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Tough Love

Cindy Allen -- Interior Design, 9/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

September. Interior Design is back in Nueva York, with our Park Avenue (South) home a mere stone's throw from almost all of this month's stories. And can I tell you with heartfelt awe—and a tiny speck of sentimentality, if you allow it—just how big little old New York can be? Even when we're talking one-bedrooms, as we often are around these parts, we've got an 1,800-square-footer: Shamir Shah's own loft in a 1930's printing plant. Then there's the 52-story New York Times tower, almost every space inside the work of Gensler. And Interior Design Hall of Fame member Clodagh, celebrating 25 huge years in the profession, just completed her largest project ever, the Caledonia condominiums. (Check out the '70's photos of her as a fashion designer, too.)

Like Clodagh's magnum opus, this issue is landmark for me professionally and personally, marking my eighth anniversary at the helm of this splendid magazine. I might be eager to revel in such a rich and fulfilling moment and forget all else, but I can't ignore this year's exceedingly unwelcome new Manhattan resident, a gargantuan bear running amok on Wall Street. Designers down there are experiencing a colossal hangover after years of gleefully gallivanting through residential real-estate conversions, and you don't have to be Nostradamus to foresee a whole mountain of commercial square footage in the classifieds. Or make that an entire mountain range when you consider all the fiscal and political disasters this presidential administration has heaped on top. Times are tough—New York tough. Still, in two months there will be, yes, Change. That's when I plan to strap on my climbing boots, check my ropes and piton, and head on up.

See you at the top.