New York Social Diary - Social Diary

3:00 PM. Photo: JH.

March 12, 2013. Fair, mild and grey yesterday in New York with rain expected this morning.

I went down to Michael’s to meet Carol Joynt and Rachel Pearson who had come up from our nation’s capital on the Acela for some business and our lunch.


Carol's book, now in paperback. Click to order.

Carol, you may remember, was our ace correspondent in Washington for a few years until the Washingtonian magazine made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. She’s an industrious and prolific journalist, as she demonstrates as the Washingtonian’s editor-at-large.

She brought along one of the first copies of her memoir “Innocent Spouse,” which has just come out in paperback (first published by Broadway Books in 2011). In a way it’s a woman’s story, but in another way it’s the story of a lot of us, including those of us who grew up in households where there was an “innocent spouse” where one knew much less about the other than he or she realized.

Carol’s a romantic – this I know about her because I was her editor for a good length of time, and both of us are by nature curious about those we have in our life. So I can see that she was “swept away” when she met the man who became her husband. And she was very happy until ... he died.

Then she was left to sweep up. This is her story and it’s not a pretty one – in parts – but Carol is one of those women who can take care of things (like children and a mortgage and food on the table). My own mother was like that. They’re the strongest of our lot, in my opinion. And often the most dramatical in their approach to life. I know: it’s not a word, but it should be.

Carol introduced me to Rachel, another Washingtonian, a friend of hers, a smart woman with a lot of curiosity and enthusiasm. She has her own marketing and communications firm – Pearson and Associates – down there.

DPC expounding to a new found listener, Rachel Pearson from Washington. Inset: Michael's dentally impressive GM and maitre d' Steve Millington and DPC.

DPC, Carol, and Rachel Pearson

The Michael's Iceberg Lettuce Salad. Excellent.

The chicken dish. Haven't had it but it looks good.

The Chicken Paillard.

Carol's side order of fries, no kidding around.

If you’re going to have lunch with someone from Washington who is in the thick of it, you’re going to talk politics, so that’s what we did. And discovered that we are basically on the same page. And read a lot of the same books (history).

This was the first time both girls had the new menu at Michael’s. Everyone was happy.

Last night at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, The School of American Ballet held its annual “Winter Ball” with a dinner followed by a performance by the students.

The School was founded seventy-nine years ago by Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine. Kirstein was an intellectual, an impresario ex-officio of the arts of his age, and Balanchine was the recently emigrated choreographer, a man from Soviet Russia (in 1924) who joined Ballet Russes as a choreographer. Diaghilev had made him ballet master and encouraged his choreography.

He was a contemporary of many of the giants of arts of the first half of the 20th century such as Ravel, Debussy, Erik Satie, Roualt, Matisse, Picasso, Stravinsky.

Lincoln Kirstein, son of a wealthy Boston retailer, well-educated and already an arts patron, persuaded Balanchine to come to New York. This was in 1933. A year later the SAB was born with the assistance and financial backing of Kirstein and another contemporary – they were all in their late 20s -- Eddie (Edward M.M.) Warburg, a member of a distinguished New York family of international investment bankers. Eddie Warburg was also a force in the establishment of several cultural ventures and institutions including MoMA.

George Balanchine.

Lincoln Kirstein.

It was Balanchine who insisted that before they could have a Ballet company – the New York City Ballet, as it would turn out to be, they needed to have a school to develop ballet dancers for it. And so it was, the SAB.

Both men were glamorous, cutting edge, with-it figures in that turbulent time. Balanchine was made even more glamorous by the fact that he had five wives, all great dancers including, Tamara Geva, Alexandra Danilova, Vera Zorina, Maria Tallchief, and Tanaquil LeClercq. He was a guy who loved ‘em and left ‘em – for another. Kirstein, who was gay, had a rich intellectual life, was a great art connoisseur and writer, and very much a part of the cultural movements of New York (and the world). It was a great collaboration as witnessed by last night’s gala.

Eddie (Edward M.M.) Warburg.

It’s a beautiful evening when you go to Lincoln Center, no matter what theater you enter. The campus of these houses separates you from the quotidian part of your life and transports you. Last night’s gala was black tie. The décor was inspired (I read this) by Van Cleef & Arpels (which sponsored the evening) and Alexis de Rede’s 1969 Le Bal Oriental which was held in the ballroom of his apartment in the Hotel Lambert on the Ile Saint-Louis in Paris. Ron Wendt of Ron Wendt Designs was the source of this glamorously exotic decor.

It so happens that George Balanchine and Claude Arpels, the founder of the famous jeweler were friends, having met through the great violinist Nathan Milstein. Balanchine later created a ballet called Jewels. The two men became lifelong friends.

The cocktail hour before the dinner for the School of American Ballet last night in the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.

The SAB is of course the premiere ballet school in the United States. As I’ve written here before, as a non-balletomane (who nevertheless enjoys the performance), I was deeply impressed with the work of the school. Not all of its students go on to careers in the ballet. And even those who do, experience the brevity of a dancer’s career. The school's academic curriculum, however, bolsters the students’ experience in learning the dance. They acquire the habits of a hardworking, focused, dedicated, and disciplined individual, not to mention the eternal satisfaction of the dance and the performnace. Those four qualities are more than half the battle in and on any stage in life. And the performance articulates the joy of it all. The SAB does that for all of its students.

Julia Koch before the photographers.

Julia and David Koch on the Promenade just before dinner.

Just a few of the great dancers of classical ballet who are SAB alumns including Jacques d’Amboise, Suzanne Farrell, Darci Kistler, Sara Mearns, Benjamin Millipied, Jock Soto and Wendy Whelan.

Marge Van Dercook, the executive director told the guests that they raised $1 million. The funds are used for scholarships and state-of-the-art studios and a residence halls, and offer vital student programs beyond the studio. Last night’s program, a performance by the students was choreographed by a recent graduate, Silas Farley.

Mr. Farley pointed out that these funds will make it possible for many people to attend this school and experience the opportunity and the power of its excellent education. Would that all of our educational systems could be so all-encompassing.

Alexandra Lebenthal and Chiu-Ti Jansen. Yesterday was Alexandra's birthday and she was feeling another day older ... every minute of it. Nevertheless, she is still a baby.

Sylvester and Gillian Miniter. Gillian is wearing a diamond necklace from Van Cleef and Arpels.

Dana Hammond Stubgen and Margery Van Dercook, Executive Director of the School of American Ballet.

Janna Bullock, entrepreneur, supporter of the SAB and a balletomane.

Jean Shafiroff's cascade of indigo and blue silk chiffon ruffles.

Nicolas Luchsinger of Van Cleef; Kelly Rutherford fascinated by what she is hearing.

Brad Comisar and Dana Stubgen.

Bronson van Wyck in black tie.

Carolina Herrera describing something to Peter Martins.

Peter Lyden, the Sultan of Philanthropy.

Another aspect of these Lincoln Center galas, is that they are black tie and women dress for them. It’s another pleasant departure albeit brief, from the day-to-day. Last night’s Honorary Chairs were Coco Kopelman (who attended the SAB as a child here in New York), Elizabeth R. Miller, Liz Peek and Betsy Pitts. Chairs were Diana DiMenna, Julia Koch, Jenny Paulson and Laura Zeckendorf. The corporate chair was Nicolas Luchsinger, Chairman of Van Cleef. Young Patron Chairs were Amanda Brotman, Brie Bythewood, Ann-Marie MacFarlane and William Yang. The Encore Chairmen (I don’t know what that means) were Cassel Lessinger, Ann Channing Redpath, Emma Riccardi, and Morgan Richardson.

Peter Martins addressing the guests at dinner. From left, Laura Zeckendorf, Nicolas Luchsinger, Julia Koch, Martins, Diana DiMenna, and Jenny Paulson.

Mr. Luchsinger addressing the guests.

Silas Farley, SAB graduate and choreographer of last night's performance, thanking the school, the supporters, and his parents for their assistance in educating him.

The evening began with cocktails at 7, dinner at 8 – (really 8:30), the performance at 9:30, followed by dessert and dancing. A great evening in New York and a great way to start the week. It should all be this good. We should all be so lucky.

The performance. Unfortunately the pleasure is lost without the motion and the music, but what was so impressive was the seamless professionalism of the dancer's individual performance. The energy, the vitality and the fresh enthusiasm of youth defined the evening. They were a big hit.

Contact DPC here.

Smoke break on 55th between 5th and 6th. 3:15 PM. Photo: JH.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013. Rain all day yesterday, sometimes heavy, windy, clearing after night fall with the air feeling fresher.

American Family History from East to West. If you didn’t read John Foreman’s Big Old House installment this week (yesterday’s NYSD homepage), about Linden Place in Bristol, Rhode Island, you’re missing a great saga of generations of a New England family by the name of DeWolf. The DeWolfs and their descendants lived in the same grand Federal style mansion in Bristol for two centuries. As John Foreman points out, the house, now a museum, even contains the family furnishings from long ago.


	Ethel Barrymore holding her son Samuel Colt.

The DeWolfs were made rich firstly from the ill-gotten gains as shipowners in the slave and rum trade that flourished up until the mid-19th century. If there is such a thing as bad karma, well, the DeWolfs had their share, as the story of Linden Place bears out. After the last male DeWolf died, the females carried on, and the surviving family name was Colt, as in Colt .45. Its last patriarch was one Samuel Colt.

When I was living in California I knew a Samuel Colt. He was known as “Sammy,” a nice man, cheerful and somewhat shy, he was well into his seventies, and maybe beyond when I knew him. Sammy was “the son of Ethel Barrymore,” a title that followed him through his life.

Mother was a great stage and film star, and member of a very famous American theatre dynasty along with her brothers Lionel and John Barrymore. Drew Barrymore is her grand-niece, although she was born, long after Ethel died.

Sammy, it turns out, having done a little research after reading John Foreman’s piece, was the great-great-grandson of Samuel Colt (born in1814), inventor of the revolver, and the grandson of the last patriarch of Linden Place, also Samuel Colt.

Lionel, Ethel and John Barrymore.

Sammy, however, had lived his long life far from Linden Place, in New York and Hollywood. He was a gay man, although at the time I met him – in the last years of his life – he lived with an elegant lady named Eleanor Phillips, a longtime friend who had been the West Coast editor-at-large of Vogue. A couple of years before Sammy died, he married Eleanor, so that as his widow and next of kin she could inherit the Colt family trust that had supported him all his life.

American Family History From East to West, Part II. Yesterday I got this card in the mail with a message wishing a “Happy Spring.” It occurred to me that I hadn’t received an annual family Christmas card from Rick and Kathy Hilton this past holiday, that perhaps this was their catch-up version of that holiday greeting to their friends.

In the 1990s, the Hiltons lived here in New York at the Waldorf Towers and in Southampton. Several years ago they resettled in Los Angeles where both Rick and Kathy grew up, but they continue to keep the connection with their East Coast friends, still spending part of their summers in Southampton.

What came to mind when I saw this friendly photograph of the couple and their four now grown-up children was how all-American-as-apple-pie family they look. And yet a decade ago, they were one of the most famous families in the world not because of their forebear, Conrad Hilton the famous hotelier, but because of those two young women standing on either side of their mother and father.

Ten years ago Paris and Nicky were the most famous sisters in the world. Nicky eventually drew back from the spotlight, but Paris at 21 was an international celebrity, selling more magazines than any movie or rock star. And oh the talk they created every summertime, not only along the beach lanes and at the Southampton Bathing Corporation, but in all the tabloids, and on all the entertainment channels around the world.

The Hilton family on Paris's 21st birthday party in February, 2002. Photo: JH.

In the generation of their mother and father, that kind of celebrity would have been scandalous. Not because they did anything wrong but mainly for reason of “appearances,” what’s done and not done. In the children’s generation, it turns out the sisters were the forerunners of a whole media/entertainment industry, paving the way for all The Real Housewives to inspiring the Kardashians and their serialized fashion-slash-notoriety-slash-TV-reality.


Kardashian mom, Kris Jenner, sporting her daughter's T way back when at Paris's 21st.

The only difference – well, not the only difference maybe – is that the Housewives and the K’s have drawn bigger grosses.

The Nicky and Paris Hilton live-on-camera saga was always what I called it long long ago: pure Show Business. Show. Business.

At the peak of her career, Paris was grossing several million a year. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn they are both still monetizing their famous names.

None of it is a surprise in retrospect, considering that both the girls and their parents were born and bred in the environs of the entertainment industry. It’s in the air, it’s in the water out there. However, this one photograph says most clearly what another thousand words couldn’t – a closeknit family, respected and created by the couple in the middle, and respected by the children, still close and together.

This has always been their story, and it is an admirable achievement of Kathy and Rick Hilton, and their family.

Contact DPC here.

Spinning in Central Park. 3:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Friday, March 15, 2013. Fair, cold, and sunny yesterday in New York; high 40 degrees mid-afternoon.

The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) opened with its gala preview yesterday in Maastricht, The Netherlands. TEFAF is without question the most extraordinary fine art and antiques exhibitions in the world.


Baron Willem van Dedem, president of TEFAF's board of trustees.

Readers of the NYSD have read about it on these pages for years. JH and I have made four of five of those openings and each one is better than the one before.

This year Augustus Mayhew who covers a lot of Southern Florida Arts and Architecture stories for NYSD, is reporting for us from Maastricht. It is his first visit and so it’s all new to him. He will bring something fresh and always interesting to it for you. His first day of coverage is on today’s NYSD.

The Lottery. On my way home yesterday afternoon, the last block before East End at 82nd Street was temporarily closed, so the cab dropped me at 83rd Street and York Avenue. There’s a Korean bodega on the corner where they always have a good deal on fruits and berries.

The man who owns the store told me, in a moment of distress, that his rent for his narrow little sliver of a shop was $7,000 a month. He was telling me this because his business was off.

I was shocked by the size of his rent, given that it was a half of the ground floor of a 19th century tenement building in the neighborhood (lower-middle-to-upper-income residential). But then “thousands” still seem a lot to me, having grown up in a world where hundreds was a small fortune. That was, of course, a long time ago, as inflation was just settling into our way of life.

Yesterday I bought two boxes of blueberries. 2 for $3. I eat blueberries everyday now. There was a time, almost forgotten, when blueberries and raspberries were available in summertime only. Now it’s year round and sold by sidewalk vendors.


	Empire State Building. 2:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Rich is better. I also bought a PowerBall lottery ticket which is now up there in the centimillions. Actually I bought three for six bucks. I’m not a regular buyer of lottery tickets, although I have occasionally (and never won a dime). I’m not a casino-style gambler. My father was, and he was lousy at it. The domestic cost was in some cases insurmountable and threatening to the mental health of those living under his roof. It’s one of the few life lessons I learned early (if at all).

The lottery ticket purchase was impulse. I had been thinking about billionaires -- as a category, as a type, because the other day a friend sent me a new list of billionaires that came out in the LondonDaily Telegraph. There were hundreds of them. About fourteen hundred. I was astounded by the number not to mention the aggregate fortune of that fourteen hundred.

Growing up, the notion of a “millionaire” was a rich fantasy in families like mine. Maybe everybody’s. Sometime in the late '60s or early 1970s, Forbes Magazine published their first annual Forbes Four Hundred Richest list. These were Americans.The richest of them possessed tens or hundreds of millions. No one had a billion. Or if they did, they weren’t talking about it.

I think it was in the early '90s that the annual Forbes list contained its first “billionaires.” Two men on the list I knew as fathers of friends, the brothers Jack and Lew Rudin who owned Manhattan residential real estate‚ a business started by their father back at the beginning of the 20th century. Forbes reported their net worth as something like a billion and a half bucks.

I was told later that both brothers were troubled by the number (and the publicity) and officially claimed that it was a gross exaggeration. I think that was also the last time we saw them on any rich list. The Rudin brothers were old school: flaunting one’s wealth was not their style. They were not alone although the times were moving in the opposite direction.


Ralph Lauren.

Bernard Arnault.

Carlos Slim.

Bill Gates.

Warren Buffett.

Michael Bloomberg.

Amancio Ortega.

Crown Prince Felipe.

John Kluge.

Today that attitude may be rare. Only a few years later, in the mid-90s, I was having a cocktail party conversation with a very rich man here in town. We were talking about the latest Forbes 400 list. He brought it up, asking if I’d seen it. I hadn’t. He then told me that he was on it as being worth two or three billion‚ I can’t remember specifically -- still an astounding figure back then. He added that he was glad they used that number because if they knew what he was really worth, “it would blow their minds.”

I’m been in the company of men and women who are billionaires fairly frequently for a lot of my adult life. And in my line of work, I am often in social situations or being entertained by very rich people. They, like their mere centi- and multimillionaire confreres are different from the rest of us in one fundamental way: their fortunes give them a sense of acting out authority, a self-assurance, if you will, on which they would otherwise have no claim. This isn’t so much about the nature of any individual’s personality or character, as much as it is the effect that money has on us homo sapiens. This is what it does to US.

I thought it was interesting that the Telegraph list contained the name of several self-made billionaires who are in the schmatte business. and all vast fortunes made in one lifetime, sometimes even in a single year or even a day (IPO’s). Ralph Lauren is one. Another famous name is Bernard Arnault of LVMH. There are a half dozen members of the Walton Family of Wal-Mart whose net worth clocks in at a combined $200 billiion.

Carlos Slim of Mexico is supposedly the richest of them all with $69 billion, and Poor Bill Gates at $61. Warren Buffett, the Sage of Omaha, tallies a paltry $44 billion, while our current Mayor of the City of New York, Michael Bloomberg, is said to be worth a self-made $27 billion.

So what’s it like to have all that dough? Troubles over? Life of Reilly? I do know they don’t worry about the rent or the mortgage or the credit card or the medical or the tuition or warm coat or the heating bill. Instead of worrying about no food on the table, they have the opposite problem: the fine line between hunger and gluttony. Yes, we should all have those problems instead of the aforementioned.

One of the richest of the billionaires on the Telegraph list, Amancio Ortega of Spain is said to be worth $37 billion. Sr. Ortega lives very quietly. There are only a few photographs of him known to exist. Someone described him as a “total hermit.” Although he is seen at times, surrounded by bodyguards.

It is said that he’s well fortified when moving about in public because he is “shy.” Others say it is because he’s terrified of kidnapping and extortion. Spain’s current unemployment percentage numbers reach from the high 20s into the 40s depending on the age. Ironically Sr. Ortega employs thousands.

Schmatte business aside, Sr. Ortega wields great power in his world. He is famous in Spain for making the Crown Prince Felipe wait in his secretary’s office for an hour while he finished a conference call. Business is business, and who’s on first. Certainly not His Royal Highness. Sr. Ortega’s business: he owns Zara, the international bargain retail chain.

Something Better With Their Money.What is most striking about these lists of holders of vast wealth, in numbers unimaginable to the billions who are just getting by, or the billions more on the edge of starvation, is that their numbers refer to an immense prosperity which includes billions of individuals who support and even depend on some of the aforementioned businesses. On the other side, in far great numbers, are those who are pretty much depending on the possibility of the game of chance. At the casino. Or government assistance. There is great objection to this among the big money boys. This seems to be a natural state of affairs with us homo sapiens also. There is the popular idea that poverty results from sloth and laziness.

I don’t actually entertain the possibility of winning this lottery or any lottery, even though I bought the tickets. It’s a perfect flyer for a non-Casino-gambler. I will admit I have asked myself what I’d do with all that money if I were to win. I mean, I know I couldn’t spend it on endless buying.

My first thoughts were of all of us out there who are in need; so where do you start. Today, 47 million Americans are using food stamps to feed themselves and their families. Millions more are having trouble feeding themselves and their children, and keeping up rent or mortgage.

These are hard times, made harder by our in-bred propensity to consume as an entertainment palliative. There are so many animals and children desperately in need of care and shelter from abuse‚ much of which is fostered by poverty and its sedatives, drugs and alcohol. The question would be how to spread it around to the optimal advantage. But then, these are the thoughts of a working man and not a billionaire.

About fifteen years ago, I went to a dinner one night on a private yacht docked on one of the West Side piers on the Hudson. It was a new yacht, well over 200 feet, built to order for John Kluge, the media communications tycoon.

Mr. Kluge was then in his late 70s or early 80s. He’d invited twenty to dine in honor of our mutual friend Judy Green. During the evening, the yacht cruised out into the harbor, and around Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty where a century before millions whom Emma Lazarus famously referred to as "your tired, your poor," landed in the New World looking for a better life, free from poverty and wars. It was a lovely night in New York and the evening was an impressive luxury, and a pleasure for all.

However. After the dinner, I hitched a ride back into town and the Upper East Side in a car owned by Warren Avis, the entrepreneur who started the famous car rental business which he later sold for a fortune.

Warren was then about the same age as our host Mr. Kluge. And he was chiding Mr. K’s attitude about his current business. John Kluge was by then an acknowledged possessor of some five or six billions. During the evening he had told his guest Avis about some business deals he was going into with another (much) older businessman/entrepreneur/tycoon.

It galled Avis. “These men are boasting about their deals and they’re only doing deals because they’re bored. They don’t have anybody to go to lunch with. As it is they can’t spend their incomes because they don’t need anything. You’d think they’d do something better with their money.”

Contact DPC here.

The San Remo from the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park. 3:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, March 18, 2013. Cold, sometimes sunny weekend in New York. The private schools are out on their Spring break, as of Friday. The neighborhood is quieter, especially in the early morning and late afternoon when it’s briefly a logjam of traffic and schoolgirls with one parent or another, or a household staff member, the maid, the chauffeur or that all-purpose type, the Mom.

Brearley, which is located across the street from my building, on the River at 83rd Street, has an annual tuition of $36,000. Evidently the school is rich enough so that a healthy percentage of their students are on scholarship.

The first of Spring as seen in the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park.

Last Thursday night at the Four Seasons restaurant from 6:30 to 9:30, the New York Observer’s proprietor Jared Kushner hosted a 25th anniversary celebration of the weekly Manhattan newspaper.

As Liz Smith will tell you in her column, the place was bumper-to-bumper New York “names,” including the Mayor.

New Yorkers love these parties because it’s wall-to-wall celebrities, or boldfacers, or VIPs, or all together, and when you’re there you can feel you’re in the thick of it. If the invitation says it’s going to be at the Four Seasons, even better: you know the host is making a statement. Period.

Mr. Kushner acquired the paper in 2006 from its owner/publisher/ founder Arthur Carter, who started it in 1987. The former publisher, Mr. Carter is a jack-of-all-talents – and I say that most seriously, but more about him in a minute.


Arthur and Linda Carter.

Mr. and Mrs. Jared Kushner.

