What Are You Doing New Years Eve?

Happy New Year to my dear bloginistas (bloggers with style!) and friends and strangers who read this humble rag.
For many years I had a business that provided decor. So when New Years Eve rolled around, I was usually engaged to decorate a party or two. Most were huge events, though some were more intimate house parties.

Valorie Hart Designs
The huge fabulous Lichtenstein always hangs in this office building lobby.
The giant pine cones were added as the seasonal decor.
The party decor took its cue from the painting.
Each table had linen color picked out from the painting.
The flowers were arranged both high and low,
and the flower choice was simple: red tulips in winter!

I never resented working New Years day into eve. My crew was a great collection of talent, and we became friends through the years, so we made the job our special party. Before I became a business woman I had a show business career, so often I worked in a club on New Years Eve.

Valorie Hart Designs
This event is at The Brooklyn Museum.
I love the glass block floor lighted from below.
The statues are the museum's, but I brought in the fountains.

On the rare New Years Eve that I wasn't working I preferred to go to a party that I could walk to from my brownstone on 15th Street. New Years Eve in New York is brutal. Everything is overpriced. It's cold, so that evening shoes and a cute little party dress gets a lot of wind up the skirt. Taxis are impossible to get, and if you do get one, you pay triple the meter. Many a time I had to resort to the subway, sharing it with puking teenagers, or worse yet standing alone on a cold train platform at midnight into the new year waiting and waiting for a train to come.

Valorie Hart Designs

The Mac Daddy of all New Years party locations: The Rainbow Room!
Gold and silver and white were the obvious choices.
We made the huge cocktail filled with lights behind the long buffet table.

The best party outside of putting on some slinky pajamas and laying out a supper of every exotic and expensive food we loved (caviar, smoked salmon, pheasant, oysters, lobsters, chocolate), was a little supper party given at a restaurant around the corner from my home called Luxe; it was given by my friends Timothy Pope and Robin Berg.
It was s sit down dinner for twelve. I decorated of course, and I recall vast quantities of white narcissus flowers and candlelight. After dinner we danced to big band music. It was an unusually warm night, and with a fire roaring in the fireplace of our private dining room, we were overheated. We threw open the windows at midnight, and tossed flowers to the passersby.

Valorie Hart Designs
This is a party at The Puck Building
It was called White Winter Wonderland
Lucite chairs, tons of white branches and lights,
iridescent table lines, white Amaryllis, lots of candle light
made this one of my favorites, and a favorite of my clients.
I revamped this look for many a wedding!

Loading docks on New Years aren't fun either. There is so much stuff that has to be schlepped to make a party. The logistics are worthy of a five star general planning a battle. There's never enough time no matter how early you can set-up, or how many magic crew people you amass. But somehow it all gets done, and we would all stand together and look at our handiwork, amazed that we did it. I always brought along a few bottles of Champagne for this moment to share with my decor squad. Glasses were lifted, toasts given, and off we went to a hot bath and a night at home.
Looking at photos of milestones usually include friends and family. Mine also include a body of work. But back then I was careless with my talent, and didn't think to document it all. The few photos I have were taken by Adam Anik and Juris Mardwig. And of course I have some tattered tear sheets I managed to save from editorials along the way.

Valorie Hart Designs
Brides Magazine Editorial
The idea was a church basement winter reception, for a bride on a budget.
Masses of red and pink mini carnations, herb topiary,
winter love birds, snow flakes, winter evergreens
were all used on a back drop of winter white.
I had to reproduce this party many times over after this editorial.

I never ever went to Times Square once. Except to decorate a party there in a now defunct restaurant called Nirvana. It was atop an odd little building on the median in Times Square. It had a perfect view below of the hoopla. Of course we were invited to stay for the party and enjoy the view, but we politely declined and scurried off home. This wasn't easy since all of Times Square is barricaded by the police in preparation for the massive crowds.

"What Are You Doing New Year's Eve"

When the bells all ring and the horns all blow
And the couples we know are fondly kissing.
Will I be with you or will I be among the missing?

Maybe it's much too early in the game
Ooh, but I thought I'd ask you just the same
What are you doing New Year's
New Year's eve?

Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it's exactly twelve o'clock that night
Welcoming in the New Year
New Year's eve

Maybe I'm crazy to suppose
I'd ever be the one you chose
Out of a thousand invitations
You received

Ooh, but in case I stand one little chance
Here comes the jackpot question in advance:
What are you doing New Year's
New Year's Eve?

Posted in: Holidays, New Year, Tales of Me In The City, Valorie Hart Designs