Stiletto Network

Getting to Next

On a cool, crisp evening in October 2011, a night that belies the Indian summer that will engulf Manhattan the following week, the ladies are coming. One by one, women in suits and light jackets march upstairs from the B or C train or hop off the M79 bus outside the Museum of Natural History, sidestepping throngs of children who’ve been cooing over dinosaurs.

Evolutionary biology is not on the agenda, not for these gals. Tonight, their goal is reinvention. So they turn their backs on fossilized bones and enter the marble lobby of a white-glove apartment building across the street. They follow the doorman to a wood-paneled elevator, up to Hyatt’s sixth-floor apartment.

Hyatt’s foyer is mirrored floor to ceiling, and after crossing ...