You know, its impossible to lie on my left side and to be out of this room at 11 a.m. Im a person, not a grouper!. Im the babys father.. Catherine reminded me to bring a car seat the next day; I was going to be one of those parents in the revolving door. I couldnt cry in the N.I.C.U. I lowered my voice. It was almost like part of his grand strategy, explains Joseph Perella, who founded the investment bank Wasserstein Perella & Co. with him in 1988. A lot of doctors wear them. Together, they made First Boston a leader in M&A, and then, in 1988, they left the firm after Wasserstein made a dramatic, failed gambit to become C.E.O. After a while, you just began to cave. So I hope you dont mind, but I asked her to come only with you or with scheduled permission. It is as though a mighty oak has fallen, leaving an empty and glaring space against the sky where he stood. (Neither Lipton nor Jordan would be interviewed about Wasserstein for this article. She cares for at least four premature babies and, perhaps even more difficult, deals with their mothers. All the men your age are either married or gay, and the single ones want young things. Bruce was a consummate gentleman, a man of his word whose handshake was the same as a written agreement, said Marty Lipton, the senior partner at Wachtell Lipton. Relax and lie on your left side.. She doesnt know if you want to see her. Bruce had told my mother about the birth. Ironically, many of the firms partners didnt even realize he was gone. But many of the senior bankers, who were also big shareholders, found that argument severely lacking. continued to ring. nurse told me. Not a problem, he told me. I think there are very few people who from a business perspective had such an impact on our business over 30 years, spanning four decades, he says. is, but he is one smart guy. Ill be back.. 19 (approx.) Ms. Ettinger asked as she waited outside Mount Sinai's intensive care unit for Lucy Jane to come out in her car seat for the cab ride to Ms. Wasserstein's apartment on the Upper West Side. Despite the Kraft deal, the consensus among the rank and file at Lazard is that the firm is better off without Wasserstein. I was the nurse who admitted your daughter and will be her primary-care nurse during her stay here.. A nurse had just told me that my brother Bruce and his pregnant wife, Claude, had booked the delivery room across the hall from me for the following week. I looked up at him and said, Now weve got time to punch up a speech for this guy who wants to go to Mars.. I remembered my last conversation with her. I opened my sweater and put her inside. Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. And were home. . Weeks earlier, Miss Hutchinson had told me, Every night, I pray for all the children here. I began to pray for them, too. Preclampsia, I came to learn, is better known by the name toxemia. ''She likes Virginia Woolf. She flew back to New York every three weeks to check in with her doctors. Ad Choices. Or maybe I was starring in a pro-life Christian docudrama warning young girls not to grow up into self-centered heathens: Marry young and procreate! As I was absorbing my new schedule, a nurse came in and told me to clean up my room because I was expected to be out by 11 a.m. For the first time, I didnt care about being voted Miss Mount Sinai Congeniality. It was familiar in the best possible way. I couldnt bring myself to smile one more minute or pretend this was all just routine for me. Those Latin women over there come snooping around here, and I wont let them get near either of our babies.. Lucy Jane was almost weightless. Date of birth. Leaving the N.I.C.U. For the next eight years, I progressed from artificial inseminations to egg-stimulating Chlomid pills and on to daily injections of Pergonal. Weve got to get to know him.. He was bruised all over his body, explains one who saw him after he returned to the office that May. As I began to gather my memories of Fay that morning, I felt a tingling from my left elbow to my hand. ''He said, 'You should try again.' His family is extremely eager to squelch such rumors. ''Now we're depleted,'' she said; her sister Sandra Meyer died of cancer in 1997. The day after I arrived home, there was a message on my answering machine from the N.I.C.U. I called William Ivey Long, an old friend from the Yale Drama School, who had been my fertility confidant. He could convince the board, and he took it., A number of senior Lazard partners ended up screaming at the board members once they had heard about the new deal: Who cares? ''I would go through periods when there was Perganol and Clomid,'' she said. On Monday morning, as I was trying to translate Dr. Phillipss cardiovascular-speak, my troika of female obstetriciansLaurie, Michele, and Rebecca Brightmanappeared. Biography: Wendy Wasserstein was born on October 18, 