friends, Ms. Oates herself got up and thanked the club for awarding her the medal. “I’m speechless!” she said and went on to express her gratitude to Mr. Halpern, Ms. Vanderbilt, and Mr. White for saying such nice things about her during dinner.

She noted that she and Mr. White taught together at Princeton, and were due in early in the morning to teach. “We’re the only people probably in this room who actually work!” she quipped, to tentative chortles.

At a quarter of 10, Mr. James said a few words by way of closing—there was something about Ms. Oates being a “literary raptor”—and pretty soon everyone was heading for the coat check; complimentary copies of The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982, under their arms.

We asked about future plans for his work.

“I am always wanting to prove myself to myself,” he said, smiling. He wore a somewhat understated suit with a glossy black and silver striped tie; he held his hands clasped while we talked. "And to remove anxiety. Not that there’s always anxiety, but I think that’s the obstacle. You know? I believe that is my journey in art."

We joked about his appearance as state assemblyman (and future San Francisco mayor) Art Agnos in Gus Van Sant’s Milk. Mr. Koons smiled again.

“Milk was great. Gus called and said he saw me on the Today show and that what he saw [when he watched] me was exactly Art Agnos. Gus is great. To be on set was wonderful because everyone was so passionate about the people--it was really about people, and I was so happy to be part of it and know everyone.”

We asked if our deflated economy will affect what we see of his art.

“I’m not a Reagan Artist,” he said, shrugging.

After parting with Mr. Koons, we bumped into Neal McDonough, a junior member of the club who works for a firm that advises companies on their art acquisitions. He described for us the “old glass butt plug” that was in the foyer of the National Arts Club for a time.

“Some people think of this as an old farts club. It’s not. I’m just so happy to see one of the first artists with a publicist in here receiving this award," said Mr. McDonough, facetiously.

We asked National Arts Club president O. Aldon James Jr. how he felt about Mr. Koons' reputation as an "exemplar of 80s inflation,"  "too commercial,"  "narcissistic..." Mr. James blinked at us from behind pink-tinged glasses. He thumbed his matching pink vest and looked at us earnestly.

"Jeff is a gladiator. This artist"--he pointed into his palm emphatically--"has never been more relevant to the time. As a father he is a great role model, he is an icon. And really," Mr. James looked at us sideways and stage whispered, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

Fusco spent the next eight hours (measured out in something like 60 rolls of film) photographing the crowds. A book of photos from that day, Paul Fusco: RFK, was recently republished by Aperture. On Friday, the Observer had a chance to speak to Mr. Fusco at a talk and book signing at the National Arts Club.

What was it like that day?

"I was on the train thinking about how I was going to photograph the funeral, ‘How can I maneuver a good shot?'" Mr. Fusco said. "The first thing I saw was the thousands of mourners out of the tunnel. My reaction was ‘Photograph it.' I jumped up and walked across to the window, opened it, stood there for eight hours and didn't move."

Forty-years later, it seems clear that Fusco caught a cross-section of America that day, in a kind of national vigil. Kids sit raised on their parents' shoulders, trying to catch a glimpse of the great man as he passes by. Whites and blacks stand peaceably together in a rare (that year) moment of calm. Some of the photographed are seen holding their hands over their hearts. Others salute. One woman holds up a homemade sign: ‘SO-LONG BOBBY."

Fusco had to work fast that day. Giving the speed of the train, the photographer had only one chance per photo, and no chance to adjust the camera's focus. He took over 2,000 shots, and it may be that the best image, according to Fusco, is one he nearly botched: a family of five, lined up by size along the tracks, that he could barely fit inside the frame. You can view a selection of Fusco's photos from that day in 1968 at his website.

The photos, ranging in date from the late '60s into the '70s, follow the pair on their run of clandestine tightrope walks way, way up there on Notre Dame and Sydney Harbor Bridge. Their run, and friendship, ended with Petit walking across the twin towers of the World Trade Center, a feat of daring that was recently dusted off in the documentary Man on Wire.

For those who haven't seen the film: sometime in the early-morning of Aug. 7^th, 1974, after months of planning, Mr. Petit, Mr. Blondeau, and a couple of accomplice friends conspired, successfully, to string a high wire across the towers. Mr. Petit, a street performer with an inspired, far-away stare, walked the wire that morning, a quarter of a mile above traffic. Blondeau took the photos, feet planted firmly on the ground, or a roof.

Mr. Blondeau's early photographs of his friend's performing in parks and street cafes have the feel of youthful romance, hot and swift and heedless. The later ones, taken from the top, are enthralling. Best of all: Mr. Blondeau's photograph of Mr. Petit doing his thing for the crowd, top hat balanced on the tip of his nose, like a circus seal. In front of such photos, one is made to feel that the spirit of Blondeau and Petite's undertakings didn't change—only the scale of their ambition.

The Observer had a chance to speak, briefly, with Mr. Blondeau, who today lives in Paris with his family, and has had nothing to do with tightropes for the better part of thirty-five years.

"This was a very dear part of my life, yeah. Seven years of complicity and friendship with Philippe Petit," Mr. Blondeau told The Observer. "It was a time of freedom. We did it all with very little means. Just the will."

"No Why" runs until Nov. 1.