New York Social Diary - Social Diary

Blue Moon. 12:30 AM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch.

Thursday, August 22, 2013. Very warm, yesterday in New York; and sunny. Traffic was much lighter in midtown. The cabbies told me that it was because everything’s quieting down pre-Labor Day weekend. Next week Michael’s will be closed on Friday.

Yesterday Michael’s was busy but not the chatter/clatter you usually get in the mid-week pandemonium. At Table One, Norah Lawlor was hosting a lunch with Christopher Pape, the editor of The Resident— a local metropolitan paper that is distributed in the residential areas of the city. Also at table was Ernie Anastos, John Shavins and Jonathan Cheban.


	Cheban and Kardashian.

	The watch.

Mr. Anastos has an idea for a new news show, a “positive” news show. He’s had enough bad news. Like the rest of us, no? The question begs: will a new show of “positive” stories change things, or will we just be kidding ourselves?

Mr. Cheban — if his name is sounding familiar but you can’t place it — is a close associate of the Kardashians, the reality-TV tycoons. He made headlines all over the world earlier this week because he was seen in the Hamptons last weekend wearing a gold watch that cost $500,000. (“Positive news”) And someone almost tried to steal it. (Not so positive). Or almost stole it. Or tried. Something.

All this while Mr. Cheban was having a lovely surf ‘n’ turf while lunching at one of the million dollar coffee shops out there. Mr. Cheban’s sartorial splendor, ironically, begins and ends with his half million dollar wrist bling. But that’s the fashion these days: bling ‘n’ blah.

Eye traveling around the room: Gerry Bryne; Jimmy Finkelstein; Joe Armstrong with Patricia Duff; Sanford & Stein; Tom Rogers with Andrea Miller of Your Tango; Bob Barnett; Malcolm Macpherson; Jim Abernathy; Nancy Cardone; Barbara Tober (with this writer); Risa Drabinsky; Peter Gregory; Barry Frey; Katherine Farley with Nicole Seligman; Peter Price with Bob Bradford. Bob’s super-best-selling novelist wife Barbara Taylor Bradford has just handed in her latest manuscript to her publishers in London; Hugh Freund; Elihu Rose; Newell Turner of Hearst; Steven Rubenstein with Peter Lattman, Kelly Langberg; Chris Meigher of Quest; Cindi Berger; David Verklin with Maury Rogoff;Ted Moncrieff with Lynn Hirschberg; Andrew Stein; Rob Weisbach; Neil Lasher; Shelly Palmer; Philippe Salomon.

Today on the NYSD we’re publishing the 27th (and what may be the final) chapter of the great photo archive of Ellen Glendinning Ordway. If you haven’t seen them, and you love vintage photographs of life in American society in the 20th century, do have a look, this is a treasure trove.

Mrs. Ordway was a committed amateur photographer. Over the decades from the late 1920s through the late 1960s, she took thousands of photos of her friends, their houses, their trips, and their parties, and meticulously catalogued them in photo albums.


Bailey's Beach. The President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. September 16, 1962.

Bailey's Beach. John F. "John-John" Kennedy. Jr. Newport. August, 1964.

Each segment represents a photo diary of this woman’s life. It was a life of almost total leisure. Her social circle was wide and international but many members of it were people she knew all her life, even since childhood. That was the basic nature of society in this country.

A Philadelphian who always wintered in Palm Beach where her parents built a house in the early '20s, she married twice. Her second husband Lou Ordway, was son of a founder of 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing).

Life was simple in its leisure. Women openly smoked and drank at table. It was a generation that no doubt had cosmetic surgery although you can see by the faces that the pursuit was less intense so that women looked like themselves rather than many others.

Last week’s edition featured a shot of John F. Kennedy Jr. (known to the world as John-John) as a toddler at Bailey’s Beach Club in Newport. Several editions back, there was a very rare photo of President John F. Kennedy also at Bailey’s Beach wearing nothing but swim trunks – not unusual but unusual to be photographed.

In today’s we meet Nancy Lancaster, the famous British interior decorator who was an (American) niece of Nancy Astor. Mrs. Ordway attends the christening of the little baby Cornelia Guest in Palm Beach. I don’t think Cornelia’s ever seen these pictures, so she’ll be seeing them for the first time on NYSD. There’s the erstwhile famous maestro Thomas Schippers, considered a wunderkind of an orchestra conductor in the 1960s.

Schippers had made his debut at the New York City Opera when he was 21 (1951) and at the Met two years later. Movie star handsome, in his mid-thirties he married the beautiful young heiress, Nonie Phipps (whose parents and their Palm Beach house) are featured in this edition.

Tom Schippers and Nonie Phipps Schippers.

At the outset the Phipps-Schippers was one of the most publicized marriages of the decade. They were a glamorous culture/society couple. Schippers founded the famous Spoleto Festival in Italy with Gian Carlo Menotti. While he was known (in his set) to be gay although it was a time when the subject was never mentioned publicly outside of gay circles. However, Mrs. Schippers died of cancer only eight years after they married, in 1973. Thomas Schippers succumbed to the same cancer four years later.

Also featured in today’s is another popular and young musician and orchestra leader of the day, Peter Duchin who was married to his first wife, Cheray Zauderer.

Peter and Cheray Duchin.

Travel played a big part in the life of leisure that many of Mrs. Ordway’s friends shared. She goes everywhere with them, and with her camera, and doesn’t miss a building or a house or a site that has significance either personally or universally. She visits Lyford Cay in the Bahamas and stays in one of the villas at the Lyford Cay Club. She visits an old friend, a lifelong explorer Suydam Cutting. She goes to Paris and visits the American Ambassador, and to Florence to attend Spoleto. She visits Pompeii and photographs the surviving murals. Estee Lauder invites her to a dinner she is giving for her friends, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (black tie).

Unintentionally Mrs. Ordway became, in retrospect, an excellent photo-diarist of an age (early to mid-20th century America). Hers was a world of one and two degrees of separation for the rich, the powerful and the celebrated. The leisure class lived comfortably and well, even grandly at times. But it was not notable for its extravagance.

Miss Bey, Cornelia Guest, Woolworth "Wooly" Donahue, and his fourth wife, former Super Circus star Mary Hartline Carlson Donahue.

There was a code of behavior that the entire country, all social strata, lived by. Sunday dinner at the family dinner table, for example; also the perfunctory courtesy in one-to-one public relationships; the dress code for men and for women, and for children. It rendered a more conforming world but one that was safer than today’s.

People didn’t lock their doors (not all people of course), no matter where they lived. No doubt in Palm Beach, there was definite security for certain families, but back then Palm Beach was not unlike many small towns across America where “security” meant money in the bank and enough to cover your rent forever. People owned guns but no one talked about it. Many were neurotic and unhappy with whatever troubled them, but there were far fewer prescription drugs, so behavior was key to everyone’s daily life.

Ellen Glendinning Frazer Ordway demonstrates these realities of 20th century American life in her great archive.

Ellen Glendinning Ordway's photographs are from the Gayle Abrams Collection.

Contact DPC here.

Tiger Woods and downtown Manhattan at The Barclays Championship in Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, NJ. Sunday, 5:40 PM.

Monday, August 26, 2013. It was another beautiful weekend in New York, and expected to remain such as we enter what is ostensibly the last week of Summer of many Americans.

On Saturday I got the Mini out of the garage, put the top down, made the Zabar's run, and then drove down to 28th Street (between 7th and 8th) for what seems to be left of the Flower District (there’s probably more that I don’t know about).

We’re not allowed to have “gardens” on our terraces anymore because of the newly laid terrace flooring, so I bought a few houseplants that I can take inside when the weather cools. You can get good buys in the District. The large fern, for example, was fifteen bucks. Twelve for the smaller one, and four bucks each for the flowering plants that look like impatiens.

The city streets were sparsely trafficked. I was surprised to look up at the Empire State from such a close view (on East 35th Street). It looks more massive than tall. And of course, there is the inevitable new construction going on.

Driving home, up Park Avenue, there is a wonderful new exhibition of metal sculptures by artist Albert Paley. This one piece is on the southern side of the intersection of Park Avenue and East 57th Street.

The city is really beautiful on these summer weekend days. There are still lots of people out but the pace is more relaxed and so is the traffic. You have time to look around you, and can see that people are enjoying themselves just being here.

The Empire State doesn't looks so tall as much as massive from this view one block north and two blocks east.

One of those amazing construction cranes in front of a new building on East 28th Street.

The building close up with only part of its facade in place.

Albert Paley's sculpture on the southern side of East 57th Street and Park Avenue.

I stopped by Crawford Doyle bookstore on Madison between 81st and 82nd on my way home, and picked up “This Town” (“Two Parties and a Funeral plus plenty of valet parking! In America’s Gilded Capital”) by Mark Leibovich who is the Chief National Correspondent of the New York Times Magazine.

Leibovich has been on the case for sometime. He knows of which he speaks. He begins his book with the memorial service five years ago for Meet The Press moderator Tim Russert which was held at the Kennedy Center.


