Innholdsfortegnelse for July 29-August 11, 2024 i New York Magazine

IMMUNOTHERAPY IS CHANGING CANCER TREATMENT FOREVER. 1 New York’s “Health Issue” featured a series of stories on American medical care, including Christopher Cox’s hopeful report on the future of brain-cancer treatment (“Immunotherapy Is Changing Cancer Treatment Forever,” July 15–28). “This is awesome,” said Wyatt Taylor. “Genuine good news is too rare.” Journalist Jon Schwarz wrote, “I know from direct family experience that decades of cancer research are now paying off & making it possible to extend & save people’s lives.” Oncologist Stanislav Lazarev called the story “irresponsible,” however, noting that the study it cites “involved only 3 patients. Tumors did shrink quickly after CAR-T infusion but regrew in 2 of the 3 patients within just 3 months (!!!) … It’s plain disingenuous and gives patients false impression and false hope.”…

CELEBRITY SHOPPING Skims Cotton Rib Picot Scoop Tank, $38 “This tank is the right amount of tight. It’s breathable. It’s cotton. It’s black. I have five, and I travel with them all the time. I’m constantly going from one country to the next, so I need to know that I have something for whatever weather. I can wear them during the day and then I can wear them at night.” Gorjana 14K Gold Classic Hoops, $360 for a pair “Hoop earrings are standard to put together any look. Even if I’m super dressed down, I’ll throw on a pair just to feel a little bit more done. I always go for a smaller gold or silver hoop. And it’s important it doesn’t have the poky back. I want it to…

LAWYER MEG BROWN first saw the pants on Jessie Winograd, who has a part in the play Terce: A Practical Breviary, created by Heather Christian, who also has a pair. Winograd sent a link to the pants to the play’s 30-plus-person cast after being sent the same link by fellow cast member Ciera Cope, who had noticed the pants during rehearsal on Amy Santos. All of a sudden, it seemed as if every cast member had the summery padded cotton pants. Their appeal, according to the performers, lies in their sweatpant-esque silhouette and their versatility. While the play has closed, the popularity of the pants has endured. One morning, Brown and cast member Rachel Karp, who weren’t acquainted at the time, crossed paths in Prospect Park. “We clocked each other’s…

ELMER RAY Operations manager, Odenton, Maryland You drove from Maryland to come here?We have a self-driving car, so it’s easy for us to go and do a little getaway for a day. We come three to four times a season. We get up around 6 a.m., have breakfast at the house, and usually head out around 8 a.m. We spend four or five hours here and come right back. Have you always been comfortable with nudity? I was raised Catholic, and my mom—I love her and she meant no harm—always said if you’re naked outside of the bathroom, your angels will leave you and you’ll have no angels to protect you. So I always viewed nudity as something bad. I didn’t start the nudist way of life until I was…

RUMORS THAT Frog Club (86 Bedford St., nr. Barrow St.; frogclub.nyc)—opened behind a smoke screen of doormen and email-only reservations—might close after just five months appear to be untrue, but former employees say all may not be well past the near-windowless façade. “The whole exclusivity thing backfired because they couldn’t fill the room,” says one recent cook. Another ex-worker adds, “For the amount of hype, I think people expected full books every night.” That might hold true for investors. At least one has written a letter expressing his discontent: “I and, I am guessing, the vast majority of investors feel utterly deceived.” There are signs that chef-owner Liz Johnson is trying to turn things around—she’s introduced the Caesar salad from her L.A. restaurant Horses to the menu and added a happy…

A MURDER IN 1972 MABEL DETMOLD managed repairs, took in packages, found renters, and kept keys for homes on the Gardens until her death in 1964, gradually leaving the duties to her son Peter, who took over the job and expanded it. Unlike his mother, Peter didn’t commute home to Queens but lived on the Gardens in a rental at 229 East 48th Street. He also became a civic leader, known for fighting to preserve historic buildings and opposing unruly businesses. In the 1960s, he recruited neighbors to help start the Turtle Bay Gazette, a local newsletter. On January 6, 1972, he left a Gazette meeting at 8 p.m. with two members. One walked him all the way to her building across 48th Street. He crossed the street to his…