Mr. Kushner is the quintessential Apprentice, so to speak. He even married the Boss’ (The Donald) daughter. When he first came on the scene, a young man in his mid-20s, the son of a very rich real estate investor from New Jersey, he (or his father) had just purchased 666 Fifth Avenue, the landmark office building. There was a lot of publicity: Kid buys skyscraper; that sort of thing.

Then he bought the Observer for a few million, and many thought this was the end of the Observer. It was the end of the paper, editorially, as the early readers had known it. Although that was then and this is now.

Arthur Carter, the paper’s founder -- who probably was never as well known on the celebrity circuit as is successor Mr. Kushner -- is what used to be referred to as a Renaissance man, Manhattan style of course. He was also very well known in the business as well as the publishing community. He had already made his fortune.

He grew up in Woodmere, Long Island -- Five Towns. He came to the Big Town via Brown University (’53) -- where he majored in French literature -- and Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He went to work on Wall Street for Lehman Brothers. In 1960 he and some partners started their own brokerage firm, Carter, Berlind, Weill, with Roger Berlind and Sanford (Sandy) Weill. Carter Berlind, as it was referred to in the trade, was a hotshot firm in the Go-Go years of the 1960s on Wall Street.

These were the Young Turks, the generation before the Masters of the Universe. There were several very dynamic small(ish) groups of young Wall Streeters who were the pacestters. This was also the age of the LBO and the conglamateurs. Before it was over, they merged and acquired a lot of Wall Street. Carter Berlind merged into several firms including Shearson Hammill and even Lehman Brothers, not to mention American Express, Kuhn Loeb, etc.

After ten years at it, the partners Carter and Berlind left the business, both very rich. Sandy Weill stayed, and you know that story.


	A sculpture from Arthur Carter: Orthogonals.

Arthur Carter had an artistic side to cultivate. Today he is a very accomplished painter and sculptor. This is not a hobby or an avocation. This the artist at work. Another facet of the man’s personality was the interest in newspaper publishing. He first acquired The Nation (which he later sold). He started a weekly called The Litchfield County Times in Connecticut, and then the Observer.

There was competition for his kind of weekly although he let it be known on launching that the editorial would have a strong viewpoint and be concerned with such subjects as political corruption, business, the environment, the homeless and the great disparity of wealth (and poverty) among New Yorkers. Furthermore it would be printed on peach-colored newsprint and cost 50 cents on the newsstand, so everyone could see it.

In the first issue the paper went after real estate developer Mortimer B. Zuckerman's proposed business tower at Columbus Circle. The Observer editorial on city planning declared that New York ''does not belong only to the developers.'' Imagine.

''I don't have any off-hand solutions to the city's problems,'' Mr. Carter said. ''I'd like to see a less corrupt city. I'd like to see a cleaner city. So would everybody.''

In 2008, NYU where Mr. Carter had previously taught as an adjunct professor of philosophy and journalism, they named the journalism department after him: the Arthur Carter School of Journalism.

The Observer, under its founder’s aegis made a big impression on the city fathers because Arthur Carter kowtowed to no one and was a man with not only his own ideas but a great deal of personal experience to enhance them. The editorial staff was sharp and hungry (they were not overpaid). The paper’s first editor John Sicher (who was Carter’s lawyer) was succeeded a few years later by Graydon Carter. Carter refocused the editorial more toward media and celebrity.


	Michael Thomas.

One of the paper’s most popular columnists was the oft-outspoken commentator, Michael Thomas, who wrote “The Midas Watch,” The frequently controversial column covered finance, politics and culture. Thomas, like his publisher, pulled no punches. I asked him yesterday about the early days there.

“The paper was initially serious and reformist (Arthur had been publisher of The Nation),” he wrote to me yesterday. “I had been on Wall Street (partner of Lehman Brothers), and been in so-called Manhattan and Hamptons society, grew up privileged, didn't think much of what I saw (think even less today), and I followed the style of the great baseball umpire Bill Klem, who declared at the end of his career, ‘I called 'em as I seen 'em.’

“I went after what I construed as the vulgarity, exhibitionism and general jerkiness that I thought were giving wealth, given what I knew about how money is made in this country, a bad name. I identified my principal varlets and varletesses by name. It was said that I kept the paper going -- people curious about ‘what outrageous thing about whom is he going to write next!’”

(I know I read it to see what Michael Thomas was going to say and about whom he was going to say it.)

“Graydon Carter left to go over to Vanity Fair, Thomas recalled, “building it into the hugely successful magazine it is, and Peter Kaplan took over. NYO became celebrated as ‘a writer’s paper.’ All over the world of big media today you see bylines of writers who whetted their skills at NYO.”

Arthur Carter eventually tired of the process of supporting the paper in the changing times. Word was he could afford to spend the millions annual to keep it afloat. It was on the market (at least quietly) for quite some time before Jared Kushner turned into White Knight.

In the years since it was acquired by Mr. Kushner, the editorial has wandered far from its founder’s first charter. It is very popular among young professional New Yorkers. When he bought the paper seven years ago this year, there was much speculation about its future and its ability to keep publishing.

However, for a wealthy businessman who is active in the community, there are great advantages in having “a voice.” The New York Observer has provided Jared Kushner with that voice overnight – and now it’s his voice. The message was in the party on Thursday night at the Four Seasons.

Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Katie Holmes.

This was a Peggy Siegal party, start to finish. Peggy, who has been flacking Hollywood via her celebrity screenings for years, rubs elbows socially with the highest mucky-mucks on this Coast and that, as well as across the sea in London and various chichi locales across Europe, is famous for her “list” of Who’s Who at the moment in New York. There’s no job she likes better than putting together a guest list to impress the client. And there’s no one who can do that particular job better. The message of a Peggy Siegal invitation is ballyhoo itself.

This one read: “Jared Kushner, Publisher, Joseph Meyer,CEO, Cory Booker, Arthur Carter, Georgina Chapman, Katie Couric, Lauren Santo Domingo, Larry Gagosian, Mariska Haritay, Carolina Herrera, Katie Holmes, Woody Johnson, Peter Kaplan, Commisioner Ray Kelly, Ken Kurson, Matt Lauer, Blake Lively, Terry Lundgren, Peter Martins, Cynthia McFadden, Sean Parker, Ron. O. Perelman, Stephen Schwarzman, Lara Spencer, Steve Tisch, Donald Trump, Ivanks Trump (aka Mrs. Jared Kushner), Harvey Weinstein and George C. Wolfe cordially invite you…..” Also promised and delivered “Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be by his (Kushner’s) side to toast you all. Well, how bad could that be?

Something for everybody who’s interested in Somebody. And so it was Thursday night at the Four Seasons.

Katie Holmes, Melania Trump, Donald Trump, and Ivanka Trump.

Jill Krementz reports: Pace Gallery at 32 East 57th Street was packed last Thursday night at a reception in honor of the artist James Turrell. The exhibition, James Turrell: Roden Crater and Autonomous Structures (on view through April 20th), focuses on the Roden Crater, an extinct volcano in the Painted Desert of Northern Arizona that Turrell has been transforming into a monumental work of art since the 1970s.

Ultimately, Turrell's masterwork will convert the inner cone of the 400,000-year-old crater into a massive naked-eye observatory, designed specifically for experiencing skylight, solar and celestial phenomena.

James Turrell's aerial photograph of Roden Crater.

On view at Pace are bronze and plaster models of spaces within the crater, as well as photographs of the project by Mr. Turrell.

Turrell's solo show will open at the Guggenheim Museum in New York on June 21st, which the artist reminded me was "the longest night of the year." His work will also be shown this spring at Los Angeles Country Museum of Art as well as at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The LACMA exhibition will be on view from May 26-April 4; the MFAH from June 9-September 22.

Talk about a triple-header for one of the most influential artists of the past fifty years.

James Turrell greeting his many fans at Pace's opening night reception. To the right is journalist Constance Breton. Ms. Breton is the daughter of French finance minister Thierry Breton.

The artist has been represented by Pace since 2002. This is the gallery's fifth exhibition of his work.

Plaster and bronze models evolved from spaces within the crater.

Influenced by the design of ancient observatories, including Angor Watt, Machu Picchu in Peru, and the Mayan and Egyptian pyramids, the structures are simultaneously ancient and futuristic.

That's Richard Armstrong, the director of the Guggenheim, on the left. The Guggenheim exhibition will run from June 21st-September 25th.

Friederike Paetzold and Shane Arbogast are both graphic designers living and working in downtown New York City. We shared the elevator down to the street level on 57th street and they are standing in front of the handsome Deco-themed mural at the building's entrance.

Ms. Paetzold had this to say: "I've seen a couple of Turrell's other works but I have high (soaring even!) hopes for Roden Crater, that promises to be a near-visionary sensurround experience should he ever finish it. We actually went on a Land Art road trip many years ago and we were close to the Crater, but expected we'd be chased off the land if we tried to sneak in, a la Diamonds are Forever.'"

And yesterday, March 17th from 1-3, Walter Robinson and Dorian Grey Gallery hosted a champagne brunch to celebrate not only St. Patrick's Day, but more importantly, Walter's return to his former life as a fulltime artist. Robinson has spent too much time these past few years as the editor of Artnet Magazine writing about other artists and has been neglecting his own life as a painter.

The solo show of Robinson's recent paintings and works on paper depict a spectrum of desire, ranging from beer, cheeseburgers and fries to sexy pin-ups, both male and female.

The exhibition is on view until March 31. Dorian Grey is at 437 East 9th Street. Hours are noon to 7 pm on Tuesdays -Thursdays; Fridays and Saturdays 9 -7 pm, and Sundays: 9-6 pm.

There are 50 pieces on sale in a price range of $1,200-$4,000. A third of the show has sold.

Christopher Pusey, Walter Robinson, and Molua Muldown. Mr. Pusey is the owner of Dorian Grey. Ms. Muldown works as an assistant at the gallery while pursuing her painting career.

Sandwich board outside Dorian Grey Gallery on St. Patrick's Day.

Gallery window.

Artists James Romberger, Walter Robinson, Rick Prol, and Tom Otterness.

Rick Prol has been described as the proto-typical East Village artist/painter of deceptively simple, cartoonish, paintings ... a veteran master of Gothic angst.

Stefan Eins and James Nares. Mr. Eins is the founder of Fashion Moda in the South Bronx. Nares' recent instalation, "Street," is the centerpiece of an exhibition that opened March 5 at the Metropolitan Museum. It was reviewed in Friday's New York Times by Ken Johnson.

Lisa and her husbands.

From left to right: James Neres (former husband), Lisa Rosen, and Walter Robinson (present husband). Ms Rosen is an accomplished art restorer.

Sandwich, 2013
acrylic/linen

Cookies (Dark Tower), 2013
acrylic/linen

Left: White Castle Fries, 2013
acrylic/linen

Center: Bran Flakes, 2013
acrylic/linen

Right: Savarin (McDonald's), 2013
acrylic/paper

Triptych (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner), 2010
acrylic/cardboard

Cat, 2013
acrylic/linen

Two Sixpacks (Non-alcoholic), 2011
acrylic/canvas

Beck's Nonalcoholic Sixpack, 2011
acrylic/canvas

Charlie Finch, the notoriously acerbic critic for the recently folded Artnet Magazine.

Saori Machimura is a 24-year-old student at Pratt where she is studying art management.

Diamond Dust, 2013
acrylic/paper

Left: Romance (Cezanne), 2013
acrylic/linen

Center: Romance (Lavender), 2013
acrylic/linen

Right: Romance (Sailboat), 2013
acrylic/linen

Colette the artist is the name she goes by. She's a familiar figure at Lower East Side openings.

Sebastian Piras is a film-maker and photographer. "I'm just a humble immigrant," he told me.

Top: She-Male, 2010
acrylic & gold enamel/
cardboard

Center: Alba, 2010
acrylic & gold enamel/ cardboard

Bottom: Olsen, 2010
acrylic & gold enamel/
cardboard

Romance (Orange), 2013 acrylic/pape	Romance (Baby Blue), 2013 acrylic/paper
As you can see, both red-dotted.

Patron, 2013
acrylic/canvas
24 x 18 in

Artist Tom Otterness and Stefan Eins. Mr. Otterness is working on a (for now, secret) art project in the Middle East.

Peggy Cyphers and Jeffrey Wright. Ms. Cyphers a self-described "East Village artist" recently showed at The Proposition Gallery; Mr. Wright is a poet and the editor of LiveMagNYC. He reviews poetry for the Brooklyn Rail and writes art criticism for Artnexus, Chelsea Now, and the Villager.

Jeff's middle name, coincidentally, is Cyphers, but he is not related to Peggy.

Cecile Brunswick is an oil painter. Her work will be featured in the forthcoming Architectural Digest Design Show at Pier 94.

Christopher Pusey at the entrance of his gallery, which opened in October, 2010.

Whopper, 2013
acrylic/linen

A perfect description of Walter's show! And this one's sold.

Contact DPC here.

Looking up towards the Empire State Building from 34th Street and 6th Avenue. 5:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013. It turned very cold yesterday afternoon, with an icy wind whipping off the river and then about 5 o’clock, it started to snow. It was the kind of weather that makes New Yorkers decide to stay in (if they can). The cabbies had their hands full with the slippery roads. Spring arrives tomorrow.

East End Avenue and 83rd Street looking south at 5 PM.

4:45 PM.

West End and Riverside. 5:30 PM.

West End Avenue, 7 PM.

East End Avenue looking north and south at 10:15 PM.

The Easter Bunny unfazed by last night's snow, holds forth with his eggs in the window of Lexington Gardens on 73rd and Lex.

Despite all that, the social calendar was heavy with big events. At the Pershing Square Signature Center, Isabella Rossellini and Venetian Heritage hosted a benefit performance of “Caro Federico” performed live by Ed Norton and Diane Lane, followed by a gala dinner.

Up at the Paley Center on West 52nd Street next to “21,” there was a Marvin Hamlish event, “What I Did For Love: The Music and Life of Marvin Hamlisch." The evening was originally conceived and planned by Mr. Hamlisch in the days just before he died, as a retrospective of his work. The tribute included performances, rarely seen footage, and personal recollections of working with the man as well as his impact on media particularly in television and film. Among those attending were Steven Soderbergh, Tom Brokaw, John Lithgow, Klea Blackhurst, Malcolm Gets, Donna McKechnie, Marissa McGowan, Blair Hamilton, Rupert Holmes and J. Mark McVey.

Down at the Pierre, Castle Connolly held its annual National Physician of the Year Awards.

Then over at the Asia Society on Park Avenue and 70th, they were celebrating Asia Week and hosting An Evening to Benefit the Asia Society. Dinner and dancing. Jason Wu was Honorary Chair.

Catching Up. Last Thursday night, Patricia Soussloff, President of the Partnership with Children Board of Directors, Margaret Crotty and Marie Stewart welcomed designers and committee members to the home of interior designer Paula Caravelli, for a kick-off for its upcoming Gala at 583 Park on April 16th.

Co-chair Fredrick Anderson of the Douglas Hannant Collection, Maggie Norris, Roderick Shade, Gail Green, Edward Lobrano, Michael Tavano, Thomas Burak, DeBare Saunders and Ronald Mayne shared themes for the decorative tables they’re each creating for the Partnership with Children Gala.

For more than a century, Partnership with Children has worked to help children growing up in poverty to succeed academically, emotionally and socially. The organization is a proud partner with the New York Department of Education, Robin Hood, the United Way and other generous funders. For more information on Partnership with Children, visit www.partnershipwithchildren.org.

Ronald Mayne, Margaret Crotty, and DeBare Sauders

Paula Caravelli and Patti Soussloff

Margaret Crotty, Frederick Anderson, and Patti Soussloff

Roderick Shade, Marie Stewart, and Maggie Norris

Thomas Burak, Roderick Shade, and Michael Tavano

Stefan Zellmer and Andy Sousslof

Last Saturday night artist Paige Peterson hosted a wedding at her Central Park West apartment for celebrity photographer Marc Raboy, who married Keith Henry of the College Board. Among the guests were Keith's daughter Robyn Henry, Broadway actress and director Donna Drake and TV producer Rob Dauber. Also in attendance via Skype were two of Paige and Marc's oldest and dearest friends — Lucie Arnaz and Larry Luckinbill from their home in Palm Springs. Paige and Marc have been friends ever since he photographed her as a young actress.

Marc has photographed many of the greats, including Arnaz, and her mother, Lucille Ball, as well as Liza Minnelli, Chita Rivera, Patti LaBelle, Frank Sinatra, Phyllis Diller, Candace Bergen, Harry Belafonte, Phylicia Rashad, Rob Lowe, Sean Penn, Rosie O'Donnell, Kevin Bacon, Jessica Tandy -- just to name a few. Pianist David Lewis accompanied the happy couple on their walk down the aisle. And then the singing began “I Do, I Do” ...

The married couple: Marc Raboy and Keith Henry.

The hostess, Paige Peterson, with Marc Raboy.

Last Friday evening, Asia Week New York held their kick-off reception at the Guggenheim Museum. In just a few years, Asia Week New York has become a much-anticipated event for international collectors, curators, and scholars who converge in New York to partake in a non-stop week of auctions sales, lectures and gallery exhibitions, presented by a record-breaking 43 galleries, from Australia, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Thailand and the U.S. This is an excellent opportunity to see an astonishing array of the rarest and finest Asian examples of porcelain, jewelry, paintings, ceramics, sculpture, books, bronzes, prints, photographs, and jades from China, Japan, Korea, India the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia.

Asia Week New York Street banner

Among the guests were: Henry Howard-Sneyd, Richard Armstrong, Alexandra Munroe, Joan Mirviss, Jiyoung Koo, James Lally, Carol Conover, Tina Zonars, Fausta and John Eskenazi, Bernard Wald, Robert and Sharon Blumenfield, Helen and James Lally, Gilles Beguin, Kit Luce, Harry and Ellen Eisenberg, Annysa Ng, Suneet Kapoor, Beatrice Chang, Martha Sutherland, Carlo Cristi, Katherine Martin, Karen Wender, Keum Ja Kang, Peter Kang, Liu Dan, Erik and Cornelia Thomsen, Claire and Michael Chu, Lesley Kehoe, Byron Kehoe, Shao Wang, Michael and Lisa Hughes, Dr. Robert Bigler, Prahlad Bubbar, Eric Zetterquist, Oliver Forge, Brendan Lynch, Jonathan Tucker, Prahlad Bubbar, Nancy Berliner, Sue Ollemans, Walter Arader, Deepanjana Klein, Ruth and Richard Dickes, Bill Griswold, Chris Malstead, Harry and Ellen Eisenberg, Jennifer Castler, Karsten Tietz, Marsha Vargas Handley, Chiu-Ti Jansen, Dessa Goddard, Machiko and Koichiro Kurita, Carole Davenport, Jonathan Heath, Erik and Allison Schiess, Jay Xu, Dr. Young Yang Chung, Zola Nyumbuu, Howard Wei, Paola Altari, Shawn Gassemi, Hiroshi Yanagi, Nayef Homsi, Kathleen Doyle, Kathy and Paul Bissinger, Robert Levine, Vijay Anand, Mary Ann Rogers, Tomaso and Gerolamo Vigorelli, George and Katherine Fan, David Joralemon, Vince Joralemon, Thomas Bachmann, Gabriel Eckenstein, David Franklin, August Napoli, Joe Earle, Erica and Lark Mason, Alice Chin, Leiko Coyle, Younghye Hwang, Calli and Bob McCaw, Mary Wallach, Vyna St. Phard, Corinne and Chuck Plumhoff, Maureen Footer, Patrice Lovato, Victoria Shaw-Williams, Peter Yeoh, Noemie Bonnet, Sarah Callaghan, Margaret Tao, Marilyn White, and Megan Quitoni.

Henry Howard-Sneyd, Joan Mirviss, Carol Conover, Tina Zonars, James Lally, Jiyoung Koo, Michael Hughes, Katherine Martin, and Suneet Kapoor

Bruce Maclaren, Dessa Goddard, Christina Prescott Walker, and Tao Wang

Dessa Goddard, Robert Blumenfield, Sharon Blumenfield , Jennifer Casler, and Jiyoung Koo

Henry Howard-Sneyd, Suzanne Valenstein, and Jeffrey Stamen

Jiyoung Koo and Carol Conover

Noemie Bonnet, Shao Wang, Margaret Tao, and Martha Sutherland

Henry and Ellen Eisenberg

Lark and Erica Mason

Byron and Lesley Kehoe , and Calli and Bob McCaw

Beatrice Chang and Li Hui Sheng

Hiroshi Yanagi, Darielle Mason, and Jonathan Tucker

Sachiko Hori with Koichiro and Machiko Kurita

Oliver Forge, Susan Ollemans, and Brendan Lynch

David Swetzoff, Gabriel Eckenstein, and Thomas Bachmann

Ruth and Richard Dickes

Greg Emetaz and Katya Blumenberg

Kit Luce and Hiromi Kinoshita

Henry Howard-Sneyd, Marjorie Williams, Joan Mirviss, and August Napoli

David Joralemon, Vince Joralemon, and Eric Zetterquist

Katya Blumenberg , Erick Schiess, Allison Schiess, and Greg Emetaz

Evelyne Eskenazi, Fausta Eskenazi, John Eskenazi, and Alexandra Munroe

Bill Griswold, Chris Malstead, Helen Lally, and James Lally

Paul and Kathy Bissinger

Erik and Cornelia Thomsen

Victoria Shaw Williamson and Louis Webre

Maureen Footer, Kathleen Doyle, Lark Mason, and Patrice Lovato

Tomaso and Gerolamo Vigorelli

Gilles Beguin and Christophe Hiroco

Howard Wei and Paola D'Alatri

Harish Patel, Suneet Kapoor, and Vijay Anand

Chiu Ti Jansen and Alice Chin

Liu Dan and Alexandra Munroe

Karen Wender and Nancy Berliner

Also the weekend before last, way over in Jodhpur, India,His Highness Maharaja Gaj Singh II of Marwar-Jodhpur inaugurated his new philanthropic initiative, the Jodhpur One World Retreat.

Celebrating ‘A Beautiful Mind,’ the three-day Retreat brought together world leaders, thought leaders and luminaries in science, neurology, business, culture, music, art, and philanthropy to raise awareness of the Indian Head Injury Foundation (“IHIF”), in association with the Brain Trauma Foundation (“BTF”) based in the USA.

The Maharaja established the IHIF after his son, Prince Yuvraj Shivraj Singh, sustained a serious head injury while playing polo in 2005. It was then that his Highness became acutely aware of the enormous problem with treating head injuries in India - more than 200,000 lives are lost every year and over 1.6 million people suffer from serious head injuries.

