November 04, 2002

November 4, 2002 Issue

Cover Story

The Money Pit

Living in New York City is a unique financial challenge. And when it comes to money, New Yorkers tend to face the same financial hurdles as they get older. One minute, you're struggling to pay for a Sex and the City social life on an assistant's salary. The next, you're worrying about the cost of private school or a weekend place or -- gulp -- a divorce lawyer. (And, of course, who doesn't feel guilty about taxicabs?) Herewith, some of the predictable crises in the financial lives of New Yorkers -- and how your neighbors are weathering them.

Features

The Elements of Style

In her 50 years in fashion, Diana Vreeland preached reinvention relentlessly -- and practiced it, too. A Jazz Age wife and mother, she dictated what women wore (and wanted) during 26 years at Harper's Bazaar, changed the face of high fashion as editor-in-chief of Vogue, hit the scene as a Warhol-era woman-about-town, and, in her last incarnation, became a New York institution at the Met's Costume Institute. An excerpt from a new biography that proves her life was as stylish as her work.

Operation: Smallpox

In the war against terrorism, New York's hospitals are a key line of defense. Since September 11, they have been planning intensively for the next crisis. When a Nigerian man walked into Beth Israel hospital in Brooklyn with a rash on his face that looked uncomfortably like smallpox, it was a sort of dry run for the real thing, demonstrating how much work there is to do. A progress report on planning for the worst at the city's hospitals.