If you were a well-heeled Massachusetts lady in the late 1920s and wanted your hair fixed like the moviestars, there was one man to turn to: Samuel Bernstein. In 1927, this entrepreneurial immigrant, who had arrivedin New York from Tsarist Russia,  26  the only local license to sell the machine for curling hair. Like manybusinessmen of the times, he expected his eldest son to follow him into the family firm. 

        But Louis Bernstein, known to everyone as Lenny (he officially changed his name to Leonard as ateenager), had different ideas. The family had no musical roots, but ten-year-old Lenny found himself drawnobsessively to his aunt’s piano. No matter that his father remained vehemently  27  the notion that heshould make music his life, there was but one path ahead. 

        For all his early misgivings, Samuel later  28  that his son was a genius. In his passport, LeonardBernstein simply called himself a “musician”—characteristic humility from a man whose broad   29  areunique in musical history. Bernstein was a conductor whose interpretive gifts over the course of five decadesshone light on the classics from Haydn to Mahler, Bartok to Stravinsky. He was a fine concert pianist andpioneering broadcaster; an educator, Harvard lecturer, writer and humanitarian; a husband, father, lover. Sucha  30  life was not without complexities, contradictions and critics—but oh, what a life.

        With the growing number of solo diners, hotels and resorts are making sure they are comfortable. ThePlume restaurant in Washington, D.C., created a program for solo diners last fall; several of its 18 seats arededicated to diners who want a sense of privacy yet a feeling of inclusion. “The seating for this type of dinerdoesn’t include being in the center of the room,” said the restaurant’s manager, Sean Mulligan. “We make surethey are not near the entrance or exit for privacy and  31  while making sure the diners have items likenewspapers and magazines delivered to their table if they need it.” At Metropolitan by Miami Beach, a dinner-for-one menu made its  32  earlier this year, withrecommended seating at the corner of the hotel’s terrace and the Traymore bar  33  for people-watchingalong a pedestrian area of Miami Beach Drive. At the Atwood Restaurant in Chicago, which was renovatedlast year, the general manager said an extension of the bar area was intentionally  34  into the lobby toattract the solo diner. Bjorn Hanson, a clinical professor of  35  and tourism at New York University’s Tisch Center, saidhe has observed a recent increase in solo dining among those traveling on their own. “This type of experiencecontinues to become more of a desire, and much of the stigma is less of an issue for younger travelers,” he saidin an email.