IHIF's mission is to build a comprehensive system for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of traumatic brain injuries. It fulfills its mission through education, emergency medical services, and rehabilitation, providing information on life saving medical protocols throughout India.

The weekend was kicked off with a champagne reception at the foot of the majestic Fort Mehrangarh, followed by the inauguration of Olafur Eliasson's"The Little Sun" exhibition curated by Christine Starkman of the Houston Museum of Fine Art. The Maharaja then led a scenic trek up the historic Fort, which was lined with local music and dance vignettes. Cocktails and canapés were served at the apex overlooking the “Blue City” on one side, and a big courtyard on the other, awash in multi-colored lighting that was also the stage for a panoramic rhapsody and dance: "Nari - Celebrating The Indian Woman.”

The show was a beautiful fusion of 5000 years of civilization into one grand evening of pageantry, music, song and dance. The Retreat celebrated the mind and culture of India through yoga and music, including an unprecedented, intimate, private performance by Sting on the front lawn of the Umaid Bhawan Palace against a backdrop of the Palace awash in panoply of light.

His Highness with his son Yuvraj Shivraj Singh

Cricket Chamption Sachin Tendulkar

Noting the importance of IHIF’s work, Sting invoked and inspired all to support IHIF’s mission. The Retreat also explored the concept of the beautiful mind through a series of events. Speakers such as Dr. Raj K. Narayan (who oversees all neurosurgery programs at the North Shore-LIJ Health System in the USA), Dr. Nagendra (former space scientist at NASA, who established Swami Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation) and Nigel Osborne (MBE, FRCM, British composer, educationalist and aid worker who serves as Professor of Music at the University of Edinburgh engaged the audience to think about all aspects of the mind, from the physical to the mental and spiritual.

Guests included HRH The Maharaha of Jodhpur, HRH The Maharani Hemlata Raje, HRH The Prince Yuvraj Shivraj Singh, Sting, Trudie Styler, HRH The Prince Andrew (Duke of York), Sarah Ferguson (Duchess of York), Princess Eugenie, HRH Princess Sheika Hussah Sabah, Ambassador Faroukh Younes, UK Deputy High Commissioner David Lelliott, Reliance's Mukesh and Nita Ambani, Honda Hero's Pawan Munjal, actress Dia Mirza, Suhel Seth, Gemima Khan, India's beloved cricket champion Sachin Tendulkar, Taj Hotel Group’s Raymond Bickson, Queenie Dody and from New York, actor/film maker Fisher Stevens, Meera Gandhi, Susan Shin and Rishi Shah.

Actress Priyana Bose and Rishi Shaw

Meera Gandhi with Maharaja gah Sing of Jodhpur

Sting and Trudie Styler with friends

Thanks to the support of the TAJ Hotel Group and BMW, guests were transported throughout the Retreat in sleek, top of the line BMWs and enjoyed accommodations at the Taj Umaid Bhawan Palace Hotel, the Taj Hari Hotel, and the independently owned, new modern luxury hotel -- the RAAS.

For more information on the IHIF, visit www.indianheadinjuryfoundation.org and www.braintrauma.org.

HRH Prince Andrew, the Duke of York

Phillipe Von Sahr, President, BMW India with a friend

Sachin and Anjali Tendulkar

Susan Shin and Lisa Wilson

Photographs by AnnieWatt.com (Asia Week)

Contact DPC here.

Cold retreating, flowers blooming, 4:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Friday, March 22, 2013. Bright and sunny; and cold. The weatherman is warning of maybe more snow coming this way. Big deal, I don’t think so. Now that it’s staying light later, I’m looking forward to some warmer weather, some flowers blooming. Always good for the spirit.

Although, a reader in Boston wrote, re my comment the other day that Panxatwaney Philgot it right when he didn’t see his shadow, which predicted an early Spring:

Hi David,

I am a weather spotter in the Boston Area. Punxatawney Phil was all wrong this year. However, our Ms. G, the resident Groundhog at Drumlin Farms in Lincoln, Mass did see her shadow, signifying 6 more weeks of winter! Here’s a link about her. She is a cutie!

BTW, Ms. G has a bill pending in the Mass Legislature to make her the official Massachusetts State Groundhog, and we look forward to her designation! She will be making an appearance on her own behalf during her hearing at the State House this Spring.

Best regards,

Cathryn

Tears along the trail of life. Meanwhile back at Wednesday Michael’s, before I forget. Rachel Uchitel, the woman involved with Tiger Woods back when his wife was taking a 5-iron to the guy for his extra-curricular activities, was there, and Michael’s Brenda Starr Diane Clehane got the scoop.

Rachel has a ten-month-old daughter by her husband Matt Hahn and the little one is now the love of her life. “I really have come to understand what unconditional love is. You think you can get it from a man, but this is so different,” Uchitel told Diane.




	Rachel Uchitel with her husband Matt Hahn and newborn.

Uchitel also confided that she’s been “struggling with her identity for the past three years.” She told Diane that she’s had a difficult time finding a job “because of the baggage attached to me.” The Louis Vuitton of baggage though it might be. She did do a gig on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. I missed it.

All that media attention puts everything a little (or a lot) off kilter, no matter where you’ve come from. That’s my read, not her words. However, as Diane summed it up with her typical perspicacity about these matters: “For the woman whose tear-stained face made the cover of The New York Post when she first lost her then fiancé on 9/11 (a tearsheet hangs in the Smithsonian) and then went on to become the poster girl for one of the biggest celebrity scandals of the decade, life in recent years has been a series of headlines. That’s a pretty attractive quality in an employee in certain circles is this town, isn’t it?”

So that was the overture to Wednesday’s Michael’s just before the band started playing. Otherwise, a media madhouse. Well dressed though it was. Clehane herself was one table over interviewing a man named Emilio Romano, president of Telemundo Media and his veep of communications Michelle Alban et al.

At Table One was the Bonnie Fuller, and the Hollywood.com contigent doing their Wednesday conflab, in the company of Gerry Byrne, Carlos Lamadrid Brian Mazza, Stephen Colvin, Tom Keene, Keach Hagey, Andrea Miller, Les Berglass and ... Rachel Uchitel. At the table next them: Rob Marshall, Director of “Chicago;” next to him Da Mayor o’ Michael’s, Joe Armstrong with David Zinczenko.

And at the big table across from them, Da Boyz, Imber, Della Femina, Dr. Kramer, Bergman and Greenfield, like some kind of post-modern version of the famous Algonquin Roundtable. Unlike the Roundtable, you don’t know what these guys are saying, because nobody (that we know of) is writing it down, but they laugh a lot. And they’ve all been around long enough to know what’s funny and what’s not. Right next door to them, the Governor’s good friend Sandra Lee (needs no intro, pass the peanut butter and marshmallow) and Newell Turner, the style and design czar at Hearst. You know about Lee’s new magazine, I’m assuming.


Ed and Shari Rollins.

And then a few tables over, Ed Rollins was celebrating his 70th with his wife Shari and Robert Zimmerman, Bernard Clair, the lawyer, Michael Goodwin of the New York Post; Lou Dobbs (Lou Dobbs!?). Georgette Mosbacher, who couldn’t be there but is a big fan of Ed’s, sent the boys (and the girl) another round (of desserts).

Also, moving around the room: Peter Brown; Judy Licht (Mrs. Jerry Della Femina off-camera); Beverly Camhe; Katie Lee with Lucy Danziger, EIC of SELF; Francesca Stanfill with Lally Weymouth; Joan Gelman and her boys; Bob Friedman of Radical Media; June Haynes, Debbie Huberman, Joan Jakobson, one of the Glad Girls who performed at the Writer’s Center dinner at Doubles the other night; I was with Chris Meigher of Quest and managing editor Lily Hoagland, Fashion Director Daniel Capello, and Art Director Jim Stoffel.

Continuing around the room: Bob Towbin; Douglas McCormick; Wednesday Martin; Susan Plagemann; Hamilton South; Steven Haft; Jeannine Pirro; Heidi Roberts; Christine Taylor; John O’Keefe; John Steele, and on and on into the midday media melee at Michael’s.

Chelsea Clinton at TEDxTeen 2013.

Catching Up. Last Saturday, TEDxTeen 2013, More than 300 teenagers and adults in the youth space gathered at an independently organized conference presented by the We Are Family Foundation, that focused the conversation on teens and their power to change the world.

The event was hosted by Chelsea Clinton at Scholastic's global world headquarters in New York City. Andrew Jenks, creator of MTV’s World of Jenks and author of “Andrew Jenks: My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker,” joined in to host the 4th Annual conference. People from 141 countries tuned in to experience the conference streaming live at TEDxTeen.com.

The theme of the fourth annual TEDxTeen conference, “The Audacity of whY,” resonates with Generation Y – or more appropriately, “Generation Why?” – as they turn over established regimes, age-old thinking, and timeless truths, through social media, the power of crowds and an unswerving belief that they have the right to know “why?

Tania Luna, Ndaba Mandela, Nile Rodgers, Kelvin Doe, Kristopher Bronner, Amaryllis Fox, Chelsea Clinton, Caine Monroy, and Tallia Storm.

In addition to Clinton and Jenks, TEDxTeen 2013 featured a number of speakers and performers who are leading the global “whY” revolution in their own way, including Amaryllis Fox, Founder & CEO of mulu; Caine Monroy, creator of Caine's Arcade; Dylan Vecchione, Founder of ReefQuest; photographer Joseph Peter; Global Minimum Innovate Salone 2012 winner Kelvin Doe; Kristopher Bronner, co-creator of UNREAL™ Brands; musical prodigy Kuha'o Case; Ndaba Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela and co-founder & co-chairman of the Africa Rising Foundation; Sophie Umazi, creator of I AM KENYAN; R&B/Soul Singer Tallia Storm; Tania Luna, CEO of Surprise Industries; and Maria Toorpakai Wazir, Pakistan's No. 1-ranked women's squash player.

TEDxTeen 2013 Talks will begin to go live on TEDxTeen.com this Saturday, March 23rd. One talk will be released each day until all Talks are online.

Andrew Jenks.

Kuha'o Case.

Caine Monroy.

Joseph Peter.

Kelvin Doe.

Tania Luna.

H.E. Ambassador Hamid Al Bayati and Joseph Peter.

Maria Toorpakai Wazir.

Ndaba Mandela.

Tallia Storm.

Kristopher Bronner.

Amaryllis Fox.

Sophie Umazi.

Dylan Vecchione.

Audience at TEDxTeen 2013.

And on March 14, The Men's and Women's Mentoring Groups of The Children's Storefront held a Student Art Exhibit and Cocktail Reception at Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliff, LLP in New York. Featured were paintings and photos by 7th and 8th grade student artists, under the guidance of Storefront Artist in Residence Matthias Leutrum.

The Children's Storefront is an independent, tuition-free school in Harlem, providing a private school experience to students who would not otherwise get the opportunity. Located on East 129th Street, the school is a safe haven for 174 students from pre-K through 8th grade, teaching them core values which take them to some of the most prestigious high schools in the area. The Storefront also teaches the whole child, and our Mentoring programs are a part of that enrichment, offering students experiences that encourage them to succeed in their lives away from the school.

Head of School Wendy Reynoso, Assistant Head of School Michael Williams, Storefront Artist in Residence Matthias Leutrum and 7th and 8th grade student artists.

Storefront Trustee Christopher Moore with his son Christopher and Storefront students.

Storefront student artwork.

Storefront student with Monique Shubert from the Studio Museum of Harlem.

Mentoring leaders Donna Cephas and Honoree Penny Owen.

Storefront Trustee Elsie Aidinoff and student.

Contact DPC here.

Stretching in Central Park. 2:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, March 25, 2013. Sometimes sunny, fairly cold, dry first Spring weekend in New York. Rain and/or snow headed this way at the time of this writing (midnight Sunday/Monday). School’s out and the city was noticeably quieter on Palm Sunday.


Cary Grant in To Catch A Thief.

Perp as Jester. Today we are featuring another one of those great obits from the The Daily Telegraph of London. This one about a jewel thief. It’s impossible to read it and not think of the famous Alfred Hitchcock film “To Catch A Thief” starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in which Grant plays a retired cat-burglar. That film was based on a real character named John Robie. The Telegraph obit is about an Englishman operating about the same time as the film, all over Europe.

I was reading a lot of financial and economic news and commentary about chicanery that’s been going on internationally (I also saw Sheila Bair, former head of the FDIC on Bill Moyers, talking about it -- “not one person has gone to jail,” she remarked) -- as well as the potentially mysterious death of another Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky over in the UK. So the following story of a professional thief, came with a “lightness,” the humorousness of this particular man’s life of crime. And it was crime; and he had not only a record but served several stints in prison for his crimes. Yet he took the high road in “confessing” (he wrote a memoir) chosen profession and his victims, portraying himself as a kind of 20th century Robin Hood, milling about among the elites in the guise of a confrere.

The result of his work was quite a haul when you add it all up. And save the sundry prison sentences, he showed no remorse that he took from the rich and famous, and even felt they deserved it! Even though he wasn’t Cary Grant, I found myself going along with his faux alibi, charmed by his daring – instead, thinking to myself “who could play him” in the picture? He’d have to be charming and you’d have to be amused by his derring-do.


	Peter Scott.

As you read, notice he was on his own at a very young age, apparently abandoned by his mother. I wonder if that’s what led to this life of burglarizing the private life of others. It’s just the shrink in me thinking ...

From the Daily Telegraph of London:

Peter Scott, who has died aged 82, was a highly accomplished cat burglar, and as Britain’s most prolific plunderer of the great and good took particular pains to select his victims from the ranks of aristocrats, film stars and even royalty.

According to a list of 100 names he supplied to The Daily Telegraph, he targeted figures such as Soraya Khashoggi, Shirley MacLaine, the Shah of Iran, Judy Garland and even Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother — although he added apologetically that, in her case, the authorities had covered up by issuing a “D-notice”.

In 1994 Scott wrote to the newspaper to say that he would consider it “a massive disappointment if I were not to get a mention in [its] illustrious obituary column”. He explained that he derived much pleasure from reading accounts of the exploits of war heroes, adding: “I would like to think I would have fronted the Hun with the same enthusiasm as I did the fleshpots in Mayfair.” He added that he had been a Telegraph reader since 1957, when newspapers were first allowed in prisons, “on account of its broad coverage on crime”.


Some of Scott's victims included Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother ...

John Aspinall ...

Soroya Khashoggi ...

In the course of thieving jewellery and artworks from Mayfair mansions, Bond Street shops and stately homes, Scott also served Fleet Street as handy headline fodder, being variously hailed the “King of the Cat Burglars”, “Burglar to the Stars” or the “Human Fly”. He identified a Robin Hood streak in himself, too, asserting in his memoirs that he had been “sent by God to take back some of the wealth that the outrageously rich had taken from the rest of us”.

“I felt like a missionary seeing his flock for the first time,” he explained when he recalled casing Dropmore House, the country house of the press baron Viscount Kemsley, on a rainy night in 1956 and squinting through the window at the well-heeled guests sitting down to dinner. “I decided these people were my life’s work.”

Always a meticulous planner, Scott bought a new suit before each job, so that he would not look out of place in the premises he was burgling. Fear, the possibility of capture, excited him.

During one break-in “a titled lady appeared at the top of the stairs. 'Everything’s all right, madam,’ I shouted up, and she went off to bed thinking I was the butler.” On other occasions, if disturbed by the occupier, he would shout reassuringly: “It’s only me!”

In all, by his own reckoning, Scott stole jewels, furs and artworks worth more than £30 million. He held none of his victims in great esteem (“upper-class prats chattering in monosyllables”). The roll-call of “marks” from whom he claimed to have stolen valuables included Zsa Zsa Gabor, Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Sophia Loren, Maria Callas and the gambling club and zoo owner John Aspinall. “Robbing that bastard Aspinall was one of my favourites,” he recollected. “Sophia Loren got what she deserved too.”

Scott stole a £200,000 necklace from the Italian star when she was in Britain filming The Millionairess in 1960. Billed in the newspapers as Britain’s biggest jewellery theft, it yielded Scott £30,000 from a “fence”. After Miss Loren had pointed at him on television saying: “I come from a long line of gipsies. You will have no luck,” Scott lost every penny in the Palm Beach Casino at Cannes.


	Sophia Loren ...

	Zsa Zsa ...

	The Shah of Iran.

In the 1950s and 1960s he pinpointed his targets by perusing the society columns in the Daily Mail and Daily Express. Nor did he ease up with the approach of middle-age; in the 1980s he was still scaling walls and drainpipes. In one Bond Street caper alone he stole jewellery worth £1.5 million, and in 1985 he was jailed for four years. On his release he expanded his social horizons by becoming a celebrity “tennis bum”, a racquet for hire at a smart London club where — as he put it in his autobiography — he coached still more potential “rich prats”.

By the mid-1990s, Scott had served 12 years in prison in the course of half a dozen separate stretches, and claimed to have laid down his “cane” [jemmy] and retired from a life of crime.

But in 1998 he was jailed for another three and a half years for handling, following the theft of Picasso’sTête de Femme from the Lefevre Gallery in Mayfair the year before. To the impassive detectives who arrested him, Scott quoted a line from WE Henley: “Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody but unbowed.” He often drew on literary allusions, quoting Confucius, Oscar Wilde and Proust.

Scott was also a past-master in self-justification of his crimes and misdemeanors: “The people I burgled got rich by greed and skullduggery. They indulged in the mechanics of ostentation — they deserved me and I deserved them. If I rob Ivana Trump, it is just a meeting of two different kinds of degeneracy on a dark rooftop.”

In his memoirs, “Gentleman Thief “(1995), Scott admitted to an even stronger motivation than fear as he contemplated another “job”: “Even now, after 30 years, it was a sexual thrill.” There was the additional satisfaction in his assumption that the millions reading about his exploits in the papers were silently cheering him on.

He was born Peter Craig Gulston on February 18 1931 into a middle-class military family in Belfast. His father died when he was young, and his mother, sensing that Peter was destined to be trouble, emigrated to the United States. By the time he left the Belfast Royal Academy, where he was one of the brightest boys but inept at exams, he had squandered his father’s inheritance.

While still in his teens he was wandering the Malone Road in his school scarf burgling houses of the well-off and stashing the spoils in a rugby bag slung over his shoulder. He estimated that he had committed 150 such “screwers” before the police finally nailed him in 1952. “They never suspected me,” he explained, “because I looked like a resident. When the police eventually caught on, I had done so many jobs that they were embarrassed and only charged me with 12.” They were enough, however, to earn him six months in Crumlin Road jail.

Having changed his name to Scott, he then moved to London, where he realized that the houses of Mayfair and Belgravia, with their balconies, porticos and parapets, might have been designed to be burgled. Working as a pub bouncer in the West End, he moonlighted as a housebreaker.

Maria Callas with Aristotle Onassis.

In 1957, during one of his jail stretches, Scott met George “Taters” Chatham, renowned as London’s most celebrated cat burglar, with whom he formed a partnership that would eventually secure the pair a haul of art and jewellery worth millions of pounds. In between their incursions into Bond Street furriers and jewellery stores and the Mayfair drawing-rooms of art collectors, they served increasingly lengthy prison terms; having been sent down for a modest couple of years in the late 1950s, in 1961 Scott was jailed for three years and, in 1964, a further five.

In his memoirs he confessed to “an obscene passion for larceny”, but made no excuses, recognizing that he could have made a comfortable living by honest means. Barring one incident in which he broke a policeman’s nose as he struggled to get away, Scott had no convictions for violence, which he considered “an anathema”. He characterized himself as “a man who has made all the mistakes that vanity, envy and greed create”.


Tom Bell in He Who Rides a Tiger.

Like Raffles, the gentleman thief of Edwardian fiction, Scott in his heyday lived high on the hog, frittering away his fortune on flashy cars, luxury homes and fast women.

He escorted a string of glamorous girlfriends, including the model Jackie Bowyer (“a great sport”), whom he met in 1963 and who became the second of his four wives. His criminal career was the basis of the film He Who Rides a Tiger (1965), in which Tom Bell played the Scott character and Judi Dench his long-suffering girlfriend. Scott himself was serving a prison sentence in Dartmoor at the time and profited little from the film.

He ended up broke, reflecting ruefully that “I gave all my money to head waiters and tarts”. Declared bankrupt, owing creditors £440,000, he lived on benefits of £60 a week in a council flat in Islington.

A son survives him.

Peter Scott, born February 18 1931, died March 17 2013

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Late afternoon in Palm Beach. Photo: JH.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013. Snow in the forecast; turns out to be some rain, and cold; leaving everything wet and raw in the first week of Spring.

Diaries on Early Spring Dog Days. This is Passover Week and although I am not Jewish, many of my friends and associates are, and so the schedule alters, even if slightly. I like all this. The two schools on either side of me are closed. The neighborhood is quieter, less traffic. There is less going on. Many who can afford it take the week for their last vacation before Memorial Day.

For me it’s like a little down time. The internet is a harsh mistress although deeply compelling (or, more simply: appeals to compulsive personalities). Nevertheless, a respite of one sort or another is a welcome gift.

Friday afternoon, my two favorite neighborhood entrepreneurs on their rounds ...

83rd and East End Avenue at 7:20 PM Friday night after a bit of rain.

East End Avenue Monday night after the "Big Storm" had passed us by leaving the streets and sidewalks wet.

For others it’s a trip. JH and his wife, for example, flew down to Palm Beach on Sunday to celebrate the holiday with his immediate and extended family. They boarded their plane at JFK for a 3 PM take-off. They were delayed because the a/c system wasn’t working. Then they faced the big storm heading this way and had to fly around it. Five and a half hours later they touched down in Palm Beach (where it was raining). He was rewarded yesterday with some Sun.

The Hirsch clan down in Palm Beach.

Which, speaking of Palm Beach, it’s not quiet down there. The Season is in full swing. For those who keep track of these things, the high season starts its glorious wind down after the Preservation Ball, which is the first Friday in March. In the 1930s and 1940s the last time Palm Beach had this kind of social dynamic, the season lasted six weeks – February 10 through the end of March. And then it was on to the next. Nowadays with easy jet travel, they come and go throughout the colder months up north. And a lot of these fragile ones begin to get chilly up north by late October.


	Rosita, Duchess of Marlborough, in her studio.

Meanwhile, Rosita, Duchess of Marlborough arrived in PB on March 10. After a few weeks in Barbados. And she will be in PB until the end of this week. Rosita lives near Blenheim Palace at Lee Place where her former husband, the duke, grew up. When Rosita and the duke were married, they lived in the house during the summer when there were many tourists visiting Blenheim Palace. Rosita was given the house as part of her divorce settlement. She also has a house in London, what some say is a jewel of a house in St. Jean Cap Ferrat. Let’s hope so.

