Vanessa Redgrave at the 2011 Tonys, where she was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for her 'Driving Miss Daisy' role (Getty Images)

The producers of Driving Miss Daisy--a profitable show during its Broadway run--have decided to stick with a sure thing, bringing the cast (Vanessa Redgrave, James Earl Jones, and Boyd Gaines) and creative team over to the West End for an October 2011 opening. Ms. Redgrave's and Mr. Jones's recent theatrical ventures (The Year of Magical Thinking for Ms. Redgrave, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and On Golden Pond revivals for Mr. Jones) did not catch fire quite like the Alfred Uhry revival, which makes a move across the Atlantic against the currently prevailing London-to-New York tradewinds (War Horse, Sister Act, Priscilla Queen of the Desert).

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

But it’s nothing compared to Paris, London, Hong Kong and a few other (select) cities.

In fact, Manhattan stayed a relative steal during the very successful market run of 2006. Not only is it cheaper to rent space here than in a lot of other major world cities, the costs are more evenly felt, void of the spikes seen elsewhere last year.

The average rent for top Manhattan office space in the fourth quarter of 2006 was $61.11 per square foot, according to the brokerage Cushman & Wakefield; for the market overall, the asking rent was $50.56. These were both increases over the third quarter of 2006, and over the fourth quarter of 2005. And the per-foot rent on some of the best of the best office space now reaches over $150.

The vacancy rate for top space was 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter, down from the third quarter and from the same time in 2005. Overall, it was a similarly low 6.7 percent.

In short, the Manhattan office market is tight and pricey—easily the most expensive in the United States, relatively or not.

It’s no Paris, though, and it’s certainly no London. Those European capitals, along with Tokyo, make Manhattan look like Staten Island having a garage sale. Worldwide corporations can stomp a footprint in what remains the world’s financial capital, New York, but pay far less to do so. If the corporations want space in the other cities, however, it’s going to cost considerably more—maybe a few times more.

Brokerages and analysts generally acknowledge London’s West End as the world’s most expensive office market. A November report from CB Richard Ellis looking back 12 months put the occupancy costs of renting office space there at $212.03 a foot.

In the report, Manhattan (and, by extension, the United States) didn’t make the list of the world’s priciest office markets until … No. 24, with midtown Manhattan showing up at $62.07 per square foot, snug behind Zurich, Switzerland, and about a half-dollar confidently ahead of Stockholm, the Swedish capital.

Between the West End and midtown came a host of cities and submarkets: Tokyo (the Inner Central district came in at No. 2, just below London), Hong Kong, Dublin, Dubai, New Delhi, Seoul and Milan, with costs from the mid-$100’s per square foot to just above $60.

“One of the things that’s been driving the West End market is hedge funds and financial boutiques and private banking, which have obviously had a very good few years,” said Nick Axford, CB Richard Ellis’ research director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Sound familiar? Like Manhattan, financial services drive much of the office markets of cost titans Tokyo and London. In the City enclave of London, east of the West End, office occupancy costs—which include rent, taxes and other tenant costs—averaged $144.78 a foot for much of 2006.

Other variables drive the pricier markets beyond tenant rosters feasting on strong economies. Architecture, for one—especially when it comes to the world’s most expensive market.

“The planning restrictions are very tight in the West End,” Mr. Axford said. “There’s strict planning constraints to what you can do with buildings. Most of them date back to Georgian times.”

That’s as in the various Kings George of 18th-century Britain. With these elderly, squat buildings (and no skyscrapers), much of the West End’s higher office costs spring from a demand for relatively little space. In Manhattan—particularly in midtown, with its concrete canyons—companies have more options, however dwindling in today’s tighter market.

Companies can also count on costs remaining steadier in New York than in other world cities.

In Hong Kong, average rents spiked 30 percent in 2006 over 2005 to $75.90 a foot, according to the year-end numbers from CB Richard Ellis. In Tokyo and Madrid, rents were up 24 percent, and in London, 21.9 percent. In New York, rents went up last year just 7.9 percent.

On Jan. 9, Cushman & Wakefield presented its 2006 market report at the midtown power luncheonette Michael’s, serving up eggs, bacon, bagels, fruit, and a heap of hyperbole backed strongly by the higher rental and lower vacancy stats as compared to 2005 (or to 2004, 2003 and 2002).

Joseph Harbert, the firm’s C.O.O. for the New York metro region, pulled up a chart that put Manhattan at No. 7 among the world’s costliest office markets. It was the only American city on the list, and Mr. Harbert put it plainly.

“Relative to these other places, historically, the last year or so, New York is still cheaper than many of the other prime business centers in the world,” he said. “We think it will probably pop up in the rankings a little bit. But if you’re a global corporation and you need to be in New York, and you want to be in New York, you’re going to pay the freight.”

