About eighteen months ago, the former fashion designer turned TV host turned bookmaker Todd Oldham moved his office from Soho, which he finally admitted had become “too like a shopping mall,” to an erstwhile law office in a building across from St. Paul’s Chapel in lower Manhattan. The main rooms have fantastic windows: They stretch nearly from floor to ceiling, providing spectacular views of both the chapel’s cemetery and the hive of cranes and activity that’s begun to fill up ground zero. Oldham was there on a recent afternoon, dressed like an 8-year-old boy in blue jeans and a slim piqué polo shirt covered in a pattern of grizzly bears. The only visibly adult touch is a bushy and graying beard, the sort sometimes seen on religious zealots who gather in Union Square. He is unfazed by the morbidity of his new view. “Calatrava’s designing the PATH station!” exclaims Oldham, who is prone to exclamations. “It’s going to be so beautiful.” And, indeed, suddenly the whole scene does look almost jolly, like something from a Richard Scarry picture book.
more from Amy Larocca at New York Magazine here.