Sunny, The Duke of Marlborough and his Duchess, Lily Mahtani are also in Palm Beach, at their apartment at the Everglades Club. Sunny (whose nickname derives from his first title Earl of Sunderland) has been coming to Palm Beach since he was a little one, visiting his grannie, another former Duchess of Marlborough, Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan and her husband Jacques. Another former little one, Lord Charles Spencer-Churchill, brother of the duke, who has been coming to visit grannie since he was knee high to a grasshopper, has also been in Palm Beach recently, along with his charming best friend Sarah Goodbody. Those Brits never liked those big old draughty country houses when all those March winds are howling about.

Meanwhile, back down under the sheltering palms, Rosita was the guest of honor at the North Ocean Boulevard villa of Marianne and John Castle. The Castles who own the former Joseph P. Kennedy mansion are also famous for their food. Their guests were Dr. Annette Rickel, William Bologna, Ann and Donald Rickel, Grace and Chris Meigher, Margo and Donald Steever, Max Field, Carol Butcher and Jim Mitchell. Now you know.

John Castle with Rosita, Duchess of Marlborough.

Marianne Castle and Max Field.

Now, getting back to the Big Town: when I say New York “quiet,” I don’t mean that quiet. After all, this is New York, and people are out there, going, doing, moving. For example, last Saturday night at the Dempsey Theater in Harlem, MAMA, I WANT TO SING, the classic 1983 gospel musical created by Vy Higginsen, celebrated its 30th anniversary with a very special performance of Mama, I Want to Sing: The Next Generation.

With more than 500 attending, the Gala event took place exactly 30 years to the day from when the original production opened in Harlem to great acclaim. The evening raised over $100,000 for Gospel for Teens, a program of the Mama Foundation for the Arts' School for Gospel, Jazz, and R&B Arts.

Myrna Gershon, Lesley Stahl, Freddie Gershon, and Vy Higginson.

Lesley Stahl was the chair of the evening. She won an Emmy for her "60 Minutes" profile on Gospel for Teens. The event’s underwriters were Myrna and Freddie Gershon along with Cissy Houston, Dionne Warwick, Valerie Simpson and Angie Stone (who surprised the audience when the four Divas got on stage at the end of the performance and joined the choir in This Little Light of Mine), Chuck Jackson, actor Hinton Battle; designers Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent, Damon Dash, Marcus Samuelsson and Andrew Chapman (Red Rooster Harlem), Representative Charles Rangel, Senator Bill Perkins, Assemblyman Keith L.T. Wright and Council Member Inez Dickens.

The after party was a celebration of Harlem highlighting some the area’s best food from Sylvia’s, Spoonbreak, Corner Social, Chez Lucien, Jacob’s Soul Food, Melba’s and Make My Cake.

You probably know this already but Cissie Houston, besides being the mother of Whitney, is the aunt of Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick, and a cousin of Leontyne Price. In other words, the legendary talent runs in the family.

Cissy Houston, Dionne Warwick, and Valerie Simpson.

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Budding in Central Park. Photo: JH.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013. Cloudy and bright in the city yesterday. Temps in the high 40s, low 50s.

Big clouds moving in mid-afternoon yesterday promising ...?

The New York Post reported yesterday that Anthony Marshall, the son and only child of the late Brooke Astor, has lost his appeal on his 2009 conviction for “trying to steal $60 million from his mother.”

Evidently Mr. Marshall who appeared in court in a wheelchair last December “begged the court to spare him jail time given his age, health, military service, public service and lack of prior criminal history.”

Justice Darcel Clark of the New York Appellate Court responded that “we are not convinced that as an aged felon Marshall should be categorically immune from incarceration.” Mr. Marshall will be 89 at the end of May.


	Vincent Astor and his second wife, Mary Benedict (Minnie) Cushing, aboard his yacht the Nourmahal on their honeymoon voyage. It was Minnie who supported the idea of Vincent marrying Brooke (so that Minnie could leave).

“The lack of a criminal history is an ordinary circumstance that does not vitiate a prison term for obtaining millions of dollars through financial abuse of an elderly victim,” the judge declared and the Post reported.

And so ends The Final Act of The Tale of Roberta Brooke Russell Kuser Marshall Astor, daughter of a Marine Commandant (on duty) born in Portsmith, New Hampshire one hundred and eleven years ago, and died six years ago this August in her mansion at Briarcliff Manor, New York, a wisp of her former self at 105, and woebegotten. It is a saga, and the final chapters have yet to be told.

I did not buy the story the way it was presented in the media. The public relations strategy beginning with the innuendo accusing the son of elder abuse was entirely untrue and an outright smear. As much as its proponents reveled in it, they besmirched the memory of the mother with it. There were several forces operating and all, obviously, in their own interest, the son and his wife notwithstanding.

It may be that Mr. Marshall fiddled with the facts of his mother’s will. This is not an unusual circumstance, and yes it is illegal. Wills are Wars and often fought to the death beyond the death. Furthermore, the mother had made more than 30 different wills in her life and each of them saw substantial changes in terms of bequests and the bequeathed. So it remained a power tool for the lady as well it should.

Stories about wills always remind me of a story that took place years ago in Los Angeles with the will of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer mogul Louis B. Mayer’s first wife Margaret. When Margaret Mayer made out her Last Will and Testament, she had left among her bequests, $100,000 to a niece. That sum was quite substantial in those days – like $4 or $5 million in today’s currency.

The niece was a also contemporary of Margaret’s daughters, Edith Mayer Goetz and Irene Mayer Selznick. The daughters were left the bulk of their mother’s estate, which was considerably more than the bequest to the niece.


Mrs. Astor and her emeralds in the prime of her life as an independent, philanthropic woman of the world.

The bequest to the niece was a final thank you for love and loyalty. That had been crucial in the latter years of Margaret Mayer. Her adored Louis had abandoned home and hearth after many years of marriage, and divorced his wife for a much younger, more glamorous woman. Margaret Mayer was heartbroken. She withdrew into a deep depression.

Margaret’s daughters loved their mother but were too active – and too self-centered -- with their young lives and marriages to spend much time comforting their mother. Their cousin, the niece, made up for it. The sisters were pleased that she became their mother’s companion.

However, after Margaret’s final will was drawn up, the sisters – who had access to the will – were offended by their mother’s generosity with the niece. Irene who was one to draw lines about where people fit in her scheme of things regarded her cousin as, among other things, Not Our Crowd. A small fortune seemed like an awful lot of money to give to a “poor” cousin.

According to Edie Goetz, who told me the story one afternoon three decades later in her mansion in Holmby Hills while recalling her family history, Irene talked her into seeing their mother’s lawyer – a major East and West Coast lawyer at the time – and having him change the will.

And so they did – Edie in the telling allowed that she thought it wasn’t right but Irene ... ”you know Irene.” And so it was, their mother’s grateful bequest cut substantially to more within the realm of what Irene thought her cousin was deserving of. Or worth.

And ready to celebrate with a dance!

The mistress and the maitresse. Years later, that same lawyer who accommodated the sisters’ wishes over his client’s directive, coincidentally, was married to a famously wealthy American woman. It was a second marriage for both. To the outside world, it looked to be ideal. More than twenty years down the road, however, the wife happened to pick up the phone to make a call one day, and accidentally overheard her husband talking to a woman he obviously knew quite well. The women, it turned out, was his mistress of long-standing, unbeknownst until then, to the wife, for almost as many years as he and his wife were married.

It so happened that the wife was also in very ill health when she made this wrenching discovery, and she died several months later. Her will, however, gave no indication of her late discovery. Everything including her multimillion dollar collection of 18th century French furniture, went to her husband. Being a lawyer, his wife had trusted him with her estate. He inherited millions; her children -- not a candlestick.

Ironically, her husband -- Irene and Edie’s will-altering lawyer -- was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s within very few years. He had married his mistress, and she inherited “his” fortune “left” to him by his previous wife.


	Son, mother, and daughter-in-law on the town.

The Saga of Tony Marshall and his mother is more compelling because of the history of a mother-son relationship. Despite the reams of adverse and often fabricated publicity about his treatment of his elderly and infirm mother, he had been a dutiful son for all of his eighty-two years. A boy’s loyalty, despite the fact that she was neither an emotionally or physically accessible mother for much of his childhood -- she was not the first of her kind – he remained attached to her wishes and commands.

He was her only child, born of a traumatic marriage made when she was 17. When she extracted herself from the relationship she was a very young woman. She married again, this time to a man whom she claimed was the love of her life. It was a second marriage for both and she gave her son a new last name.

The son went wherever she took him or sent him. He was not favored; that was apparent early to anyone who might want to notice. But he was dutiful, and he grew up to be a presentable young man, something that wouldn’t embarrass her. Like her adored father, he served in the Marines, and in the Pacific during World War II, he led a platoon in the Battle of Iwo Jima. Afterwards he was promoted to Lieutenant and awarded a Purple Heart. Returning from the War, he went to Brown.

In the late 50s he was US Consul in Istanbul. In the first Administration of Richard Nixon, he served as Ambassador the Malagasy Republic, then to Trinidad and Tobago, and later in the Seychelles under President Gerald Ford.

As she got older, long widowed, her son became a more valuable working ally, someone she could put out there as her company, watching over her. A good escort; very important when needed.

She admitted she wasn’t especially maternal. That is not as unusual as we’d like to think. She was helpful to him professionally. But she also quietly boasted openly about the political contribution she made that got him an ambassadorship under Richard Nixon, making it sound like she “bought” it for him, apparently unaware that ambassadorial posts come with price tags in one way or another.


Mrs. Astor near her centenary in her old reliable emeralds and diamonds (Photo: JH).

She did not especially like her third daughter-in-law, at least not in the beginning. She was openly vocal about this when among friends in the summer colony of Northeast where they both lived. She could see that her son was crazy about her, and that annoyed her too, looking upon it, as mothers can do, as the result of feminine wiles playing on a foolish heart. She believed that her daughter-in-law had been after the money, presumably the money Tony would inherit. She expressed this at times.

Mothers and daughter-in-laws are often a bad combination. Charlene Marshall’s mother-in-law situation was formidable. Perhaps Charlene was partly attracted to Tony’s would-be inheritance. In the world of Brooke Astor, practically everyone she knew bore that sort of thing in mind when considering a relationship. Although perhaps she liked the man who was kind and thoughtful toward her.

The world of Brooke Astor is a Money World. It’s all about the money. It is true for everyone who inhabits it in one way or another. It’s the nature of the way we live. For some it is an albatross, for others an accomplice. For others it’s freedom. Greed is available as an addictive accomplice, no matter, and always hanging around.

Even Brooke Astor’s own arrival at the Astor fortune came from her strategy, and it was a strategy, in gaining notice from the man who would become her last husband and her vanquished benefactor in the latter day world of society and philanthropy.

This achievement of having obtained fortune and public stature did not come easily to her. From the beginning, Vincent Astor was considered by the women in his crowd to be obnoxious and someone to avoid as much as possible.

These same women also regarded the widow Brooke Russell Marshall as a woman who was in it for one thing and one thing only. She wasn’t exactly an interloper, but she wasn’t the top of the crop either.

She knew this; she knew how that world worked and especially for a woman who had no money of her own. Edith Wharton territory. Marrying Vincent Astor would change all that. She was seizing victory from the jaws of defeat. The price she paid was dear. She would have to wait. In the meantime she became almost a virtual prisoner of her deeply insecure and tyrannical husband, even in his demanding that she entirely separate herself from her son. Time was on her side, however: Vincent Astor died after little more than five years of marriage.


	The wife wheels her husband away from his court hearing.

After the death of Vincent, almost a half century passed in the Life of Brooke Astor, philanthropist and national figure of poise and matronly elegance. She came into her own. It was a role which she cleverly and intelligently wrote for herself and relished, and it was her greatest role. Her son was there forever after, doing her bidding, following her wishes. That was his role. We can guess why. And it wasn’t for the money, at least not at the end of the day.

But that was then. Now she’s gone, and so too is the Astor fortune in America. Paradoxically that was what Vincent Astor really wanted out of life, to rent himself of that legacy. Unlike the four generations that preceded him, he was the first Astor not to leave the fortune to an Astor relative. For some reason he showed no sentiment of affection or respect for those members of his birth family.

Now we have left, the aged and besieged only child, Mr. Marshall facing a possible jail term in the ninetieth year of his life, for something which he did not achieve, even if he had intended to as many believe. Falsely or otherwise. And we have the memory of that mother he served for the first eight decades of his life, her departed image now stuck in the mud of history, and the politics of the rialto in a dark season.

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Soaking up the late afternoon sun in Palm Beach. 5:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Thursday, March 28, 2013. Sunny and cold yesterday in New York. But I didn’t need an overcoat; a scarf could handle it.

I went to lunch at Michael’s. Traffic was light on the way and traffic seemed lighter than usual at Michael’s. Although I noticed the tables were occupied, for a Wednesday it seemed they turned down the Sound. I was lunching with Nina Griscom, who’s just back from a five day trip to Paris with her daughter. This was a foodie’s delight, according to Nina. Two over from me Debbie Bancroft was lunching with Michael Boodro the editor of the very hot Elle Décor. Next to them Hilary Geary Ross, who often contributes to the Palm Beach Social Diary, was with Dailey Pattee. In the Bay at Table One, where the Hollywood.com gang, Bonnie Fuller,Gerry Byrne and Carlos Lamadrid usually hold forth with their guests on Wednesdays, was just two guys yesterday: Bob Barnett and Howard Wolfson.


Bob Barnett and Rita Braver Barnett.

You know about Bob Barnett? You do if you’re Somebody. He’s a Washington lawyer (although I see him fairly frequently at Michael’s), a partner of the venerable Williams & Connolly -- the Edward Bennett Williams/John Connolly -- law firm. He is married to the wonderful Rita Braver, whom you know from CBS News.

I met him once. I can’t recall where – perhaps in Washington at some event, and remembered him because of his famous wife who had a very pleasant husband. However, I soon learned he wasn’t exactly Mr. Rita Braver, as often it goes in the world of show biz media. This guy represents, or has represented an army of stars, boldfacers, VIPs and even Presidents on book and media details, including Bob Woodward, Ann Curry, Tim Russert, James Patterson, Barbra Streisand, James Carville, Mary Matalin, Dick Cheney, Lynne cheney, James Baker, Karl Rove, Queen Noor, Sarah Palin, David Petraeus, Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Laura Bush, Madeline Albright and Barack Obama.

The list tells you all you need to know. Geezus, the book he could but will NEVER write. Whatever he does for his clients, nobody does it better. Barnett’s lunch partner, Howard Wolfson, is counselor to the Mayor and a well known Democratic strategist.

Another Washingtonian in the room was Jonathan Capehart, also once associate of the Mayor, and now a columnist for the Washington Post.


	Click to order.

A lotta literary in the mix: Diane Clehane, the Brenda Starr of mediabistro.com was across the way with Kathryn Leigh Scott, whom you may know from ABC’s cult classic Dark Shadows where she played Maggie Evans the love interest of Barnabas Collins.

Kathryn, who lives in Los Angeles although gets to New York often, has a new book out “Down and Out in Beverly Heels.” It’s a novel but it's also about the women in Beverly Hills who have ridden the roller coaster of success and abject failure and discreetly end up living in their cars. In Beverly Hills.

At the table on the other side of us Star Jones was celebrating her birthday with a couple of friends. Next to her 48 Hours Mystery exec producer Susan Zirinsky; next to her PR exc Steven Rubenstein, and when he left, media exec John Sykes took the table.

Around the room: TV producer Joan Gelman was with Lynn Goldberg, the literary agent and her client Betsy Prioleau, who also has a new book out: “Swoon: Great Seducers and Why Women Love Them.” She runs the range all the way from Casanova to Ashton Kutcher. Moving along: Bill Siegel; Candia Fisher; Michael J. Wolff; Da Boyz, only three this time: Andrew Bergman, Jerry Della Femina and Dr. Gerry Imber. Two tables over, Melody Hobson (George Lucas’ fiancée); Simon and Schuster’s Alice Mayhew; next to her, Willie Geist, papa Bill Geist with Gretchen Young, Tom Connor – the subject: Willie is doing a book with his pop; Dr. Sarah Simms Rosenthal with Jane Hartley; Kevin O’Malley (Elle); Jack Kliger (TV Guide CEO); Jolie Hunt; Sanford and Stein; Beverly Camhe; CBS’ David Poltrack.


Bill and Babe Paley.

The Laurens.

Several who stopped by the table made a reference to how quiet the city is right now, as did the cabbie. So it’s not just me. Although when Nina and I left Michael’s and walked up Fifth Avenue (she was headed to the Apple cube), the sidewalks were jammed. “What’s this?” Nina asked. “Tourists,” explained this reporter. “School’s out and the town’s still around.”

And where else could they be? Well, our Caribbean correspondent reports that the weather this week (and almost every week) in Jamaica was incredible. Josef Forstmayr's Round Hill on Montego Bay was jam-packed with a marvelous world of guests and villa owners visiting for Passover, Easter and Spring Break. There were lunches, moonlight dinner dances and an Easter Egg Hunt on the beach.

Among the guests were Conde Nast's Steve Newhouse and his family; Kate Hudson and her husband Matt Bellamy with their children. Also Mary Ellen Trainor-Zemeckis. Mary Ellen is also the godmother of Kate Hudson).

David Gregory of Meet The Press was there with his family making this their 8th annual Spring visit. Also villa owners Veronique and Bob Pittman and Ricky and Ralph Lauren (the Laurens own two Villas at Round Hill, one of which was built by the late Babe and Bill Paley. When it was built in the 1950s, it was said to be the most beautiful beach house in the world). Courtney Ross, who recently sold her 740 Park Avenue co-op for $50+ million has been enjoying the month of March in Jamaica. Also in residence: Pat and Ed Falkenberg. Heiress Caroline St. George, over from London with Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia houseguesting ... Guy Monson and Lady Rose Fitzroy-Monson ... German Countess Claudia Von Bismarck-Piasecki and her husband Frank Piasecki of New York, biographer/editor Jon Meacham and his family. Sunny days, and warm, balmy nights, the Carribean-perfect paradise to escape those winds of March in Manhattan ...

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Easter colors. 1:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, April 1, 2013. Easter Weekend and the very first signs of Spring appeared, like magic. It was warmer in New York – although not warm; and dry (until late Sunday afternoon when a light rain began), occasionally sunny, and the daffodils had sprung.

Friday very early evening with the Sun setting in the west on 120 East End Avenue at 85th Street. Vincent Astor built this co-op designed by Charles Platt in 1931, and occupied the top floor penthouse until his death in 1959. I took this photo because the bright sharpness of the setting Sun on its exterior reminded me of the light I associate with coming warmer months. The building on the far left of the photos is the Chapin School whose lower section was designed by Delano & Aldrich and completed in 1928. Its modernist addition was added 80 years later in 2008. The addition covered the windows of six floors of apartments on the side of the building next to it, cutting off light and ventilation of those rooms. Something that was anathema to Vincent Astor. But he wasn't around to notice.

Closeup of the northern most blocks on East End Avenue that ends on 92nd Street. The green line is the walking bridge to Randalls Island which spans the East River where it joins the Harlem River. Across the street from the buildings on the left is Gracie Mansion, officially the Mayor's Mansion from Fiorello LaGuardia until Michael Bloomberg's mayoralty. It is adjacent to Carl Schurz Park and overlooks the East River.

First signs of Spring came out over the weekend, like these daffys on the northeast corner of 83rd Street and East End Avenue.

Old reliable pink blossoms suddenly appeared yesterday on the southeast corner of 83rd and East End.

And along the driveway of 60 East End Avenue, the pansies were in bloom.

And the flower boxes at 91 East End.

The first forsythia buds shone at the entrance to Carl Schurz Park on the corner of Gracie Square and East End. Sunday afternoon.

The full moon now waning from its fullness in Libra beaming over Manhattan and the East River at the end of East 83rd Street on Friday night. That's the Brearley School on the right surrounded by the scaffolding.

The Easter Bunnies showed up in the window of Treillage at 73rd and Lexington.

Spring was also in the air on the Upper West Side ...

Today is the birthday of Debbie Reynolds, for whom, many readers may know, I wrote an “as told to” memoir “Debbie; My Life,” lo these many (25) years ago. This book was my first real professional break as a writer, and thanks to Debbie (who lived the life and lived to tell about it) it was a big hit.

For any of her still legions of fans, or any fans of the movies and the entertainment business (film, TV, concerts, Broadway – Debbie has played them all many times over), Debbie is going to be at the 92nd Street Y this coming Wednesday (April 3) being interviewed by Leonard Lopate at 8 pm. Debbie is publishing her third memoir (my time was her second), “Unsinkable” (written with Dorrian Hannaway) and no doubt will have a lot of new anecdotes and sagas to recount in the quarter century since her last one.

Debbie Reynolds in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown."

“Unsinkable” is a reference to one of her greatest films “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” about a character whose life Debbie could and can still match in terms of drama, comedy and indefatigable energy, triumphs and disappointments.

She started out in the business when she was sixteen, discovered by a talent scout from Warner Brothers, Solly Biano, in a high school beauty contest in Burbank, California. Her first important part was playing a (real) singer named Helen Kane in an MGM film starring Fred Astaire and Red Skelton, Vera Ellen and Arlene Dahl called “Three Little Words.”

That same year, 1950, she was given a small part in another MGM musical -- “Two Weeks With Love” starring Jane Powell (whose birthday is also today, April 1st) and Ricardo Montalban– and in which she performed a song and dance with Carlton Carpenter called “Abba Dabba Honeymoon” which sold a million records and placed her on the threshold of stardom. She never looked back and has never stopped working to this day.

Next came “Singin’ In the Rain” with Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor. Kelly, who was co-directing the film with Stanley Donen, objected to her casting because she wasn’t a dancer. Mr. Mayer said “no, the kid stays in the picture,” And so it was. For that film she learned to dance (to keep up with) Kelly and O’Connor, and everything else that a star performer needs to do to have a career that has now lasted sixty-five years without every stopping. But from the start, she was a natural, and is unstoppable. And unsinkable, just like the book says.

So if you’re a fan, or you love the classic filmography of Hollywood, and its golden age, as well as Vegas and its golden age, and can get over to the 92nd Street Y on Wednesday night, Debbie, besides being the star, feels the same way about it that you do, and will give you everything you came for and more, as well as a few laughs to keep you in your seats. The kid’s still in the picture. Mr Mayer would have been proud. Happy Birthday to Lillian’s Debbi-la ...

Last Wednesday night, international interior designer Geoffrey Bradfield, one of the very last of the great partygivers in New York, hosted a special evening celebrating the birthday of his long time friend Monique Van Vooren. Geoffrey took over the David Burke Townhouse on East 61st Street between Park and Lex and transformed it in to his version of the Cub Room at the Stork Club.