This is, in fact, Jack Kerouac’s favorite New York dive bar. At least, it used to be.

Though, initially, you’d be hard-pressed to figure that out. The exterior signage beams “Havana Central” in radiant neon, while the venue’s historic title, “The West End,” appears in black, at about half the size.

The site of Mr. Merrin’s new hybrid brand, Havana Central at the West End, remains a nearly century-old Morningside Heights landmark, mostly for its connection to Beat writers like Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs—a past (and now decades-old marketing tool) that the new proprietor plans to use.

Starting foremost with a grand reopening this Friday, which marks the end of a drastic six-month, $2.5 million face-lifting and identity-altering makeover of what locals stubbornly still call “The West End.”

While Mr. Merrin’s two other Havana Central locations in Manhattan occupy far less venerable spaces, the emergence of his growing Cuban-themed restaurant chain isn’t entirely unwelcome on a block already occupied by formula retailers Aerosole and Häagen Dazs. In fact, Mr. Merrin characterized the hallowed venue’s striking overhaul as carrying on with tradition.

“The West End has changed hands a number of times and each owner has contributed to its ongoing evolution, but, essentially, they have all acted as caretakers of the legacy of what has become a New York institution,” Mr. Merrin said in a written statement. “As the latest in that succession I take my responsibility very seriously, which is why Havana Central at The West End will embrace a ‘burgers and beer sensibility’ along with a commitment to an authentic Cuban dining experience.”

The burgers, careful readers will note, are on the back of the menu.

It’s the first time in six decades that any owner has so significantly and pre-emptively altered the eatery’s hallowed name, which former owner Sid Roberts’ father bestowed upon the place in 1946, around the time it was first establishing its bebop-era cred.

Mr. Merrin, a former jeweler whose family once ran Merrin Jewelers, is a lifelong resident of the Upper West Side and a Columbia alum—in business, not English nor history. So he deserves at least some credit for trying to temper this corporate chain-store takeover with a sprinkling of historic preservation.

As part of Friday’s festivities, frequenters of the former West End are invited to come share their memories of the way the place used to be, as part of an ongoing oral-history project. You know, for the sake of posterity.

As a reward for their video-recorded statements, participants will receive a platter of complimentary empanadas.

Mr. Roberts, the former owner who sold the place in 1977, is slated to be among the first speakers. In keeping with the event’s historic-preservation shtick, management plans to unveil a commemorative plaque, dedicating Mr. Roberts’ favorite booth, in a private ceremony early in the evening.

It’s a far better fate than that afforded the Beats’ old corner booth, once located in the back of the restaurant. That, according to one employee, was dismantled during recent renovations to make way for new tables.

Framed black-and-white photos of such famous former West End frequenters as Kerouac and jazz great Dizzy Gillespie, however, are slated for hanging in coming weeks upon the freshly touched-up walls.

At least one employee queried by Counter Espionage approved of Mr. Merrin’s sweeping changes to the place. Julie, a bartender, who claimed to have also worked under previous ownership, described the venue’s new incarnation as “a lot cleaner” and “better overall” than its prior state of affairs.

Mr. Merrin has further pledged to reinstate an old West End tradition that some owners seemed to have forgotten: live music, including a jazz band during Sunday brunch.

Those Beats, you know—big brunchers.

I used to take children to the theater. But now all the ones I know are practically my age, including my own daughter. Furthermore, my adorable little nephews and nieces are at college shagging their brains out, and even my favorite goddaughter doesn’t want to know.

“Angel mine,” I pleaded with Pauline over the phone. “My own little pumpkin pie. Are you up for Mary Poppins, followed by a ludicrously expensive dinner at a restaurant of your choice?”

“John, you know I love you,” she replied in that forbearing way that spells doom. “I’m knocking 30, and I saw the movie at least six times when I was 8.”

She could still sing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (and began to until I begged her to stop). I pointed out that the stage version has some new songs with titles like “Brimstone and Treacle” and “Practically Perfect,” but I still couldn’t change her mind.

Where was I to find a child to accompany me to Mary Poppins? It reached the point where I considered buying one. But I didn’t think it would arrive in time for critics’ night. A happy solution was found, however, during a visit to my acupuncturist and herbalist, Suzanne Farkas, as she was expertly balancing my yin and yang while calming my shen. Suzanne’s enchanting 6 1/2-year-old daughter, Paloma, is stage-struck. Mother and daughter thus accompanied me excitedly to the show.

The vast New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway was packed with loving parents who had forked out a top ticket price of $110 (no reduction for children). When all’s said and done, this is Disney’s Broadway. “You’re not listening to me, Cassandra!” an irritable mom was telling her restless child in my row before the curtain went up. “The gift shop is out of bounds!”

