New York's a bitch sometimes. One day you're a famed theater director, the next you're moving to Florida due to age and infirmity and selling everything inside your Union Square apartment. That's Tom O'Horgan's story, who was profiled in the Times last week and whose Broadway credits include "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Hair," and "Inner City." I went to 840 Broadway, which was stuffed full of theater relics and rare instruments, armed with $100 of our coworker Josh Stein's money.
There was a $25 entrance fee, which is like, fair enough, really, considering that you're opening your place to the riffraff. The money went to an Alzheimer's foundation.
The elevator opened right into the apartment, which featured a wall of windows, and Mark Cohen, O'Horgan's former lover and current caretaker, was inside, directing traffic, explaining to someone, "The new owner is going to gut the place." Presumably he meant Zach Braff, who just bought the place for $3.2 million, did he.
"What's this tambourine?" I asked, picking up a large instrument shaped like a Jesus-fish.
"It's a sistrum," he said. "The fish is a sistrum from 'Jesus Christ Superstar'—they held it over their heads during the 'Hosanna' scene."
"Tom loved sistrums," he said.
It's strange, observing someone's life entirely from their possessions. The music room's walls were lined with stringed and woodwind instruments and one wall was filled with photographs (not for sale) of past productions. The rest was mostly puppets (already sold), props from shows, a stuffed platypus, a ceramic platypus on wheels, various saber-tooth fossilized skulls, and books (Asimov, "The Da Vinci Code" on audiobook, "Beowulf," and "The Leatherman's Handbook").
A guy headed toward the elevator with a six-foot-tall bubble-wrapped object made of wood. "It's a tromba marina," he said. "Old Renaissance instrument. Actually quite rare. It uses only one string."
I purchased a Venetian bird mask for Josh for $50. One of Tom's friends followed me to the door: "Oh, so you got that, huh? It's so simple and elegant. I actually had my eye on it, but... I'm glad you got it." He gazed at the bird mask for the last time and I held onto my box a little tighter.