<\/strong>really jazzed up the space.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s an Australian restaurant,\u201d the hostess said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralian?\u201d Mrs. Wiggins replied.<\/p>\n
As she processed this information, the hostess asked if she had a reservation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just live in the neighborhood, and my husband painted this place once,\u201d Mrs. Wiggins said. \u201cI was just curious.\u201d<\/p>\n
She took her leave and walked back to her brownstone. She wasn\u2019t alone. Trailing her was Michael Astor, a freelance journalist who was discreetly filming her outing with a pocket-size gimbal camera.<\/p>\n
The scene he had just recorded would soon be posted to the TikTok and Instagram accounts he manages, both called @dorothylovesnewyork, which have made Mrs. Wiggins an unlikely social media celebrity.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/11\/15\/multimedia\/15DOROTHY-WIGGINS-02-bwvp\/15DOROTHY-WIGGINS-02-bwvp-articleLarge.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of people follow the accounts, which chronicle Mrs. Wiggins\u2019s late 90s as she navigates life in New York and the Hamptons equipped with a wooden walking staff, vintage hats and a bone-dry sense of humor.<\/p>\n
In one video, she becomes frustrated when a server at a Midtown jazz club can\u2019t get her drink order quite right (a shot of Dewar\u2019s in an ice-filled highball, with a water back). In another, she complains about \u201cawful Montauk oysters\u201d to the operator of an East Hampton seafood shack. The most popular clip, with more than nine million views on Instagram, shows her hitting a serve on a tennis court in Amagansett.<\/p>\n
\u201cChrissie Evert commented on my serve,\u201d Mrs. Wiggins said in the living room of her brownstone, where she and Mr. Astor, 59, were seated next to a crackling fire. \u201cShe said it looks like her serve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of the accounts\u2019 charm lies in her indifference to social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a funny one to become popular, because I scorn it all,\u201d she said. \u201cI hate walking down streets and seeing people clutch their phones like they\u2019re clutching their heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTikTok feels stupid to me,\u201d she continued. \u201cYou need more than a momentary thing. I watched \u2018Casablanca\u2019 the other night. Now that\u2019s the perfect length <\/strong>for a movie. I just think it\u2019s bad for concentration and that it\u2019s going to make people stupider. My husband could recite A.E. Housman\u2019s poetry by heart.\u201d<\/p>\nGuy Wiggins, a painter and former Foreign Service diplomat, died three years ago, at 100. Mrs. Wiggins, who was raised in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, met him when she was in her early 30s, and they were married for 61 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my husband died, I was totally devastated,\u201d Mrs. Wiggins said. \u201cMy whole life was him.\u201d Referring to her social media accounts, she added, \u201cMy son started this, because he thought it would take my mind off the grief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Astor, a <\/strong>family friend and a former reporter for The Associated Press, was commissioned by one of the couple\u2019s sons in 2019 to make a short documentary about his aging parents. After it was completed, and Mr. Wiggins had died, Mr. Astor kept filming. A year ago, he started posting clips on social media. The account received its first spot of publicity over the summer, in The East Hampton Star.<\/p>\n\u201cWe never expected Dorothy to become Insta famous,\u201d Mr. Astor said. \u201cWhat people are seeing on the TikTok and Instagram are all collages I\u2019ll eventually make sense of in a proper film.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Astor documents Mrs. Wiggins several times a week and edits footage in the library study on the townhouse\u2019s second floor. He keeps her informed of their most viewed clips and the reactions from commenters. (Mrs. Wiggins has an iPhone but does not use TikTok or Instagram.)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re always at loggerheads,\u201d Mr. Astor said. \u201cEverything after the 1960s is a disappointment to her. I think TikTok is a medium that\u2019s allowed me to pull people into something deeper about her life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also about someone dealing with growing older,\u201d he added. \u201cEspecially an older woman \u2014 a person who often disappears in our society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Wiggins got up from her seat and fetched a self-published book, \u201cWiggins in Love,\u201d which is filled with photographs of herself and her husband, along with scans of birthday and Valentine\u2019s Day letters he had written to her over the years. Turning the pages, she came across a sketch of his that depicted them seated on a couch with drinks.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur evening cocktail hour was sacred,\u201d Mrs. Wiggins said. \u201cNo matter what, we never missed our cocktail hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a Friday evening, Mr. Astor was filming Mrs. Wiggins as she entered the Salmagundi Club in Greenwich Village, where she and her husband were regulars. She walked down the creaky stairs to the Wiggins Bar, which was named after her husband\u2019s family; his father was the cityscape painter Guy Carleton Wiggins and his grandfather was the landscape artist John Carleton Wiggins. One wall is decorated with paint-splotched palettes and photographs of the Wiggins men.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe usual, Mrs. Wiggins?\u201d the bartender asked.<\/p>\n
She sat with her Dewar\u2019s while Mr. Astor scrolled through his phone, checking out comments on their latest post. He relayed a roll call of updates: The comedian Ellen Cleghorne had just followed them, and someone wanted to ship her some oysters from Maine. He also mentioned that they needed to start planning an event at which a few of her fans could join her for a drink at the Wiggins Bar.<\/p>\n
\u201cDorothy and alcohol does really well,\u201d Mr. Astor said. \u201cHer followers like the idea that someone is 98 and still drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Mrs. Wiggins seemed more interested in gazing at a hanging still life of oysters painted by her husband than in discussing social media engagement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I said, I brush off the fame,\u201d she said. \u201cI love my fans, but I don\u2019t put much stock in it, and think the whole thing is kind of silly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she grew reflective.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, there was one comment I was touched by,\u201d Mrs. Wiggins said. \u201cSomeone commented once they felt life was over for them. That they were depressed. But that after seeing my videos, they were inspired to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that I can understand,\u201d she continued. \u201cIf I can show someone they shouldn\u2019t give up on life, then I do care about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alex Vadukul<\/span> is a city correspondent for The New York Times. He writes for Styles and is a three-time winner of the New York Press Club award for city writing and a three-time winner of Silurians Press Club medallions for his feature writing. He was a longtime writer for Sunday Metropolitan and has been a reporter on the Obituaries desk. More about Alex Vadukul<\/span><\/p>\nSource: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a recent evening in the West Village of Manhattan, Dorothy Wiggins, a petite 98-year-old woman wearing a dark coat and a pink scarf, left her townhouse to check out Little Ruby\u2019s Cafe, a chic new restaurant in her neighborhood. Inside, she approached the hostess. \u201cI remember this place when it was the other place, the Riviera,\u201d Mrs. Wiggins said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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