Mary Poppins would have approved of Cassandra’s mom. When the lights went down and the orchestra struck up the first chords, my young guest—who knows the film version backwards—was grinning from ear to ear. This is the thrilling thing: There are still children who love going to the theater!

Mary Poppins ends at about 10:50—at least a half-hour too long for me, but not for Paloma and lots of other youngsters, though at the end of the show, some of the smallest were being carried out asleep, wrapped round their fathers’ shoulders like sacks of potatoes.

The show’s controversial new song, “Temper, Temper,” was the one my young guest enjoyed the most, and she gave it an enthusiastic round of applause. It has reportedly caused some concerned American mothers to shield the eyes of their whimpering children from what’s happening onstage: Because thoughtless Michael and Jane have had a temper tantrum, during which they criticized their troubled father, Mary Poppins has punished them by confining them to their room with no milk and biscuits. Whereupon a doll crawls out of their dolls’ house like a creepy renegade from Shockheaded Peter, and all the toys in the room spring to menacing life and chant in song, “Children who refuse to learn will not return!” It was about as disturbing as any Halloween parade.

There are scholars of Mary Poppins who treat P.L. Travers’ original text like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The 1964 Julie Andrews movie sentimentalized the novel, while the London stage version, which opened in the West End two years ago, restored some of the original rigor out of respect for the author’s dying wish. In the Broadway production, the stern severity of Travers’ magical nanny has inevitably given way to Disney’s spoonful of sugar. The result is that almost everything is practically perfect, and everyone is trying much too hard.

The plummy vowel sounds of Ashley Brown’s admirable Mary Poppins, for example, are more like Julie Andrews than Julie Andrews. And no one—I give my word as an English gentleman—has ever possessed vowel sounds like Ms. Andrews in the entire history of spoken English. (It’s also true that in the same movie, Dick Van Dyke’s cockney chimneysweep virtually invented a grotesque new language.) Gavin Lee’s genial vaudevillian Bert could scarcely be better. Mr. Lee is the only member of the London cast in this production.

God save us from perfectly horrible stage children. They grate on our nerves with their loud, knowing cuteness and awful professionalism. One longs to kick the little darlings into the wings. A word of thanks, then, to Matthew Gumley for his terrific performance as the Banks child, Michael. He’s so good, he sometimes tunes out of the show in his relaxed way, apparently uninterested in the action around him. Mostly, he’s exactly, lovably right. Master Gumley is a stage rarity: a completely natural child actor.

Disney’s shrewd strategy for its modern mega-musicals is to hire the best creative artists that money can buy in the hope of forging a bold partnership between commerce and art. Julie Taymor’s The Lion King, pillaging the world’s traditional cultures for the benefit of the masses, remains its most successful venture. Tarzan doesn’t work nearly as well because its novice director, the great set designer Bob Crowley, couldn’t see the flaws in the whole picture—a de-sexed Tarzan story with yet another Julie Andrews sound-alike, a blah score by Phil Collins, and lots of athletic performers pretending to be monkeys bungee-jumping all night long on jungle vines.

The artistic team in the engine room of Mary Poppins is of the highest order—Sir Richard Eyre, formerly artistic director of the Royal National Theatre (who also directed the West End production); his co-director and choreographer, Matthew Bourne (of the sensational all-male Swan Lake); the magical set designer Mr. Crowley; and Julian Fellowes, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Gosford Park, who wrote the book. Together they achieve remarkable things, keeping a massive spectacle afloat—not least when the children’s attic descends onto the set’s giant Edwardian home at the stately pace of a space rocket docking with the mothership.

And yet I would swap all the multimillion-dollar hydraulics, the miraculous flying on wires and pretty video work, for a measure of unmanufactured wonder and a simple, direct connection to open hearts. Mary Poppins, after all, is about the confusion and wonderment of innocent childhood. Is it too late for us?

Mr. Eyre does best with the seamless, intimate inner story of the unhappy marriage of the Banks adults, and he’s got fine performances from Daniel Jenkins as George and Rebecca Luker as Winifred. The loss is that the focus of the show has shifted away from the children and made them seem secondary.

There are serious lapses in Matthew Bourne’s overrated choreography. British musicals have never really known how—or when—to burst out of their shell and dance. A big number like “Supercalifragilisticwhatsitsname” cries out for choreography. But here it takes place, for some weird reason, in what looks like a cramped tent in Trinidad, where each word of the tongue-twister is spelt out for us in mime like a frantic spelling bee.

Our irrepressibly sunny chimneysweep, Bert, defies gravity by dancing on the walls and ceiling—a magical wired moment, unless you recall Fred Astaire’s legendary, gravity-defying dance sequence in Royal Wedding over half a century ago. Mr. Bourne’s first-act ballet during “Jolly Holiday” resembles a pretentious Las Vegas floorshow: Near-naked mythic statues come to life, including a child statue apparently in search of its daddy. His major second-act dance sequence, “Step in Time,” goes for broke with a kind of rooftop Riverdance for chimneysweeps. But in the Broadway of dance legend—the Broadway of Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion, Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett—Mr. Bourne’s promised showstopper, which longs so much to please, never lifts off quite enough to have us cheering on the edge of our seats.