Click to orderThis Town.

The author’s focus (which seemed to be the focus for those attending) was on who was present. Celebrity funerals are not unfamiliar to me here in New York (and the occasional one in Hollywood/Beverly Hills). They are spectator sports as much as memorials in (not all but) many cases – the opportunity to see and be seen by those who are working the scene on one level or another.

Russert’s memorial was especially lively with the aforementioned because Tim Russert was a pivotal power point in the scheme of things. So the whole town (meaning the high mucky-mucks and their their lords and ladies in waiting) turned out including former President Clinton and his wife, Hillary, then soon-to-be Secretary of State.

Leibovich takes us through the inventory of “mourners,” describes the service, and explains the politics of such gatherings. He uses the event as a launchpad for his view of our nation’s capital today, and those who inhabit it and play in its fields of plenty – all provided ultimately by the likes of You and Me, Us Humble Taxpayers.

You can get the feeling reading this book that Y&MUHTs are really quite irrelevant to most of these characters who are on the take in a variety of ways. It’s nothing new. It’s like Wall Street, it’s like Hollywood, it’s like High School (but so is just about everything else in the power structures of contemporary America): it’s business as usual.

There is something kind of rotten about the way the nation’s business seems to be conducted where lobbyists grossed several billion dollars last year influencing our elected “representatives, etc.” for their clients which seem to be, in one form or another, corporate America and not the American people.

It is especially unctuous (to put it kindly) when we (the People – remember?) are constantly being told when discussing the Federal budget that we’re overlarded with Entitlement Programs which many American citizens allegedly (according to politicians) cheat.

Leibovich writes, describing the playing field as:

“A multilateral conga line of potential business partners… The biggest shift in Washington over the last forty or so years has been the arrival of Big Money and politics as an industry. The old Washington was certainly saturated with politics, but it was smaller and more disjointed.

“Over the last dozen years, corporate America (much of it Wall Street) has tripled the amount of money it has spent on lobbying and public affairs consulting in D.C. Relatively new businesses such as the Glover Park Group, founded by three former Clinton and Gore advisers – provide “integrated services” that include lobbying, public relations, and corporate and campaign consulting. “Politics” has become a full-grown and dynamic industry, a self-sustaining weather system all its own And so much of its energy is directed inwards.

Mark Leibovich (second from left) with Sen. Tom Harkin. (Photo By Tom Williams/Roll Call)

None of this is unfamiliar in this Age of Me, Myself, and I, and it is clear that the matter is Bigger Than All of Us. It is galling when you read the use of the word “patriot” when in many cases it’s more like “scammer.” Leibovich’s account is forthright and rarely does he pull his (often gentle) punches. But it is depressing because you realize there is nothing you can do about it. It is, to borrow from Mr. Trollope “The Way We Live Now.” Media plays a big part in all of it these days (hence the turnout for Mr. Russert’s memorial) and no small part of it seems to be dancing bears proffering bread and circuses. Not to mention Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.


	Victoria Eugenia Fernandez de Cordobo y Fernandez de Henestrosa, the 18th Duchess of Medinaceli, born April 16, 1917, died August 13th.

Meanwhile, it’s been a while since we’ve published one of those great obits from the Daily Telegraph of London, but this past week there was this one – someone I’d never heard of, and possibly you’ve never heard of either – a life very different from what most (although not all) of us know. A long life, surely full of extraordinary dramas at times, and one of great, great privilege – the kind some of those entrepreneurs in our nation’s capital might even be awed by.

From the Daily Telegraph of London:

The 18th Duchess of Medinaceli, who has died aged 96, was nine times a duchess, 18 times a marchioness, 19 times a countess, four times a viscountess and 14 times a grandee of Spain — as well as head of a family whose members included three saints and two Popes.

She inherited her titles in her own right on her father’s death in 1956, and could not remember how many castles she owned in her native Spain; her best guess was between 90 and 100.

On one occasion she was browsing through the pages of a magazine when a picture of camellias growing in the grounds of a beautiful castle in northwest Spain caught her eye. On reading the caption she discovered to her surprise that the Palace of Oca, in Galicia, and the camellias, belonged to her.

She did not, however, neglect her heritage, and in 1980 established the Ducal House of Medinaceli Foundation to manage and conserve the family’s property and historic assets scattered across nearly all the Spanish regions.


The Duchess of Medinaceli.

Her cousin, the Duchess of Alba in her youth.

The Duchess of Alba at her recent wedding.

The Duchess should, perhaps, have earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the most titled human being on earth, but instead the accolade went to her colourful cousin, Cayetana, Duchess of Alba — a woman known for her valiant efforts to hold back the depredations of time with cosmetic surgery. It is said that when the publicity-shy Duchess of Medinaceli discovered that she was to be listed in the popular reference work, alongside assorted freaks and daredevils, she petitioned the king to be allowed to pass on 17 of her titles to her sons.

She felt that the Duchess of Alba, “with her English blood” (the Albas are directly descended from the Duke of Berwick, the illegitimate son of James II by Arabella Churchill, sister of the Duke of Marlborough), would enjoy the publicity.

Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba y Fernández de Henestrosa was born in Madrid on April 16 1917, the eldest daughter of Don Luis Jesús Fernández de Córdoba y Salabert, 17th Duke of Medinaceli, and Doña Ana María Fernández de Henestrosa y Gayoso de los Cobos. The Dukedom of Medinaceli, one of the oldest in Spain, had been created in 1479 by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella for Luis de la Cerda y de la Vega, Count of Medinaceli.

In keeping with her illustrious ancestry, Doña Victoria was baptised at the Royal Palace, with King Alfonso XIII and his wife Queen Victoria Eugenia (after whom she was named) as godparents. Before she succeeded to the Medinaceli titles, Doña Victoria was known as the 16th Duchess of Alcalá de los Gazules, a courtesy title granted by her father.

On her 14th birthday, following the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, she and her mother, grandmother and sister left Spain on the same train that carried Queen Victoria Eugenia and her children into exile. Her father left with the King.

In 1937, however, the family returned to Spain, to the beautiful Casa de Pilatos, the family’s main residence in Seville, which had fallen to Francoist forces in the first months of the Civil War the previous year. In 1938 she married Don Rafael de Medina y Vilallonga, son of the second son of the 4th Marquis of Esquivel.

The Duchess and her husband had four children, and as well as working to protect the family heritage she devoted herself to cultural, social and educational projects.

After her husband’s death in 1992, the Duchess’s later years were overshadowed by a scandal involving the second of her three sons, Rafael Medina y Fernandez de Cordoba, Duke of Feria, who in 1994 was sentenced to 18 years in prison for kidnapping a five-year-old girl and bathing and photographing her in the nude, as well as for drug trafficking and corruption of minors.


	Casa de Pilatos, main courtyard.

The trial, which received widespread coverage in the Spanish media, highlighted the Duke’s sexual perversions, his cocaine addiction, his life in the Seville underworld, his failed marriage to a model, and his childhood, allegedly devoid of maternal love.

The sentence was subsequently reduced on appeal, and in 1998 the Duke was released on parole. In 2001 he was reported to have died of natural causes, aged 58.

The Duchess’s eldest son, Don Luis de Medina y Fernández de Córdoba, 9th Duke of Santisteban del Puerto, predeceased her in 2011, as did her daughter and eldest child, Ana, who died last year.

She is survived by her youngest son, Don Ignacio de Medina y Fernández de Córdoba, 19th Duke of Segorbe, second husband of Princess Maria da Gloria d’Orléans-Braganza. Marco von Hohenlohe y Medina (Prince Marco of Hohenlohe-Langenburg), the son of her daughter Ana, born in 1962, succeeds as the 19th Duke of Medinaceli.

The 18th Duchess of Medinaceli, born April 16 1917, died August 18 2013

Contact DPC here.

Looking across the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir to the East Side. 5:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Thursday, August 29, 2013. Warm, somewhat humid, overcast and sometimes thundershowers, yesterday in New York.

I went down to Michael’s for lunch. Wednesday, the day and it was unusually quiet with none of the high decibel chatter that we usually get at Michael’s on any weekday, and even more on Wednesdays. Although very pleasant. The town’s deserted. Not so, of course, because this is New York – but there is a certain professional socio-economic element that has gone quiet anticipating this coming weekend, the Last of Summer.

I caught a cab home and quickly fell into conversation with the driver who told me when he picked me up at three that he was taking the cab back to the garage and heading home after he dropped me off. I asked him about business this week. “Quiet, very quiet,” he said. All August was, for him, unusually quiet. I’d been thinking the same thing but wasn’t sure it was just my perception. “Business is off 30%,” the cabbie told me.

Waiting out the rain in the rain in Central Park. Photo: JH.

Summertime in Manhattan is always quieter on the social scene because many depart for the resort climes of the Hamptons, Newport, the Adirondacks, Aspen. That’s not the majority of New Yorkers, but it is a large enough demographic that it shows up on the Upper East Side, Fifth Avenue, midtown.

