A Night at the Rainbow Room

Wednesday night at the Rainbow Room was pretty great. Around 6:30 at night, I emerged from the subway at Sixth Avenue and 49th Street to see throngs of people packed behind barricades on the other side of the street. I managed to find my mom and my brother on a nearby corner, and we made our way over to the entrance of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. (My dad’s been in Florida for a few days, so he couldn’t make it.) My mom took out her invitation, a guard looked for her name on a list, we all showed our IDs, and we walked through the lobby to the elevator, which whisked us up to the 65th floor at the top of the building.

Cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, people I’d never met. My brother and I basically hung out together and made joking remarks about unfamiliar people. That’s always fun. He and I have similar senses of humor. I’ve never written here about how much I love the guy, but I really do.

But the best part of being up there was the view.

The Rainbow Room is divided into a couple of rooms, and unfortunately we weren’t on the side of the building facing Rockefeller Plaza and the Christmas tree, but that was okay.

To the north I could see Central Park. It seemed somehow truncated from this high up. I could even see the big reservoir in the middle of the park. To the north of the park I could see the continuation of Sixth Avenue, brightly lit — it was Lenox Avenue, Harlem’s wide boulevard, another world, a place I’ve never been. Far in the distance was the Triborough Bridge.

To the left of Central Park I could see clusters of tall buildings — the luxury buildings on Central Park West and the apartment towers of the Upper West Side. To the right of the park, the Upper East Side.

I wakled over to the windows facing west. We were on Sixth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, and I could see all the office skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan, and then the Hudson River, and then New Jersey beyond that.

But the most impressive view of all — that was to the south. The Empire State Building was 15 blocks directly south of us, huge, soaring into the sky, the top lit up in red, white and blue, as it has been for the last two and a half months. It dominates everything around it.

And then — to the right of it, but far, far away, all the way down in lower Manhattan — an eerie, pale white glow in the distance. No more tall, shiny twin towers piercing the sky; instead, something earthbound and dead and powerless. The crews have been working there around the clock for 11 weeks now, night and day, removing rubble. From parts of downtown Jersey City you can usually see the glow of the fluorescent lights. From lower Manhattan you can see it too, a ghost of what used to be. From this high up, though — especially after having seen this view so many times on the Ric Burns documentary about New York last week — it was sad and strange.

Here we were, all the way at the top of 30 Rock, in the Rainbow Room, enjoying a nice cocktail party. Down below, crowds of people were in the Christmas spirit, watching celebrities perform on a national TV broadcast, and Rudy Giuliani and Laura Bush were probably smiling along with them. New York City was full of manic energy again, people living out their dreams, having a blast, laughing in restaurants and bars, Times Square flashing electrically, Broadway casts performing their shows, taxis zooming across the city.

And far down the island, a sad, pale glow, the men continuing to do their duty, removing huge pieces of hot, twisted metal from an enormous grave, the fire of bodies, computers and cars continuing slowly to burn. It seemed like the quiet, depressed man who sits in the corner of the room as a raucous party goes on, tainting everything around him with his solemnity.

After my mom and the others received their certificates for completing the first part of her program, and after the party ended, my mom decided to take her two sons out to dinner. We got back on the elevator and took it back down to the lobby. It was around 9:15 and the tree-lighting ceremony had just ended.

In the lobby we saw a group of black boys wearing purple blazers — members of the Harlem Boys’ Choir. Their leader was trying to keep them together and get them out of the building and into the crowd without too much chaos.

And as we walked out the main doors ourselves, we noticed two familiar-looking people right behind us — Ana Gasteyer and Maya Rudolph of Saturday Night Live. They were looking out at the throng with very concerned looks on their faces. We did what you always do when you see a celebrity in New York — you whisper quietly to the people you’re with and you try to glance at the famous people and be all cool about it without them noticing so you won’t bother them. Anyway, right now they didn’t look like they wanted to be bothered.

Sixth Avenue was closed to traffic, but a few seconds later a cop was escorting them across the street. Membership has its privileges.

The three of us made our way up along Sixth Avenue, walking with the crowd, and then everything stopped. A motorcade appeared from the south, speeding north along the avenue. Police motorcycles, a police car, another police car, a black limo, another black limo, two more police cars, a pause. Another police car, a black SUV, another black SUV, another police car, and a couple more motorcycles. I don’t know whether it was the Mayor or the First Lady, but whoever it was, it was pretty cool.

After that was over, we walked over to Gallagher’s, where none of us had ever been, and had a steak dinner. Checkered tablecloths, big men sitting at tables with cigars, black and white photographs on the walls, paintings of horses. Straight out of the 1920s.

We had a nice meal with good conversation. An hour later we walked out onto the street again, and it was time for the three of us to part. It had been ages since my mom had hung out with her two sons alone, and she’d really enjoyed it. She gave me a hug, then she gave my brother a hug, then she gave me another hug, then she gave my brother another hug, and that was that. We all went our separate ways again, off in our different directions.

Just another magical night in New York.