Most unexpectedly of all, this new psychological version of Mary Poppins preaches Dr. Phil–like wisdom about bringing up children right. (It turns out that Mr. Banks, the show’s dysfunctional, miserable father, was raised by an evil nanny.) The texture of Travers’ story has been reduced to a simplified Disney cartoon in a paean to sham miracles entitled “Anything Can Happen”:

Anything can happen if you let it

Sometimes things are difficult

But you can bet it

Doesn’t have to be so ….

Never mind what I think. I’m glad to report that the outing to Mary Poppins proved a success where it mattered most: My young guest and new friend, 6 1/2-year-old Paloma, enjoyed every minute of it.

How wonderful, I thought. How wonderful to be going to the theater as if for the first time.

Midtown, as it often does, ranked high. The city's leading office submarket came in at number 24 in the world, with office occupancy costs of $62.07 a foot.

The Earth's priciest place to occupy office space? London's West End, where costs can run as high as $212.03 a square foot.

- Tom Acitelli

Famous Jack Kerouac, Dizzy Gillespie, and Joe College hangout the West End Café has officially reopened for business--"about five minutes ago," a publicist told The Observer late Thursday afternoon.

Albeit with a slightly altered moniker: Havana Central at the West End.

Dig it: Kerouac's favorite burger joint will begin serving Cuban cuisine next month, under the direction of new owner and Columbia U. grad Jeremy Merrin.

The historic Upper West Side bar--notoriously divided by the sign "Pigs over there, students over here," during the late '60s Columbia riots--was originally scheduled to reopen in September but got delayed by "construction complications," according to the Columbia Spectator.

The newly refurbished venue will commemorate its Beat-poet past with readings of Kerouac's On The Road and Allen Ginsberg's Howl next Friday night.

Full beboppin' event details after the jazzy jump.

- Chris Shott

Columbia HOWLS Again as On the Road Turns 49

Annual Celebration of Columbia's Beat Writers to take place on November 3rd at
Havana Central at the West End

On Friday, November 3, 2006, alumni and students, poets and readers, faculty and friends will join Columbia English professor Ann Douglas and the Columbia Alumni Association for the third annual HOWL, a celebration of Columbia's Beats, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. The event, which will culminate in a recitation of Howl, will incorporate original poetry and musical performance by David Amram, a longtime friend and artistic collaborator of Kerouac's. The program will also include readings by special guests and a commemoration of the 49th anniversary of the publication of Kerouac's signature novel, On the Road.

The celebration will kick off with an afternoon program from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. in Columbia's Graduate Student Lounge (301 Philosophy Hall) with "Remembering Jack," a discussion featuring Ann Douglas, David Amram and Joyce Johnson, fiction and nonfiction author who chronicled her experience with Kerouac and the Beats in works such as her memoir, Minor Characters. The discussion will be moderated by Penny Vlagopoulos, a Kerouac scholar who is one of the editors chosen for a forthcoming edition of the Kerouac scrolls.

At 8:00 p.m. at Havana Central at the West End (2909 Broadway), HOWL wit continue on the site of Ginsberg's and Kerouac's favorite haunts with: reflections on the Beat legacy at Columbia; readings from On the Road, How, and short works by Kerouac and Ginsberg; original poetry readings; and an excerpt from recently published journals chronicling Ginsberg's Columbia years. It will conclude with a jam session bringing together the David Amram trio and Columbia student musicians. Food and drinks will be served.

The event is sponsored by the Columbia Alumni Association and is open to Columbia alumni, students, and friends; $15 for alumni and guests, $10 for recent alumni, and $5 for students. RSVP requested. For event information, contact Emily Morris at ebm23@columbia.edu.

For press information, contact Jerry Kisslinger, Executive Director of Communications for Development and Alumni Relations, at jk666@columbia.edu, (212) 870-3548.

A few Fridays ago, Danny the Wonder Pony co-hosted a birthday party for Ivy Nicholson at CroBar.

Ms. Nicholson has recently returned to New York from Montana. She has new digs at Chelsea’s no-frills Hotel Allerton. She has a good friend in Vincent Potter, a stylist at the Robert Kree Salon, whose birthday gift was to reshape her bangs and frost her hair a honey-blond. The birthday was her 73rd.

