Sunday, April 10, 2005
Rooms, and a View
Because I wrote a book about John Kennedy, a number of people have mentioned this New York Times story to me. It relates how John and his sister Caroline bought an apartment for Marta Sgubin, described as the "longtime cook and companion" to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The Times presents the purchase as an act of pure benevolence. John and Caroline "made the purchase after they decided to sell their mother's apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue, at 85th Street, and worried about what would happen to Ms. Sgubin, who lived there and whom they had come to consider tantamount to a member of the family."
...
"'It was clear to me that Marta Sgubin's happiness was of paramount importance to John Kennedy and to his sister, Caroline,' [real estate broker Kathy] Sloane said."
I don't know the details, but I have a feeling that the situation is more complicated than portrayed. After all, if John and Caroline simply wanted to buy the woman a place to live, why did Caroline only transfer the title now, a decade after they bought the apartment?
The Kennedys reward loyalty, it's true. But they also know that a longtime companion to Jackie O. would possess a horde of personal information that would prove lucrative in the tell-all market.
Isn't it possible that John and Caroline bought the apartment for Sgubin both because they wanted to thank her and as a kind of insurance policy, to buy her silence? Thanks for the years of service. But talk about them, and you're out....
I write this not to be petty, because, after all, you can't blame the Kennedys for being concerned about this issue. People who come into contact with the Kennedys do write books about the family. (Some, I hope, more well-intentioned than others.)
But the story is more interesting when you understand what's really involved. (The Times write-up is essentially a wet kiss to Caroline Kennedy.)
As a writer interested in the anthropology of power, I think this is a fascinating example of the problems faced by the rich and powerful in a tabloid society—and of how they can address those problems in a way that the rest of us can not. And then get a puff piece in the New York Times out of the whole thing.
And on the subject of class... it's interesting that, while the Times quotes Ed Schlossberg [Caroline's husband] and real estate broker Sloane, they don't actually talk to Sgubin herself. It's worth pondering why that might be the case. Perhaps Sgubin knows that the paper really isn't interested in her....
Reminds me of the Times story on Harvard's Dormaid in which the paper never bothered to talk to the people who actually clean students' rooms.... ¶ 9:48 AM
...
"'It was clear to me that Marta Sgubin's happiness was of paramount importance to John Kennedy and to his sister, Caroline,' [real estate broker Kathy] Sloane said."
I don't know the details, but I have a feeling that the situation is more complicated than portrayed. After all, if John and Caroline simply wanted to buy the woman a place to live, why did Caroline only transfer the title now, a decade after they bought the apartment?
The Kennedys reward loyalty, it's true. But they also know that a longtime companion to Jackie O. would possess a horde of personal information that would prove lucrative in the tell-all market.
Isn't it possible that John and Caroline bought the apartment for Sgubin both because they wanted to thank her and as a kind of insurance policy, to buy her silence? Thanks for the years of service. But talk about them, and you're out....
I write this not to be petty, because, after all, you can't blame the Kennedys for being concerned about this issue. People who come into contact with the Kennedys do write books about the family. (Some, I hope, more well-intentioned than others.)
But the story is more interesting when you understand what's really involved. (The Times write-up is essentially a wet kiss to Caroline Kennedy.)
As a writer interested in the anthropology of power, I think this is a fascinating example of the problems faced by the rich and powerful in a tabloid society—and of how they can address those problems in a way that the rest of us can not. And then get a puff piece in the New York Times out of the whole thing.
And on the subject of class... it's interesting that, while the Times quotes Ed Schlossberg [Caroline's husband] and real estate broker Sloane, they don't actually talk to Sgubin herself. It's worth pondering why that might be the case. Perhaps Sgubin knows that the paper really isn't interested in her....
Reminds me of the Times story on Harvard's Dormaid in which the paper never bothered to talk to the people who actually clean students' rooms.... ¶ 9:48 AM