Stops along the way; degrees of separation. Last night a friend sent me an email about having just seen the latest issue of Quest, and felt compelled to tell me how good it looked and how interesting the read. The August issue is the Annual Quest 400 List, and it’s mainly a List. We all love lists, admit it. They’re mindlessly interesting and easily dispensed with. And although they count for nothing in reality, we still assign them some odd kind of demi-authority.


	Gloria Braggiotti Etting, painted by her artist husband Emlen Etting, circa 1960.

This one I started nineteen years ago in Quest one month when I didn’t have or couldn’t think of anything to write about. I’d recently written a biographical piece on Vincent Astor, hence the “400” lists (which his grandmother the Mrs. Astor started back in the 19th century). Why not a new one, I thought. And so it was.

It all led me to considering those early days at Quest which I first wrote for twenty years ago this past March. The first assignment came about serendipitously. I was introduced to Quest’s founder and then owner, Heather Cohane at a cocktail party at the Chanel store one autumn weeknight in 1992. I complimented her on the magazine’s social histories and told her how Larry Ashmead, an executive editor at HarperCollins, used to send me copies when I lived in Los Angeles. I also told her we had a mutual friend, a woman named Gloria Etting who lived in Philadelphia. In hearing her name, Heather said, “oh I love Gloria. I’d love a story on her, would you like to write it?”

That question, in retrospect was a seminal question in my life and my future. I didn’t know that at the time, of course.

“Living proof that charm and experience will always matter more than money” was the headline in the completed piece.

Gloria Etting, who lived in Philadelphia most of her adult life, was brought up in Boston, one of several children of the socially well-connected (internationally) Italian family named Braggiotti.

The layout in Quest, March 1993 of the piece I wrote about Gloria Etting.

I met her in Los Angeles in the late 1980s, and we became friends almost instantly. She was a woman who easily befriended people everywhere she went, and she particularly liked gay men. Ragazzi she called them affectionately, a term that Italians use for "kids." It so happened that her husband was also gay. From what I came to learn in knowing her, it was a terrible marriage emotionally but she stuck it out. Her sister Francesca married John Lodge who was a movie actor and then became Governor of Connecticut. His brother was Henry Cabot Lodge.

Gloria grew up with the Cushing Sisters (later Babe Paley, Betsey Whitney and Minnie Astor Fosburgh) in Boston where their father was the distinguished neurosurgeon Dr. Harvey Cushing. Gloria was a lifelong friend of the sisters, especially of Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney.

I think at the end of her life Betsey must have helped Gloria out financially because she was admittedly beholden to her. Although Gloria was also a naturally loyal friend. Therefore she could not talk to me about the Cushing sisters when I was working on a book about them. Although she once did tell me that "those girls did what they had to do."


Douglas Cooper and his adopted son, Billy McCarty-Cooper at Gloria and Emlen's summer house in Loveladies, New Jersey.

I first met Gloria at Billy McCarty-Cooper's house on Oriole Drive, in the Hollywood Hills overlooking West L.A. A fabulous L.A. house. It was built by a man named Peter Panaker who built several houses of the same layout/design. David Niven Jr. lives in the last one Peter built. This one of Billy’s was his biggest. It had a lap pool that ran the width of the house and extended into the master bedroom so that its master coud wake himself up with a few laps.

Billy had inherited almost all of Douglas Cooper's vast, premiere Cubist art collection. He sold a good portion of it on Cooper's death to Leonard Lauder for then a great price of around $26 million in the 1980s. That figure is arguable, but it was up there. It is the core of the great Lauder collection that he's giving to the Met.

Anyway, Gloria and I became friends in a pleasant but most casual way. I learned that she was one of those people who had a knack for befriending a great variety of people – artists, writers, actors, social people. The list was endless. Henry McIlhenny, Claudette Colbert, Truman Capote, Perry Rathbone, Isamu Noguchi, Isak Dinesen, (Karen Blixen), Jacques Tati, Tennessee Williams, Buckminster Fuller, Alexander Calder, Elizabeth Taylor, Tennessee Williams, Lady Sarah Churchill, George Balanchine, Salvador Dali and Gala, Picasso, Jackie O, Maxime de la Falaise, Martha Graham, as well as scores of people who were part of those different worlds these people occupied. The Philadelphia press wrote after her passing, that she was one “who gathered friends with the kind of passion others have for collecting stamps, art or butterflies.”

When I came to New York from living in Los Angeles, in ’92, we re-connected. I used to go down to Philadelphia to stay with her. Her husband Emlen was there but in his elderly sickbed with the door always closed. Like a ghost, I never saw him, but only knew he lay in the bed behind that door.


	Philip Barry's famous play, then film, "The Philadelphia Story," was based on the life of Hope Montgomery Scott of Ardrosson in Villanova, Pennsylvania.

They lived in a three story brick townhouse (with brick sidewalks) on Panama Street in the section known as The City. Gloria, then in her mid-70s, entertained at dinner parties frequently. There was a very active, entirely social life among her crowd. They all traveled frequently, many kept other houses in other climates. They had lifelong friends but welcomed the newcomers. They lived lives of leisure and lives of work. One of Gloria’s best friends down there was a woman named Hope Scott.

Hope Montgomery Scott was the model Philip Barry used for his Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story, the film that cemented Katharine Hepburn’s career in the pantheon of filmdom. Hope was in her late 80s when we met at a dinner one night at Gloria's. She had a disarming personality. A small, wiry woman, forthright in introducing herself, enthusiastically engaging, eyes almost twinkling in expressing her curiosity.

After that meeting she immediately started writing me -- befriending me. They were short notes to keep in touch. I was flattered and amazed by her energy. She was mainly a horsewoman who grew up on a huge estate, Ardrosson, built by her father on the Mainline with a house and outer buildings designed by Horace Trumbauer in the beginning of the 20th century.

Hope Scott in 1929.

Hepburn playing her a decade later in "The Philadelphia Story."

Hope, who was born in 1904, grew up in that house and on that property that is still there and famous. She had an effervescent personality that was still girlish (but not coquettish) at that late age, and a genuine liking of people. She also loved to gossip (almost on the edge of laughter in her telling). She was used to extra-marital affairs. She told me although she always loved her husband Edgar (who was still alive then too), she had had a few affairs including one with Jock Whitney, Betsey Whitney’s husband (before they were married). She thought it was all a hoot.

One night at dinner at her house (a smaller house on the property) I was surprised that the table napkins spread out on your lap were like smaller tablecloths -- enormous. They were ivory colored linen and they had a monogram in the same shade woven into the center.

I remarked about it to Hope: These are the biggest napkins I've ever seen, where do they come from?

An aerial view of the main house on the 1000-acre Ardrosson estate and the 38,000 square foot main house wtih surrunding stables and garages.

The entrance court to the house. It was said that when Hollywood was planning "The Philadelphia Story" they visited "Tracy Lord's" (Hope Scott's) house and found it so much bigger than their own model. Horace Trumbauer designed and built the house and it was decorated by Allom of Paris, then the leading decorators for the rich of that day. One designer remarked: "Think Buckingham Palace."

Ardrosson rear facade and interiors.

She said: “My grandmother bought them on her honeymoon in Paris in 1861.” It was 130 years later and they were like new. After the dinner, she asked me to go into the kitchen to thank her cook “because she feels I don’t appreciate her enough, so just tell her how wonderful her dinner was!” Which I did. The cook was a much older lady, although most likely younger than Hope. She was washing the pots and pans when I went in. I introduced myself and thanked her. She thanked me and almost blushed with the compliment.

Hope was such a number that it makes me laugh to just hear her friendly voice in my mind's ear today. Gloria Etting, true to her character suggested I do a biographical piece on Hope whom she thought was one of the most wonderful women she ever met.

Alas I never did. She died only a couple years after we met. She died at 91. One afternoon she was in her stables when she was accidentally kicked by a horse she was tending to. It hurt and she shortly went back to her house and to her bedroom to rest, and get over the slam. And she died.

Hope show jumping in 1940.

Hope rides the bull.

Billy McCarty-Cooper died in 1990, of AIDS. He had come into Gloria’s life when he was a student at Penn. Somehow he ended up being invited to her dinner table. It was there that he met a man named Henry McIlhenny, a very well known Philadelphia art collector and socialite. It was through Henry that Billy met John Galliher, an international social man about town. Johnny Galliher introducd Billy to Douglas Cooper, the aforementioned Cubist art collector. Cooper, who was thirty or forty years older than Billy, eventually adopted him and made him his sole heir.

When Billy died – only a decade after Cooper – he left both Gloria and John Galliher annuities of $50,000 a year for the rest of their lives, explaining that it was their friendships that made his life possible.

The man dancing with young Hope (circa 1930) is "Bertie," the 10th Duke of Marlborough, father of Gloria's friend Lady Sarah Churchill, and her brother "Sunny," the 11th Duke.