Ms. Nicholson is a former Vogue model; she appeared in a few Andy Warhol films, including Couch. (Time magazine, 1965: “Such ‘underground’ films as Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures and Andy Warhol’s Couch feature transvestite orgies with masturbation and other frills …. ”)

Now she is making films herself. “I’m hoping,” Ms. Nicholson said, “that my movie is picked up by some producer and turned into a modern soap opera. Also, tomorrow we’re going to Massachusetts. I found a woman there who reminds me of Janis Joplin. She’s going to wear a wig. It’s a love scene where she’s trying to forget someone, because she gets into someone else’s soul—not sexual, just mental. Every time she puts herself in another man’s arms, he’s there and he’s dead. So she finally realizes she cannot forget him, that she’ll have to forgive him for trying to get into another woman’s soul.”

Her host, Mr. Pony, was also cantering on the comeback trail—although he was returning from a different era. He had been an iconic member of 80’s-era promoter-cum-murderer Michael Alig’s eccentric ensemble. Back then, he’d saddle up four nights a week, at $150 per gig. But a lot has changed: the Giuliani regime; the Limelight went dark.

That night, an attendant was overheard muttering, “This place sucks!”—but when a lady mounted Mr. Pony, the crowd oooh-ed. When he bucked, a sort of hunched-over hopping effect, they cheered. Mr. Pony then eased into his trademark gallop simulation, bending at an angle over a specialized stool and thrusting his muscled rump to the music.

“It felt like a real horse. I really felt like spanking him,” said Pam Grispell, an athletic, braided clubgoer. During her ride atop Mr. Pony on the dance floor, the outgoing 25-year-old had administered several slaps to her ride’s spandexed and gyrating hindquarters.

“There is no typical reaction,” gasped a very sweaty Mr. Pony between rides. (He only goes by his stage name—and “the Ponyman has no age.”) “Sometimes it takes a while for people to loosen up, but you can always tell the ones who are going to eventually want a ride.”

“It kind of feels like I just had sex,” said a blond 26-year-old Vassar graduate after peeling herself off the Wonder Saddle. “I’m a little weak in the knees.”

Some 20-odd years ago, while managing a dude ranch in the Catskills, Mr. Pony seized the opportunity to fashion a formfitting “babe magnet” out of Western-style horse accoutrements. Over time, his saddle evolved. His getup now includes self-adjusting bungee-cord stirrups, a synthetic bit, a thick layer of gelatin padding for his back, reins and a seat vibrator (which, he is quick to point out, has an on/off button).

“New York got really bland,” said Mr. Pony, who long ago relocated to Orange, N.J. There, for the last 10 years, he’s been the weekly entertainment at Tequila Joe’s. He augments that income with a steady flow of bachelorette parties and the odd children’s gig. “For the kids, I do silly. For the ladies, I do sexy.”

The past decade has had its moments, such as an appearance on Jerry Springer. But there have been lows as well. A broken ankle from a non-Pony-related accident put him out of commission for six months. And last year, a bachelorette party in Harlem was more than Mr. Pony’s back could bear. “When they would bring these girls up,” he said, “I thought they were joking. I was like, ‘Ha ha ha ha.’ But no, they weren’t joking. It was bad, man. These were some real Harlem Globetrotters, man. They destroyed my stool. Then I was holding onto a wooden table, and I went right through the table!”

Mr. Pony’s goal is to return to his former glory in the nightlife pasture, where his G-stringed buttocks were once synonymous with sublime times.

“I think New Yorkers are starting to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, we want the strange, we want the avant-garde,’” Mr. Pony said. “I think it might have something to do with wartime, you know—people want something a little less serious.”

—Spencer Morgan

Lighting Out

Not too long ago, Katie Gardner had a vision as she lay sleeping. “I used to teach,” she said. She was sitting in a banquette in her soon-to-be-former restaurant, the West End, on Broadway by 114th Street. “I had this dream the other day that I was in this classroom, and the entire school was black except for me. And I was teaching these children—this was never a problem, not a problem. But then I had ‘parents night’ and I had all these parents in there, and I was the only white person.”

She took a bite of the spicy chicken enchilada before her and chewed meditatively on it.

“They were very hostile, as you can imagine—this was in the dream—and I looked at them and I said, ‘What is the problem here? What separates us here?’” She plonked her bare forearm down on the hard oak table. “‘This is my color,’” she said, and giggled. “‘This is your color. Does it really matter at all?’ It was so vividly ridiculous for people to be divided because I am this color and you’re that color. And it was a great dream.”

The dream was a nocturnal playback of the big question that Ms. Gardner, an athletic-looking woman of 59 with a degree from Columbia’s J-school, has been entertaining in her wakeful hours of late: What to do next in her life?

Ms. Gardner announced that she has sold the Columbia University area eatery that she and husband Jeff Spiegel have owned and operated since 1990. The restaurant has stood on the same ground and had the same name for over 90 years.

