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We were late in getting the word. Congratulations Mr. President and Stephanie. We love you here. May all your children be stagehand presidents.

May 21, 2009, 9:33 am

A Union of Labor and the Press

By James Barron

Richard Perry/The New York Times Stephanie Simon, an arts reporter, and James Claffey Jr., a union leader, seen at Lincoln Center, will be getting married soon.

The prospective groom says friends are calling it a marriage of the 1’s.

The groom is James J. Claffey Jr., the president of Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the 3,000-member union that represents stagehands at Broadway theaters, opera houses, television studios and arenas like Madison Square Garden.

The bride-to-be is Stephanie Simon, the arts reporter for NY1 News. On Monday they will marry.

Ms. Simon knew who he was from covering Local 1’s 19-day strike in late 2007.

“But I didn’t get to know him then,” said Ms. Simon, 35, because when Mr. Claffey was at the bargaining table, in a law firm’s suite high above Broadway, she was on the street outside, waiting with other reporters for word of developments. She also spent hours “camped out in the live truck” — a NY1 News van parked nearby that had the equipment to put her on the air immediately.

For his part, Mr. Claffey, 45, did not spend much time talking to reporters on his way to and from the bargaining talks. “I’m a little bit leery of the press, no offense,” he said the other day, “and at the time, I wanted to concentrate on the negotiations rather than being a celebrity. I needed to focus on getting a deal.”

Ms. Simon said she saw a lot of the union’s publicist, Bruce Cohen, who conducted news briefings on the sidewalk. Later she ran into Mr. Claffey at openings she covered on Broadway and at Lincoln Center. They said hello. That was it.

Last December, to mark the first anniversary of the strike settlement and the end of the all-nighters that everyone had pulled during the negotiations, Mr. Cohen organized an off-the-record anniversary dinner for reporters and union officials. Mr. Cohen said he had to cajole Mr. Claffey, who was still press-shy, to attend.

Ms. Simon was there, and at some point that evening, she and Mr. Claffey were formally introduced.

Soon Mr. Claffey asked her to lunch.

“I wasn’t 100 percent sure whether it was a date or whether he had wanted to get together and talk shop,” she said. “It was a good hour into the lunch that I was convinced it was a real date and not something on background about the union.”

Before long, they were dating. “It was a surprise to our friends,” Mr. Claffey said.

And, apparently, to Mr. Cohen. Mr. Claffey said that he told Ms. Simon early on “that my publicist had advised me to be aware of my discussions with you because you are a member of the press and I am taking his advice and I will watch my words carefully.”

He proposed on Valentine’s Day, at lunch at the same restaurant where the anniversary dinner had taken place, Robert Emmett’s, on Eighth Avenue at West 44th Street. The wedding will take place at the Stony Hill Inn in Hackensack, N.J., with Rabbi Marcia Rappaport officiating.

“Now he can’t get away from the press because I’m there every day,” Ms. Simon said. “That’s what he gets for denying us an interview during the strike.”