Many readers may not know that Sherman Billingsley’s Stork Club -- which was located on East 53rd Street just off Fifth Avenue, between Madison was the coolest nightclub in New York for celebrities and café society throughout the '30s, '40s, and '50s, right up to the first years of the '60s.

A young Congressman, JFK, with Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, and Herbert Bayard Swope, legendary editor of the New York World at the Stork Club.

New Yorkers who do know about it will argue that El Morocco was just as “cool” (not a word that would have been used to describe either it at the time), and they would be right. The clubs were different in atmosphere but drew many of the same patrons although the dress at El Morocco was distinctly dressiers (black tie/white tie), etc.

There was a gold chain at the entrance to the Stork and it was not crossed by just anyone.

Gregory Pavlides manning the 14-karat gold chain at the Stork's entrance.

The Cub Room at the Stork was the VIP room. And make no mistake, the VIPS were really considered Very Important People in the world -- movie stars, Broadway stars, bestselling authors, famous politicians, debutantes, South American playboys and assorted tycoons, millionaires and Broadway babies.

Geoffrey Bradfield’s recreation even had a special red awning made with the name The Stork Club. The evening was called All About Monique. The theme was Hollywood and he filled his “Cub Room” walls with big pictures of the “Belgian Bombshell,” as well as an Andy Warhol portrait of Monique.

Monique van Vooren arrives.

Monique with Andy.

Monique with the real Andy (and Diane von Furstenberg).

Monique in Warhol's Frankenstein.

Geoffrey’s guest lists often span two or more generations, and so it wasn’t surprising that there were those who wondered what Monique’s fame was from. Simple: it was from being Monique Van Vooren. Those who didn’t know agreed she remains a showstopper.

Paul Morrsey, the great Warhol director who directed her in Warhol's Frankenstein which was her biggie, was in attendance. There were impersonators -- Andy, Marilyn, etc. There were two long tables between the regular banquettes in the back of the room, with dozens of candelabras -- enough for some people to check out the exit signs just in case. It was packed. There was a French singer/guitarist who sang La Vie En Rose and My Heart Belongs to Daddy (While tearing off a game of golf, I may make a play for the caddie. But if I do, I won’t follow through, cuz, My Heart ...).

The Bradfield guest list was enhanced by friends of Monique such as Liliane Montevecchi, Carmen DeLavallade and Harold Robbins’ second wife, Grace, who has just written a memoir called “Cinderella and the Carpetbagger.”

Geoffrey Bradfield and Monique.

The scene inside the the David Burke Townhouse-turned Cub Room at the Stork Club.

For those of you who may not know the name Harold Robbins (he died in 1997 at the age of 81), he was a mid-20th century bestselling American author of what were loosely referred to as “trashy” novels such as “Where Love Has Gone,” “The Carpetbaggers,” that everybody read. Harold sold more than three quarters of a billion copies. That is not a typo. He is said to have earned and spent $50 million in his life. If he were doing it today he’d be as rich as JK Rowling. Nevertheless, he lived like a Hollywood pasha (he had three wives), with the Rollses, the yachts and the villas on the Riviera.

This was a party for a pasha’s favorite who happens to be the favorite of quite a few New Yorkers including her most gracious host. For more pics of the party, click here.

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Flatiron Building. 4:30 PM. Photo: JH.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Sometimes sunny, temps in the 50s, with clouding in the late afternoon and a very light rain to wet the sidewalks and roadways. The weatherman says it’s going to get colder today and tomorrow. That’s alright, Spring is moving in.

New York magazine this week did what they call their "Annual Yesteryear Issue" On "Childhood in New York/ When We Were Young." Funny. In the well of the magazine there are dozens of anecdotes told by people (whose names we know) who grew up here. I didn’t grow up here but my father did.

My father was born on this day 112 years ago in Brooklyn in this house (photo taken by the city in 1939) and on a street and in a neighborhood that was erased thirty-nine years later by Mr. Moses’ Brooklyn Queens Expressway. My father always used to refer to swimming in the East River on hot summer days. It’s hard to imagine (and I’ve thought about it many many times when looking at the river – and it still seems terrifying), but kids in those days did.

The house in Brooklyn in which my father was born in 1900. The family had moved away decades before this photograph was taken by the city in 1939 just before the area was razed to make room for the BQE.

I was born in New York and my family lived in this apartment house on 236 East 25 Street (the photo taken by the city in 1939; building still standing). The family moved to Massachusetts that same year. I first saw this neighborhood several years later when my eldest sister and her husband drove down to the city for the day to visit a childhood friend whose family still lived in the apartment house. The family was Armenian and I only remember the lunch with about eight of us sitting around an extended kitchen table eating the mother's roasted garlic chicken -- the first garlic I ever tasted, and incomparable even today.

Growing up I came to believe early, just from the talk around the kitchen table between my mother and my father that New York was the center of the world. He got the Daily News and the Mirror every day. That was the news that mattered. I always was going to live in New York when I grew up, having heard endless references to the city greater than any other on the planet. This was how my father knew it, and my mother, although she grew up in New England, agreed.

My mother first brought me here when I was six or eight and the image that remains in memory of that first time (wintertime) is the American flags gloriously waving front facades of the buildings on Fifth Avenue. A couple of buildings – maybe one of them was Saks Fifth Avenue, had three or four unfurled and waving. And the sidewalks were jammed with so many people, so many different kinds of people everywhere, and all surrounded by these massive towers of brick and concrete where even more people lived and worked. To this kid, it was an entire magnificent mystery, just waiting to be solved.

Saks in the '50s.

I came here to live in my twenty-first year. The first several months I camped out in the apartment of the mother of a college friend who rarely used it, and which I did not know when I accepted the invitation, was a 16 room duplex at 740 Park Avenue. Within a year I moved into my own first apartment which I shared with a college fraternity brother was a one bedroom on the first floor in the back of an old five story (walkup) building at 163 East 87th Street (still standing). Tiny, on the first floor in the back of the building, with a bathroom, a bedroom and a kitchenette in a wall closet in the living room. The rent was $110 a month, split two ways. And life had just begun.


Six -year-old Spike Lee on the cover of New York's Annual Yesteryear issue.

Tom Wolfe’s reportage and writing style defined the new New York.

All this from looking at the latest issue of New York today. I was living here when the first New York it the newstands. It was a thin supplement in the Sunday Herald-Tribune. It had color unlike the very serious “good grey Times” Sunday magazine which was gritty serious. The Trib’s new supplement raised the news stakes with it, and it was the right time, the right note and the context. To a new young New Yorker, this was the future.

New York was to become, by the time it became its own weekly magazine and not part of the Trib, uptown hip – sophisticated, groundbreaking, literary, cool, now. (The Village Voice was unalterably the downtown hip – and The Village was downtown – no SoHo, etc. which was a half decade away from establishing as the artists were beginning to move into the former industrial district).

The Trib incidentally was the "Republican" paper (to the Times'"Democrat"). The art director Milton Glaser and editor Clay Felker were New York's creators, with Barbara Goldsmith (a Founding Editor), Jimmy Breslin, George Goodman (writing under the nom de plume Adam Smith), Gail Sheehy, Gloria Steinem. Barbara Goldsmith wrote a widely imitated column "The Creative Environment" in which she interviewed Picasso, Marcel Breuer, George Balanchine, and I.M. Pei; Gael Greene wrote the dining column, Harold Clurman covered theatre; a newcomer named Woody Allen wrote some humor pieces; and a new journalist, Tom Wolfe created a new style of journalism, with his edgy, zesty wham-bam-glam-blam language about the what and the where and the who. Not like anybody else, Tom Wolfe's reportage and writing style defined the vibe of the new New York, New York.

The hippest crowd of all in town at that moment were the fashion photographers – Irving Penn, Melvin Sokolsky, Bill Helburn, Steve Horn, Richard Avedon, Jerry Shatzberg, Bill King, Duane Michals and dozens of others of equal note and comparable talent, and always surrounded by beautiful fashion models who were famous faces if not in name.

These were the days when Vreeland was a major force in the fashion world, soaking up the new culture of New York. Moving right along and coming up beside them were the Pop Artists, the new modern artists including Andy Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Larry Poons, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns and many more. They all convened every night at Max’ Kansas City on Park Avenue South in the 20s. There was a kid down in the Village who wrote his own songs and friends lamented that he didn’t have the voice to become a star with his great material. Peter, Paul and Mary took his work mainstream with “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and a few minutes later, Bobby Dylan was recording his own songs and becoming a major star.

Paul Morrissey, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, and Tim Buckley at Max's Kansas City (photo by Elliott Landy).

This was the New York that I, still a kid, a hayseed, fresh from the farm, had just moved to. It was so exciting that just walking down Lexington Avenue at nightfall and looking up at the Chrysler Building in the distance was a quiet thrill and early inspiration. It was as if the architecture of the city was trumpeting the message: Here it is: the grand challenge. I was in the city of dreams. Although I had quite a ways to go.

Meanwhile, this week’s New York. Reading it, I was reminded again of how much more sophisticated are the kids who grow up here. They all have a sense of place that comes earlier in life than it does, if it does, with country boys and girls. Spike Lee recalls when he was six and a little boy of color who already got the score of who stood where: he was on the subway, traveling.

That was long ago now (and the token cost 15 cents in the 1960s – until they raised it to a quarter), but that was the same New York I came to. This six-year-old would have been terrified at the thought of going alone on the subway, by the sheer volume of humanity packing themselves into those cars.

When I came back from California in the early '90s and was introducing myself to the big town and its ways again, one night I was in bed channel surfing, when I came up on a cable show called Robin Byrd. There it was: live television with go-go boys and girls solo-dancing, barely dressed (if that) and sexualizing their steps with “800-“ numbers on a crawl at the bottom of the screen, and Robin Byrd herself looking like she’d overstayed at the tanning parlor and left all but her undies back there.

It seems tame in the telling twenty years later, but at the time it was the nearest thing to pornography on the TV and shocking to this newly returned hayseed. My first thought was that there must be a lot of New York kids with TV’s in their bedrooms watching this stuff. (Well, why not?).

What was that doing to the kids (pre-pubescenters for example)? I could only think it must be shocking, aside from a few other things. Tells you a little bit about me but not necessarily about kids growing up in New York.

Several years later when I was first working with JH who was a total native New Yorker and fresh out of college, I asked him if he ever watched the Robin Byrd show when he was a boy growing up in his parents’ house. Oh sure, he answered. And what did you think? I wanted to know.

“I thought it was funny,” he said and started to laugh in the remembering. A New York kid.

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Downtown Manhattan skyline from the West Side Highway. 5:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013.Cold in New York, just like the weatherman promised, with bright sunshine and the forsythia gaining color in the park nearby. Supposed to be this way for the rest of the week. Overcoats coming off anyway.

Last night I went over to the Café Carlyle to see the great Elaine Stritch on the opening night of her “farewell” performance (she’s there through Saturday). Not officially “farewell,” but Elaine’s moving back to Michigan — Birmingham — where she grew up and where she has lots of wonderful nieces and nephews, children of her sisters, who can be nearby — since she’s a single lady at this time in her life.

There was great anticipation in the room. It was a hot ticket in New York an not easy getting a seat in the house. She drew a big crowd of names – Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, Liza Minnelli with her friend Michael Feinstein; Bernadette Peters, Tony Bennett, James Levine, Rex Reed, for starters. There wasn’t an empty inch in the place.

The Cafe Carlyle with its Vertes murals last night as guests are being seated for the opening of Elaine's Stritch's farewell engagement, which runs through Saturday.

My table happened to be next to Maestro James Levine’s and we briefly discussed why we were there to see this particular performance. Mr. Levine is a friend of Miss Stritch (or “Stritchie” as Noel Coward always called her). We agreed that Stritch’s kind of performance, Stritch’s kind of performer, is now gone from the scene.

Levine told me that he was always interested in how performers keep up the quality in the repetitiveness of a performance. The same artist’s techniques apply to a conductor’s performance. Stritch always seems fresh, like this is the first time. Except when you watch her move around, and listen to her, even watch her sitting on a stool, you’re watching someone who’s perfected the moves to the point where they look, in fact even are, natural.

Stritch singing Rodgers and Hart's sweet lament, "He Was Too Good To Me ..."

The last time I saw her was also at the Café Carlyle last year. She did an evening of Sondheim songs. She’s 88 now, and she doesn’t look like a young girl, but the girl’s still the girl amazingly. The energy level is unflagging.

She told us last night that she fell and broke her hip awhile ago and it’s been Not Been Pleasant ever since. She has such an enormous personality that it’s hard to believe anything could stop her from moving (performing). But after this fall, and this hip thing, she'd been persuaded to slow down some.

She’s always been a city girl since she first came her as a kid “to be on the stage.” In the last several years she’s lived on the Upper East Side (and at the Carlyle) and so you’d see her around, walking. Big strong gait, moving forward. She’s the kind of New Yorker who would stop and talk to you if you needed directions. And you’d get not only the directions but That Performer’s Personality which can do nothing but charm and disarm.


	The lady plays the show and sings the final note.

So for all that was I anxious to get a seat at last night’s performance. She came out in the Stritch costume – big white overblouse, almost a mini-dress, big black sleeveless, paneled vest, even longer; black stockings and black books. Black rimmed glasses also when necessary.

Her arranger/accompanist Rob Bowman came out first and sat down at the piano. Bowman’s been working with Stritch for quite some time. He’s also the musical director of the Chicago productions, and arranger/director for several other performers. He looks like a preppy college jock who sat down at the piano in the fraternity house, and just for the helluva it plays a bunch of rousing tunes all by ear. He loves making music. But it turns out he’s a maestro too.

He told us that he’d be the only one on with Stritch (no other musicians) and that it would be more like an “informal evening” rather than a full out club act.

Then she made her entrance, assisted by a cane and fulla beans and loud enough for everyone to hear. Elaine Stritch is one of those people who is naturally funny, and naturally an actress. She was probably an actress around the house growing up. A brilliant genius of actress, I should add. She loves the audience and she loves performing.

The act usually is quite a bit of patter and anecdotes, all presented with her offhanded directness, and no denouements left unsaid. And then a song perhaps to define the story. Watching her sing a song is something every actor and actress who will ever perform a song should watch. Because it looks like she just sits there and casually (and emphatically) sings, which tells a story with her version of the experience. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Hardest thing in the world. Practically nobody can do it anymore. The reason for that isn’t in the performers but in the business itself. There's no one to carry the code of the techniques. Stritch's prep was tradition, generations of live performing before live audiences

As soon as she was onstage she had to tell us who was in the house, namely Tom Hanks. And how she loves movie stars. Mr. Hanks became the object of much exclamation, show biz stories and jokes, and Stritch entertaining the crowd. Laughter. Applause. More laughter, more applause. She told us how Cole Porter used to like to write “send-ups” of his own lyrics and to the tune of “You’re the Top,” she sang one of his send-ups, “You’re the Pop, you’re my baby’s daddy ....” Very funny. More laughter, more jokes, more stories. Then before you know it an hour and a half had passed and she closed with Rodgers and Hart’s“He Was Too Good (how can I get along without him ...?)”

She told us over and over how frightened she was at getting through the evening. We could see what made her uneasy, except ironically she is so in command as a performer that even when she goes up on a lyric (and experiences the forgetfulness in front of an audience), she shows her reaction and then instantly moves on with such bravado and profound (to her toenails) talent, that you just keep on keepin’ on with her.

This video of her performance at the White House before the Obamas tell you the whole story of this amazing Broadway star and legend and her performance last night at the Café Carlyle. She’ll keep you on your toes too.

Two weeks ago, on a Saturday, at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, they held a Blackglama Gala: A Legendary Evening honoring Peter Rogers. The center of the evening is the exhibition “What Becomes a Legend Most? The Blackglama Photographs from the Collection of Peter Rogers.

Peter is the creator of the now iconic advertising campaign of some of the most famous women (and some men) in the world of entertainment. In the Blackglama collection, they lent that glamour to more than 50 black-and-white photographs by Richard Avedon, Bill King and Francesco Scavullo.

The photographs showcased in the exhibition are from the heyday of the campaign that ran from 1968 to 1993. It is a stellar lineup from opera singer Leontyne Price and Ray Charles to Shirley MacLaine and Rosalind Russell, along with Taylor, Pavarotti, Liza, Crawford, Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Cher, Claudette Colbert, Lillian Hellman, and scores more of that celebrity.

Joan Crawford.

Audrey Hepburn.

Judy Garland.

Liza Minnelli.

Leontyne Price.

Ray Charles.

Lucille Ball.

Marlene Dietrich.

Ann Miller.

Ethel Merman.

Pavarotti.

Barbra Streisand.

Bette Davis.

Lillian Hellman.

Cher.

Brigitte Bardot.

This celebrated campaign What Becomes a Legend Most? campaign was conceived in 1968 for the Great Lakes Mink Association (GLMA) to create awareness about the high-quality mink fur produced by farmers in that region of the United States. Out of this need, an iconic brand and advertising campaign was born: the brand name, “Blackglama,” the “What Becomes a Legend Most” tagline, and the idea to use stars of stage and screen wearing Blackglama furs (which they were allowed to take home after the photo shoot, which how Rogers acquired such a roster of famous names). As art director for the campaign, he found the talent, cosseted them with limousines and personal attention and hired the best to make them look sensational. Many of his subjects already legendary.

From 1969 to 1972, Richard Avedon was the primary photographer. Bill King then photographed the campaign until his death in 1987. Other photographers represented in the exhibition are Francesco Scavullo, Brigitte Lacombe and Jeanloup Sieff.

Peter Rogers enters his exhibition.

New Orleans is the recently adopted home of Peter, who left New York and his busloads of friends behind to start a new life (and a new house in the French Quarter which will be in the May issue of Architectural Digest) n the Big Easy.

The move to New Orleans after living all of his adult life in New York wasn’t as radical as it might sound. Peter is a native of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Growing up, New Orleans was always The City for the boy. He got his start in the New York advertising industry in a circular way beginning as a kid with an after school job at a local department store creating window displays. The owner of the store, recognizing his talent, told him to go to New York City when he finished school and work in advertising.

The boy took his boss’ advice. After working for a number of advertising agencies, he formed his own, Peter Rogers Associates, in 1974. His agency worked on the Blackglama fur campaign, as well as campaigns for which he created such taglines as: “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good” for Vidal Sassoon; “Demanded by and created for perfectionists” for Baccarat; “Me and my Scaasi” for the fashion designer Arnold Scaasi, and “When Your Own Initials are Enough,” for Bottega Veneta, which is still used by the company today.

The Ogden Museum of Southern Art/University of New Orleans is home to the largest and most comprehensive collection of Southern art in the world, and includes the Center for Southern Craft and Design. Here can be found the story of the South — the old and the new, as expressed in its art, music and education programs.
www.ogdenmuseum.org.

Sis Mann, George Dunbar, and Louisette Brown (Dunbar is a noted artist).

Ogden Museum staff Sarah Clinton, Crystal Padley, Ashlee Rivalto, and Ogden Museum Development Director Colleen Connor.

Ogden Museum Director William Andrews and Anna Beth Goodman.

Jack and Mimi Davis.

Robert Harling, Cameron Seward, Byron Seward, and May Smythe.

Chris and Katy Weil with Alexa Georges.

Dr. Troy Scoggins and Robert Herndon.

Stephanie Durant and Peter Rogers.

Joan Griswold, writer Roy Blount Jr., and Jean Strouse.

Julia Reed and Peter Rogers.

Stephanie Durant (foreground) with Monique Coleman.

Ogden Museum Deputy Director Libra LaGrone.

Ann Barnett, Mary Beth Guarisco, Chris Guarisco, and Holly Barnett (Peter is taking the photo with the iphone. Mary Beth and Peter are old friends. Ann and her late husband used to own one of the top art galleries in New Orleans).

Michael Wilkinson and Stacie Andrews.

Peter signs a copy of his "Blackglama" book for Cheryl Nicholl. She had the copy for 30 years and came to the Gala to meet Peter and get him to sign the book.

Ogden Museum Chief Curator Bradley Sumrall and Peter Rogers.

Andrew Sammartaro, Martha Ann Foster, and Julia Reed.

Cocktails on the fifth floor terrace of the Odgen Museum.

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Sunbathing outside Madison Square Park. 2:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Thursday, April 4, 2013. Sunny and cold in New York.

The Wednesday lunch at Michael’s was busy and all business. Dennis Basso with CeCe Cord; Matt Blank, CEO and Chairman of Showtime; Tom Goodman (CEO Goodman Media); Steven Haft with Bob Friedman; Bizbash.com’sDavid Adler; mega-literary attorney Bob Barnett; Paul Blake, writer/producer for Bway; Veranda’s Dana Caponigro; Diane Clehane, mediabistro.com columnist with Evan Shapiro; Marianne Diorio, Beauty & Style Director; Victor Garvey, Senior VP of Special Olympics; investor Leonard Harlan; political consultant Jane Hartley; Da Boyz, Dr. Gerry Imber, Michael Kramer, Andrew Bergman and Jerry Della Femina; Alexis Graham; Ralph Isham; Peter Izzo of Merrill Lynch; Cornelia Guest with former CNN President Jon Klein; Amy (Mrs. Jack) Kliger; Susan Magrino, uber-PR exec; Wednesday Martin with Elizabeth Gordon; Eva Mohr, Senior VP, Sotheby’s Realty International; John Needham, CEO of the Clinton Global Initiative, with Patty Sellers; Judy Price, National Jewelry Institute founder; Peter Price entrepreneur (husband of Judy), with Jon Patricof; David Sable, President and CEO of Young and Rubicam; Donna Solloway; Stan Shuman, investment banker; Todd Snyder; Chris-Craft private investor, Herb Siegel with John Heymann; Starwood Hotels founder Barry Sternlicht; Steve Tisch, producer, co-owner of the New York Giants; Michael Braun; Bloomberg Muse editorial director Manuela Hoelterhoff with Marilyn Perry, former chairman of the World Monuments Fund, president of the Kress Foundation; Clifford Sobel, former US Ambassador to Brazil; Cindi Berger, publicist (Dixie Chicks, Mariah Carey); Chris Meigher of Quest Media. And scores more just like ‘em.

Reading along Fifth Avenue.

Last night New York was back in business too. Down at Michael’s (yet again), at six, Liz Smith was hosting a kick-off cocktail party for the upcoming Literacy Partners annual gala over at Cipriani 42nd Street May 1st. And just as that was letting out, five blocks north, up at the Mandarin Oriental in the Time Warner Center, guests were settling in at their tables for the Hale House Spring black tie gala hosted by Patricia Clarkson and honoring Sharon Bush and Christine Larsen. While down at LAVO on 39 East 58th Street, the Young New Yorkers for the Fight Against Parkinson’s Committee and the PDF.

