oscar wilde – The Humble Fabulist

a wildly extravagant, lavishly adorned cabinet of curiosities, bursting with antique and vintage objects collected from all over the world. That marble fireplace? French, 1840s, acquired on Bond St. from Bonhams and Phillips Auctioneers. That Whiskey Bar? Expands around a Player Piano of 1819 and holds over 300 varieties of whiskey. Stained glass from Milan, wallpaper made in Mexico, original wood paneling from Hope Castle in Ireland. See that antique clock on the Irish Writer’s Wall? It’s only one of 26, all set to 1:50, the time of Oscar Wilde’s death.

The cocktails? Sinfully delicious. How poetic that, in an ironic twist of fate, New York City’s ”longest bar” extends on the ground floor of the building that once was the Prohibition Enforcement Headquarters! Mr. Wilde himself, the very embodiment of aestheticism, hedonism, eccentricity and sophisticated debauchery, would have approved.