IN THE TERRACED garden of a mid-century house in the hills above the Sunset Strip, Moses Sumney is preparing for an intimate night of industry networking. It has been a swelteringly hot day, but the sun is starting to dip. A cool breeze is blowing in on the shaded gravel patio upstairs, where the musician and actor’s performance is being set up. Tall and striking in loose black pants, a black vest, and sunglasses and adorned with strings of gold necklaces, Sumney is running through a set list of songs from his upcoming EP, Sophcore, starting with the burbling “I’m Better (I’m Bad).” His band is relatively new (some of them met and rehearsed with Sumney for the first time just the day before), but you would never know it…

“I CAN TELL YOU who I’m writing for, and I can tell you who I’m keeping in mind,” romance novelist Casey McQuiston says. We are one cocktail in at the Scarlet Lounge, an Upper West Side bar co-owned by the actor Michael Imperioli. “I am writing for trans people—capital-F For,” McQuiston says. “Trans people, queer people, those are a lot of the people who engage with my work in ways that make me feel like they got it.” But McQuiston, blockbuster queer-romance author of The Pairing (out in August), is always aware of the broad audience of American romance readers. There’s the old-school image of the straight white midwestern wife tucking a mass-market paperback into her purse, and there’s the more probable reader of today, someone who might pick up…

Twenty-five things to see, hear, watch, and read. JULY 31–AUGUST 14 TV 1. Watch Industry Season Three That’s what the money’s for. Max, August 11. Sure, there’s House of the Dragon, and maybe you’re a Slow Horses person, but if you’re honest with yourself, you know there’s room for improvement in your calendar of weekly TV dramas. Industry, the tense, high-partying, high-stakes financial drama, is what you’re looking for. Get caught up on prior seasons so you’re ready to yell with the rest of us. KATHRYN VANARENDONK CLASSICAL MUSIC 2. Hear Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra “Ode to Joy” in translation. Cathedral of St. John the Divine, August 1. Support for Ukraine can fluctuate in the halls of power, but it remains staunch in the concert hall, at least when conductor Keri-Lynn…

I WAS IN A MOVIE THEATER on the afternoon of Sunday, July 21, watching Inside Out 2 with my kids, when my phone began to vibrate with the news that Joe Biden was stepping down and, soon after, that Kamala Harris would almost certainly be the Democratic nominee. I sat in the cool dark room and tried to take in what was happening simultaneously on the screen in front of me and in the brain inside of me: Anxiety, the emotion whose stated aims in the movie are to protect the heroine “from the scary stuff she can’t see” and to “plan for the future,” since “the next three days could determine the next four years of our lives!,” was producing a whirling, spiraling cloud of fear about how much…

Peugeot Paris u’Select Pepper Mill Chefs Sarah Raffetto, David Felton, and Michelle Wallace are all fans. “It’s such a great grind,” says Wallace, who likes a wooden Peugeot in either black or red. “I love that you can get different-size grinds and it’s visually appealing.” Raffetto has an orange set and finds it display-worthy: “They look quite sexy.” Kähler Hammershøi Pepper Mill Culture writer Jason Diamond also likes a grinder that stands out. “I want a person to walk into my home and say ‘I love that sculpture,’ ” he says. “The Scandinavians make the best grinders for getting this sort of reaction.” This one fits perfectly in his kitchen. It features a ceramic grinding mechanism that is suitable for salt and other spices as well. Zwilling Enfinigy Electric Salt/Pepper…