1950 in Brooklyn, New York to Morris Wasserstein Dr. Drews entered the room with the magic tube, which was the width of a pipe cleaner. Every two hours, I was awakened to have my blood pressure taken. Someone who spoke with him then at a New York restaurant described him as looking frail and shaky from having lost so much weight. Another person who saw him that same evening said that he looked like a sickly 70-year-old, instead of the once invincible conqueror, and added, He is in bad shape. Felix Rohatyn, the longtime Lazard partner and former U.S. ambassador to France, and his wife, Elizabeth, saw Wasserstein at an East Side brasserie around that time and remarked to themselves that he looked terrible. Your blood pressure is a little high, she said. And what a production it was! Unfortunately, instead of making my hair straight, the hairdresser decided to express herself through my natural curls. Is that all right?, Yes. With stories about Wassersteins brilliant rise and the three different Wall Street firms he inspired, including his contentious final act as head of Lazard, the author profiles a master negotiator who made his own rules. chosen by an independent board of directors. in history from Mount Holyoke College in 1971, an M.A. Mother: Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Wendy Wasserstein. His experience with the severity and early onset of your preclampsia indicates that we have more time than we thought. In general, he said, every day in the womb is equal to three days in the N.I.C.U.Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. ', ''And that has been very true in my life. I dont think Bruce really cared as much about creating a firm where the younger partners could prosper, and the shareholders could prosper, as much as creating a firm that was good for him, says one senior banker at the firm. Well monitor you and probably send you home tomorrow.. On her chest were penny-size sticky pads holding down wires that were attached to a machine that measures heart rate, pulse, and oxygen level. Lying on my gurney, I decided that Id moved on from Christian docudrama to the plague portion of the Passover Seder, when we dip our pinkies into wine to represent the hideous disasters the good Lord inflicted on the Egyptians: locusts, frogs, pestilence, infertility, preclampsia, brain damage. By this time, Shayna and Lucy Jane were each strong enough to drink from a bottle. We were there, I hoped, for the long haul. Six months later, I was lying on a day-surgery gurney in Livingston, New Jersey, watching my egg-and-sperm combination platter on live-action video. She knew that no child of hers would lack for ''fathers. Some of the rumors came about because Wasserstein had a hectic romantic life right up to the end. (Wasserstein had originally asked for a 10-year contract for $365 million.) Hold her? I asked. Less than a year later, in 1977, by offering to double his salary to $100,000, Perella persuaded Wasserstein to join him at First Boston (now Credit Suisse) to help build the mergers-and-acquisitions group at the firm. CHADWICK: Playwright Wendy Wasserstein speaking before a Washington D.C. audience in 1997. ''We just want to raise a glass to our beloved Wendy,'' Ms. Rosenthal said. Mother: Pulitzer-prize winning playwright, Wendy Wasserstein. Her dark eyes were shining as if she were still a girl playing by the Vistula River in Poland. ), In the end, Wassersteins partners were terribly demoralized. (With his second wife, Christine Parrott, Wasserstein had three children: Pamela, Ben, who works with a producer at HBO, and Scoop, now a law-school student. And why, of course, Slovakia needed a banker like Bruce to steer it forward. It was a doll and a childrens book I had written. We are not from Slovakia. Your mother happened to come in for a visit when the transfusion was happening and I think it threw her.. A concierge at the Parker Meridien hotel stopped me to say, I think your having that baby is just great! Suddenly, I felt as if I were in a millennial version of Its a Wonderful Life. Hester Prynne had become the most popular girl in town. After Wassersteins death, Jacobs expensed in one fell swoop the costs remaining on Wassersteins five-year employment contract. Two other Wasserstein menAshish Bhutani, the head of Lazards asset management, and Gary Parr, who came to Lazard via Morgan Stanleyare sticking around. Two hours later, I was lying on a gurney awaiting a cesarean. While being a stunningly original thinker and very forceful in business, he was always tender and caring with his family and certainly was in reaching out to embrace Lucy [Wendy Wassersteins daughter] when his sister passed away in a very untimely way. Look, I hope its just for the night, she said. Accordingly, the firm announced that it would take a onetime, non-cash charge of $86.5 million and an