Also beginning at 7, down at Cipriani 42nd Street, the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House was hosting its annual fundraising gala. They were honoring Caroline and Thompson Dean for their decades of devotion to Lenox Hill Neighborhood. I put on my dinner jacket and black tie and went to this one, a guest Diana Quasha who is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of LHNH.

There were forty-one participating designers and my only regret is that I was unable to get all 41 tables or credit each individually. I did notice that the Diana Vreeland table was done by Andrea Stark with the floral design and concept by Lewis Miller, who was last week's HOUSE interview. The other designers were: Allison Hennessy, Andrew Raquet, LLC, Arden, Ashley Whittaker Design, Brock Forsblom and George Venson, Brooke Gomez, Christopher Maya Interior Design, Christopher Spitzmiller, Creel and Gow, David Duncan Antiques, David Kleinberg Design Associates, Dekar Design, Dennis Rolland, E. Braun & Co. Design by Susan Orsini, ETOS, Harery Heissman featuring Hermes, Puiforcat and Saint Louis, Hilary Pereirea Design, House of Oasis, Joel Woodard, John Todd Bishop, Julia B., Kathy Abbott Interiors, Katie Ridder, Keith Carroll, Leontine Linens, Ltd., Lindsay Coral Harper Interior Design, McMillen, Michael Aram, Mr. Call Desings for Stark, Nicole Gibbons Studio, Plaza Flowers/Connie, Richard Keith Langham, Roric Tobin for Geoffrey Bradfield, Rottet Studio, Ryan Korban, Sallie Giordana for Leta Austin Foster, Sam Allen Interiors, Samuel Botero, Scalamandre, Thomas Burak Interiors and Michael Devine.

This turned out to be a very glamorous affair and probably the LHNH’s biggest attendance-wise. I know they raised over $1.2 million and an additional $140,000 during the auction. Half of that was a matching fund provided by an anonymous donor.

The Lenox Hill Neighborhood House is located on East 70th Street between Third and Second Avenues. It’s 119 years old this year and not surprisingly is considered one of the city’s premier non-profits. Profits or non- aside, what it has done and continues to do is to support those in the neighborhood who have needs that they are unable to fill themselves. From 3 to 103 is the age span of its friends who receive the support of all kinds. Last night’s auction, for example, was to raise money to provide nutritious meals, emphasizing the healthy diets for children who come to the Neighborhood House sometimes daily.

Keith Langham and Melanie Seymour.

The honorees, Caroline and Thom Dean.

Johnny Rosselli, Hiram Williams, and Peter Vaughn.

Ashley McDermott.

Mark Gilbertson and Dr. Doug Steinbrecht.

This is not the only non-profit of its kind here in New York. There are others, many of which are as old or older and still flourishing including the Henry Street Settlement which is having its gala tonight. They have all had their devoted supporters of note over the years.

These are large enterprises. LHNH has an annual budget of about $21 million. Seventy percent of the funds come from government and some corporate foundations. The rest is raised by volunteers. Last night’s gala will have raised close to half of it for the year. Much of the work at LHNH is done by volunteers. At LHNH you find many active and loyal volunteers of long standing. What is optimistic – as witnessed by last night’s gala – is that the generations coming up are getting very involved.

Helen and Hugh Tilney.

Jackie Weld and friend.

Stefan and Pauline Reyniak.

Dana Hammond with Dr. Patrick Stubgen behind her.

Richard Wilkie and Steven Stolman.

Frances Schultz Ditmer.

The funds go for a variety of programs including adult education, children and family services, homeless and housing services, legal advocacy and organizing, older adult services, visual and performing arts, and most importantly the volunteer program. Many of the women I know who volunteer for LHNH have been doing it for many years from their early 20s onwards.

We need all this right now, more than ever. These are hard times, or at least very difficult times for a greater number of people. The more difficult, the greater the number, the greater the threat to the stability of our society today. All of those men and women who run and volunteer for the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House are the very best hope right now.

Di Petroff and Dr. Steven Butensky.

Adelina Wong Ettelson and Christy Ferer.

Arthur Becker and friend.

Vera Wang.

Diana Quasha, Chairman of the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House.

Warren Scharf, Executive Director.

Last night’s charming, disarming, elegant, glamorous décor, provided by 41 designers, purveyors of the decorative arts, and floral designers working around the theme of “High Society,” a reference to the 1950's Cole Porter’s“High Society” which starred Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby and Celeste Holm. That’s a broad topic to say the least and the artists met it with flourish throughout the room.

The speaker’s part of the evening was very brief, including the auction. Diana Quasha, Tom Edelman (the President who has prospered the non-profit), and Executive Director Warren Scharf. Probably no more than 15 minutes in all. Then there was the delicious dinner and followed by the dancing. The dance floor was jammed as you can see, and the lady in red is the honoree, Mrs. Dean. Jubilation.

Of the several hundred guests, most of them knew each other by not more than 2 degrees of separation. Many of these are the upcoming movers and shakers to support the charities and the life around it, here in New York.

Some of the 41 elegant, glamorous tables ...

Paul Jarrell, DJ extraordinaire.

Dennis Basso boogies down.

The Lady in Red hits the dance floor.

And so does the rest of the crowd ...

Contact DPC here.

School's out. 4:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, April 8, 2013. Sunny, chilly early Spring weekend with occasionally overcast. The daffodils are in full bloom in the flowerboxes along the avenue. And the forsythia is sprouting clouds of misty yellow in the park. Next comes the festooning of the pears, then Spring will have arrived triumphant.

Now if we can only follow through as blessedly.

Sunday night sky, on East End Avenue, looking north and looking south. 8 PM.

Lilly Pulitzer died yesterday (Sunday 4/7/13) in Palm Beach. She was 81. I met her a few times but only to say hello. However, we had mutual friends who often spoke of her, and so I had a strong impression of her.

The first time I went to Palm Beach was in the winter of ’67/’68. We (my then wife and I) went to stay with a friend who also knew Lilly and who sometimes worked for her in Palm Beach and summers in Newport.


	Lilly and Peter Pulitzer, circa 1970.

Palm Beach in those days was a sleeply little place compared to today. There were still quite a few empty plots of land here and there, and many of the big houses built in the 1920s were being razed, victims of the cost of upkeep. Many of the Old Guard family members – the group you can see in our Ellen Ordway’s photo archives of early and mid-20th century Palm Beach – were still in residence. Jack Kennedy gave the town a bit of an international publicity lift when he used his father’s house on North Ocean Boulevard for the Winter White House. The Grande Dame of them all, Marjorie Merriweather Post was still in residence at Mar-a-Lago with an army of servants and a raft of houseguests, and hosting her famous square dance dinner parties. There were newcomers and up-and-comers, and especially a lot of the succeeding generations of the old fortunes that made Palm Beach like Dukes and Biddles, Vanderbilts and Phippses, DuPonts and Dodges.

Lillian Lee McKim Pulitzer Rousseau (her entire legal name at the end of her life) was one of those people. Back then, when she was in her heyday and famous in the fashion business for her “Lilly” dress, she was still just known as Lilly to her many friends and acquaintances.

She didn’t start her dress business by accident – she had a purpose. Her husband Peter Pulitzer had orange groves and Lilly had a little business selling oranges from a stand in one of those Via’s off Worth Avenue. She had already been making shirts of silk screened polished cotton. She said it was the same fabric that people used for bathroom and kitchen curtains. Practical. My wife used a lime green Lilly print for our kitchen shades in our little railroad flat on First Avenue. Really dressed up the joint. The fabrics had a soft sheen, and a quality of painterliness to their design.

Lilly disembarking from Peter's plane with fabrics in her arms, circa 1965.

Evidently people wanted to buy the shirts she wore in her orange stall. So she started making them in numbers. Then came the sleeveless shift with the side seams often decorated with some kind of faux-lace cotton. The story is Jackie Kennedy– then all of 31 years old – bought a few and started wearing them whenever she was in Palm Beach. And was photographed. That was it; Lilly was in business.

The Lilly and the Gucci loafer (or walking shoe for women) were the two hottest fashion items in the Palm Beach of that day. Every man was wearing the now-classic Gucci loafer and every girl and woman was wearing Lillys. Lilly used the fabrics for men’s and women’s pants in both cotton, also and a corduroy with the print design.

It was a very suburban summer costume but it became such a hot item considered very chic to wear both day and nighttime in the right resorts or at home. The colors were bright, soft and flattering and gave everyone (and the room) a glow and a lift. Within a couple of years, Lilly had shops in Newport and on Cape Cod and several other summer resorts where her Palm Beach crowd visited.

Lily and Peter Pulitzer (left) and friends, in Palm Beach, 1954.

Lilly herself seemed to handle her great entrepreneurial success like someone enjoying a beautiful day by the pool. Many of the women who worked for her in her shops were friends or daughters of friends. Everything was run like a mom-and-pop shop and Lilly was the Number One mom or pop. The designs and fabrics she used were, I was told more than once, the creations of two guys Lilly had met in Miami. She just liked their work.

That first winter visit to Palm Beach, our hostess Kathy who was working part time in one of the shops, wanted us to see Lilly’s new house which she said was “so divine.” So one day we went off to whatever lane or via to see the house.

I don’t have a clear memory of the exterior on arriving at the new Pulitzer villa, although was probably classic ivory, cream or pastel and white Palm Beach Regency or Georgian. It was smart and elegant. You entered the entrance gallery which let on to a larger room over looking Lake Worth. It was light and spacious gallery, with tall ceilings and a beautiful, immaculate, deep pile lime green rug on a dark, highly polished wood floor. The rug was untrammeled and spotless -- except for a nice, medium sized well-formed, solid dog dump -- evidently fairly fresh (I’m assuming) right square in the middle.


Lilly at home with her signature fabrics and designs, and in her Palm Beach shop.

Lilly wasn’t home at the time, so how could she know – and with the exception of Fido’s natural body functions, the house was impeccable. Nevertheless, as inconvenient as it sounds, I’ve always had the feeling ever since that the matter wouldn’t have fazed the dog’s owner for a minute.

Kathy gave us a tour of the “divine” kitchen which was large, with a family room quality (this was a new idea back then) with a big, comfy, slip-covered sofa where Lilly’s guests and kids and friends could sit and talk to her while she worked in the kitchen.

Everything about this welcoming and elegant house was en famille and intime. You liked the owner the same way you liked the designer whose clothes you wore. There was a bright, cheerful quality that had more than a wisp of wisdom to it.

My third memory about the visit to Lilly (and Peter) Pulitzer’s new house was when we were being shown the bedrooms on the second floor. As we were walking into the master, a bronze, rattan and tortoiseshell-ish room with a large queen-sized canopied bed on which a completely nude woman with blonde hair was napping deeply. She was out. Coming upon this horizontally statuesque figure was such a surprise -- the door had been left wide open, so there was no hint of someone being inside -- that we all just looked at her for a moment, and then left the room. Good idea, no?

I’m laughing now when I think of that strangely awkward moment, which the lady probably never knew about. Laid out flat, arms at her side, entirely naked. She may have just come from the pool and a shower. She was a houseguest. Her name was Peggy Bedford Bancroft d’Arenberg D’Uzes, a well known international heiress and socialite, and contemporary of Lilly and Peter Pulitzer. It also never occurred to us that we were not expected, strange as that may seem.

The last five days were very active for this reporter. The Spring social season is now in full flight.

Last Wednesday, Marina B and Stephen Starr Events hosted a luncheon at the Harold Pratt House on Park Avenue and 68th Street in honor of the Conservatory Ball taking place at the New York Botanical Garden on June 6th. The Balls’ Gala Chairs Mrs. Eric Fast, Mrs. Timothy George, Mrs. Sylvester Miniter IV and Honorary Chairmen Mrs. Jeremy Biggs, and Mrs. Richard Chilton, hosted approximately 50 members from the Leadership Committee as a kickoff to the Ball. The Conservatory Ball, which has been listed among New York’s top benefits, is one of the Botanical Garden’s most important fundraising parties of the year.

This year, the Gala evening has taken the theme “An Evening in the Italian Renaissance Garden of Padua” to celebrate the Garden’s spring exhibition Wild Medicine: Healing Plants Around the World, Featuring the Italian Renaissance Garden, which will be on view during the event.

Sylvia Safer, Friederike Biggs, Sabrina Forsythe, and Jeanne Jones

Gillian Miniter, Patti Fast, Gregory Long, and Cosby George

Julia Weld and Jennifer Rominiecki

Somers Farkas and Alexandra Lebenthal

Paul Lubetsky, Gillian Miniter, and Fe Fendi

Barbara Tober

Courtney Szwajkowski, Diane Tierney, and Leslie Stevens

Avi Fattal, Lindsay Ridell, and Paul Lubetsky

Susan Johnson, Anne Rohrbach, Maureen Chilton, and Janet Burnett

Noreen Buckfire and Patti Fast

Cosby George and Beth Taylor

Sylvia Safer and Muffie Potter Aston

Anne Rohrbach, Joan Steere, and Kimberly Putzer

Thursday night was the annual Henry Street Settlement Gala at the Plaza. They honored Alexandra Lebenthal, Carolina Gonzalez-Bunster and Reed Krakoff. Gala dinner co-chairs were Natalia Gottret Echavarria and Kalliope Karella. They raised more than $700,000 for the Settlement which has served New Yorkers for more than a century with innovative social services, arts programs and health care services. More than 50,000 people a year benefit from these programs.

Guests taking their seats at the Henry Street Settlement's annual gala, Thursday night at the Plaza.

Among those attending: Carolyn Murphy, Reed Krakoff, Tommy and Dee Hilfiger, Bibhu Mohapatra, Claire Courtin-Clairins, Shirin von Wulffen, Alina Cho, Kalliope Karella, Michel Ouellet, Jennifer Creel, Edmond and Marielle Safra,John Demsey, Lola Rykiel, Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, Zani Gugelmann, Maggie Betts, David and Lesley Schulhof, Paul and Dayssi Olarte de Kanovos, Steve and Christine Schwarzman, Vanessa Von Bismarck, Deborah Roberts, Martin and Jean Shaffiroff, Alex and Eliza Bolen, Annelise Peterson, Moffie Potter Aston,Martin and Perry Granoff, Claudie Lebenthal, Bettina Zilkha.

David Patrick Columbia introducing the honoree Alexandra Lebenthal.

Jay Diamond and Alexandra Lebenthal.

Alexandra Lebenthal, Reed Krakoff, and Carolina Gonzalez-Bunster.

Carolina Gonzalez-Bunster and Anna Pinheiro.

Kalliope Karella, Dee Hilfiger, and Muffie Potter Aston.

Shirin von Wulffen.

Tommy and Dee Hilfiger.

John Demsey and Alina Cho.

Bettina Zilkha, Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos, Alexandra Lebenthal, and Muffie Potter Aston.

Delphine and Reed Krakoff.

David and GIna Garza.

Coralie Charriol Paul and Dennis Paul.

Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia and Annelise Peterson.

Ten blocks north at the Frick Collection, they were holding the Young Fellows Ball. More than 600 supporters of the Frick and their friends filled the Garden Court and Music Room for cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and dancing. The black tie evening ran from 8:30 to midnight.

Now in its 14th year, the Young Fellows is a very popular and highly regarded event of the season. This year’s theme: “Dance of Time.” HannahBronfman was the DJ for the dance part and she was great. Chairs for the evening were Genevieve Bahrenburg, Olivia Chantecaille, Lydia Fenet,Clare McKeon, Sloan Overstrom, Rickie De SoleWebster, all of whom were wearing Donna Karan.

On entering the Garden atrium of the Frick Collection for the Young Fellows Ball last Thursday night.

For the cocktails: Vodka was provided by American Harvest Organic Spirit; William Grant & Sons provided Hendrick’s Gin, Glenfiddich Single Malt Scotch, and Milagro Tequila. Two wines were graciously donated by Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars: KARIA Chardonnay Napa Valley and KARIASauvignon Blanc Napa Valley. Fans of mixology enjoyed three signature cocktails: a grapefruit-flavored Harvest Spring Sparkler; Hendrick’s Breeze, a cranberry cocktail; and a Milagro Tequila Margarita.

The evening was sponsored by Donna Karan New York and took its inspiration from the special exhibition of historic timepieces in the new Portico Gallery, Precision & Splendor: Clocks and Watches at the Frick Collection.

Patrick McMullan at work.

Sara Moss, Elizabeth Nicholas, and Carson Sieving.

Colin Bailey and Tom Gold.

Hannah Bronfman spinning ..

Back in the Garden Atrium.

Leaving the Frick I passed by the Ralph Lauren women's collection windows on 72nd and Madison.

Friday night John and Joan Jakobson hosted a dinner dance at the Harmonie Club for about 200 of their friends and their son’s and daughter’s friends.

The Jakobsons are one of the most charming and popular couples in New York. Together and separately they have a lot of friends with whom they keep up and entertain two or three times a year. This was such a big crowd – and a great mix of friends, old and new, and a lot of familiar faces to a lot of familiar faces – that everyone assumed there must be a special occasion. Someone told me it might be their 25th anniversary – although I asked Joan and she said it was just a chance to get a lot of people together and have a good time.. So there was a DJ and the spin was disco 70s with a lot of people on the Harmonie’s accommodating and shiny dance floor.

The cocktail hour at the Jakobson's dinner Friday night at the Harmonie Club

John Jakobson watches while his daughter serenades him with a song she wrote for him accompanied by Peter Duchin at piano.

I left the Harmonie about ten-thirty and stopped by the Pierre where Save Venice was holding its annual Un Ballo in Maschera with a Black & White Masquerade. The Pierre’s ballroom was transformed into a black and white world of “whimsy,” with the creations of Nicky Balestrieri of ExtraExtra. There was a special performance by ELEW, Rockjazz virtuoso pianist and Daniel Chetrit DJ’d the evening. Co-Chairs for the evening were Laurie Adorno, Adelina Wong Ettelson, Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos, Cecile Andrau Martel, Mary Kathryn Navab, and Lauren Santo Domingo. International Chairs were Francesca Bortolotto Possati and Nadja Swarovski.

Lauren Santo Domingo, Adelina Wong Ettelson, Matthew White, Beatrice Rossi-Landi, and Mary Kathryn Navab

The ballroom at the Pierre for the Save Venice Black and White Masquerade.

The DJ on stage with his orchestra of cut-out sculptures.

Full-force everyone's on the floor ...

Jill Krementz reports: At the Sunday Matinee Curtain Call for Nora Ephron's "Lucky Guy," the cast returned to the stage for Broadway Care's annual plea for donations to support those with AIDS.

Tom Hanks told the audience members that they could now take photographs legally (as opposed to what they had been doing throughout the performance) and with the help of Christopher McDonald, who plays lawyer Eddie Hayes) auctioned off his 'reporter's notebook.'

Two bids came in for $2000, one from actor John Stamos; the other from actor/comedian/TV host Bob Saget. So Hanks miraculously produced a second notebook. And $4,000 was raised.

Playbills signed by the cast. I hope all you theater-goers will help with this worthy cause. Every little bit helps.

Photographs by DPC; PatrickMcMullan.com (NY Botanical, Save Venice); BFANYC.com (Henry Street).

Contact DPC here.

Profile. 2:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013. Very warm, yesterday in New York (mid-80s); and sunny. And for the first time this year, some of the pears had begun to bloom – just ever so slightly. By Saturday it’ll be a festival of blossom clouds along the side streets – especially on the Upper East Side – and along parts of some avenues of Manhattan.

Across the avenue from me, as if it were magic, yesterday the trees sprouted their buds on the branches, a pale green, almost tan to the eye. On my side of the avenue (east) where we don’t get direct Sun until mid-afternoon, we’re not quite there. Tomorrow.

Hosts of golden daffodils ...

The Springtime is two things for me: the new fresh beauty of the greening that opens up the spirit after the dark winter, and the absolute reminder for all: Mother Nature is always in charge. Something a lot of us – especially those who are in positions of authority often forget. To the peril of all. Everywhere.

Dining al fresco ...

At noontime I went down to 8 ½, the restaurant in the subterranean level of 9 West 57th Street, to lunch with Allison Rockefeller and Missy Falchi.

Rockefeller and Falchi are very involved with the Women in Conservation Program of the National Audubon Society. This year they are celebrating their 10th Anniversary Women in Conservation Luncheon and the 2013 Rachel Carson Awards which will be held on May 29th in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza.


	Marian Heiskell.

	Rachel Carson.

This year's honorees are Marian Heiskell, philanthropist and Conservationist and the late Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady and Environmentalist. Mrs. Heiskell will receive the inaugural Rachel Carson Lifetime Achievement Award. Lady Bird Johnson’s award will be accepted by her daughter Lynda Johnson Robb.

So what was the conversation? Missy Falchi, who grew up in a little town in Texas told me how during Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency, Lady Bird made it her project to clean up the roadways and highways across America. People made fun of it at the time but today the great success is evident everywhere.

Missy recalled how when she was a very young girl, the highways in Texas were barren, unkempt and often littered with all kinds of detritus. Today they are cleaned, groomed, planted and landscaped with green Often true all over the nation, thanks to Mrs. Johnson.

I was reminded of the irony that all of the beautification and partnership with nature was happening while the war was expanding and raging in Viet Nam.

We talked about Rachel Carson and her seminal work, “The Silent Spring,” and how that one woman started a movement of consciousness that now exists within all of us, even those who ignore it. We talked about the bees dying en masse in California and how they are being killed by the pesticides genetically engineered into the seeds. And we talked about how Rachel Carson’s work unwittingly created a movement among women to Do Something About All Of It.

Which brings me back to this past Monday night and another organization of women. The International Women’s Health Coalition hosted its annual fundraising dinner at the Pierre and honoring Christiane Amanpour who was also the keynote speaker.

Amanpour’s subject was women’s rights. She noted that there should be a special place in hell for women who do not help other women. She spoke about witnessing a female circumcision in Africa during the making of a documentary about it. She conveyed the horror of the young girl’s brutalization with great compassion and was very effecting in her delivery.

Amanpour speaks ...

Amanpour is one of those women (or men) whose voice along with a vague foreign accent add to her credibility. Listening to her I was thinking I’d believe her because she’s saying it. That’s the power of these television newspeople.

There are few like her, however. I have the feeling in her essence, she’s serious and she’s smart. I could be wrong of course. One thing I have learned in this phase of my life Out There In the World is that many who are credible are only partly truthful or reliable. Could they be always truthful and reliable? No.
There is a sincerity in Amanpour's presentation that is powerful and credible.
Nonetheless Amanpour closed with the reminder: a six-year-old girl is value.

