Yesterday afternoon, a small group gathered in the storied dining room of the '21' Club to hang the latest toy on its crowded ceiling. You long time New Yorkers, power players, celebrities and journalists already know the significance of this. A primer for the rest of you: the ceiling at '21' Club is covered in hanging toys. Airplanes, helmets, toy trucks, stuffed animals, you name it. These toys come from regulars present and long dead and important New York figures who want a piece of themselves to remain forever at '21'. The ceiling includes a model of Air Force One given by former Pres. Clinton, Giants helmets from the team's owners, and a smashed racket from John McEnroe, among hundreds upon hundreds of other toys. Yesterday, the ceiling got its newest addition, over table 3 a.k.a. the Wall Street table (a scene from the movie was filmed there), one of the big "power tables" in the restaurant.
Representatives of Gale International, whose Chairman Stanley Gale is a regular at the restaurant, were on hand to hang the toy (a hard hat) in honor of his their newest development, Songdo IBD, a 15,000 acre project in South Korea. The company was given the honor because it holds frequent banquets at the restaurant, including a dinner in the speakeasy wine cellar last night with Rudy Giuliani and the ambassador of South Korea. The reason the company wanted the ceremony at '21'? They plan to bring a "culinary counsel" of famous foodie New Yorkers to the SK project, and '21' represents the "quintessential New York experience." History made.
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