Emlen Etting died in 1993. Gloria, then in her mid-80s, met a man about her age, an Italian – a real Italian, from Italy – more a working class man than Etting in his presence, although possibly a professional. He was not gay. And he was quite bossy with her, although she didn't seem to mind. She seemed happy to have him. She sold the house in Philadelphia and moved to Sicily with him. I never saw her again. She died at 94 in 2005.

Gloria was my start as a social reporter in New York. She was a lovely woman, very kindly with a kind of rusty voice and a noble head and sad eyes. Very Italian looking. And elegant. Once I was having some pasta she'd made for me in her kitchen. When she served it, I asked if I could have a large spoon to go with my fork. She sat down with me as I began to eat. When I picked up the spoon to gather the pasta with my fork, Gloria remarked offhandedly in her kind, rusty voice and gentle tone, "It's not chic to use a spoon."

I loved that. I never used a spoon again. It's not chic. Gloria took photographs like Ellen Ordway whom she must have known because they traveled in the same world, although Gloria was a Roosevelt Democrat. Gloria had lots of photos she took of the Cushings Sisters at Hyde Park with all the Roosevelts. (circa 1935). All very homey and casual. Black and White. She took pictures all her life and kept them organized. The year that we met, she published a book of them, “By The Way,” with an introduction by Philadelphia Museum of Art director, Anne d’Harnoncourt. The subject is several hundred of Gloria’s closest friends, as well as others she met on her travels across the world.

Contact DPC here.

A man and his dog. 3:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, September 2, 2013. The end of the last long weekend of the Summer. Sunday was off and on overcast in New York. I was up in Connecticut where they got torrents of rain in the late afternoon as we were driving back to the City where it remained dry as a bone.

NYSD readers may have seen the two re-runs from Ellen Glendinning Frazer Ordway’s great collection of personal photographs taken between the late 1920s through the 1960s this past Friday (edited and organized beautifully by Augustus Mayhew). This great collection is one of the rare personal documents of the history of American society in the 20th century. As it was accumulated purely as a personal hobby, to which Mrs. Ordway was devoted all her life, it achieved a rare sort of authenticity.

This past, Saturday, the day after we ran it, we received a message from a reader that one of the women who often appears in Mrs. Ordway’s photos, Lucille Balcom -- always known to her friends and family as Lulu -- had died last Thursday afternoon at her summer home on Fisher’s Island at the age of 100, only two months from her 101st birthday.

Lulu and Ronald Balcom.

Mrs. Balcom was born Louise Parsons in Montclair, New Jersey on November 1, 1912. Her father J. Lester Parsons founded the international re-insurance firm of Crum & Forster in 1896.

Lulu grew up on the family estate in Orange, New Jersey and attended Miss Porter’s in Farmington Connecticut. When she was 23, in 1935, she married her first husband, George Vanderbilt, the son of Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Sr. who had died in 1915 in the sinking of the Luisitania, and Margaret Emerson who was widely known as the “Bromo-Seltzer” heiress. The Vanderbilts had one daughter, also named Lucille.

Fifteen years later in 1950, the Vanderbilts divorced and Lulu married Ronald Bush Balcom, a champion skier who had previous attained celebrity when he married Standard Oil heiress Millicent Rogers.

Reggie Boardman and Lulu Balcom, 1960. "I remember Ellen and Lou, they were our close friends," recalled Mrs. Balcom when Augustus Mayhew spoke with her recently in Palm Beach.

Mrs. Balcom was herself an excellent skier and the couple – known to their friends as Ronnie and Lulu, lived in Palm Beach in winter and Fishers Island in summer, spending as much time as they could skiing in Klosters, Switzerland and Vail, Colorado. Mr. Balcom died in 1994.

Mrs. Balcom was also an avid golfer and often wore a round gold pendant with 19 small diamonds marking the “Hole In Ones” that she made in her lifetime, the first of which she made when she was 16.

Lulu Balcom's birthday party, October 1960: Lulu Balcom, Ronald Balcom, and Court Reventlow.

Lou Ordway's birthday dinner, December 2, 1960: Lou Ordway, Lulu Balcom, and Jack Stearns.

Lulu Balcom's birthday party. November 1, 1961, Palm Beach.

She and her sister, Emily Parson Ridgeway, who is now 103, and lives in New Jersey, have belonged to the Everglades and Bath and Tennis clubs longer then anyone in history.

Mrs. Balcom was also a talented artist, well known for her unique, primitive paintings. Most of her original works depict scenes from the Caribbean and New England. Her greatest love in life was traveling, and there were few places in the world she had not been. Like her friend Ellen Ordway she too accumulated a huge collection of leather bound books documenting her life in photographs.

Christmas card, 1961. Chalet Aurora, Klosters. Lulu and Ron Balcom.

Her friends remember Lulu Balcom as a fascinating lovely woman, kind and gracious, beautiful and chic, and liked by everyone she met, to the very end.

Besides her sister, she is survived by her daughter Lucille Vanderbilt Pate, two grandsons, Phillip V. Brady and Robert M. Balding, and granddaughter Dawn B. Pate. She is also survived by four great-granddaughters Allston Pate, Emerson Pate, Margaret Balding and Sara Balding, all of Georgetown, South Carolina. In addition, she is survived by her sister Emily Parsons Ridgway of Short Hills, and a step-sister Mrs. Horace Bailey. Mrs. Ridgeway, known as “Queeny” all her life, is now 103.

Lulu, Chocomount, Fishers Island, July 1962.

Lulu Balcom and George Coleman, Palm Beach, October 1962.

SS United States advertisement, LIFE magazine. Lulu and Ron Balcom with Mrs. André Embiricos aboard the SS United States.

Lulu Balcom's birthday dinner, Palm Beach, November, 1963.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you donate to the Island Health Project, PO Box 344, Fishers Island, NY 06390.

Ellen Ordway's photographs are from the Collection of
Gayle Abrams©.

Contact DPC here.

Enjoying the last sense of summer in Central Park. 4:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Thursday, September 5, 2013. It was a beautiful, late Summer day, yesterday in New York, and if traffic is any indication, the summer people are back in town. The place was bustling.

Museums were in the news.Lewis Kruger, Chairman of the Board of the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), announced yesterday that Dr. Glenn Adamson has been appointed as the museum's new Nanette L. Laitman Director. Adamson, who comes to MAD from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London, succeeds Holly Hotchner, who stepped down at the end of April. The new Director will assume his role officially October 15th.

Mr. Adamson is among the most prominent and respected voices in the field of applied arts and design. At present he’s been leading the V&A's Research Department, a unique cross-disciplinary department that oversees, assesses, and supports the development of museum projects. He helped initiate and shape major exhibitions, managed partnerships with museums and universities, and led academic fundraising. He was also a contributor to the V&A's publications, educational programming, media relations, and commercial activities.

Dr. Glenn Adamson, Museum of Arts and Design's new Nanette L. Laitman Director.

Mr. Adamson has published several books including The Invention of Craft (V&A, Bloomsbury, 2013), The Craft Reader (Berg, 2010), Thinking Through Craft (V&A, Berg, 2007), and is a founding co-editor of the Journal of Modern Craft, a peer-reviewed academic journal.

The Museum of Arts and Design, which occupies the Edward Durrell Stone building on Columbus Circle is one of the most interesting and visionary museums in the city. One’s interest cannot be determined until it is seen. Some of the crafts/objects that have been featured in its exhibitions, besides fascinating both adults and children on many levels, have become important mainstream objects of collection.

Yesterday was also the official unofficial opening of the autumn social season in New York with a benefit luncheon for another museum-related project. It was the Couture Council of the Museum at FIT’s 8th annual benefit luncheon on the Promenade of the David Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.

Arriving at the Promenade of the David Koch Theater for the 8th annual Couture Council luncheon that now traditionally opens Fashion Week in New York.

The luncheon now officially and unofficially opens Fashion Week which is centered right next door in the big Mercedes Benz venue set up in Lincoln Center between the Koch Theater and the Metropolitan Opera House.

The Couture Council, formed in 2004, is the brainchild of the museum’s director Dr. Valerie Steele to develop support for the museum. Shortly thereafter Liz Peek, then a museum board member had the idea of staging an awards luncheon to raise funds for the museum’s work.

Diana Taylor and Valerie Steele.

Liz Peek and Fe Fendi.

The first luncheon was held in 2006 at the Brasserie 8 1/2 , the popular restaurant on the subterranean level of 9 West 57th Street, just off Fifth Avenue. It was a small affair, comparatively, but it was a hit.

The following year someone had the bright idea of moving it over to Lincoln Center. A couple hundred guests were invited, and a tradition was established.

An Award for Artistry of Fashion was created to be bestowed annually. In the ensuing years the award has been presented to Karl Lagerfeld, Oscar de la Renta, Albert Elbaz, Valentino, this year to Michael Kors.

The video press on the first balcony, taking it all in.

