My Playdate With the Watch Nerds

The Temple of Dendur would be a great set for a disaster movie, I’ve always thought. Maybe an asteroid hits the city. Or a Russian missile. The glass wall shatters, statues crack, history and modernity collide in a room built to air-condition antiquities. Tonight seems as good a night as any to end it all because here, in the middle of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, are 209 of the world’s top watch collectors, gooning over $15,000 Piagets, $20,000 Cartiers, $50,000 Patek Philippes, and $300,000 Rolexes.