Marlene Hess, Gala Chair and Francoise Girard, President IWHC.

Catherine Gellert, Adenike Esiet and Ann Unterberg

That’s the way it was Monday night. Listening to Amanpour evoked thoughts of my own mother – who died twenty-five years ago at 82 after a long hard life of labor and strife – much of it the result of the mores and rules of her time and generation and the paucity of support that women can access more easily and frequently today. She was such a hard worker, and also possessed a great curiosity about many things (which I seem to have inherited), and yet her life was a struggle. I was thinking that had she been born in my generation, she would have had a much different, perhaps more desirable way of life because the rules have changed and continue to change for the equality of the sexes.

The IWHC’s activities are taking many matters into their own hands and it is very exciting to watch and learn about. Because they are doing what Mothers – good, attentive, caring Mothers – do the world over: make life better for us all.

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Francoise Girard, Marlene Hess, and Adenike Esiet.

There is so much on the calendar all of a sudden that it seems impossible to report all of it adequately.

Last night New Yorkers for Children held their annual Spring dance A Fools Fete over at the Mandarin Oriental in their great ballroom overlooking Columbus Cirlce, Central Park South and the Park.

I couldn’t make it although I’ve been many times before. It’s a big, young crowd – 20 – 40-somethings. The women glam it up and sparkle in their designer gowns, and the men are sharply turned out in black tie. It’s a great evening. And they raise money to assist New York children coming out of Foster Care the way a good parent helps his or her child in preparing them for college and adult life.

So I missed that one. And I missed a real treat earlier in the evening when Liz Smith interviewed Whoopi Goldberg over at the Cosmopolitan Club. This was a benefit for Maria Droste Counseling Services. Whoopi is another, like Amanpour, who completely draws me in with her wit, her humor and humanitarian, common sense spirit.

I went down to Cipriani 42nd Street whereThe Paris Review was hosting its annual Spring Revel. This is a massive party, with several hundreds guests, many of whom are members of the literary community -- authors, agents, editors, publishers, etc. Many others are closely associated with this community because of their friendships, marriages and through their professional lives.

It’s the only time I go to the Cipriani 42nd Street that I don’t have to wear a black tie. Well, not the only. But almost. Most of the men wear jackets but a lot go tieless, with the women looking a lot more pulled together than the men. I always wear a tie. So did my host, James Goodale as well as the other men at the table.

There’s a comfort level that comes from the overall vibe of this evening. I’m sure, this being New York, that there are other vibes operating too. All characters of literature are parented by the imaginations of the writers, who are, after all, only human...

Nevertheless, it’s another kind of fete – fools, or otherwise. They honor writers for their achievements. They honored Paula Fox, now in her 90th year, with the Hadada Award presented by Zoe Heller. They honored J. D. Daniels with the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, presented by John Hodgman. And they honored Ottessa Moshfegh with the Plimpton Prize For Fiction.

Bobby and Barbara Liberman and Caroline Weber without flash.

Weber and me with flash.

None of the honored was a familiar name to me. However, they all are now, and after listening to their presenters’ introductions, I want to read them.

The nonagenarian Ms. Fox has a lovely, softly spoken, yet resolute voice making her brief and gracious acceptance. Humility gracing us. J.D. Daniels was given an amusing introduction with John Hodgman admitting his awe in Daniels’ ability to assess his life and his surroundings, in a way that had people laughing. Daniels, however, kept it short and with a terse (and amusing) thank you.

John Hodgman explaining to the audience what he likes about JD Daniels.

JD Daniels making a quick thanks and exit.

The evening opened (after cocktails), as guests were taking their seats at table with the Revel Girls Can Can. This was George Plimpton’s idea (Plimpton died of a heart attack ten years ago after organizing the first Revel and just before it was held.)
The tables were hosted by more than forty writers including John Guare, Richard Ford, Hilton Als, Toni Bentley, Wallace Shawn, Gary Shteyngart, Zadie Smtih, Gay Talese, Hannah Pakula, Richard Price, Darryl Pinckney, Lewis Lapham, Deborah Eisenberg, Lorraine Adams, Claire Messud, Nathaniel Rich, James Salter and more than a score of individuals just as unlike them.

The Paris Review, a quarterly literary magazine celebrating its 60th year, was the creation of Harold Humes, Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton, established in Paris in 1953. Its Founding Publisher is Sadruddin Aga Khan. Their legacy, under the editorship of Lorin Stein and publisher Antonio Weiss, continues to prosper.
Last night was a kind of convocation underlining the value of the written word. It was a beautiful night, in New York, outside and in.

Jeffrey Eugenides telling the guests about novelist Ottessa Moshfegh.

A web site I read, Jesse’s Café Americain ran this quotation by Barbara Tuchman on Monday that summarizes the essences of last night’s Revel:

“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change, windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”

Amen; and so it was on these past two days in New York for this reporter.

The guests at last night's Paris Review Spring Revel at Cipriani 42nd Street.

Contact DPC here.

Upper West Side sky. 6:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Thursday, April 11, 2013. Beautiful Sunny day, yesterday in New York, with temperatures close to 80 until late afternoon when it suddenly got chillier and with a bit of a wind rustling the budding trees. Then the dark clouds came, gathering from the north and the west, and the day darkened. Then the rains came.

Looking west towards the Hudson River. 5:58 PM.

View from the terrace looking south and then looking north along East End Avenue. 6:20 PM.

Just after noon I went down to Michael’s for the Wednesday lunch, as if on automatic pilot. Traffic was heavy on the Drive, crosstown and everywhere but Fifth Avenue. A lot of tourists. You can tell because they dress much more casually than New Yorkers on Fifth Avenue in the middle of the week. And they are often in a confab with one or two of them holding a map, and someone else explaining. Sometimes they’ll stop someone who looks like a New Yorker (to them) and ask directions. They’re always surprised at how friendly New Yorkers are.

I always wonder what they’re talking about, what they’re looking to see. A couple of years ago, I was walking down Fifth, south of 57th on my way to Michael’s when a good sized crowd of young people were all peering across the street and holding cameras up, anticipating something. I looked over at the Trump Tower and saw nothing but pedestrians moving along. So I asked a girl what they were all looking at.

“Donald Trump! He’s gonna come outta that building!” She was jumping up and down. Really.

Oh. That’s how jaded I am: they’re panting for a look at The Donald. I told him this story the next time I saw him. He smiled. Donald is a professional. So, from what I can gather, are all of his children. The Trumps, like the Ralph Laurens, are exemplary public families, and you can only in the end credit the parents.

Lunch at Michael's with Ann Rapp. Her hat was a big hit with a lot of the women who stopped by the table.

I was yesterday lunching with Ann Rapp who is now an old friend but whom I first met when I returned to New York from California twenty years ago. Ann was born and grew up in Los Angeles and we shared and continue to share a vivid, almost literary nostalgia for the place. In her girlhood she grew up with a lot of the children of the Hollywood stars of the mid-century and it’s “Golden Age.”

Since then Ann has lived in London, Paris and several other locations, some exotic, some rustic, and in the process seems to have met anyone who was alive at the time and in the place where she was present.

She has immense curiosity. She’d walk into a room a great raven-haired beauty, and left having learned something astonishing or fascinating or enlightening, or just met somebody who piqued her interest. She’s an inveterate reader and collector of all kinds of information. She’s one of that rare breed of woman who has all the attributes of a journalist or an author except she's not a writer. So what did we talk about? Everything, everyone, all about the room, backwards, forwards, up down. And the state of things as they are and as they seem.

At table in the Garden Room. Micky Ateyeh, second from right next to Liz Smith, who is talking to Barbara Liberman (far left) and Brinton Taylor Parson.

And the new phrase that came my way via a perspicacious friend in the financial business: normalcy bias. The state of things as they are personally, or as they are perceived depending upon (usually) one’s financial solvency, apparent, real or imagined versus reality.

Michael’s was its usual midweek pandemonium. In the Garden Room Micky Ateyeh and Angela Cummings were hosting a luncheon for about thirty women, and showing Angela’s new line of pearl jewelry which she designed for Assael.

I met Angela a few weeks ago when she was at Michael’s lunching with Micky. She’s a lovely woman, unpresumptuous, gracious, friendly but yet bearing an artist’s reserve. She used to live here in the Northeast but she now lives in Park City, Utah, and it is a different life style as we all know, with a different pace and decibel. The pearls are a new project that she and Micky are working on in tandem. Micky and she have a long history of a business partnership. They met when they were both working at Tiffany.

Micky Ateyeh and Lucy Suarez.

Shirley Lord Rosenthal and Sarah Simms Rosenthal (no relation).

Cindy Lewis and friend.

Fern Mallis and Barbara Liberman.

Christy Ferer. Photos: Steve Millington.

Angela Cummings with her latest pieces for Assael.

So that was the Garden Room. The front room was abuzz. Carl Spielvogel was lunching with Eliot Spitzer; Anthony Shriver was with Anne Hearst and Allison Mazzola. Next to us on one side, Ed Forst; on the other, Greg Kelly and Renato Scotto, the Fox 5 stars. Jimmy Finkelstein was lunching with Janice Min of the Hollywood Reporter. Catherine Saxton was hosting Sharon Sondesand Geoffrey Thomas who were in town for the Marty Richards memorial the other night at the Supper Club. Bob Friedman with Jay Kriegel; Star Jones with Adaora Udoji of NPR and Alexis McGill; Sanford & Stein (David and Lewis); Alice Mayhew; Judy Price. Documentarian Ken Burns with Steven Greenberg;. Also Martin Puris; Andrew Sollinger; Andrew Stein; Michael Kassan; Hearst’s Newell Turner with Michael McGraw of Hearst PR, and Los Angeles interior designer Peter Dunham; Jonathan Resnick, Shelley Zalis. Moving around the room: Lally Weymouth;Wednesday Martin with Amy Tarr; Boaty Boatright with Jane Buffet (Mrs. Jimmy). Eric Bamberger was with Beverly Camhe and a documentary Beverly has produced about Bernie Madoff-- “In God We Trust Who Pays for His Crime.”

You think you know the whole story but this will show you otherwise. It’s opening at the Tribeca Film Festival next week.

Coincidentally, in the Garden Room was a Madoff client Alexandra Penney, who has told her story in “The Bag Lady Papers” in a series of posts for The Daily Beast. Alexandra still has the feathers in her professional cap, however. About 30 years ago she wrote a bestseller called How to Make Love to a Man. After that she created SELF Magazine. When I met her she was at SELF. I pitched her a few ideas and she was very receptive and encouraging. None of them worked out but I gained a friend.

The tables in the Garden Room.

She made a lotta dough along the way. And with it she invested in Bernie Madoff. She was living off the interest when the Good Ship Lollypop sank. But ... like the Sondheim song: she’s still here ...

The Angela Cummings Collection for Assael comprises 25 magnificent pieces. There was a pair of diamond and platinum earrings with a dozen South Sea pearls and over four carats: $12,500. There was a diamond and South Sea pearl necklace in a sea horse shape with 280 round, brilliant-cut diamonds: $375,000.

Some of Angela Cummings' pieces for Assael.

All guests received Angela Cummings' silver seahorse keyring with the tsavorite/precious green stone for the eye and the pearl in the tail.

Catching up. This past Tuesday night with the Social Calendar on overdrive, Liz Peek hosted a cocktail reception for more than 100 guests at the Peeks' Park Avenue penthouse (with terrace to take in a perfect Spring evening outside in the city. Liz’s co-hosts were Pamela Baxter, Joy Herfel Cronin, Julie Greiner, Yaz Hernandez, Jane Hudis. They were celebrating the upcoming 2013 FIT Gala’s honorees George Kaufman, Kay Krill and Stefano Tonchi.

Among those attending: Teri Agins, Yigal Azrouel, Hamish Bowles, Dennis Basso, Mario Buatta, Judy Byrd, Maria Cornejo, Amy Fine Collins, Carole Divet Harting, Chris Del Gatto, Veronica Webb, Joel Frank, Linda Fargo, Michele Gerber Klein, Eleanora Kennedy, Chiu-Ti Jansen, Richard Lambertson, Alexandra Lebenthal, Larry Leeds, Julie Macklowe, Tamara and Minty Mellon, Jonathan Pomerantz, Darcy Rigas, Pete Scotese, Angel Sanchez. Jean Shafiroff, Michael Stanley, Jill Stuart, Daniel Silver and Steven Cox, Carlo Tunioli, Elizabeth and Albert Watson.

The 2013 FIT Gala will be held on Monday, June 10, 2013 at Cipriani 42nd Street.

For more information about the Gala or to purchase tickets contact: Victoria_guranowski@fitnyc.edu or 212.217.4105.

Chairman of the Board of FIT Liz Peek, Honoree Stefano Tonchi, and Catherine Fisher representing Honoree Kay Krill of Ann Inc.

Veronica Webb and Chris Del Gatto.

Angel Sanchez and Liz Peek.

Stefano Tonchi, Amy Fine Collins, and Richard Lambertson.

Linda Fargo.

Minty and Tamara Mellon.

Jill Stuart.

Elizabeth Watson, Albert Watson, Liz Peek, and Hamish Bowles.

Jean Shafiroff, Alexandra Lebenthal, Valerie Salembier, and Julie Macklowe.

Yigal Azrouel.

Daniel Silver, Maria Cornejo, and Steven Cox.

Chris Delgatto, Liz Peek, Jill Stuart, Veronica Webb, and Sophie Theallet.

Also, this past Tuesday, the board of the American Friends of the Paris Opera & Ballet convened a special meeting with Benjamin Millepied, who will be the new Director of Dance at the Paris Opera Ballet, starting in September 2014. Following a lunch and a lively discussion the board posed for this portrait with is release first to NYSD.

Back row, l. to r.: Michele Pesner, Edward Reilly (president), Flavia Gale, (behind bench) James de Givenchy, Hal J. Witt, Randall Bourscheidt, Elisabeth de Kergorlay, Laure Vienot-Tronche (executive director), Steve Pesner, Olivier Aldeano, Marina Couloucoundis, Hugues de Pins. Front row, l. to r.:Marina de Brantes (honorary chairman), Mary Sharp Cronson, Anne H. Bass, Benjamin Millepied, Olivia Flatto (chairman), Serena Lese (vice chairman), Laure Zeckendorf (vice chairman). Photo credit: George H Lewis.

And last Monday night at the Edison Ballroom on 240 West 47th Street, in the heart of the Theater District, they held a Memorial for the late Marty Richards, Broadway and Oscar-winning producer who died last November at the age of 80.

Marty was a Broadway baby, a boy from the Bronx who wanted to make his way on ole Broadway. And giving it his all, playing many roles, plying many talents, he became one of the most successful producers of his generation. He LOVED show business. It was his religion.

So the other night at the Edison, they pulled out all the stops (which is the way Marty would have done it). Chita Rivera was Mistress of Ceremonies at what was a benefit for the New York Center for Children which was co-founded by Marty with his wife Mary Lea, who was a Johnson & Johnson heiress. There was a four course dinner, tributes by Clive Davis, Tom Viola (exec director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS) and Michele Herbert. Rabbi Adam Jacobs delivered the evening’s invocation.

Liz Callaway.

Len Cariou.

Victor Garber.

Dee Hoty.

Sharon Wilkins.

Timatha Kasten.

Marin Mazzie.

Rob Marshall.

The Accidentals.

Chita Rivera.

Jack Noseworthy.

Curtain call.

And then: a rowsah-wowsah of showstoppers from Marty’s Broadway musicals including Chicago, On the Twentieth Cetnury, The Life, Grand Hotel, Sweeney Todd; La Cage Aux Folles, Sweet Smell of Success, the Will Rogers Follies and Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life.

Marty would have loved it. If this were a movie, you’d see his face, sitting up there, bright eyes brimming with tears at the sheer thrill of all that talent putting it all out there just for him, this once and forever Broadway baby. Just for him and, of course, the audience, the beloved audience. He was that kinda guy.

Ty Vincent.

Baroness Von Langendorff.

Lauren Vernon.

Simone Levitt, Marc Rosen, and Arlene Dahl.

Michele Rella, Frank Rella, and Princess Michaela von Habsburg.

Chita Rivera and Len Cariou.

Scotlan Taylor Ryan

Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn.

Tommy Tune.

Lyn Paulsin and Allie Tabak.

Marcy Warren and Iris Smith.

Bettina Bennett Wiener and Cassandra Seidenfeld Lyster.

Sharon Sondes and Geoffrey Thomas.

Michele and Larry Herbert.

Elaine Johnson Wold, Keith C. Wold, Jennifer Heller Wold, and Michael Douglas.

Clive Davis and Ann Dexter Jones.

Rick Friedberg and Francine LeFrak.

Bonnie Pfeifer Evans.

Kim and Art Garfunkel.

Andrew Fox and Caroline Hirsch.

Cindy Adams.

Marcy and Michael Warren.

Denise Rich.

Dr.Georgia Witkin, Mike Tadross, and Marcia Levine.

Michele and Loren Herbert.

Maria Teresa Fauci and James Fauci.

Deborah S.Craig and Dan Gallagher.

Christine Boeke, Dr. Katherine Teets Grimm, and Christine Crowther.

The packed Edison ballroom.

Photos by Rob Rich/SocietyAllure.com (Marty Richards)

Contact DPC here.

Tending the community garden in Riverside Park. 4:00 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Monday, April 15, 2013. A beautiful early Spring weekend in New York.

On Sunday I went into Carl Schurz Park to get some photos of The Bloom. This is joy all around; a chance to get outdoors in the Sun. We’re halfway to May when the flowers really start to show themselves, and off to a good start.

I had a sick dog. Missy aka Madame. Missy under these circumstances. She was acting weird – just sitting there, staring at nothing, late on Saturday afternoon. She’s one of those dogs who likes to get into things, scavenge, look for some morsel that I didn’t know was there; something she might chew or gnaw on; anything. If I leave my rubbish/garbage in a plastic bag hanging on a drawerknob in the kitchen, she’ll nip at the bottom until she opens it -- and like a piñata, she revels in the (possible) riches (if I’m not looking) for a canine scavenger. I have great affection for all my dogs, but this one makes me laugh all the time, and it is often at my expense. I think she knows that. That’s why I call her Madame.

Entering Carl Schurz Park at 86th Street.

A little one walk atop the stone ledge outside the Park amidst the forsythia.

The pears in bloom in front of the Queen Anne-style red-brick houses of "Henderson Place" historic district on East End Avenue between 86th and 87th Street, across from Carl Schurz, built in 1891- 92 when the avenue was known as Avenue B (uptown).

A tunnel of blooming pears on East 87th Street looking west.

The same trees looking west from inside the Park.

Man practicing his tight rope.

An impromptu game of badminton next to the Promenade.

Saturday night when I went to lift her, however, she yelped and snapped at me. She was in pain, And her belly felt hard as a rock. I looked it up on the web of course. About 11:30 Saturday night I thought it might be a good idea to hit an all-night animal hospital. Animal Medical Center. So I took her. She walked, very quickly, as is her habit down East End Avenue. She actually often pulled me. And then she stopped to relieve herself. Very steady, very healthy. We got to the corner of 79th Street and she was still moving along as if she had places to go. So I figured maybe it was “gas” and she’d just have to work it out. We returned home instead.

Sunday morning she did something she never does: she wouldn’t eat her breakfast. Usually she eats faster (and more) than the other two and then she raids theirs while they’re eating. If I’m not watching. So not eating was an alarm bell.

Yesterday afternoon we went down to the AMC, Missy and I. She still had the strong gait. Until she stopped. And sat. Then I had to pick her up. We spent two hours there. There was a consultation, then some kind of blood work, then a sonar to see what was going on inside. Nothing remarkable. It was concluded that she had gas or something that she hadn’t moved along. Gastroenteritis. We came home with a couple days ‘ painkillers if necessary.

Missy, Jenny, and Byrone.

$713. Uh-huh. That scared me too. Not for me so much, because fortunately I could pay. But what about all the dogs out there whose masters/mistresses can’t pay it. Prohibitively high medical bills do not encourage pet ownership, to grossly understate the matter. All of my dogs are/have been “rescue” dogs. All my life. And when I had cats, the same. All of those dogs and cats were pets that someone gave up, didn’t want, threw away. They need us to save them from us. What I get in return is beautiful Life. That’s what they have to offer.


	Cornelius Vanderbilt, founder of the family fortune which showered millions on scores of his descendents in the succeeding four generations.

	William Harrison Vanderbilt, named by his father for President William Henry Harrison. He lived relatively modestly until his father died and left him the richest man in the world. He died nine years after his father after increasing his inherited fortune to almost $200 million in 1886, four years after the completion of the Fifth Avenue houses.

Late last evening, I gave Madame a tiny sliver of freshly roasted chicken. She took it tentatively and savored it so. She took a second. That was enough for now. She’s going to be 11 on May 27th. A Gemini, little Madame.

Vanderbilt Savings Time. Last Friday morning I got up at the crack of dawn (having gone to bed just a few hours before when we went up online for the day), to go over to the Doyle Galleries on East 87th Street (between Third and Lex) to a “breakfast” talk they were having.

Doyle is having a sale today of pieces from the estate of the late Consuelo Vanderbilt Earl who died in 2011 at the age of 107.

Mrs. Earl’s father was William K. Vanderbilt Jr. the son of Willie K. and Alva. Her mother was Virginia Graham Fair Vanderbilt– known as “Birdie,” and first wife of Willie K Jr. Her father’s sister was the famous Consuelo Vanderbilt (later Balsan), the heiress whose socially ambitious mother forced her against her will to marry Charles Spencer-Churchill, the 9th Duke of Marlborough. It is one of the great romantic tales of the Gilded Age and it added a romantic luster to the Vanderbilt name that lasted for several generations.

When Cornelius Vanderbilt died in his 83rd year in 1877, he left a fortune of approximately $100 million (or tens of billions in today’s dollar). He left 90% of it to one son William H. There was a big fight over the will after the old man croaked since the daughters and other son (Cornelius Jeremiah) were left less than a million each.

The old man had sincerely felt that was fair because he himself was not especially ostentatious when it came to his own living standards. Although he did own a mansion on Washington Square, in now way did it compare with what his descendents would build for themselves and their children. Nor would he have built such palaces for himself. His money was his palace. No doubt he would have preferred to take it with him, but, alas…

The great double mansion of William H. Vanderbilt, completed in 1882 on the west side of Fifth Avenue between 51st and 52nd Street. The northernmost wing contained two large residences occupied by two of his daughters and their families. The turreted chateau to the right was the home of William K and Alva Vanderbilt their three children. Farther up the block are houses of two more of William H's children.

