The Four Seasons
The Four Seasons restaurant, located in the iconic Seagram Building on East 52nd Street opened in 1959, and it will close on Saturday, July 16th. For the past 57 years, the Four Seasons has been the place for the Power Lunch, hosting regulars over the years such as Martha Stewart, the Kennedys, Brooke Astor, Henry Kissinger, Anna Wintour and other titans of publishing, entertainment and politics.
The interior of the restaurant was designed by Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe, and was designated as an interior landmark in 1989. The restaurant's lease, however, is not being renewed and they will vacate the space on Saturday and auction off its entire contents ten days later—including Mies van der Rohe and Hans Wegner chairs, Eero Saarinen Tulip tables, Philip Johnson sofas, tableware and cookware by L. Garth and Ada Louise Huxtable.
Luckily, we had an opportunity back in October to visit the Four Seasons during Open House New York weekend, and I realized recently that I had never shared my photos. At the time, the restaurants fate was uncertain, but now that everything—not protected by its interior landmark designation—will be scattered to various collections, our visit has taken on a new significance.
When you walk into the Four Seasons you feel like you've traveled back in time, to an era of three-martini lunches, where people dressed up because they cared, where air travel was a luxury—and luxurious—where business deals were made in person and not through email.
The bubbling Pool Room has four trees that change with the seasons; the more serious, wood-paneled Grill Room has corner banquets that make you want to talk about something important and expensive; the large windows are draped with aluminum chain curtains that undulate and shimmer like nothing else you've ever seen. The restaurant owners insist that the Four Season will be reborn somewhere else, and while I don't doubt their good intentions, I can't help but feel as if something really special, and really New York, will be lost forever when they move out.