With the event’s success, the Couture Council, now with a membership of more than 100 women, is dedicated to supporting the Museum which is a highly specialized museum of fashion -- and destined to become the greatest in the world. In the last half dozen years it has gained greater prominence and become a very effective fundraiser for the museum.

The Council helps make it possible for the museum to mount world class exhibitions of fashion, to acquire important objects for its permanent collection, and to organize public programs, such as the annual fashion symposium.

Aerin Lauder and Michael Kors.

Michael Kors busses Patti Hansen.

Iman, Kors, and Patti Hansen posing for the photos ...

The luncheon itself brings out the largest crowd of fashionable women and tastemakers in the city with a synergy that enhances Fashion Week. It has also helped build the Council’s board, attracting a membership of women who organize private tours and gatherings with leading designers, providing opportunity for a behind-the-scene look at New York fashion.

The luncheon begins with a reception at 11:30, with guests sitting for lunch officially at noon (it’s more like 12:45 whatwith the hundreds of guests, corps of photographers, milling about).

Yaz Hernandez, Marjorie Reed Gordon, and Sharon Handler.

Simon Doonan, Yaz Hernandez, Sharon Handler, and Marjorie Reed Gordon.

This year’s luncheon Chairs were Kamie Lightburn and Jieun Wax. Among the guests attending were:Lauren duPont, Linda Fargo, Vanessa Getty, Patti Hansen, Iman, Karolína Kurková, Aerin Lauder, Sandra Lee, Crystal Lourd, Alexandra Richards, Theodora Richards, Renee Rockefeller, Jamie Tisch, Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis, Elettra Wiedemann, and Anna Wintour.

After opening remarks by co-chairs Lightburn and Wax welcoming guests, Dr. Valerie Steele took the podium, telling guests, “Everytime you see one of Michael’s advertisements, you just want to BE that woman – so chic, so glamoroius, jet-setting around the world in her sunglasses, and in the company of a handsome, glamorous man. So thank you Michael, for all you do for the women of the world.

Dr. Joyce Brown, president of FIT then announced the 2013 Michael Kors Scholarship winner, third-semester student Kim Nguyen, and thanked Kors for his support of FIT. The scholarship includes time studying in Europe, which as Dr. Brown pointed out, Michael Kors believes is immeasurably important to the development of a successful fashion designer. Then Liz Peek introduced Hilary Swank, who presented the Artistry Award to Michael Kors.

Hilary Swank.

Kamie Lightburn and Jieun Wax, this year's luncheon chairs.

Mr. Kors, who is enthusiastically forthright and frank about himself, reminisced briefly about his time as a student at FIT, including what he thought of fashion design before he entered, and what he learned (to the contrary). He amusingly described the variety of clothes/costumes he wore as a design student, poking fun at some of his outlandishness get-ups, and pointing out that all good things can come out of that for a designer’s development.

He was grateful to be feted and to receive the award. The hundreds of women in the audence returned his gratitude by wearing his designs to the luncheon. So in all of the pictures we’re running, you’re seeing mainly the work of Michael Kors.

Michael Kors with Dr. Joyce Brown, president of FIT.

Hilary Swank and Michael Kors.

Hilary Swank, Kim Nguyen, Michael Kors, and Anna Wintour.

After the presentation was concluded and the photographers had their moment to catch Kors with his award and his admirers (such as Hilary Swank), Yaz Hernandez, the current Chairman of the Couture Council, also in a Michael Kors and also wearing (like Kors) dark glasses, toasted the guests and held the drawing for the raffle (a ticket was in every placement envelope) – Asprey’s Life Ring of yellow and white gold rope. Then Ms. Hernandez thanked the guests for their attending and their support.

The luncheon’s menu began with a chilled sweet pea tarragon soup, topped with crispy shallots, buttery croutons, and radish slivers. Main course was a Cobb salad with organic chicken, applewood smoked bacon, and Great Hill blue cheese. The dessert: vanilla, raspberry and chocolate ice cream sundaes and special FIT Couture Council cupcakes were served. Yes. Why not!

Stefano Tonchi, Yaz Hernandez, and Valentín Hernandez.

Amy Fine Collins and Simon Doonan.

Bronson van Wyck and Mark Gilbertson.

Blaine Trump.

Among the guests were: Amsale Aberra, Reem Acra, Marc Anthony, Iris Apfel, Nina Arianda, Fabiola Arias, Glenda Bailey, Dennis Basso, Cathie Black, Andrew Bolton, Hamish Bowles, Geoffrey Bradfield, Mario Buatta, Robin Burns-McNeill, Sharon Bush, Lisa Cashin, Kathryn Chenault, Barbara Cirkva, Suzi Cordish, Christina Davis, John Demsey, Carole Divet Harting, Simon Doonan, Linda Fargo, Fe Fendi, Amy Fine Collins, Joele Frank, Ron Frasch, Nina Garcia, Michele Gerber Klein, Marjorie Reed Gordon, Jamee Gregory, Audrey Gruss, Cornelia Guest and Agnes Gund.

Kamie Lightburn, Liz Peek, and Melissa Mitthoff who traveled from Houston for the luncheon.

The Spring hat (the fashion week is spring).

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff and Eleanora Kennedy.

Wait, there’s more: Sharon Handler Loeb, Patti Hansen, Amanda Hearst, Celia Hegyi, Yaz Hernandez, Judith Hoffman, Iman, Chiu-Ti Jansen, Kimberly Kassel, Mariana Kaufman, Eleanora Kennedy, Coco Kopelman, Karen LeFrak, Leonard Lauder, Alexandra Lebenthal, Larry Leeds, Heather Leeds, Petra Levin, Kamie Lightburn, Jaqui Lividini, Carol Mack, Julie Macklowe, Fern Mallis, Grace Meigher, B. Michael, Gillian Miniter, Natalie Morales, Josie Natori, Liz Peek, John Pomerantz, Ann Rapp, Alexandra Richards, Theodora Richards, Darcy Rigas, Muna Rihani al Nasser, Judith Ripka, Sheryl Schwartz, Pete Scotese, Jean Shafiroff, Nancy Shaw Michelle Smith, Martha Stewart, Hilary Swank, Diana Taylor, Jamie Dr. Annette Rickel, Tisch, Lizzie Tisch, Barbara Tober, Zang Toi, Stefano Tonchi, John Truex, Kay Unger, Bronson van Wyck, Robert Verdi, Jieun Wax, Anna Wintour, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Sarah Wolfe, Whitney Wolfe and Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia.

Now Fashion Week begins. We are fortunate that NYSD’s fashion reports will again come daily from Ellin Saltzman who will deliver the low-down in what she saw in terms you can understand even without seeing.

the Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center after the luncheon.

Walking up Madison Avenue on my way home, I passed the Lisa Perry boutique where the designer was about to launch her Spring collection (tennis anyone?).

Contact DPC here.

Working on The Warwick on 54th and 6th Avenue. 2:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Friday, September 6, 2013. Another beautiful late Summer day, yesterday in New York, with temperatures in the mid-70s and the Sun shining all day. By mid-evening the air had got pleasantly cooler, a tiny reminder that this is the way we’re going.

Summer’s over. That was quick. So many have commented to me about how “fast” it passed. With everybody back in town, I noticed it first thing Tuesday morning -- the sidewalks in front of the apartment buildings were very busy with students and parents heading for first day of school; and the roadway along East End Avenue was jammed once againwith cars and school buses.


	Photo: JH.

Last night was the beginning of the Rosh Hoshanah holiday, and the city was suddenly (sort of) quieter. Not quiet like summertime, but less traffic in midtown. I went to Michael’s to lunch with a friend, and it was also quieter too.

In certain parts of town, however, there is a concentration of crowds for Fashion Week, another kind of religious holiday here in New York.

Today here on NYSD we begin our daily coverage of the shows by Ellin Saltzman. I don’t know if I’ve reported this before but Ellin had a long and notable career in fashion retailing for many years at Saks Fifth Avenue and then Bergdorf Goodman. I asked her to do this coverage for us because I knew she could tell the readers what she actually saw and how she would, or would not apply it.

I don’t know if I ever reported this other nugget, but many years ago before I became a professional writer, I was in the retailing business and owned a couple of off-price designer sportswear boutiques in Westchester and Fairfield Counties. It was a business that I happened into (by choice and chance) in the long, harried days when I was searching for this road I’m on now.

This was back in the 1970s. The clientele was mainly middle and upper-middle income women (everybody likes a bargain), mainly suburban women – many of whom were not “professional” but rather ran their homes and looked after their families.

It was a very prosperous business, and had I had the passion for it – which I did not – I probably could have made something even more prosperous out of it. It so happened that when I was beginning to rake it in, however, I told myself that if I did continue, indeed, and make a substantial income (formerly known as “a lot of money”), I’d never be a writer. So, long story short, I sold my business in the late '70s to a woman who worked for me, and I moved myself and my feline and canine friends to Los Angeles. And so it was.

