Location, Location, Location
NORDLINGER, JAY
Location, Location, Location Clinton rents in Harlem. BY JAY NORDLINGER New York Oh, he's a beaut, Clinton. Every week, he fascinates and appalls. But he is also a predictable man—even dully so....
...Clinton could easily arrange a life of (a) Babbo, (b) golf in Westchester County, (c) travel, and (d) an appearance in the 'hood every now and then, for lunch, autographs, and love/validation...
...Said Castro there, "As a revolutionary, I knew I would be welcome in this neighborhood...
...He and another swinging bachelor, ex-senator Bob Kerrey, dined at Babbo, in Greenwich Village...
...The civil rights veteran Roger Wilkins put it this way to me: "Clinton is a very shrewd character...
...And could any other city accommodate a being of such appetites and stature...
...He sees how black people react to him...
...Clinton and Kerrey are not exactly old pals, either...
...Clinton, in an early attempt at damage control, held a sidewalk news conference, at which he assured, "I'm not going to let the taxpayers get gigged on this...
...Whenever he returns to New York, for a U.N...
...Said Clinton—and only he would be brazen enough to pretend this is true—"I asked myself, 'If I could go any place in New York to have an office, where would I go?' Immediately I thought of . . . "—of course, Harlem...
...I also pay higher taxes in New York, and I'm glad to be here...
...Here we have the phenomenon of the insta-New Yorker...
...And the ninth floor, aside from the fact that it was practically at worm-level, was just too close to the Russian Tea Room for comfort—security and all...
...Carnegie Hall Tower...
...When the lights came up after Act I, the audience hailed Clinton, shouting "Bravo...
...His race card is always at the ready...
...He used the occasion to blast Republican affirmative-action policy...
...and "Viva Cuba...
...The Rev...
...Certain gentile members have quit the club in disgust (not at the presence of even a few tokens, but at the discrimination...
...His sidekick and money-man, Terry McAuliffe, was with him...
...And not just anywhere in the Tower—on the 56th floor, with "panoramic views Jay Nordlinger is managing editor of National Review...
...And even if he does, he shouldn't be expected to spend much time there—he'll find a way to get back downtown...
...But we're getting to that...
...The main mover behind the stunt seems to have been Charlie Rangel, Harlem's con-gressman-for-life...
...And then there was the flap over his post-presidential offices...
...it seems so obvious now...
...Who says he's at home only in Harlem...
...and a law, and a morality, unto themselves...
...And you can count on him...
...Ernest Istook, of the very un-New York state of Oklahoma, and chairman of the relevant subcommittee, was raising a fuss about Clinton's prospective suite in the sky...
...Clinton, too, was mobbed and adulated in Harlem—"treated like a rock star," we all would say...
...Said "a source close to Clinton" to the New York Post, "Istook is just trying to make him take a lower floor to demean him...
...In 1960, Fidel Castro famously decamped from a plush Midtown hotel to the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, to show solidarity with the people there...
...It was looking bad for Clinton: his greed, his fanciness...
...Compared with that, every other question is disgustingly small...
...The old hustler hasn't lost a step...
...Cattle futures, Oriental cash, spirited-out Executive Mansion luxury goods, funds-for-pardons, the 56th floor—all hard to swallow...
...During his shining hour in Harlem, Clinton declared, "This is what my presidency was about...
...He seemed to feel validated by it, redeemed, as he always does...
...I wish I had called his move to Harlem...
...He struggled...
...Clinton, particularly without his Oval Office-commanded attack and spin machine, was in a pinch...
...On his second day in town, he showed up at the Metropolitan Opera, to hear Luciano Pavarotti in Aida...
...The comedian and social critic Chris Rock expressed such a fear when he said in an interview, "Bill, you better really be there...
...gathering, he goes back to Harlem, where he is mobbed by cheering, adulatory throngs—and bear-hugged and escorted by Charlie Rangel...
...The mindset contains the following: Black people are the moral arbiters of this country, its very conscience...
...In 1995, at a Baptist church, they all screamed, "Fidel...
...He first had his eye on one of the city's fanciest buildings: Carnegie Hall Tower, on West 57th Street...
...And then he played it—his card...
...The tabloids were having a field day with him, their newest "bold-face name" (a name that, on the gossip pages, is printed in bold, so that readers can easily spot it...
...There are a few token Semites there, like the investor Carl Icahn, but mainly it holds the line...
...He had been "snubbed" by the elites downtown, and now he was "going home," where he "belonged...
...Why don't he come on home...
...He wanted Clinton to accept, say, the ninth floor, which would cost about two-thirds less...
...He has had time for some golf, too, but not in New York, where winter hangs on: in Florida, at a Miami-area country club notorious for its . . . lack of diversity, to use the Clinton idiom...
...Clinton has absorbed a little culture, too...