Here’s what they actually track. Most devices use a sensor to track heart rate and an accelerometer to track movement to tell you how much time you spent asleep, tossing and turning, and/or awake. Most of the data is pretty unreliable. They can “generate a lot of false data,” says Dr. Dianne Augelli, a sleep-medicine expert at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork–Presbyterian. And Dr. Mandana Mahmoudi, clinical director of sleep medicine at NYU Langone Health, says they absolutely can’t tell which sleep stage someone is in. But some of it can be mildly useful. Augelli and Mahmoudi do think trackers could be used for pattern recognition and making positive, actionable changes, like knowing when to go to bed to get enough hours of sleep. “If the data triggers change toward…

FOOD RESTAURANT REVIEW AT 4:58 P.M. ON a recent Thursday, a group had gathered on First Avenue. One might have assumed they were mourners at the R. G. Ortiz funeral home, whose black awning dominates the block, except that—contra Ortiz—they were exclusively South Asian: ammis in saris, tourists corralling sulky teenagers, a pair of beautiful 20-something women in unseasonable suits and Hermès sandals livestreaming into an iPhone. “He’s hosted MasterChef India for seven consecutive seasons,” one of them said to whoever was watching. The “he” is Vikas Khanna of the ready smile and the Byronic curl of thick black hair, who at that moment was snipping a fistful of chamomile from a sidewalk planter. At five on the dot, the doors were opened and everyone poured in. Bungalow, Khanna’s new…

REAL ESTATE IN THE 1970s, The New Yorker’s editor-in-chief William Shawn considered who should replace him. He suggested that longtime editor Gardner Botsford, who owned a home on the Gardens, could take over. But Shawn didn’t step down as planned. In 1987, Si Newhouse ousted Shawn and hired Knopf editor Robert Gottlieb, who also lived on the Gardens. 153 staffers at the magazine—including Botsford’s wife, Janet Malcolm—signed a letter against Shawn’s deposition. The split seemed more awkward than it was, said Malcolm’s daughter, Anne. “The issues my parents had were with Newhouse and the defenestration of Shawn,” she said. The two families, who were very close, continued to eat dinner together regularly, with Botsford bringing his own martinis to the Gottlieb house, mixed to his liking in a sealed jam…

REAL ESTATE The Gardens shares its name with the area, but it’s unclear where the name came from. Here, some lore. 1. A Misunderstanding Mabel Detmold, an early caretaker on the Gardens, wrote that “Turtle” might have been a mishearing, having seen early maps that refer to the area as “Dewtell,” which is possibly a misspelling of Deutal, a 17th-century Dutch word for a dowel. 2. Actual Reptiles Explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano described bounties of “terrapin” in Manhattan in 1524, and a 1765 letter sought recruits from “Tortoise Bay.” 3. Socialists At least one person—a critic of the incrementalist socialist movement Fabianism—thought that a turtle image in the garden meant the space might have been a Fabian project.…

A couple of years ago, the actor and filmmaker Jonah Hill made a documentary about his psychiatrist, Phil Stutz. In the film, titled Stutz, the two men do all sorts of things that therapists and their clients usually avoid. They say “I love you” to each other. They joke like immature schoolboys. Stutz makes a crack about banging Hill’s mother. At one point, Hill says his previous therapists kept him at “a massive distance.” What he always wanted, he says, was someone who would tell him what to do, but they would all just sit and listen or ask him how he felt. Stutz, charismatic and gruff, is different. As he puts it in the film, he tells patients, “Do what the fuck I tell you. Do exactly what I…

➸ IT’S ALMOST unheard of for a moisturizer to be just as good for oily skin as it is for dry skin as it is for acne as it is for wrinkles, but Neutrogena’s Hydro Boost Water Gel ($25) has been recommended to us by dermatologists for a number of concerns. That’s because all skin types need hydration and this gel-cream formula is known for its intensely quenching abilities, which are rare at this price point, according to Strategist beauty writer Kitty Guo. It’s packed with hyaluronic acid, to increase skin’s flexibility and elasticity while boosting hydration, and glycerin, a humectant, to pull water into the skin. Hydro Boost does all this while still being lightweight for those concerned about getting too oily. Guo says it sinks quickly into the…

