Socialites Hold Séance To Summon Leonard Bernstein’s Spirit — In His Onetime Pad
The Dakota Image by Getty Images
Larry and Toby Milstein, two rising young Jewish socialites, held a séance in Leonard Bernstein’s former apartment, attempting to summon the spirit of the deceased composer, according to The New York Times.
The ghostly communication took place at The Dakota, the Central Park West building perhaps most famous for being the site of John Lennon’s murder. Bernstein died in 1990.
The Milsteins, heirs to a fortune in the billions that was garnered from flooring and real estate, convened their friends — all in their early 20s- – in the family apartment. The siblings, according to the Times, have been “cutting a dash on the city’s junior philanthropy circuit recently, making sizable donations to institutions like the NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.”
For the séance, participants gathered around the piano and sang Bernstein’s iconic “Maria” from “West Side Story” and “Imagine” by John Lennon, along with Taylor Swift’s “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.”
“It’s a modern séance that’s rooted in the music of the individuals that inhabited this place,” Larry Milstein said. “You can feel the vibrations of them, and that means they’re there.”
Contact Jesse Bernstein at [email protected] or on Twitter, @__jbernstein
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 2
Opinion It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump
- 3
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture How one Jewish woman fought the Nazis — and helped found a new Italian republic
-
Opinion It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump
-
Fast Forward Betar ‘almost exclusively triggered’ former student’s detention, judge says
-
Fast Forward ‘Honey, he’s had enough of you’: Trump’s Middle East moves increasingly appear to sideline Israel
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.