Photos: JH.

Although I never had the “passion” for the retailing business, I did find it interesting. In a way, it’s not so different from my professional life now – I meet a lot of people and “people” are infinitely interesting to me. In my former business, I learned something about how women choose their clothes. I learned that unlike men, almost all women want to look nice, or good, or smart, or pulled together. Or all of the above. Clothes make the man; they express the woman.

I never learned about women shopping when I was growing up, or when I was married. Both my mother and my wife knew what they liked and got it, and never talked about it. I thought they both had taste and my wife had a great style that I call “easy on the eye.” She loved clothes but never acted like it mattered.

What I learned in my days of retailing was that many women – many many women – are very insecure about their choices. They’re also insecure about the way they look in the clothes they think they’d like. This is a tough one to get over. It is usually about Too Fat or Too Thin, although both extremes seem more frequent and noticeable than ever. Many, no matter their personal issues (which are often exaggerated personally) need guidance – the kind of guidance that lends then some authority even with their whims.

Photo: JH.

I also learned that contrary to the thought that women have lots and lots of clothing, many do not. Sometimes it’s lack of interest. Most times, it’s purely economical. They may have an adequate amount of around-the-house or casual clothing. But for the street items which are often big ticket, most women want to be as economical as possible. A jacket, a skirt, a dress, a blouse, a pair of pants every season, and she’s in business. If she makes her choices carefully, she’s already got a small, smart wardrobe that she can add to or accessorize without worry, and last. Having learned that, I found it easy to sell (although I frankly got bored with selling and spent more of my time at my desk at home writing).

Coincidentally, I had lunch yesterday at Michael’s with a longtime friend, Emilia Saint-Amand. Emilia was a customer of mine back in the day. I still remember when I first met her. She was younger than I although I called her “Mrs.” (and her previous last name), and very pretty, a young mother, and a divorcee.


	Emilia Saint-Amand.

She looked at clothes very carefully. Sometimes I’d tell her if I thought something looked really good or not. Most of the time I just watched as she’d inspect it all in the three way. She always looked great and sporty, which was the style for young women at that time.

She was a very careful shopper. She tells me today that she still has a few items that she bought from me back then. I don’t know if I believe her although she’s not prone to exaggeration or dissembling.

She’s also a great dresser. Yesterday she wore a kind of salmon pink dress to lunch at Michael’s. I don’t know how to describe it, but I have heard that she’s a big client of Oscar’s and so maybe it was Oscar’s. I wouldn’t be surprised because Emilia interprets Oscar with the same certainty that he designs with. I never told her this before but I love walking up Fifth Avenue with her after lunch because I can see all the men and women taking notice, and Emilia’s completely unaware, caught up in whatever the conversation is. I know they’re looking because she looks so great.

I tend to think that ideally, this is what many if not most women would like. It’s not like being a clotheshorse or a fashion plate, it’s just the desire to look like you’re living in the world now, and you’re comfortable with yourself. Even if it doesn't feel so; at the very least, it's a start.

I mention all this because that is how and why I thought to invite Ellin Saltzman to join us here on NYSD during the Fashion Weeks. Ellin, like Emilia, always looks good, looks stylish, looks appropriate, looks confident, and looks attractive. And, as I said, Ellin’s a pro, that line of looks was her business in New York for many years. She knows the customer and her needs. That’s what we want to offer to our many readers who are women.

Contact DPC here.

Street scene, 54th and Sixth Avenue. 2:30 PM. Photo: Jeff Hirsch.

Monday, September 9, 2013. Bright, sunny weekend with slightly cooler nights. A friend of mine coming in from London this morning sent me the following email: “Brrr. Definitely a nip in the air in London.”

No doubt soon to be coming our way too. In the meantime we’re having lovely late Summer days and nights, and no doubt some more hot days around the bend.

I love the upcoming season. It is always exciting and emotionally charged like the first days of school. I love the colors that it brings – although not so much in the city where the leaves turn only at the very end. I love that “nip in the air.”

Looking East at the end of East 83rd Street over the East River on Friday afternoon, 6:45 p.m.

Same time Sunday night looking north up East End Avenue and south down East End 6:50 p.m.

And South and North, same view, 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

Friday I got this catalogue in the mail from Doyle Galleries and their upcoming auction of the Leo Lerman & Gray Foy Collection on September 24th. I like this picture because it gives you the opportunity to see every item clearly. In real life, the room is large and tall and dark Victorian despite the ample (tall) windows. It has a drama, a stage drama, if you will, about it. The entire apartment does. It is not reclusive or dark and foreboding in its feel, as you might expect of a Victorian interior. It is quite cheerful, and possibly because of this “Collection.”


	To learn more: www.doylenewyork.com.

The thousands and thousands of people who came through its doors to attend the hundreds of parties these two men gave down through the decades, must have felt they were in the thick of that great theatrical drama that the rooms refer to.

It began with Leo. He was born in New York, in Queens into a family of ethnic Eastern European immigrants in 1925. All the world outside their door was new to them, and all remained new to the boy who grew up with them.

Leo came of age when the city was possibly at its metropolitan zenith. It was a city of skyscrapers, factories, working class neighborhoods, wealthy neighborhoods, a powerful theatrical (and movie) culture. There were eight or ten dailies. Radio had entered and connected the country “Coast to Coast.” The city’s nightlife was bursting. People went out all the time. They went out to bars, to restaurants, to nightclubs all the time. People saw each other socially all the time – those who had the time and money, because New York was always a city of working people.

When Leo was 26, in 1941, he was offered a job writing for Vogue and other Conde Nast titles. This was when the man himself, Conde Nast was running things. Leo’s previous background was theatre. He had aspired to be an actor. For whatever reason – probably at least having to do with “earning a living,” the move into the magazine world was the golden road for him.

Gray and Leo at the Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, circa 1990.

In those days many New Yorkers held parties. Up in Harlem and also down along the Upper East and West Sides, people held “rent” parties where everybody chipped in something, brought a bottle and host or hostess might raise enough to meet next month’s. Up on Park Avenue and Fifth in the tonier part of town, certain women (and some men) held what today are called salons where people dropped in for cocktails and conversation. If you knew the hostess or host, you knew the days and the times the welcome mat was out, and you just showed up.

This style of socializing was common in the city, and in the smarter salons, you’d meet the world or at least the World According to New York.

Joel Kaye, Gray's husband. The couple married two years ago this past August. Joel grew up in the same building where his father had an apartment when Leo and Gray moved in.

Kaye in front of Duffner & Kimberly Bronze and Leaded Glass Red Poppies Floor Lamp, Circa 1910. Estimate $40,000 - $60,000.

For Leo Lerman, the man in his late 20s, newly arrived in Manhattan from across the bridge, New York, Broadway, nightlife and salons was like having arrived at Oz and finding out it was true. Eventually he rented a small brownstone on Lexington Avenue in the 90s. Today that would cost you millions of dollars. Seventy years ago, the upper 90s was the tip of Manhattan -- at the border of Harlem. There was a line then. There still is now in many ways but in many ways it’s gone and Harlem is having another Renaissance – you can pay millions for a townhouse in Harlem too. The point being, the higher and closer to Harlem, the lower the rents. Smart and clever New Yorkers (along with the working classes with families) rented there. That brownstone might have cost him no more than $150 a month, if that.

It was there where Leo’s real life began. He was by nature a highly sociable person, and a very curious fellow, as well as an ambitiously aspiring New Yorker. Vogue Conde Nast was his ticket to ride and ride it he did – with panache and extreme certainty. In those days Broadway and Hollywood came and mixed with the more exotic socialites, writers, artists, composers, conductors and ballerinas, all at one time, all for a drinks party at Leo’s.

Over the summer, JH and I visted with Joel Kaye and had a look around the apartment and its extensive collection that was in the midst of being dismantled for the purpose of the auction. The desk pictured here is made from an old pianoforte.

The lamp is Tiffany Studios Bronze and Favrile Glass Student Oil Lamp, Late 19th, Early 20th Century. Estimate $15,000 - $20,000.

The auction consists of approximately 600 lots of furniture, decorative arts, paintings, books, photographs and ephemera collected over fifty years for their home in the Osborne.

They knew if they went to Leo’s they were going to meet a good time, a lot of fun, or least something to drink. They drank a lot in those days too – the word alcoholic had yet to come into the parlance. Leo, who was not a celebrity himself, became famous to the famous, and therefore a celebrity in that way.

It was there that the young Gray Foy, a very goodlooking, blond California boy, studying to be an artist, came as a friend of a friend, to one of Leo's parties on Upper Lexington Avenue, sixty or more years ago. Gray never left. Soon it was Leo and Gray always and forever. They were living together, and although this was a couple of decades before Gay Liberation, they were liberated, and it was quite clear to everyone that they lived in a fully domesticated partnership.