ITA Leisure Chair, $225, and Table, $140VAN NEWMAN: I’m part of this digital community called the Jacuzzi Club. They share all the newest things, from apps to lifestyle stuff. Someone posted these. When we moved to L.A., we really found joy spending weekends at the beach doing nothing and reading. The Rope Co. Braided Rope Doormat, from $105N.A.: L.A. has been a lot of firsts for us in terms of home stuff: having a backyard, having an actual outside door. For our doormat, we really wanted to find something that was durable and beautiful but not hokey or cheesy. La Maison Inondée Bowl, $38 V.N.: Hosting is a really big part of us sharing a home. We have a blue-themed kitchen, so I saw this house bowl and it reminded…

THE ONE-PAGE GUIDE TO: ➽ Know what’s legal and what’s not. According to the Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act, each adult can cultivate up to six cannabis plants, three mature (flowering, ready-to-harvest plants) and three immature (branches and leaves but no flowers yet), with a maximum of 12 per multi-adult household. Once you’ve harvested your plants, you can store up to five pounds of cultivated cannabis flower, enough to roll more than 1,500 king-size joints. Beyond that, there are few legal barriers to growing in your apartment—and your building management can’t say much about it, either. “Unless they are receiving federal benefits, like in Section 8 housing, a landlord can’t prevent you from home cultivating,” says Nathaniel Jenkins from the Office of Cannabis Management. But be mindful that local laws…

HANGING ON THE wall inside Le Veau d’Or (129 E. 60th St., nr. Lexington Ave.; lvdnyc.com), the octogenarian bistro that’s been refurbished and reopened by chefs Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, is a copy of one of the first menus. It lists “Fresh frogs’ legs provençale” as part of the $3.75 prix fixe. Hanson, Nasr, executive chef Jeff Teller, and chef de cuisine Charlie Izenstein knew they wanted a version, and they opted for a butter-forward, bright-green persillade preparation (while saving the tomato-based Provençale approach for their escargots). Frogs’ legs were standard fare in the middle of the 20th century, when pretty much all of this city’s fine-dining destinations were French. Now, only a handful of places—including Chez Napoléon, La Grenouille (of course), Che Li, and the original Nathan’s on Coney…

IN 1985, THE COMMITTEE found itself dealing with a violent threat: a Balinese cat prone to fighting other cats. It was owned by the son of Peggy McEvoy, who received a stern letter from the Gardens caretaker, Therese Perry, whose similarly named cat, Chi Cha, was attacked. “I am not the only one on the garden that feels that Cous Cous is a very unfriendly and dangerous cat,” Perry wrote. “I do not intend to stand for it any longer.” McEvoy remembered Perry as a “witch” who would punish the cat by locking it in basements. But Janet Malcolm was sympathetic because her own cat had been attacked by Cous Cous, too, said her daughter. Malcolm played peacekeeper, suggesting that McEvoy pay for Chi Cha’s sutures and sending the committee…

“WHERE’S HAWK TUAH?” squeals a boy straddling his bicycle outside a sports bar called the Ugly Duckling in Long Beach, Long Island. He’s got a buzz cut and three friends with him, and they say they’re in the eighth grade, though they seem younger to me. They’re begging the bouncer to let them inside because they want to meet the most famous woman on the internet this summer, Haliey Welch. “She’s not getting here till past your bedtime,” says the bouncer, ignoring the encouragement of a grown-up walking by: “Don’t ruin the boys’ dreams!” ¶ Welch, a.k.a. “Hawk Tuah,” went viral for being authentically, hilariously herself. In June, some man-on-the-street influencers approached her on Broadway—not in Times Square but the honky-tonk tourist zone in Nashville—asking her to share “a move…