The petit chateau of Alva and William K. Vanderbilt on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street, designed by Richard Morris Hunt and completed in 1883. Alva Vanderbilt was the "builder" in the family. It was the "housewarming" party at this mansion that launched the Vanderbilts into prominence of New York society. It also ushered in the use of limestone as a facade, in a city of brownstones (as you can see surrounding). Fifth years later that block of 52nd Street to the west became known as "Jazz Street" where every doorway was a speakeasy, often with brothel upstairs, and subsequently after Prohibition was repealed, the speaks became jazz joints hosting many of the now great immortals of Jazz and popular American music. By 1926, when the Jazz babies were moving into the neighborhood, the Vanderbilts were long gone. The house was sold and demolished.

Like his father, William H. had a large family of eight or nine children. No sooner had he inherited when he embarked on a move outside his known personality – he built a double palace for himself and his family on Fifth Avenue taking up the entire west side of the block between 51st and 52nd Street. He also doubled his father’s legacy and then less than ten years after his father, he died.

William H. left the bulk of his fortune to his two eldest sons: William Kissam and Cornelius II. Both of those boys built huge mansions also on Fifth. Right next door, Willie K. as he was known, and his firecracker of a Southern belle of a wife Alva built their chateau across the street from pappy – on the northwest corner of Fifth and 52nd Street. Cornelius II, of course, built a palace of 143 rooms that occupied the entire west side of the block between 57th and 58th Street.

After the death of the legendary Commodore – as he was known in his lifetime – the Vanderbilts graduated to the life style of royalty as we like to imagine it: riches and leisure unlimited. The old man’s fortune ended up enriching hundreds of his descendents in varying degrees. The earlier descendents lived like kings. They led lives of leisure, living in luxury, high, wide and handsome.

William K. Vanderbilt Jr., son of Alva and Willie K, brother of Consuelo and Harold, father of Consuelo Vanderbilt Earl, at age 24 in 1902.

Willie K and Alva's daughter Consuelo Vanderbilt at age 25, as the Duchess of Marlborough attending the coronation of King Edward VII.

Consuelo Vanderbilt Earl was a member of the Fifth Generation of this American fortune that came to symbolize an irresistible excess and hauteur. In real life a lot of these Vanderbilts were, like the rest of us, trying to sort it out – whatever “it” was for them. To the American public they seemed to live like royalty, as if it came naturally to them. Evidently it did for some.

Mrs. Earl was married four times, but like many heiresses, she pretty much lived the way she wanted. She had been one of three children. Her only brother died in a horrific accident in the early 1930s.

The boy’s death evidently was a tragedy from which his mother never recovered. She died just a few years after at an early middle-age. She was survived by Consuelo and daughter Muriel who was three years older than Consuelo. (Muriel predeceased her by thirty-nine years – in 1972.)

Consuelo Earl, like her aunt and namesake, had a penchant for animals. Dogs. She raised Skye terriers, poodles, afghans, more terriers. Later in her life she bought a big piece of property in Ridgefield, Connecticut and raised miniature farm animals – cows, horses, chickens, etc., to all of which she was devoted.

Consuelo, the duchess, with her father William K. Vanderbilt, then long divorced from her mother Alva in Paris at the races.

Consuelo Vanderbilt Earl with one of her prized Skye terriers.

Consuelo and her father William K. Vanderbilt Jr., 1931.

The miracle of old age was no blessing for the lady. At 90 she began to withdraw. She became blind and her daughter recalls that it was a very hard, very long time in getting to the end of such a great age.

The items going on sale this morning (possibly completed by the time you see this), are interesting reflections of that time and era of wealth and the Leisure Class in America. Luxury not a label but an aspect of the rarified. If you had to know how much it cost, then, as Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan is said to have put it: you can’t afford it.

Although she is not remembered as a woman who was fascinated with, or collected, jewels, Consuelo Vanderbilt Earl nevertheless left a plethora of precious and beautiful collectibles -- such as the Mystery Clock, and a Gold Tray inscribed Alva 1931, the ship named for Mrs. Earl’s paternal grandmother. The Alva was known as the world’s first superyacht – 265 feet. On her maiden voyage she traveled 28,182 miles circumnavigating the globe collecting marine specimens for Mr. Vanderbilt’s Marine Museum. The estimate is $125,000 - $175,000.

Consuelo's wedding in 1936 to her second husband, Henry G. Davis II on her father's Fisher Island in Miami. Left to right: the bride's aunt, Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, her husband Jacques Balsan; Mr. and Mrs. William Vanderbilt, Mrs. Henry G. Davis Jr, mother of the groom, and the wedding couple.

Coincidentally, I’ve been reading JC Stiles great biography of “The First Tycoon,” Cornelius Vanderbilt who lived between 1794 and 1877. One tough hombre. He loved money – not for what it could buy him, but just for the making it. Like winning the race. He loved racehorses too. He was the Sultan of Speed in the 19th century. It’s nothing to us Nuclear Age babies, but back then until Henry Ford came along, Cornelius Vanderbilt was the man who made speed a popular choice, preference, pleasure and profit, propelling us into the American Century. There are literally hundreds of descendents of this man who was born and grew up on Staten Island and came of age just as New York was a-bornin’.

Art Deco Gold, Silver, Lapis, Nephrite Jade, Mother-of-Pearl and Diamond Desk Clock, Cartier, France, circa 1925. Est. $20,000 - $30,000.

Art Deco Platinum, Ruby and Diamond Clip, Cartier. 8 cushion and cut-corner emerald cut rubies approximately 6.45 cts, edged and topped by 79 round and sing-cut diamonds, approximately 5.00 cts. Circa 1930. Est. $20,000 - $30,000

Art Deco Rock Crystal, Gold, Black Onyx, Enamel and Diamond "Model A" Mystery Clock, made by Cartier in France, completed in 1913. Mystery clocks required up to seven craftsmen to create, sometimes taking up to a year. They appealed to sophisticated American industrialists, including J. P. Morgan who owned the first Mystery Clock "Model A" sold in the United States. Est. $200,000 - $400,000

Set of Twelve Gold Cordial Cups, Tiffany & Co. 18kt., height 2 ½ inches, diameter 2 1/8 inches. Est. $40,000 - $60,000.

No other Vanderbilt made a personal fortune after the Commodore until Gloria Vanderbilt came along a century later – selling women’s jeans and perfumes. The man’s fortune enriched the lives of hundreds if not thousands although some of their family offspring married individuals who greatly increased their fortunes. While others lost it all along the road of the high life.

DPC speaks to the DOYLE guests.

Miriam Weingarten, Wendy Nolan, Caroline Milbank, and Dennis and Gail Karr.

Kathleen M. Doyle and David Patrick Columbia.

Mariah Boyd and Louis Webre.

Deborah Kramm and Cynthia Frick.

Cole Rumbough.

Corina La Motte and Sally Ann Page.

Martha Glass, Caroline Milbank, and Wendy Nolan.

Jane Pontarelli.

Rick Miners, Deborah Kramm, Cynthia Frick, and Rita Gail Johnson.

Charlotte Taylor, Peter Costanzo, and Laura Doyle.

Janice Youngren and Ken McKenna.

Ted and Robin Withinngton with Christine Joosten.

Leslie Singer and Laurie Ying.

Ruth Meyer and Jill Bowers.

Carla Kerr and Edith Webster.

Woody and Gregg Swain.

Michael McConkey, DPC, and Vyna St Phard.

Nina Roseman and Oxana Adler.

Lauren Gershell.

Michael Hakimi.

Photographs by Annie Watt (Doyle).

Contact DPC here.

Pear trees along Broadway and 81st Street. 1:30 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013. Beautiful day, yesterday in New York. The pear trees are now in full bloom, like delicate festooning balloons of popcorn decorating the streets and neighborhoods of the city. JH takes us on his own photo tour ...

It was a beautiful day in Boston also where they were staging the annual Boston Marathon -- until ten minutes to 3 when a bomb exploded near the finish line, followed ten seconds later by another explosion nearby. Three people were killed and scores were injured, clearly an act of terrorism meant to instill fear.

The Apple and the Tree. Meanwhile, before that, in New York at lunchtime over at the Plaza, the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry hosted its annual Gray Matters At Columbia Spring Benefit honoring author Andrew Solomon.


	Click to order.

The luncheon drew a packed house. Solomon, who published his latest book “Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity” last fall, also spoke (without notes) to a rapt audience for a half hour about himself, his book and what he has learned about children who are born or who grew up in ways their parents never expected.

This being the season, last night’s social calendar was in full throttle. The National Dance Institute held a Gala at the Best Buy Theatre where they honored Mandy Patinkin and Robert D. Krinsky. Honorary chairs for the evening were: Alec and Hilaria Baldwin, Glenn Close, Whoopi Goldberg, George Soros. The theme was Celebrating The Big Easy.

Down at Capitale, Symphony Space held its Spring Swing & Access to the Arts Awards. Co-chairs for the evening were Amy Wilson and David Falnnery and BD Wong. They honored Steven M. Alden, Louise Hirschfeld and Lewis B. Cullman, Isaiah Sheffer and Luis Ubinas. The Spring Swing was hosted by Tamara Tunie and Gregory Generet, and featured performances by Eisa Davis, Hunter Ryan Herdlicka, Kate Levin, Sonia Manzano, S. Epatha Merkerson, James Naughton, Leonard Nimoy, Arturo O’Farrill, D.A. Pennebaker, Kt Sullivan, Dan Zanes, as well as Ms. Wilson and Mr. Wong.

I went over to the Mandarin Oriental where the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) was hosting its annual benefit Dinner where they honored William Clay Ford Jr., Executive Chairman of the Ford Motor Company, and Ford Motor Company with the Distinguished Leadership Award, and Quinn Bradlee, Founder and CEO of www.friendsofquinn.com.

View from the 36th floor of the Mandarin last night at 8:10 PM.

They also honored three young people, Kcory Woltz , and Ross Chapman and Holly Schallert each with the Anne Ford and Allegra Ford Thomas Scholarships. These scholarships offer financial assistance to graduating high school seniors with documented learning disabilities (LD) who are pursuing post-secondary education or career development. The scholarship program was created in 2002 to commemorate Anne Ford’s decade of Board chairmanship and her unwavering commitment to NCLD. Four years ago, in 2009, the program was expanded through generous support by Anne’s daughter Allegra Ford.

Paula Zahn emceed the evening. Sigourney Weaver presented the three scholarship awards. Barbara Walters presented Quinn Bradlee with his award, and Anne Ford introduced her cousin Bill Ford.

The Fords: Lisa (Mrs. Bill), Anne, Bill, and Charlotte Ford last night at the Mandarin Oriental.

The Fords’ relationship with NCLD began when Anne’s daughter Allegra was a very small child and demonstrated serious difficulties in learning. The mother’s consultations with several doctors about the matter led to advice that she consider “institutionalizing” her child. This was never an alternative in the mother’s mind. Through her research for solutions, she met Carrie Rozelle, who had started NCLD because of learning disabilities (LD) in her own family.

All that is history. Now in her 30s, Allegra, incidentally, married Josh Thomas a year ago this coming May 7th there in New York (NYSD, 5.7.12), and leads a full, independent life.

Her mother, in turn, has become a major national advocate for treatment of LD and the world of NCLD. She was able to involve the Ford Motor Company through her family and the company’s philanthropic funding, and has enhanced the organization’s ability to help more people.

Kcory Woltz, Ross Chapman, and Holly Schallert.

Something like 20% of the population have learning disabilities. The one which is well documented and seems to hold many people back is dyslexia (there are many other issues to be dealt with also, of course). All three of the scholarship awardees last night spoke about the terrible problem of being “slow learners,” and yet all three, now bound for college, gave excellent speeches (of acceptance) about their beginnings and the difficulties they faced and dealt with including the bullying and taunting that children encounter under the circumstances among their contemporaries. All three also mentioned the underlying secret to their success: the care, patience and support of parents, family, friends and teachers. This where the differences are made.

Quinn Bradlee, who was introduced by Barbara Walters– who has known him all his life – was born with a heart defect and sundry LD problems that seemed insurmountable to others at the time. A resolute, determined mother (journalist Sally Quinn) and father (Ben Bradlee, the legendary editor of the Washington Post), did everything in their power to fortify, groom, instruct, help, and care for the boy along the way to manhood.

Bill Ford accepting his honor.

Paula Zahn thanking guests for making the evening possible

Barbara Walters taking to podium to introduce Quinn Bradlee.

Quinn Bradlee recounting his experience with LD and what he has done about it.

Last night he demonstrated their success (and his) with his interesting acceptance speech about the problems of growing up with LD. Following in the footsteps of his active and industrious parents – and reminding me of Andrew Solomon’s study (and experience) of the apple falling not far from the tree – Quinn, now a married man himself told us about creating his web site to share with and assist others with problems. He also announced that friendsofquinn.com was merging with NCLD, and Quinn himself was joining the organization to advance its causes.

Bill Ford, who was introduced by his friend John Weinberg, Vice Chair of Goldman Sachs, told of Ford Motor’s volunteer programs which very successfully encourage their employees to engage in community philanthropic activities that extend all over the world. He also talked about the time seven years ago when the company was in dire financial straits and even facing the possibility of going under.

Tina Brown, Nancy Poses, Paula Zahn, Sigourney Weaver, Fred Poses, and Sir Harold Evans.

Former Governor Thomas Kean, Tina Brown, Paula Zahn, Sir Harold Evans, Sigourney Weaver, and James Wendorf.

James Wendorf, Sally Quinn, Quinn Bradlee

With the assistance of his longtime friend John Weinberg– whose grandfather Sidney Weinberg assisted Bill’s uncle Henry Ford II in taking the company public back in the 1950s – they were able to restore the stability of the company without government aid. Their emergence from that nadir underlined the Fords’ philosophy of carrying on good works through and for the community. Anne Ford mentioned how in 1934, her great-grandfather, Henry Ford, the company founder was publicly reported to have said that people with disabilities had as much right and ability to work to earn a decent living as the rest of us, and should thusly be hired. (The apple and the tree again).

This particular annual gala evening is always somewhat star-studded, thanks to the influence of its founders and board members, including the dynamic support of Frederic and Nancy Poses who help in myriad ways. Fred Poses, for example, conducted a kind of “auction,” persuading a number of the guests to contribute what totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars (in increments beginning at $100,000 – then 50, then 25, then 10, then 5, then one).

Sigourney Weaver, Barbara Walters, Nancy Poses, and Paula Zahn.

The Poses’ support is in keeping the cause at the forefront: helping young people overcome personal issues that would otherwise hinder their progress in growing, and making solid lives for themselves and others. It’s entirely heroic in result, and yet basic in a way that is meaningful to all our lives. The journey of NCLD and it students and supporters obviously instills that heroic sense in all who are touched by it.

PS: for those who share my interest in Debbie Reynolds, for whom I wrote a memoir many years ago, Debbie has a new, more conclusive memoir (filling in the decades since then) -- “Unsinkable” which she wrote with Dorian Hannaway and which was just published.

She’s been in New York recently publicizing the book, and yesterday she was interviewed by Alec Baldwin on his radio show. It’s a charming and amusing talk between these two totally devoted, committed actors talking about the life of the amazing Mary Frances Reynolds, known to the world over as Debbie. You can listen to it on your computer through this link.

Contact DPC here.

Reading under a magnolia tree. 3:30 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013. Partly sunny, partly cloudy day in New York with temps in the high 50s.

I went lunch at Michael's which was bustling with a cross section of media/banker/social. For example, the Duchess of Marlborough was lunching with Anne Hearst and Hilary Geary Ross. A few tables over the beautiful Judy Collins concealing her luster under a soft grey broad brimmed hat. A table over from her Joan Jakobson. Amidst all this: Pete Peterson; Matt Blank, the head of Showtime. And at Table One, film director Joel Schumacher.

After lunch I walked with my lunchdate up Fifth Avenue, passed the Pulitzer Fountain in front of the Plaza. There were a lot of people out and so were the pears. The trees in Central Park have a few more weeks but the flowering trees are in full bloom everywhere.

The pears behind the Pulitzer Fountain and across from Bergdorf-Goodman. Can you spot the tourists from the Noo Yawkers?

A host of daffodils ...

I'm drawn to all this because it is a Natural Distraction from the other side of the coin. It is probably partly my age but I consciously look for beauty in nature and at times in man's creations. When I lived in California I became more enthralled about the beauty of the environment. The State of California is stunning, astonishing, even rapturous to see much of the time. Even living in that massive metropolis of Los Angeles, the light provided beauty everywhere – even in the shadows on the walls or the Sun on the palm fronds.

When I returned to New York to live, I was struck by the harshness of the concrete, steel and glass city. I certainly wasn't unfamiliar with it but I had been away long enough to have my aesthetic sense transformed by my environment. The "lack" in the canyons of Manhattan bothered me. And it bothered me that it bothered me. I made a conscious decision to look for beauty everywhere. And I find it everywhere too. Everywhere. It's truth, remember ...

This was the walk up Fifth Avenue to East 72nd Street, and later visiting a friend over on the East 90s near the Park. The pear tunnels on some blocks change everything, no matter how briefly. The message is delivered.

On the corner of 63rd and Fifth.

Same tree, another angle.

Two varieties of magnolias in front of the Frick. The southernmost on the corner of 70th and Fifth is a Star Magnolia, circa 1935. The other two are slightly later but of the period. They should be at peak today.

The Star Magnolia on the right ...

A bower of pansies on the next block up.

And some hydrangeas on the other side of the walk.

These are planted at the bus stop on 86th Street and First Avenue.

East 95th Street between Fifth and Madison, looking West toward the Park. 7 p.m.

A batch of tulips along the sidewalk of that block.

A friend and reader in Chicago was reading about Dorothy Parker and sent me her riff on the phrase "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

Parker: "You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think." The official line is "you can lead a horticulture but you can't ..." but that's because back when she wrote it, the word "whore" was oft-used but a no-no in"finer" print. Everyone got the picture, of course.


Dorothy Parker.

There are a lot of us out there who have Dorothy Parker's rhyming phrases of dull despair in our heads somewhere. I first read her when I was in high school, then grown-up enough to have understood (or think I understood) what she was saying.
I love this one. An adolescent dirge if there ever was one:

Razors Pain You, Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; nooses give.
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.

I had a friend in my school years whose mother and father were teachers. The father was a professor of history. He was a jolly if somewhat enigmatic fellow (who used to go down to the cellar all of a sudden, and return a few minutes later even jollier). Whenever I visited my friend, her parents would often be home and joining in conversations.

They were good company and grown up – which was where we all wanted to be. We'd sit around the kitchen and drink tea and talk about our worlds (the teenagers). They'd listen and join in, apparently enjoying it. The professor knew all kinds of stories about literary and historical figures. Hearing that I'd been reading some Dorothy Parker short stories, he told me this fable about her. It's probably apocryphal, and no doubt there are other versions, but nevertheless, here it is.

At one point in her career she was writing a column for the Hearst papers. It wasn't going well, so William Randolph Hearst decided to invite her to San Simeon for a (fun) weekend after which he would tell her she was fired. And so it happened (allegedly).

On hearing why she was called there, she packed her bags, and furiously wrote a note which she taped to the bedroom door of Hearst's mistress Marion Davies. Which said:


	Click to order "CZ Guest American Style Icon."

"Upon my honor,
I've seen the Madonner
set high in a golden niche,
But beyond this door
lies the beautiful whore
of the world's worst son of a bitch."

When I got home yesterday afternoon, there was a copy of a new book waiting for me: "CZ Guest American Style Icon." It was brand new and I'd forgotten that I'd contributed something to this book about CZ, composed by Susannah Salk. Yesterday was its official pub date.

The official title is: "CZ Guest American Style Icon Celebrating her Timeless World At Home In Her Garden & Around Town." The author accompanied the photographs with recollections of CZ by a variety of people who knew her and friends who were part of her life.

I knew her although not well but well enough to have lunched, dined, been to her house. She had an easy snappy personality with that sterling silver crust that you'd imagine a High Society Woman Who Rode would have. But she was game girl too. The variety of her friendships said it all. She was probably a snob in some ways because she lived on a different strata her entire life, but people always amused her. And she loved her animals -- all of which were rescued. And loved. She had a good time in much of her life. She also knew when to stop. And smell the roses.

Mary and Ernest Hemingway talking to newlyweds, CZ and Winston Guest on their honeymoon in Cuba in 1947.

Lynn Wyatt and CZ (with Nancy Kissinger in the middle behind them) at the Fete de Famille at Mortimers restaurant in 1988.

CZ wearing a de la Renta, with Oscar de la Renta in 2002. CZ had just awarded CFDA's Fashion Icon Award.

CZ at home, at Templeton, Westbury, Long Island, 1989.

Over the fireplace in Templeton's library hangs Salvador Dali's infamous portrait of CZ. She also commissioned Dali to paint one of her son, Alexander, but feeling it too surreal, returned it.

All this came back looking at these wonderful photographs and memories of friends and people who knew her in this beautiful book. She was Everywoman as One of a Kind. The book puts you in the same mood that CZ would put you in if you were around her. Forget-yer-troubles-com'on-get-happy .... She was that kind of girl. No dame, she; a lady of lawdy.

My passage was selected by Ms. Salk from In Memoriam I wrote in the NYSD about CZ's death ten years ago this coming November:

11/10/03 - CZ Guest passed away at the age of 83 on Saturday after a long bout with cancer which she characteristically treated as nothing more than annoying. When she lost her hair from chemotherapy a few years back, this lifelong member of the Best Dressed List simply put on a scarf and went back out into the world, chic as ever. When her hair began to grow back, she sported a new crewcut, which she kept thereafter, and even had the wit to pose for a Nike (or was it Adidas?) ad wearing a sneaker on her new coiff as if to suggest a Mohawk. She was one of the most photographed women of the American 20th century. She was chic and elegant with an aristocrat's irreverence — the quintessential personification of the term "the Beautiful People." She enjoyed publicity which she treated as a kind of soft notoriety. Although, as much as she was willing to be interviewed and to pose for the camera, she claimed it never occurred to her to have "saved" any of the articles or the pictures.  

CZ taking a break in Templeton's pooside pavilion. As the photographer (McDonald) was taking the photo, she told him, "People think this is all I do. Little do they know."

I believed her; you would too You'll see that in this book.

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Balancing Act

From East to West

The latest lottery

Observing the coming Spring

Spring arrives tomorrow

Bright and sunny; and cold

Perp as Jester

Diaries on Early Spring Dog Days

The Final Act of the Astor Saga

Escaping the winds of March

Like magic

Memories

Still Here

The Neighborhood

The Spring social season is now in full flight

Almost, but not quite there ...

Then the rains came

The bloom

In Full Bloom

The great cross section