additional onetime charge of $60.5 million to accelerate the vesting of deferred cash compensation Wasserstein awarded to other bankers during 2008. Trivia. Shes doing great. Lucy had needed a transfusion. Lucy Jane Wasserstein weighed less than two pounds when delivered by Caesarian section in September 1999. So far, our contact had been through the incubators porthole. You shouldnt keep things like this around your office., Youre absolutely right. She looked at me intently. or. Holyoke College, which recently awarded her an honorary doctorate, Wasserstein wrote her first play, "Any Woman Can't" in 1973. You need to punch it up., Yeah, sure. Lazards apparent obfuscation of Wassersteins health issues is nothing new, however. Dr. Green interrupted me as I was feeding Lucy one night. I just had preclampsia, a cesarean, and my daughter was born at twenty-seven weeks. ''She came early because she knew it was hard to get in,'' Ms. Wasserstein said. Born: Sept. 12, 1999, in Mount Sinai Hospital, New York. Later, my sister Georgette told me that when our mother first saw my baby and heard the details of my delivery she cried as inconsolably as she had when Sandra died. An I Love Lucy rerun was on. ''As far as I know, all premature babies are brain surgeons. while Wasserstein was away, point-blank about Wassersteins health. On the holiest night of the year, after Yom Kippur services at Temple Emanu-El, I took a taxi back to the Klingenstein Pavilion. Its not like I got knocked up. More at IMDbPro. WebThis episode, called "At the Core," explores Sweet Briar's Women's Leadership Core Curriculum. Jacobs also brought back Felix Rohatyn, now 81 years old, as a senior adviser, and a huge new office is being constructed for him. So I shouldnt front-run them., Indeed, the story that lots of people are telling is that Wasserstein was living an unhealthy lifestyle. Theres going to be a human settlement on Mars, and I want to be part of Mount Sinais advisory team.. I looked over at Shayna. I put my hand through the porthole and touched her head. But Ive never understood how marriage is supposed to guarantee safety. In this episode, Caperton interviews President Meredith Woo, professors Carrie Brown and Jeff Key, and students Cailey Cobb '20 and Lucy Wasserstein '22 about their experiences in their Core courses. A male friend agreed to help me. I imagined Lola grabbing her heart and knocking over several Isolettes. Your daughter had a bad night, he informed me gently. The Newest Wasserstein Creation Comes Home. Ad Choices. They need Jews from Mount Sinai!. in fine arts from the Yale School of Drama in 1976. Becky Brightman is a beauty. He looked like a guy who had been going through chemo or something. Inside the firm, the explanation was that he was suffering a prolonged bout of pneumonia. Oh, God, he just wouldnt pose for a picture standing side by side. Asked about the rumors that he was gravely ill, he told reporter Anthony Bianco, Its just silly, and added, Im exactly the same weight I was ten years ago. (Wasserstein and his first wife, Laura Lynelle Killin, had divorced in 1974, after six years of marriage.) By - November 27, 2022. I reached toward her and she stepped back nervously. 2023 Cond Nast. I think Lucy and Shayna leave here in the middle of the night and go out for pizza, I said one evening, trying to lighten the mood. Someone else came in who said he was the father, she said, referring to Gerry, who had been given a hospital bracelet marked Father when we were in the delivery room. Im Lucy Jane Wassersteins mother, I said, panting. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. When I was a child, Lola would always kiss our kepele (Yiddish for little head) before any major test. It was very complex. He first encountered the young, disheveled, and brilliant Bruce Wasserstein in 1976, when Wasserstein was an energetic associate at Cravath Swaine & Moore, the white-shoe Wall Street law firm. I sat there among them, wanting my daughter to see a full moon and eat a peach. We were now in the company of white professional couples who had conceived twins after taking fertility drugs. Looking out at the stars, I began to weep. Joe Perella recalls how Bruces standard diet was hamburger for lunch, shrimp cocktail and steak for dinner. Wendy Wasserstein (October 18, 1950 January 30, 2006) was an American playwright. After my mothers death, my father plunged the family into evangelicalism, leaving our Jewish faith behind. My pediatrician later explained that the illness was hyaline membrane disease, a lung affliction common in premature babies. She thought Id pick up a little art history plus a husbandand security. Your mother called me, crying, my agent told me just after Labor Day. In December 2005, seven months after he engineered the initial public offering of Lazardafter which the firm was required to