And they, the writer and the artist, shared a fondness for collecting ... all kinds of things from tchotchkes and ephemera to antiques, china, silver and great pieces of art. They were inveterate visitors to flea markets and junk shops wherever they went wherever in the world. And from those places closeby and distant, they brought back what became a treasure trove that is displayed (and going to auction September 24th) in this catalogue.

Rustic Style Twig and Branch Etagere, Est. $1,500 - 2,500.

Neoclassical Style Gilt-Iron Eight-Light Chandelier. Est. $1,500 - 2,500.

A view of the main reception room.

More views of the living/reception room.

The dining room.

A series of volcanic eruption paintings including several of Vesuvius.

Looking into the bedroom hallway.

A corner in one of the bedrooms.

The corner of another.

The orignal bathroom.

American Renaissance Revival Walnut Chest of Drawers in the master bedroom. Circa 1870. Est. $500 -- $700.

A bedside table.

The breakfast table.

A ktchen wall bulletin board and impromptu wine cellar.

Leo described it thusly in a letter he wrote on August 28, 1972 to a man named Manuel Gasser in Switzerland about their collection:

“Two decades ago, these objects (furniture, bibelots, lamps, fabrics, books ... everything that could, in a sense, reproduce the past, from about the 1840s until the 1914 war) were quite inexpensive, actually to be found in junk shops, in cellars and in attics. Many visitors to the house, a typical 1870ish New York brownstone on upper, then unfashionable, Lexington Avenue, found the contents funny. Some even thought the Tiffany glass lamps ugly. Nothing in the collection cost much – the kinds of things one generation adores, the next scorns, and some succeeding covets.

“The collections range from horn cups to Staffordshire cottage ornaments to depictions of firework displays to a series of Russian views to Tiffany and other Art Nouveau lamps and glass and furniture to majolica to bucolic and “forest” beast wood carving to Neapolitan gouaches of Vesuvius to toys (especially dolls) to over 15,000 books. There are, literally, hundreds and hundreds of objects, mostly European or American: (glass [bells over]) waxed fruits and flowers and paper construction arrangements, walking sticks, beadwork cushions, Russian lacquer boxes, dozens of paintings of dogs .... And were all collected out of love for the solid past they represent, collected to return the life in these objects to the times in which we live.”

Looking down the stairwell of the Osborne where Lerman and Foy lived. The building began construction in 1883 and was completed in 1885.

A view of the entrance gallery of another apartment on the same floor.

Kaye bids us farewell.

The great Telegraph of London recently published one of their great obituaries of a man named Rochus Misch– unknown to me until reading this, although probably known to many war historians and those who follow military history.

Herr Misch was, as young man, Hitler’s bodyguard and was in the bunker in the final days and hours before the “thousand year Reich” and its creator crumbled to dust in its ashes.

It’s a morbid story but somehow relevant in many ways as is Herr Misch’s life and what (and if) he learned from it.

From The Telegraph.


	Rudolf Misch in 1942.

Rochus Misch, who has died aged 96, worked for five years as Adolf Hitler’s bodyguard, courier, orderly, and finally Chief of Communications, acquiring an intimate insight into the machinations of the Nazi leadership; his recollection suggested that Hitler and Rudolf Hess considered an armistice with Britain in 1941, and that when Hitler rejected the idea Hess flew to Scotland under his own steam.
Ultimately Misch was in charge of the switchboard in the Berlin “Führerbunker”, where Hitler and members of his inner circle met their grisly ends as the Red Army closed in, in 1945. The bodyguard was the last person to leave the bunker, and was a key witness to the macabre events dramatised in Der Untergang (“Downfall”, 2006), Oliver Hirschbiegel’s extraordinary film about the end of the Third Reich.

He recalled how, on April 30 1945, Hitler locked himself in his room with his bride-of-a-day Eva Braun:“Everyone was waiting for the shot. We were expecting it. I had just said to the technicians: 'I’m going over [to Hitler’s office], can I fetch you anything?’ And they said no. Then came the shot. Linge [Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet] took me to one side and we went in. I saw Hitler slumped by the table. I didn’t see any blood on his head. And I saw Eva with her knees drawn up lying next to him on the sofa – wearing a white and blue blouse, with a little collar: just a little thing.”

Misch was also a witness to the grimmest of bunker stories — the murder by Magda Goebbels of her six children. “The children were prepared for their deaths in my work room,” he recalled. “Their mother combed their hair — they were all dressed in white nightshirts — and then she went up with the children. Dr Nauman told me that Dr Ludwig Stumpfegger would give the kids 'candy water’. I realised what was going to happen immediately. I had seen Dr Stumpfegger successfully test poison on Blondi, the Führer’s dog.” Frau Goebbels returned an hour or two later, and without saying a word went to her husband’s room. There, she laid out a game of patience.

Misch then helped to establish a direct line from the Reich Chancellery to Soviet lines, while General Krebs tried to negotiate an armistice. But the Russians demanded unconditional surrender. When the news was brought to the surviving inmates of the bunker, they assembled for a meeting at which Goebbels reminisced about the triumphant early days of Nazism, but made no reference to his family, dead upstairs. “Magda Goebbels just sat there,” Misch recalled, “saying little, head high. She was chain-smoking and sipping champagne.”

All of them knew what was coming. “Goebbels said to me: 'Well, Misch, we knew how to live. Now we know how to die.’ Then he and Frau Goebbels processed arm-in-arm up the stairs to the garden. Soon afterwards somebody called and asked for General Krebs. I connected the line but there was no answer. I went to Krebs’s room and found him and Burgdorf [General Burgdorf, Chief Adjutant] sitting motionless. I first thought they were sleeping.” Both officers were dead.
Though Misch was probably a reliable witness to the facts, he showed none of the remorse or psychological insight that others exhibited when talking about the Nazi era. To Misch, Hitler remained the kind boss who joked with his staff, loved Charlie Chaplin, children and animals and was so considerate towards others that he married Eva Braun the day before their deaths “solely out of consideration for her parents”.

Rochus Misch was born on July 29 1917 in Oppeln, Upper Silesia, in what is now Poland but was then part of Imperial Germany. Orphaned in the First World War, he grew up into a broad-shouldered, though none-too-bright, young man — the ideal recruit for the elite SS Leibstandarte regiment which he joined in 1937.

He served as an Oberscharführer in the Polish campaign of 1939 but was wounded and taken out of active service. While he was recovering Hitler’s office rang his regiment looking for “an honest, reliable fellow” to join the Führer’s team. Misch was recommended.

Misch’s experience sometimes produced tantalising titbits which seemed to run counter to mainstream historical research. When an interviewer asked him about the sort of thing that upset Hitler, for example, Misch recalled seeing him distressed only once — after his deputy Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland in May 1941: “For three days he was very gloomy.”

“Some days before that we were at Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s residence in the Bavarian Alps,” Misch noted. “He was talking to Hess, when somebody brought in a dispatch. The Führer read it and exclaimed: 'I cannot go there and go down on my knees!’ Hess replied: 'I can, my Führer.’ At the time a German diplomat was meeting the Swedish emissary, Count Bernadotte, in Portugal. The British were very active in Lisbon, so I think there might have been some peace offer from London.” At the time, the Nazi regime claimed Hess had gone mad. But the true purpose of his mission to Britain remains unclear, and official British documents relating to it are still classified.


Misch in his garden in Berlin, 2000 (Photo: Christian Jungeblodt).

After the Goebbels met their deaths, Misch was finally free to make a break for home. He managed to make his way to the Friedrichstrasse station, where he ran into Heinz Linge. The two men felt their way through a tunnel under the river Spree: “Through a grating, we saw a group of German soldiers. We couldn’t believe it. We decided to go up and join them. That was it. The soldiers were Red Army prisoners.”

Bar a short period when he was taken back to Germany in 1946 as a witness in the Nuremberg trials, Misch spent the next three years in the Lubyanka. Stalin refused to believe that Hitler was dead, and survivors from the bunker were tortured for evidence about the Führer’s imaginary flight. At one point, Misch wrote to the Soviet secret police chief, Beria, asking to be shot, so unbearable was the torture. Instead, he spent six years in the gulags before being released in 1954 under an amnesty agreed by Khrushchev.

He returned to his two-storey home in the east Berlin suburb of Rudow and to his wife, Gerda, whom he had married in 1942. There he set up a wallpaper and paint business, which he ran until 1983.

Misch remained an uncomfortable reminder of attitudes which many Germans like to believe have been consigned to the history books. In 2005 he was accused of tainting the memories of Holocaust victims after calling for a plaque in memory of the Goebbels children to be placed next to a new Jewish memorial.

After the release of Der Untergang, he was rather pleased to find himself the object of worldwide media attention, and took every opportunity to show interviewers his snapshots of Hitler and Eva Braun in happier days at Berchtesgaden. “It was a good time with Hitler,” he reminisced. “I enjoyed it and I was proud to work for him.”
Misch’s wife died in 1998. They had a daughter, but she broke off all contact with her father.

