I am a not too discontented citizen of New York City, of a modern metropolis that is not lacking in taste, or zeal; where the people trip along the pavements and don’t look up to see the blackbirds, winging their way across the glittering facades of the business district. Here, the exteriors of the apartments are not lost in smoke, and the ruddy complexion of the boutiques along the avenues draw an alluring crowd.
But oh for the countryside! And the green grandeur of older days when I sent my boat racing along the pond. When the larger boats, white as the crest of a wave, swam into blue distances. And wasn’t that place just along the road, through the thicket and out to where the horizons suddenly open up? I remember you – East Hampton Long Island – and your marble wharves and cottages that lingered on the waters edge; the large oaks that twinkled against purple skies; the Marina where I played and Three Mile Harbour; those swinging cocktail parties where Errol Flynn was known to wander in with a stiff cocktail when my grandfather was still alive.
I’m in downtown Manhattan sitting in the courtyard of the The Greenwich Hotel, where De Niro dreamt of Italy inside Tribeca’s urban wild. “More like a classy home than a hotel…” they say, with the pink lampshades and the raucous fires and the new-age chandeliers inside. They have even imported the bliss of Asia for market-weary city-slickers – the Shibui Spa, where coconut and citrus perfume breathes above the lantern-lit pool, between the age-old bamboo wood where you lie face down and that frantic New York existence is reduced to the clear accord of ‘unimagined luxury’.
I heard about this place, the curves and lines of the rooms as preciously ornamented as the boulevards outside. The dark greens and yellows of the balcony, where I take coffee, and the water that falls on pressed shoulder blades as I wash away the day’s excess. I will dine alone tonight, with silver spoons at Locanda Verde, and I will remember my dream of Beach Town, where the antique wooden sailing sloop sailed into the night. And then I will go, on the liner that takes you there, and snatch some breakfast at the restaurant Cittanuova…
The wind curls in the pines, and the indigo straights shimmer inside my glass of cognac. I remember you, East Hampton Long Island.
For more information, please go to www.thegreenwichhotel.com.
