Within the mid-’80s, I used to be a waiter on the Hors d’Oeuvrerie, the lounge and worldwide café of Home windows on the World, the place ladies and men from across the globe got here for maybe a little bit of then-unheard-of sashimi, after-dinner dessert, and dancing, or the glittering, quarter-of-a-mile-high views of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Everybody from heads of state to rock stars to Broadway royalty visited the Hors d’Oeuvrerie on their approach to or from Home windows on the World’s essential eating room, which confronted uptown. Magnificence and pedigree abounded, even among the many workers: Waitresses wore satin sarongs and waiters bowed virtually imperceptibly when greeting friends. The tall, silent piano participant was rumored to be a protégé of Leonard Bernstein.
Through the day, although, the Hors d’Oeuvrerie was a personal membership, a spot to conduct enterprise lunches and the newly common energy breakfasts. When a waiter made it by means of the gantlet of personnel interviews, he was handed a white, naval-style jacket—his day put on—and a schedule that included a minimum of one breakfast shift per week.
Working dinner the night time earlier than a breakfast shift normally meant my head barely hit the pillow earlier than I needed to be up and on the restaurant by 5:30 a.m. By no means a caffeine addict, I nonetheless wanted a approach to get up, so I’d stumble to the dessert case and minimize a beneficiant slice of dacquoise, a fragile cake of hazelnut meringue layers with espresso buttercream filling. The dacquoise, which was made the day earlier than, was greatest then; the crunchy meringue had softened right into a barely chewy nougat due to the filling. I’d set up myself at one of many east-facing tables, and with my ft up and my fussy uniform falling open like a bathrobe, I’d watch and wait. My reflection would fade whereas the sky turned from black to gun-metal grey to a luminous mauve as if the world had simply found Technicolor. On the clearest of mornings, I might see virtually 90 miles, or so the bartender would at all times inform me.
Once I’m in downtown Manhattan as of late, I lookup and attempt to keep in mind precisely the place within the sky I entertained friends, patiently mentioning landmarks and boroughs, and the place I by no means uninterested in these dawn views. And the way a day might start so sweetly.
