For Sylvia — Melanie Dunea.

I was nervous to meet the Queen, even more so to photograph her. The assignment came in nearly two decades ago, when Town & Country magazine asked me to create a portfolio of the iconic players the New York City elite party circuit relies on. Among them was Sylvia Weinstock, the notable Queen of cakes.

Sylvia lived, conveniently, just a few blocks from my apartment in Tribeca. As we dragged my black cases of photography gear into Sylvia’s sparse lobby, the elevator shook open to reveal a man pulling a red wagon weighed down with bags of sugar and flour.

”I’m Sylvia’s husband,” he said, and pointed us to the second floor.

The studio was bustling. In the first room we entered, three rows of women were hunched over, fabricating pink and purple sugar peonies. They were silent as they painted; all I could hear was a tinkle of music coming from a radio. Next, a stainless-steel industrial kitchen used exclusively for kosher creations. Another room held two men washing enormous silver bowls that clanged as they worked and a huge machine, thudding like a beatbox as it mixed a vat of pink frosting. The sweet smell of cake drifted through the air. My stomach growled.

When I’m putting together a picture, I’m thinking about a hundred things at once. The right spot to shoot; not interrupting anyone who was working; this time surely, we needed an ornate, decorative area to shoot the cake maker to the rich and famous? This place was a far cry from Buckingham Palace.

While I was plotting, I caught my first glimpse of the queen in question: She breezed in, tinier than I expected her to be—and I measure in at a cool 5’5” myself. Her glasses had lenses the size of tire trucks: How in the hell was I going to light her face without getting huge reflections?

While my assistants set up the lights, Sylvia and I dragged a long silver worktable table into an unused room, searched for a finished cake, and gathered some sugar flowers. The setup had a front and center place for Sylvia, and it worked beautifully—but I could not see Sylvia’s eyes. I had her to turn her head back and forth trying to avoid the glare, but the eyeglasses were impossible.

“Oh, wait! I have a pair of glasses without lenses.” The glasses were fetched. Sweet relief.

I took the photo. The shoot wrapped. Then, as usual, I fled. After I shoot, I feel so addled that I can’t get out of a location fast enough. While I was leaving, Sylvia asked me for my cell phone number. I like my privacy, but I gave it to her, even though I really didn’t want to.

Months later, before the magazine even landed on the newsstands, Sylvia called me to rave about our “fabulous” photograph. Back then magazines often shared advance copies with their subjects. I hadn’t seen the final layout. I was flattered, and I loved hearing the praise. It was rare for a subject to take time to call me directly. Usually they save their gratitude for the magazine editors.

I started to see Sylvia out and about around town. She was always at table one at the latest restaurant openings or beaming for the cameras on the most fashionable “step and repeats” in town. We started to spend time together socially, maybe hitting a new hot spot, like the restaurant Nobu Next Door, or she and Ben—her wonderful husband, the gentleman with the sugar-laden Radio Flyer—would invite me to their house for dinner. Oddly, Sylvia rarely served dessert since she had no sweet tooth, but it didn’t matter because she was a fabulous cook.

But my favorite of all of our gatherings were our “vodka chats.” Sylvia and I would pour Tito’s into crystal tumblers and just sip and gossip, read restaurant reviews, or boast about discovering new hot spots. We each loved to be the one to share a new tidbit. We talked about everyone we knew and shouted our indignation about the people who seemed fake, or the ones who were too blatant about social climbing. Those evenings, we righted the world. We’d get started around 5 p.m., and had a strict two-crystal tumbler limit, at least for Sylvia. She was 40 years wiser and busy after all.

A few years into our friendship, I suggested making Sylvia, the documentary. I could see it so clearly, a New York story, a woman’s tale, an homage to my kind, tender, bad-ass pal, not to mention a celebration of friendship between generations. It would be modeled after the documentary of the great New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham. Sylvia seemed skeptical yet keen, she did love being a star. I corralled my writer friend Howie, and the Odeon restaurant became our office and cafeteria where we sketched out treatments.

Step one, I needed to understand the behind-the-scenes and embed myself. Sylvia reluctantly agreed to allow me and my camera into her studio, where I worked a few hours a week struggling with the delicate and difficult work of making sugar flowers. I broke a lot of petals, which infuriated Sylvia.

Occasionally I was allowed to take a photograph. Before each snap, I gently asked permission. This was new for me, but I knew I was walking a delicate line. I suspected she feared somebody would steal the secrets of how she constructed her cakes.

One particularly frustrating day, one of her assistants backed out of a trip to deliver and assemble a cake.

“I’ll come with you,” I said, without thinking.

