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Most mornings, style maven Debra Rapoport wakes up in her Manhattan apartment and gets ready to post her colorful, fashionably maximalist fits to Instagram, where she boasts 109,000 avid followers and counting.
On Thursday nights, Gerald Delet and James Valentino can be found taking their places at a popular local nightspot, where they’re always sure to be the center of attention. Meanwhile, entrepreneur, author, rapper and performer Lisa Carroll, in between dreaming up new ideas, is celebrating a new book launch.
They’re some of New York’s coolest residents, but they’re far from Gen Z. In fact, they’re old enough to be the great-grandparents of Gotham’s youngest trendsetters. Textile artist and stylista Rapoport is 80, retirees Valentino and Delet are 82 and 89, respectively, and former Las Vegas performer, toy inventor and sometime-rapper Carroll just celebrated turning 96.
Say hello to today’s senior hipsters: the not-so-silent generation, showing New York that aging gracefully is out — and aging gregariously is in.
And they’re joining a growing group of 70-plus New Yorkers taking over the city’s bars, social media and fashion scenes.
Actor Tony Danza, 74, is having a ball crooning to consistently sold-out crowds at Café Carlyle, while famed, 80-year-old fashionista Norma Kamali is destroying the “old folks don’t get tech” stereotype and embracing the wonders of artificial intelligence and freely sharing longevity tips. And octogenarian real estate queen-slash-viral-influencer Laurie “Hey, girls” Cooper, reportedly 86, is dispensing unexpected dating advice from a city-wide selection of barstools.
“Well, I think ‘hipster’ means you’re cool — you’re cool and that you know what’s going on in this world,” Carroll recently told The Post when asked whether she fit the term, right before firing up a Christmas rap to wish Post readers a “cool Yule.”
“Oh, I definitely see myself as a hipster, yeah,” she proclaimed.
Carroll and others are not chasing youth or a mythical narrative about being “ageless.” What they are doing is living and making the most of every moment, even if they may have fewer of them left.
Lisa Carroll, 96: rapper, singer, author, toy entrepreneur
Born Faye Blossom Mogul and later rechristened with her longtime stage name, Lisa Carroll’s bio reads like an old-fashioned Hollywood musical, full of good fortune and tragedy and drama — which included only barely surviving a car accident that killed four people before she even got started in her career.
But after defying doctors’ assumptions and building back to health, she spent decades commanding attention with cabaret work in New York, Los Angeles and places in between
And, early on, she landed an understudy role for stage legend Carol Channing in a touring production of “Hello Dolly” from 1965-66.
Sixty-plus years on, she’s even more active than ever.
She recently celebrated a new kids’ tome, titled “Lights, Camera, Lisa!” and co-written with children’s book author Joseph P. Camel, which came out on Nov. 11 and chronicles a young gal with dreams of finding her spotlight.
“She’s remarkable and inspirational,” Camel, 38, told The Post. “She’s very specific about what she wants. Once she has a vision, she sticks with it.”
More recently, she’s designed toys and educational products, including Hip Hop Hamilton, a plush bear dressed in a colonial outfit with a ruffled collar and a blue jacket, inspired by the hit Broadway show and sold at the Met Opera gift shop last year. If you pressed his left foot, he would dance and rap — along with Carroll — to an uplifting song titled “Dream Big,” written by her.
She also wrote a hip-hop holiday album, “Rappin’ Up Christmas: Lisa’s Hip Hip Homeys,” with Hasib K. McNealy, and in 2020, she published her first children’s book, “The Big Bad Coronavirus: And How We Can Beat It!”
“What keeps me going is my desire to contribute to young men and women who think that achieving major goals is impossible,” Carroll said.
James Valentino, 82, singer | Gerald Delet, 89, pianist
The first time James Valentino entered Mimi’s Restaurant and Piano Bar in Midtown East in 1962, he popped in to make music — just not with a piano.
“I was there to meet women,” the Bensonhurt native told The Post. The then-19-year-old Valentino had heard that airlines housed “stewardesses” (as they were called then) in the neighborhood. After striking out elsewhere, he and his buddies decided to try their luck at Mimi’s.
“The place was packed with them,” he wistfully said of the Second Avenue institution, which opened in 1956.
He still swings by Mimi’s, but he’s not looking for women — he’s there to sing, which he does every Thursday night, with Gerald Delet on keyboards.
The duo, who aptly call themselves Forever Young, entertain diners of all ages with tunes like “My Way,” “What I Did for Love” and “For Once in My Life,” as the audience sings along to the soundtrack of Valentino’s youth.
As a teen, Valentino played clarinet in the high school band and later warbled in a doo-wop group, The Star Tones, but traded a life in music for white-collar work as a computer programmer and executive.
However, he dusted off his old clarinet years later to join the New Horizons Band, an ensemble open to adults of all ages and skill levels at Third Street Music School Settlement in the East Village.
About five years ago, he joined forces with Delet, who was playing piano at Mimi’s. Delet — a retired tax consultant who once managed Al Pacino, Alan Alda, Kool and the Gang, and Phoebe Snow — only started piano lessons at age 60.
“It’s something you have in your soul,” said Delet, who performs with Valentino at Mimi’s on Thursday nights and on Saturdays. (Lisa Carroll sometimes pops in, too, serenading the crowd with a rap-embellished version of “Hello, Dolly!”)
Debra Rapoport, 80: artist, designer, fashionista
Debra Rapoport never had any desire to fade into the background.
“Ever since I was 3 years old, I loved to dress up,” the longtime artist and designer told The Post. While other children adorned dolls, she and her sister draped themselves in their mother’s old hats and scraps of fabric, put on music and danced around the house.
“My mother didn’t think it was superfluous; she just said, ‘Well, this is creative,’” recalled Rapoport.
And that youthful creativity is reflected in the layered style she showcases today, dazzling in everything from vintage scarves and chunky jewelry to eye-catching statement pieces; from runway-worthy capes to vibrant, attention-grabbing glasses; and even items created with discarded goods like cardboard and paper-towel rolls.
No matter what, though, hats are key; she wears one most days.
“A hat frames the face,” which she likes to “paint” as part of her morning ritual.
She has lived several creative lives over the years, including teaching and exhibiting her art, now in museums around the world, like Russia’s State Hermitage Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Met and the Philadelphia Art Museum.
But dressing and transformation are still her meditation.
“It’s healing,” she says. “It puts you in touch with yourself so you’re centered and grounded.”
And definitely cool.
