Bravo to glam media! Glam media, whose portal to the world can be found at glam.com, the fabulous fashion, beauty, home and living site, was my kind host for the day. In honor of Fashion Week, they welcomed us bloggers to the Writer’s Den suite in the grand Library Hotel (which, my other host–in the form of providing a couch about 100 blocks away–assures me is a NY must see), and I attended to represent Craft Gossip.
Manicures, pedicures, fresh fruit, veggies, perfect shrimp, much needed coffee, leather couches, good conversation with strangers… just some of the perks. Now I’ve not attended any actual fashion shows, so I have nothing to share in that vein (which is probably fitting, as I’m an edible crafts gal), but those around me have. Lots of crocodile and crystals this year, so I hear.
Tomorrow I’ll load some pictures of the Writer’s Den and the event, but in the interim, here are some sites of the bloggers I’ve met:
NY and me. We have a long standing, sometimes strained relationship. Growing up in NJ, school trips to the MoMA and Met were the norm. Trips in college to visit friends, crazy night clubs, Broadway, bartering in the Village, all covered. But I’ve never mastered New York. Always felt intimidated navigating the subways and dwarfed by the shadows of the skyscrapers (living in DC, where the tallest building must, by law, be shorter than the monument, shadows are never an issue). Perhaps it was the hundreds and hundreds of blocks I covered in heels over sidewalks and rail that did it. Or maybe it was that I finally saw a star (Steve Martin, leaving a club as I entered). More likely it was the warm welcome of the fashionistas at Glam, but I feel a slightly better connection to NY today. I’m hoping the grandness of the city and our newfound friendship will last after I leave tomorrow in the form of something wonderfully creative. Until tomorrow…
Hello, Meaghan’s husband here. Ordinarily, I don’t have anything constructive to add to her posts, but since she strayed into my territory (i.e., the law) today, here I am!
Specifically, I’d like to clarify her comment about “living in DC, where the tallest building must, by law, be shorter than the monument.” This is a misstatement of an enduring misperception of DC law. In 1899, Congress passed a law restricting buildings to a height no greater than the U.S. Capitol – not the Washington Monument. This is an important distinction, because the monument is almost twice as tall (555 versus 289 feet) as the Capitol, although both are dwarfed by, say, the Empire State Building (1250 feet).
Anyway, in 1910, Congress changed the height restriction so it is no longer based on the height of the U.S. Capitol, but on the width of the street in front of the planned building, plus 20 feet! So, if a building faces a street with a width of 90 feet, its maximum height is, by law, 110 feet. (A few exceptions have been granted – for instance, the Washington National Cathedral.)
Read more about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heights_of_Buildings_Act_of_1910
On a personal note, I once attended a rooftop party at the building whose construction created such a ruckus that the height restriction was put in place in the first place. The Cairo (then a hotel, now a condo building), was built in 1894 and, at 164 feet, still towers above its neighbors and provides a great view of the entire city!
And now, back to your regularly scheduled edible crafts…
To clarify… I mistyped. Meant to write “capitol” and inadvertently said “monument.”