New York Magazine September 16-29, 2019

1 For the cover of New York’s “Fall Preview” issue, Jonathan Van Meter profiled Renée Zellweger (“Renée Zellweger’s Lost Decade,” September 2–15 ), who is soon to star as Judy Garland in the biopic Judy. On Instagram, huntlodge commented, “Good for her! Hollywood uses people up and discards them. She stepped aside and prioritized her life … then came back strong, looking better than ever!” And pietrofhnyc wrote, “She seems so un–Judy Garland–like that I can’t wait to see her play the role. But I hope she captures the innate humor Judy had along with the pathos and insecurity.” But unger_xx chafed at the headline: “I wouldn’t call it a ‘lost’ decade. Time off can be extremely fruitful. Not everything of value in life is public.” Added sophiegruetzner, “Lost decade?…

THE ROAD BACK to the campaign trail begins with the Look. Do you know the one I mean? The Look is one of searching, of scanning, of wanting. For half a second, the eyes swell with hope—cartoonish, glassy. Every passing person presents an opportunity. Do you know me? the eyes ask. Can I shake your hand, slap your back, kiss your baby? Mark Sanford was giving the Look left and right. In the direction of the young couple sitting in a hammock. An older couple on a bench. A man approaching on his jog. A golden retriever. It was dusk in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the suburban town six miles from downtown Charleston where Sanford lives. A short drive from his house, there’s the ocean walk—a beautiful stretch of pavement…

EVERYBODY IN New York has at least one place in the city that haunts them, but some parts of downtown seem genuinely possessed. A stretch of asphalt in Tompkins Square Park, known as the “Training Facility,” is flat and full of cracks, and if you didn’t know better, you might assume the community wanted some capital improvements. But the neglect is part of the appeal for skaters who just want a place to learn tricks. Competitions there date back to 1989, and the spot was a backdrop in the 1995 movie Kids; its popularity grew after 9/11, when security around the city’s public areas tightened. Now it is beloved by a new generation of rising skate stars, and pros like Alexis Sablone credit it with being one of the best…

BARI WEISS —editor, Times columnist, Twitter piñata, extrovert, and now author—began the launch party for her first book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism, with an introduction. Standing by the window in a private room of the Lambs Club on the night of September 10 in a yellow-on-black floral-print dress from Saks, she turned to her aunt and said, “Aunt Betty, meet Shari Redstone, queen of all media!” “I’m so proud of her,” said Redstone, the new chair of ViacomCBS. The daisy chain that led to Redstone’s invitation exemplified the particular mix of guests who made this night different from all other nights. Redstone and Weiss met at a dinner thrown by Richard Pleplerthe former HBO chief executive and patron of the arts—and his wife, Lisa. The Pleplers met Weiss, who is…

DURING Tom Ford’s first season as chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a shortened and stuffed Fashion Week went everywhere: the Apollo Theater in Harlem for Tommy Hilfiger, the Brooklyn Navy Yard for Michael Kors, an abandoned subway station on the Bowery for Ford. In Flatbush, 90 minutes before the Pyer Moss show at the historic Kings Theatre, the line swept down the block, and at 10 p.m., well after the scheduled start, there were thousands of people outside. Finally, around 10:30, things got going. A choir of some 60 strong filed in, dominating the massive stage, and a small band settled into the pit, framed by a low runway. Then the author Casey Gerald came out and spoke for several minutes about enslavement and freedom. “We’re…

WHEN CENTRAL PARK TOWER at 217 West 57th Street officially tops out at 1,550 feet on September 17, it will (if you don’t count the 400-foot spire atop One World Trade Center) become New York’s tallest building. It has already transformed the skyline, paired with the 1,428-foot residential needle on the next block at 111 West 57th. I recently toured the construction site with the building’s two Chicago architects, Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill. Smith designed the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa in Dubai, as well as the future tallest, the kilometer-high (3,280-foot) Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia. Moving from sidewalk to a gajillionaire’s aerie—a 15,898-square-foot three-floor penthouse—we talked about how a 131-story tower can possibly fit into our city. GORDON GILL: How well do you know the building? JUSTIN…