...Fidel...
...Said Ms...
...Kerrey is around—he was no more going back to Nebraska than Clinton was to Arkansas—as president of the New School for Social Research (which is so old now, it should perhaps ditch the "New...
...it is one of the "hottest," or "buzziest," as Tina might say...
...Clinton has had a rocky life in New York since he left office, in a shower of self-love...
...Moreover, Clinton has "a habit of using black people as props...
...of Central Park," as every journalist noted...
...The ex-president, despite his PR woes, has enjoyed a few high moments...
...Back at home, Clinton was under fire for his Carnegie Hall Tower dalliance...
...So, why would the ex-president risk offending two of his vital constituencies, Jews and blacks...
...Fidel...
...Yes, in a way...
...As untiring Clinton apologist— and Clinton likeness—Geraldo Rivera said, "Can those bitter and frustrated political foes lay a glove on the President of 125th Street...
...The comment of one in the Harlem throng, to the Post, was typical: "He grew up in a single-parent family...
...Many of his erstwhile friends and apologists have turned on him, or at least turned cold to him...
...The local mayor warned Clinton, who had played there once before, of Indian Creek's smelly stance...
...Our 42nd president is a beaut, all right...
...Clinton does it over and over: runs to black people when he gets into a jam...
...He shared the front pages with Sean "Puffy" Combs, the gangster and rapper on trial for shooting up a nightclub...
...In Congress, Rep...
...Clinton may not move in—there are lease problems with the designated building...
...People would come up to me and ask me what I was doing here, and I said, 'I don't know, I just like it.' It felt like home...
...His liberal base had always been lenient—even cele-bratory—about the sex, but the money angle was more discomfiting...
...The club—Indian Creek (there are no Indians there)—has been characterized in the press as "all-white" or "anti-black," but this misses the mark: What it mainly is is anti-Jewish...
...And he knows that if he goes to see black people, he's going to get a warm bath...
...In one of those amazing flights of autobiography—incredible, but not precisely checkable— Clinton claimed that he used to enjoy walking through Harlem in the 1960s...
...Washington is just too small for them...
...Babbo is not the humblest place in town (despite the humble, Italian-peasant name...
...Many observers have remarked on this, as I did, in these pages, back in the Time of Monica...
...He knows that his rapport with black people is terrific...
...Afterward, he went backstage to grin and have pictures with Pavarotti—a kindred spirit, in certain ways...
...I see it all the time: A guy arrives on a Tuesday, and by Friday he's bitching about the corn-fed tourists, and about his Aunt Martha from Dayton, who "just doesn't get the prices here...
...His pardons stink like garbage...
...Sit on it...
...Does he ever...
...Immediately...
...They had a semi-bitter battle in the 1992 primaries, and Kerrey has described Clinton as "an unusually good liar...
...The Man from Hope would live the New York life...
...And Pardongate...
...They would cost the government just under $1 million a year, and many people—some important—were choking...
...To bask in the love of black people is, in one sense, to be untouchable...
...And "he plays black people in a very sophisticated and cynical way: He uses black people to talk to white people...
...He is a complicated man, Clinton: Harlem, the Met, Indian Creek...
...But he went on to explain to the provincials of the land what life was all about in the big city: "I mean, it's New York...
...Clinton pal Barry Diller, the media magnate, was a couple of floors down...
...Rangel apparently serves as a kind of Clinton-family counselor: He more or less started the Hillary-for-Senate (from New York) movement, and now he has rescued Bill...
...And Gift-gate...
...A coalition politician, for sure...
...He and his wife took gifts they shouldn't have...
...You really can...
...You rubes in Greater America probably wouldn't understand this, but floor—height, altitude—is extremely important in Manhattan...
...in fact, they are old foes...
...Don't have a side office downtown where you do your real business, do your real entertaining" (as Al Sharp-ton does, incidentally—his downtown domain is in the Empire State Building...
...Brown to the New York Observer, "They [the Clintons— we're counting Hillary here, too] are natural New Yorkers...
...There are disturbing similarities between Clinton and "Puff Daddy": two men clearly guilty, but unbowed...
...Actually, a move to Harlem is not an original ploy—and Rangel is no stranger to the theater associated with it...
...And it's particularly important when the military card isn't available...
...Where's that...
...But they are now seen as something of a Damon-Affleck pair in New York...
...The Carnegie digs were proving a greater problem than Clinton must have anticipated...
...They like me, and more than like me...
...Clinton soaked up the love around 125 th Street—sucked it in like a sick man his medicine...
...Al Sharpton defends them both, and in the same language...
...another Clinton pal, editrix and buzz-mistress Tina Brown, had recently vacated the 56th...
...rooted for by millions of New Yorkers—not all of them black—who regard them as victims...
Vol. 6 • February 2001 • No. 23
