Monday, April 26, 2004

As loyal readers may remember, Standard Deviance has been thrust back into the rental market thanks to the shrew who lives downstairs. As a prospective tenant, I have been scouring newspapers and websites for apartment listings and neighborhood guides. As misdirected as it may be, I saw the Habitats feature today in the New York Times and decided to read it, even though it was profiling the Upper East Side. Luckily I did not let my preconceptions (pompous rich old ladies with poofy white dogs mixed with anorexic sorority girls lining down the block for Tasti D-Lite) stop me from reading this groundbreaking article. I was greeted with the mellifluous phrasings of one Ms. Penelope Green. What follows are some of the truly sagacious insights of this considerable piece:

The action in "The Right Address," Jill Kargman's new novel about rich people behaving very badly indeed, caroms around a fictional address, 741 Park Avenue. The setting is modeled on the Rosario Candela confection on Park at East 71st Street known simply by its numerals, 740 - Nehru, Mao or Madonna of addresses -and its pedigree. (Don't even think about looking there, said one broker familiar with the property, unless you're laying down cash for its $20 million-plus apartments, and have at least $100 million in liquid assets.)

While the mischievously voluble Ms. Kargman, who co-wrote the novel for Broadway Books with her writing partner and Spence school chum Carrie Karasyov, has been limning her Upper East Side milieu for its comic potential since she was a child, according to Arie L. Kopelman - president of Chanel Inc. and Ms. Kargman's dad - she is living just outside its white hot center [Emphasis Mine].

Forsooth, this duo of Kargman and Kargman have constructed their own small oasis in the high class wilderness that is 10021. Oh, what jocose encounters ensued following the couple's move into their fourth floor walk up. Imagine, the heir of a Chanel fortune and novelist having to deal with the likes of drug dealers, rats of unusual size, and raucous fraternity brothers! The tales are truly enrapturing. Bravo, New York Times, for bringing to us the story of the Kargmans, and Bravo, Ms. Green, for relaying this tale so eloquently. Indeed, if only the Times had featured such an article when I originally moved to our fair city, I might have realized that one need not move to a very wrong address in Brooklyn for the high life, all one needs is a husband, a book deal, and an exterminator to live with the beautiful people of the Upper East Side.

In a White-Glove ZIP, a Walkup Perspective [NYT]

Standard Deviance would like to thank Ms. Trash for inspiring bloggers everywhere to further peruse the wonder that is the New York Times.