“When we came here, it literally was an empty space,” she said. It had been vacant for more than a year. “Whatever happened before we came, the West End as everybody knows it—or think they know it—no longer existed. There was nothing. There were no booths. There was no bar. There was no wall. There was nothing. And when we rebuilt it, we rebuilt it with the idea that we wanted to re-create the West End. So the idea for me and for my husband was that we wanted to create a place where people came in who’d been going to the West End for the last hundred years—” She surprised herself and shouted out again, “Literally, the last hundred years! They would walk in here and say, ‘Ah, I remember the West End’ and that we would elicit that kind of response, that people wouldn’t walk in and go, ‘Oh, God, it doesn’t exist anymore’—because when we came in, it didn’t make sense; it was gone.”

The spot is set to reincarnate yet again, this time into Havana Central, which is a chain. “We are scheduled to have the handover happen on Friday—this coming Friday,” Ms. Gardner said.

After that, Ms. Gardner and Mr. Spiegel will turn their attention to other pursuits. For Mr. Spiegel, this might mean a job at the Peace Corps, an organization with which he has former affiliation. And for Ms. Gardner, there’s that dream again.

She said she’s considering doing “something edgy” with the Girl Scouts, setting up councils in developing countries. And she’s thought of writing to Oprah Winfrey for advice and assistance, “because Oprah sets up these schools all over Africa.”

“I’m not sure they’re gonna go for it, but I have this vision,” said the mother of three, her blue eyes dancing. “You know, I can do this. I’m a teacher—I taught for many years. I’m an administrator. I’ve been a boss. What you do is, you go into countries in Africa, for example, or you got to Iraq, you go to Afghanistan, you go to places like that, and you set up Girl Scout councils in these places. Each council is a separate franchise—they can do what they want. So you could actually set up councils that are incredibly proactive—autonomous and proactive in that community. It would be so fuckin’ cool!”

—Nicholas Boston

1999

Last week, Nylon celebrated its seventh anniversary at Marquee, an evening hosted by Lydia Hearst. The heiress/model posed with the mag’s latest issue blocking her face, to the objection of a photographer.

So what had everyone been doing seven years ago?

Heatherette designer Richie Rich was making T-shirts. “That’s how Heatherette came out of a wine bottle—1999 was a good year. I knew I would do something great, but I didn’t know what,” he said. He sat front and center with his boyfriend and the evening’s host.

“Lydia is like a sister; I love her like nobody else,” he said.

Michael Angelo, of Michael Angelo’s Wonderland Beauty Parlor in the meatpacking district, wouldn’t remember what happened seven years ago until he received his own answer.

“What color was Madonna’s hair?”

Uh … blonde? (Must. Not. Enrage. Stylist.) It was an especially sensitive topic, as he had been “painting my bedroom Ray of Light blue” in 1999.

Evan, a party straggler with serious pride in his South Williamsburg neighborhood, said that seven years ago, he was scrubbing toilets for models: “Yeah—lots of models.”

Joanna Angel, a Brooklynite, porn star and the newly anointed sex-advice columnist for Spin, had an unfortunate incident seven years ago involving 10 pills. “I was walking around this New Year’s party giving everyone a hug.” Promptly thereafter, she read Prozac Nation.

At midnight the open bar ended, bottle service resumed, and Marquee lifted its ropes to let regulars fill the cushy couches. The hipsters in their exodus wanted to return to Brooklyn, only to find that their beloved L train, shockingly, was also roped off.

—Nicole Brydson

Les Fleurs

On Monday afternoon, John Williams sat down in his backstage dressing room at the Juilliard School’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater. It was the second day of rehearsals for a Live from Lincoln Center performance, for which Mr. Williams was to conduct the Juilliard Orchestra. Broadcast time was six hours away.

Two young students, one with camera in hand, paused at his door. “We were wondering if we could possibly take a picture …, ” the girl said. Mr. Williams assumed a position. A flash. The student checked her camera’s memory: portraits of a furry friend on a shimmery duvet. But then up popped Mr. Williams’ picture.

“Always a little nervous at these things,” said the soft-spoken Mr. Williams, who gave the world, among countless compositions, that theme from Star Wars. “We have a fantastic student orchestra. Some of the material is new to them, and they’ve already mastered it, I think, in a day and a half of rehearsal.”

A collection of highly polished champagne buckets, empty mouths agape, rested on a shelf.

“The other thing I love about the presentation,” Mr. Williams continued, “is the diversity of it. We have Renée Fleming, who is just en fleur, you know, in her career.

“And it’s brilliant that it’s being televised— Live at Lincoln Center, which has a kind of sound to it, doesn’t it? It’s got a kind of nice, euphonic thing going there.”

Meanwhile, Ms. Fleming had nearly met disaster in the form of a major cable-news network’s camera. It fell on her shoulder during an interview, a Juilliard spokesperson said. The incident didn’t appear to dampen the soprano’s enthusiasm, though it did get her black blazer.