A month later we were shooting selfies in the galley of an Emirates airline, pressing and trying all of seat positions of her first-class seat as we winged our way to the Middle East for a seven-day marathon to create and assemble this cake and sugar flower masterpiece. It felt like a win for everyone: Sylvia had a new delivery assistant, the client was getting a fabulous cake, and I was getting a chance to capture behind-the-scenes footage for our film.

Upon arrival, one of the men from our VIP greeting entourage insisted on carrying my camera bag. I resisted, not wanting to let go of my babies, but he was persistent and forceful. A few minutes later, I lost sight of him and panicked. When I protested out loud, Sylvia shut me down. This wedding was top secret. No outside photography was permitted. My cameras would be returned to me upon departure.

I was shocked, stunned, and seething, but Sylvia wasn’t interested in discussing it. She made it clear that I had signed up to be the assistant to the assistant cake maker. There was a job to be done. I fought back tears of frustration and anger as the royal caravan raced us past the modern buildings that dotted the route to our hotel.

I spent a lot of time inside my head that week, while my hands ached from forcing pins through sugar flowers into the Styrofoam for ten hours a day. I grumbled to myself that I wasn’t an assistant, I was a cake servant. It was killing me not to have my cameras. By day three, I settled into my job, though my back screamed from teetering on the one rickety ladder. I was tense and trying not to break many more sugared peonies. (You must know, I did sneak an occasional snap with my phone.)

Sylvia and I are were at a crossroads. On one road, Sylvia, my friend. On another, Sylvia, the film. I had to decide. What mattered to me? This friendship? Our vodka chats? Cozy dinners with her and Ben? I felt strongly that by pushing and forcing this film, I risked alienating her.

People come to this city to work, to make their art, to make their mark, not to make friends. But I had made this friend, and I wanted to keep her. I laid the documentary to rest, and we never spoke about it again.

A few years ago, when I decided to leave my husband, I called the women in my life to share the news. My mother suggested I buy a tub of cake frosting and get into bed. Sylvia said “good” and rushed over with a small package, a love note, and hugs.

I knew that to truly heal, I had to go through it, not around it. But I waffled.

Almost at the same time, Ben became ill. When he passed, Sylvia sold her building, moved to an apartment on a nearby street, my street, and then she quietly closed her business.

While I was waffling, Sylvia bulldozed ahead. I took notice and tried to do as she did, but she had a verve that I couldn’t quite match. Our vodka chats buoyed me while I was sinking. We listened, nodded, avoided interrupting, then we would snap out of it and resume “getting on with it.” For fun, we signed me up for a dating app, we scouted party rooms for dates. We even giggled about how you didn’t need anyone else for a good orgasm.

The last time we sat in Sylvia’s living room outshouting each other with opinions and laughs, it was the height of the virus, and we only lowered our masks to sip from our crystal tumblers. After a successful cataract surgery, her signature glasses were gone and she looked more vibrant than ever. We joked around and for the first time it struck me to ask her what her last supper would be. She requested one guest whom she would like to poison. Who it was, I’ll never tell.

What I will tell you is that I am eternally grateful for the assignment that sent me to her studio. For the connection that lifted me and inspired me. For the way I felt whenever I sat down with her to drink a little vodka and talk about how we might repair this broken world.

Melanie Dunea & Sylvia Weinstock during a Vodka Chat © Melanie Dunea

In my freezer is a bottle of Tito’s that waits, chilling, on call for Sylvia. Now I sit down on my couch alone with a crystal glass and a healthy pour, thinking about my friend, who has just passed away.

In the very first photograph that I took of Sylvia, she is 73 years old. A viewer will see a gray-haired woman leaning on a worktable, staring directly into my lens, smiling and confident. The light picks out her eyes and highlights her enormous black, round signature glasses. Her hip is cocked to the right, in a casual yet regal stance. Maybe you will notice that the photograph is divided down the middle of the frame by the silver metal worktable. The tabletop seems haphazardly adorned with some tools for baking, a weathered metal cake stand, two silver cookie cutters, frosting piping bag, and a bouquet of dusty pink roses in a white cracked container.

Looking at it, I think about how every single thing on this photograph was carefully chosen and placed. How I had no idea that this image would lead to a friendship that lasted for 18 years, with a woman I will always remember. How this kick-ass, smart, fashionable, woman became one of the most unexpected and important friendships of my life. How lucky I was to be in the orbit of this tremendous supportive soul, mentor, and great friend.

And I lift my glass to toast her.

Here’s to Sylvia, my direct, kind, caring, sister, mother-figure friend. And here’s to getting on with it, just like she always did.