A Cup of Joe, with Joe
If you’ve ever been in the lobby lounge during the day, you’ve surely seen Joe drinking coffee.
Smartly dressed – dapper even. His black plastic comb is neatly tucked into his shirt pocket. He loves to dance and insists he convinced Mr. Marcus to keep a section of the original tile floor in the lobby lounge for dancing. He reads two newspapers everyday; “Well, it depends on the day. And sometimes, I only get to the headlines,” he concedes.
Joe Charney in repose…
Joe Charney is a storyteller through and through. In our 40-minute conversation I learned about the diamond business – from industrial diamonds used in WWII to the De Beers empire. I learned about his meeting with Santiago Calatrava and his parents’ neighbors’ daughter, who made the movie The Terminator.
He told it like this: “Hurd was the guy’s name that lived next door. He had a daughter. She was an enigma. A scrappy, skinny little thing that picked a fight over anything. He called up one day and said that his daughter had made a movie and I thought what morbid thing could she ever create. Turns out it was a blockbuster – The Terminator. I was really surprised.”
He’s still pretty sharp. He must be in his 70s, though he tells me he’s 200. “I’ve been coming here for over 50 years – before Ben Marcus bought the place!” Joe declares. He likes the ambience and meeting people from around the world. He compares it to the Waldorf Astoria in New York, “It’s a place where the biggest names in business meet, where the hustlers and the swingers and the doers come together.”
The “dance floor”
I asked how he’s seen it change. “Less travel among salespeople and CEOs – probably because of video conferencing and restricted budgets,” he offers.
Joe suggested the story of the day that I should tell is the aftermath of the election. “Let’s not get into politics,” I suggest.
Just as quickly as he brings it up, he digresses: “You know, the best things in life are either illegal, immoral or fattening.” His wisdom is as brilliant as his stories.