Reality Distorters: planetary personalities on the Upper East Side

REALITY DISTORTERS

Some people are planets. Some neighborhoods are solar systems.

The Upper East Side has attracted an extraordinary constellation of people who refused to live by the usual rules. They invented personas, worlds, fashions, fortunes and fantasies of their own — and left their gravity on New York.

Tom Wolfe
Spike Lee
Bernie Madoff
Bob Guccione
Gloria Steinem
Harry Houdini
Nora Ephron
Diane von Furstenberg
& more