“I’m just honored to be a part of it, to be honest,” she said, meaning the gala, not the camera assault. “I was thinking this afternoon: ‘Of all the conservatories I could have attended, I feel so suddenly in an extraordinary way humbled by being a part of the tradition and the legacy that is Juilliard. Of course, when you’re young, you don’t think about that. When I was a student here—you’re so self-absorbed in thinking about your own journey.

“We, as singers, have time on our side,” she said. “We tend to develop later than instrumentalists, certainly than dancers and actors, so we have a little bit more time. But it’s still an arduous road. And ‘the voice,’ they say, is only 10 percent. The rest is elbow grease.”

Itzhak Perlman, the violin master, was zipping around on a motorized chair. “The event this afternoon was very, very festive, very nice,” he reported jovially. “I think it will be a terrific show.”

Mr. Perlman began his career at Juilliard in 1959, when the school was located uptown, on the current site of the Manhattan School of Music. What must the students today think of pursuing a career in what is said to be an always-shrinking field?

“Everybody has such a gloomy outlook for classical music, and I’m always very optimistic,” Mr. Perlman said. “My hope is for us to continue to nurture young talent, and to bring them to a situation where they can really contribute to the musical scene, to the arts scene and so on, and for the arts scene to continue to flourish. And for people to support it financially and politically as well—because sometimes politicians don’t see the importance of the arts, you know. They think it’s a luxury, but it’s not a luxury. It’s a part of our society; it’s an important part of our society. And without it, we are not as good.”

—Nicholas Boston

World Markets

“There are good people here,” enthused a giddy, well-coifed flack. And wasn’t that Michael Milken? Fifteen minutes before the Contemporary Asian auction began, a dull roar of murmurs and ring tones echoed throughout the Sotheby’s auction chamber.

Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s senior curator for contemporary art, mounted the rostrum like a Teutonic throne. His sinewy body in the charcoal suit and pale blue tie, and the dangling forelock, all of it leaned forward, commanding the room to a hush.

Friday’s sale, in which India and Japan were represented but China predominated, was not another sale. It was more the opening bell for a very well-hyped—and, to some Western latecomers, an utterly new and alien—art market.

Mr. Meyer’s forelock snapped left and right with his torso; his arms, slicing left and right, looked something like Jane Fonda meets Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam.

Whole lots sailed by, contested only by rival volleys between the phone-ins. They were direct lines to a new base of power in the collecting world. There is also a sense, as with the Asian families perched in the private booths overhead, of a foreign collecting bloc weighing in on the proceedings. “There are a lot of Asians here,” said an audience member.

Thirty-six lots were called before Mr. Meyer took a drink of water.

“Who are these people? Are they dealers?” asked someone on the floor. Well, some of the men, in various stages of disguise using dark sunglasses, looked better disposed to bid on warheads. A woman in a baby blue chubby fur and turquoise jewelry chewed gum, her jaw movements straining her skin taut.

Short, tanned and open-shirted, a vaguely California-louche man perfected his slouch in the front row. A blonde scissored down the aisle from the back to join him. His paddle whipped erect from his waist as the auction’s first big-name lot appeared, a Zhang Xiaogang painting entitled Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 4 (Yellow). The bid started at $50,000 and ended at $419,200. The next painting by Mr. Zhang went for $486,400. The blonde won one.

An hour later, a dizzying bid for the third Zhang piece (Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 120) had the audience in a clamor. The $350,000 estimate became a distant memory. People upstairs in the private booths stood up, one woman with a phone dangling limply off her hip, as if in defeat.

“Go, go, go, guys,” said someone in the crowd softly. “They’re already a bargain.” The piece fetched $979,200, from a private collector.

The short, tanned Californian and the blonde fell into a quick embrace. How much had he just made in an hour?

In the afternoon, a new crowd assembled.

An Oliver Stone–Jim Nabors type walked out of a Tide ad with his bright red corduroy blazer. A dolled-up Asian woman, all highlights and fly shades enveloping her forehead, consulted the catalog pages like a flipbook. A bearded Japanese hipster—iPod buds in, wraparounds on, cravat noosed tightly—parked himself in the front row. The third and final auctioneer sported an impressive head of hair and the requisite Sotheby’s forelock.

More big-ticket items moved. That day, Yue Minjun’s Lions climbed to $564,800 from its $150,000 estimate. A Xu Bing installation fetched $408,000.

Asian contemporary is on the march. You can have your $2 million vase and your $4 million jar. Asia Week’s fairs and sales have long trafficked in the mainstays: ceramics, calligraphy, jewelry, landscape painting. On Thursday, Christie’s had rung up $15 million for Indian modern and contemporary works. On Friday, Sotheby’s—expecting $6 million to $8 million—netted $13 million.

