By Ted Gushue 3/28/12 3:16pm

The Wee Hours

This guy knows what time it is!

Time is on Our Side: The Royal Oak (It’s a Watch) Turns 40

Used to the more snug confines of downtown boîtes, The Observer approached the hulking Park Avenue Armory with trepidation last Wednesday.

We were there for what turned out to be a very manly party celebrating the birthday of a watch: the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak (starting price $10,500) was 40 years old, and some real guys were there to make sure the timepiece did not feel slighted on the momentous occasion.

Now, the nature of time is a subject we contemplate often—particularly as the sun creeps up over the ragged eastern edge of the city’s skyline—but never have we been confronted with it quite so literally. Read More

By Myles Tanzer 11/21/11 5:34pm

The Wee Hours

Illo: Zina Saunders

The Wee Hours: Bryce Dallas Howard’s New Film? Canon Fodder

Ron Howard fits snugly in the category of people and things that are loved unreservedly, along with pita chips, Gchat and money. So it was not especially surprising that his Tuesday-night event at the Museum of Natural History was attended happily by many a New Yorker and one ex-Real Housewife.

The occasion was the premiere of When You Find Me, a film Mr. Howard produced and his daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, directed. Read More

By Nate Freeman 11/02/11 9:59am

Nightlife

Illo: Peter Oumanski

The Wee Hours: Midtown's Halloween Hall of Mirrors

“I don’t recognize you,” said a man in a black negligee, black corset, black heels and two stuck-on circles of black mesh, one covering his mouth and another covering his crotch. It was early Sunday evening, Halloween eve, and he was talking to a man in a dress, with pink hair.

Somehow, he managed to nestle a cigarette into the small indentation in the spandex oral wrapping. Read More

By Nate Freeman 10/18/11 6:46pm

The Wee Hours

Gutfreund

The Wee Hours: Occupy Easy Street!

Almost a month after a group of well-educated New Yorkers first unrolled their sleeping bags in Zuccotti Park, The Observer took a taxicab to 64th Street and Fifth Avenue to attend a gathering at the home of John Gutfreund. It was a cocktail party to celebrate The Artist, an Oscar hopeful that had just had its premiere at the New York Film Festival. Mr. Gutfreund’s wife, Susan, had been generous enough to invite the cast, crew, and producers to her and her husband’s home for a thing after.

Most of those involved in the film spoke French, and Ms. Gutfreund is fluent.

“This was all my wife’s idea,” Mr. Gutfreund told The Observer.

The 1980s boom-time chief of Salomon Brothers was slim beneath his suit, but not frail, and his thin oval spectacles only enhanced his stature. We spoke about his friend Katherine’s son, who used to write about nightlife for this newspaper. George, we told Mr. Gutfreund, is doing well. Then arms took other arms and we lost each other, for the moment, somewhere between Hamish Bowles and Harvey Weinstien.

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