make regular public disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission and to investors about finances and material eventsWasserstein gave two interviews in which he said he had just recovered from pneumonia and several bouts of the flu. With no information about Lucy, I couldnt bring myself to go back inside to the fluorescent lights, the ringing bells, and Mrs. Kaur endlessly knitting afghans for her twins. Shes my grandchild! Cindy never has swollen fingers and legs. Ms. Wasserstein's friend Jane Rosenthal, co-owner with Robert De Niro of TriBeCa Productions, whose name the playwright used for Janie in ''Isn't It Romantic,'' took over the producing. My daughter was attached to an I.V. ), And this is the same Bruce Wasserstein who deprived the state and city of New York of some $75 million in capital-gains taxes (12 percent of his capital gain of around $625 million) when he claimed to have moved his residence to London in 2001, after he had sold Wasserstein Perella to Dresdner Bank, and then Allianz, the giant German insurer, bought Dresdner. I want to talk to you, he said. Why did they do that to Lucys cap? I asked one of the nurses. After a difficult pregnancy and Lucy Janes premature birth, Wassersteins health declined as her daughter grew stronger. Its called kangaroo care, she explained. ''I'm just bursting with joy,'' Ms. Wasserstein told the crowd. Not yet, I answered. Lazard and Krafts other advisers, meanwhile, split a fee estimated at as much as $58 million. Vernon Jordan, the Lazard banker and a member of its board of directors, said, To measure the life and accomplishments of Bruce Wasserstein is as if one would take a thimble and try to empty an ocean. Before I returned to the N.I.C.U. These babies tend to be twins with a touch of jaundice, or full-term newborns with some small complication. 1999. But I was panicking, and not just about my platelets. (Ms. Wasserstein is writing a prose account of her pregnancy.). Log In. Duly intimidated, I tried to sit up and attach two plastic bottles to my now Hindenberg-size breasts. Before the preclampsia, I had decided to let the babys gender be a surprise. In addition to bi-hourly blood-pressure monitoring, I was being treated by rotating cardiologists. I had told my mother a week earlier about my pregnancy, but she had no idea that I was in the hospital. He has spoken at every type of College gathering from orientation to commencement, read scripture at Christmas Vespers, chaired Winter Forums and was part This was a reporting coup for sure, since Wasserstein had all but abandoned the idea of allowing himself to be the focus of a major magazine story after Deirdre Fanning of Forbes had written the infamous Bid Em Up Bruce cover story, of August 1989, which suggested that Wasserstein encouraged his clients to hugely overpay for companies. While waiting at the East Side Womens Ob/Gyn Associates for my final post-cesarean checkup, I picked up a magazine and found an article called Cindy Crawford, Model Mom. Cindy was back at work. I walked out of the Klingenstein Pavilion onto Fifth Avenue on the day before Yom Kippur. They include Stephen Graham, founder of the New York Theater Workshop; William Finn, who wrote ''Falsettos''; Andre Bishop, the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater; and Mr. Gutierrez. Donald Trumps arraignment was a circus for the media, but it was just another day at the office for New Yorks professional line sitters. the firm would now be a shadow of its former self, assuming it was even still around. I just spoke to one of the leading experts on preclampsia, in Tennessee, he told us. The arrhythmia caused him to lose consciousness. I have a photograph of Sandra from the mid-nineteen-sixties, surrounded by men in suits, when she was the first female product-group manager at General Foods. I didnt bring anything for you.. In her sixth month, she developed pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure with the potential for both kidney and liver failure. Im not saying that you have it. Wasserstein's first marriage, to wife Laura, ended in 1974. Secretary of State Blinken Says Detention of WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich Is Unacceptable, President Biden also demanded release of journalist from Russian custody on Saturday: let him go.. Finally, a bout with a rare form of lymphoma Lucy Jane (born September 1999) Comments. This is a sign of how out of touch he was, says a longtime partner. And I realized the wisdom of what Reichstetter said. Any time her oxygen level or heart rate became abnormal, bells would go off. These parents were satisfied customers. She asked me where you were., My blood pressure was up again. Say hello to Lucy Jane Wasserstein. Listen, youve probably got the old ma nishtana problem here.
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