The auctioneer, nearing the end, reported that Lot 209 had been printed upside down in the catalog. “But I imagine the buyer can hang it any way that pleases,” he said.

—Jeff MacIntyre

Danny the Wonder Pony rides again at CroBar with Warhol-era refugees.

Katie Gardner closes The West End to become... a Girl Scout troop leader in Africa?

Seven years of Nylon magazine.

In which John Williams has fans and Renee Fleming gets bonked with a cable network camera.

If anyone had doubts? The Asian contemporary art market is officially over the top.

Bourne's latest, Play Without Words, now a howling success at B.A.M., has stirred up a lot of talk about whether it's a dance work or a theater work. (Wisely, considering how limited his abilities as a choreographer are, Bourne says he's not very interested in dance per se.) Actually, it's a play without words and, for the most part, a play without dance. It's an overextended, undersignificant, occasionally clever comic strip of a theater piece based on the Robin Maugham novel The Servant, which we know best from the 1963 Joseph Losey–Harold Pinter film version starring Dirk Bogarde, James Fox and Sarah Miles.

Remember it? A rich, young playboy falls under the malign influence of his cockney servant, is seduced by the housemaid, loses his elegant fiancée, and sinks into debauchery. There were homoerotic overtones (what a sensation!) and a cold eye cast on the real perversity of English life, the class system. All this was unsettling back in the 60's, but today it's more old hat than New Wave. Bourne's piece is unsettling not because of its content, but because of its breakneck and almost nonstop busyness. To pep things up, he's had a brainstorm: If one feckless young master and one ominous servant are interesting, why not have three of each? And why not have three fiancées, and three "old friends," and two housemaids? (For that matter, why not three housemaids? Your guess is as good as mine.)

These multi-characters are relentlessly programmed to weave round each other without noticing their alter egos or knocking into each other. There are so many people rushing about that I was reminded of those ant farms kids used to be given in the hope that they'd get interested in science. As a result, the eye rarely gets to rest on any single person or action. Everything is so busy, busy, busy! In fact, the only effective encounter in the entire work is a slow seduction scene between one young master and a housemaid on top of a wooden kitchen table; it's a protracted semi-dance sequence of some wit, and it comes as a welcome relief.

Granted, the sex is not very sexy-the poor chap is portrayed as an awkward, virginal adolescent, callow beyond belief, and the girl is in the oo-la-la tradition of the kind of coyly suggestive English comedy that once infected the West End. (Will I ever forget No Sex, Please, We're British? It ran for centuries.)

Play Without Words has a jazz combo stage left, deftly performing a waily, jazzy score (by Terry Davies), and there's a complicated set (by Lez Brotherston) with a tilted, drunken backdrop in the already dated style of the National Theatre's revival of An Inspector Calls; I believe it's meant to be Expressionistic, implying that Things Are Not What They Seem. There are bridges, ramps, staircases, elevators and doors, and believe me, they're in constant use. One fiancée, for instance, may be coming through a door while another is prancing up the stairs and the third is emerging from an upstage phone booth.

The fiancées are all of a piece-Bourne isn't committed to differentiating among his women characters. The masters are somewhat more distinguishable from each other, although they're uniformly weedy and effete-naturally, since they're upper-class. (To hammer home just how effete they are, they're wearing glasses.) The servants are beefier, one of them more fully delineated-therefore nastier-than the others; he even bears a slight resemblance to Dirk Bogarde. But they're still brothers under the skin: In a seamy (and endless) pub scene, they nervously reveal their shared homoerotic masochism. The really sexy guys are the friends, particularly the one who not only wears a casual checked shirt but plays the trumpet-sure signs of virility. Accordingly, they both accommodate the servants by playing sadist and help out the uppercrusty ladies, who certainly get no satisfaction from their schoolboyish fiancées.

It may all sound lusty and sensual, but forget it-the sex is paint-by-numbers, just as occasional outbursts of social dancing are pure pastiche. The only thing that's for real is the clockwork precision of all the darting around-the cigarettes lit and stubbed out; the drinks poured and downed; the doorbells rung and answered. Bourne may be aspiring to the ingenuities of an Alan Ayckbourn play, or-better yet-the genius of Feydeau's remorseless mechanisms, but he's got nothing to tell us. Even when the servants eventually gain the upper hand, there's no psychic kick-if you're thinking of Genet's The Maids, don't. This isn't farce noir; it's synchronized acting.

And it takes no risks. In an early scene, when Servant No.1 undresses his master while Servant No. 2 dresses his, they stop short of full frontal-this, in a world where full frontal is practically de rigueur. A woman sitting in front of me was outraged: She hadn't schlepped all the way to Brooklyn to look at some nerdy boys in their jockeys.