It was twenty years ago that Palagia set up her company, One Leg Up, and launched her career as a party host. “Erotic parties”, she specifies. “The guys call them Swing Parties. I hate that. So do most women.”
Such operations were and are extremely seldom run by women but One Leg Up and Palagia have been part of New York night life ever since, and Palagia felt the anniversary demanded a party.
Palagia, after all, is her party name, a Greek word, referencing the ocean, often attached to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. She declines to divulge her real name publicly. The one-word name is the requested mask of the daughter of a Greek immigrant, a successful electrical engineer who had rewired the State Department and the Bethesda Naval Hospital.