Rochus Misch, July 29 1917, died September 05 2013

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In the spirit of Fashion Week: Apthorp Cleaners window on Amsterdam Avenue. 7:30 PM. Photo: JH.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013.Twelve years later. Warm, even humid but sunny, yesterday in New York. When you say humid to New Yorkers now, they all think last July. No, not that bad. Weatherman says humid and warm for the next couple of days. Last days of Summer.

It’s Fashion Week, in case you hadn’t heard. There were cocktail parties. Jeff and Liz Peek had their annual “Welcome Back” (that’s not what they call it) cocktail reception at their Park Avenue penthouse. Lots of old friends, many of whom saw each other this past summer – if they were in Nantucket where the Peeks go.

Then a half mile down the avenue Mark and Nina Magowan hosted a book party for their friend Tom Scheerer and his new book by Vendome, “Tom Scherer Decorates.” Then farther down the avenue called Lexington, Jim Hedges, Michael Bruno (creator of “First Dibs”) and Jim Druckman hosted cocktails to celebrate “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” photographs and important works by Andy Warhol at the New York Design Center in the 1st Dibs Gallery at 200 Lex.

Interior designer Tom Scheerer at his book launch last night. Click to order.

Tom's host and hostess Nina and Mark Magowan.

Last night about nine, I took a walk up Madison Avenue with the digital just to see what they’re putting in the windows while across the Park and farther downtown they’re dressing up the models for next Spring and Summer. Both Dennis Basso and Oscar de la Renta– who are represented on Madison Avenue in their own boutiques – had their shows yesterday. You can read about it on Ellin Saltzman’s Fashion Diary today. So did Elie Tahari whom Ellin reviewed. Elie was celebrating his 40th anniversary in the business with his Men’s and Women’s Collection for Spring 2014.

Passing by Restaurant Daniel on 65th Street and Park Avenue, last night on my way to Madison Avenue.

A lot of grey and black in the windows. Some so darkly lit that it was difficult if not impossible to photograph adequately. As it is, the windows’ interior lighting often flood the camera’s image so it is not the best representation of what I was seeing.

The most alluring were the windows of Frette, Pratesi and Yves Delorme. Bedding, linens, pillows, soft, ahhh, Zzzz ..... There were, however, some beautiful things and some fascinating ones. Dolce and Gabanna have harkened back to ancient Rome for their inspiring dresses, skirts and shoes. Louboutin is taking on a little bit of Stubbs & Wooten, although much cozier. Ralph’s little tots can be about the best looking kids (of all ages) in town. Oscar is Oscar, never fails. Prada is Prada. Everyone has handbags, handbags, handbags. Arche had some low-heeled shoes for those who want to move fast and efficiently. Missoni and Pucci are chic and inimitable.

Alice and Olivia.

Theory.

I couldn’t get any photos of the sumptuous jewels that fill the windows along this main thoroughfare for the rich the chic and the shameless during the day. All put away for a good night’s sleep in some place safe and solid.

Madison Avenue is a great walk at the mid-evening hour. There’s no real heavy road traffic and very few pedestrians. It’s simply New York with autumn approaching. Sutton Foster opened last night at the Café Carlyle. The talents back in town too. Clint Holmes comes in October 1st and then Judy Collins returns for her annual visit to the room that Vertes (hand)painted on October 15th, through the 26th. The town’s comin’ around.

Dennis Basso.

Bar Italia.

Rolls Royce parked in front of Bar Italia.

J. Crew.

Derek Lam.

Armani.

Oscar de la Renta.

Luigi Borrelli.

And of course, Michael Kors.

Kate Spade.

Anya HIndmarch, who was last week's lunch interview in the FT.

Tory Burch.

Home with Frette.

Davide Cenci

La Perla.

Max Mara.

Bonpoint.

Lanvin.

Donna Karan.

Valentino.

Dolce & Gabanna.

Pratesi in pink.

Redd Krakoff.

Cesare Paciotti.

Prada.

Juicy Couture.

Tom Ford.

Bottega Veneta.

Asprey.

Pucci.

Celine.

Ralph Lauren for the little ones.

Including the cashmere teddy bears.

And the toddlers.

And the growing up kids.

And the chic ladies.

Calypso.

Milly.

Manrico Cashmere.

Carolina Herrera.

Christian Louboutin.

More Christian Louboutin.

Yuna Powell.

Mid-evening walkies.

Coming to the Cafe Carlyle.

Walking home.

Sandro.

Yves Delorme, welcome ...

Lisa Perry.

Arche.

Intermix.

Vilebrequin.

Missoni.

Michele Negri. And we're at 78th and Madison. Time to pick up some dinner and go home ...

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The Queensboro Bridge. 3:30 PM. Photo: JH.

Thursday, September 12, 2013. Very, very warm and muggy in New York yesterday. You could “see” it, let alone feel it.

It was Wednesday and so it was Michael’s. It was a typical pandemonium of a room, as Wednesday often are. A real “up” day. I sometimes think people are celebrating the day before Thursday which means TGIF.

I was lunching with Vincent Minuto, who has a company called Hampton Domestics whose ads you may have seen (and maybe clicked on) on the NYSD.

DPC and Vincent Minuto of Hampton Domestics at Michael's.

Vincent and I first met about 20 years ago at a party of the late Judy Green. Judy died 12 years ago just three days after the attack on the World Trade Center. She was a great friend to many, including this writer, and also to Vincent who was her caterer at her fabulous New York parties.

She lived above the town at 555 Park Avenue and she loved giving big parties for two or three hundred. The guest list was the most eclectic you’d ever find in New York, at least on the Upper East Side. Bankers, barkers, rockers, real estate moguls, debutante, actors, artists, singers, socialites and people on the hustle. She loved a big different crowd.


	Judy Green, a great friend to many, including this writer, and also to Vincent who was her caterer at her fabulous New York parties.

	A guest at Judy Green's happily partaking in one of Vincent's tea sandwiches.

	Vincent and Judy made sure the bubbly was never far away.

She was a child of New York, a kind of Marjorie Morningstar who grew up on Central Park West and dined and wined on and all over the town. Joie de vivre, it was; and drama too, like behind the scenes with Broadway baby. But always laughter, lotsa laughter. Her many friends still often think of her and her times whenever they pass that building at 62nd and Park. Her idea of a New York cocktail party was the kind us kids dreamed of when growing up out in the boonies. Fun, glamorous, crazy and delicious.

Vincent was her caterer. His greatest specialty for Judy were his cucumber and water cress sandwiches, or “tea sandwiches.” They’d be spread out with everything else on the dining room table and half the crowd would be hanging around gobbling them up like candy. It sounds like an exaggeration, but it was true and still funny to remember.

Vincent and I would run into each other over the years, here in Manhattan, out in the Hamptons where he’s had a house as long as I’ve known him. He’s a low-key kind of guy, a Sicilian from Brooklyn where his father had a business making sports trophies. His brother still runs it, and his mother who is now 83 still works there. When Vincent was a kid he did a lot of the engraving after school.

Vincent loves his work (and he’s got a lot of it); he loves people. He takes everything as it comes, and as a result it’s a charmed life. No doubt he’d think so too.

He attended the Culinary Institute (although he says “cooking isn’t learned, you’re born with it…” He started out as a kid working in the kitchen at “21” and then for a man named Donald Bruce White.

Donald Bruce White (he was always referred to by his three names) was a Broadway actor who had great success as a juvenile but the career cooled off by the time he was an adult. A man who always liked to cook, he fell into catering (a convenient way to grab meal) and turned it into a very successful business here in New York.

White had a roster of clients that still reads like a Who’s Who. Vincent learned the ropes from White and when the opportunity came up to work for Bob Guccione, the founder/publisher of Penthouse, he took it. He worked for Guccione for 17 years, as cook and managing the household staff of eighteen as well as the staff of 12 in the Rhinebeck house.

Besides his work with Guccione he was always taking catering assignments on the side. That business grew and somehow led to him developing another business – Hampton Domestics – placing people in the domestic service business. It’s not something we hear about when it comes to “employment” matters but it’s a thriving business and Vincent is one of the biggest agents in the city, in the Hamptons, in Palm Beach and elsewhere.

A Judy Green affair.

He credits his (what I call) success to his years in the catering business. There isn’t a name in the Social Register, or among the Quest 400, not to mention corporate rosters, who don’t have his phone number.

For years he catered Liz Fondaras’ Bastille Day party at her beach house in East Hampton every July, as well as her dinner parties at her Fifth Avenue apartment.

Liz, who died last year in her 90s, always held the buffet lunch at her poolside and her list of guests ranged from local friends to international celebrities and Washington hotshots. The lure for her guests was of course the hostess and her guest list, but to all who knew her it was Vincent’s buffet – which included those famous tea sandwiches – that drew the flocks.

One of Liz Fondaras’ Bastille Day parties at her beach house in East Hampton.

After Guccione, he went to work for Leona Helmsley at her estate in Greenwich. Helmsley, who died several years ago, was a controversial figure (known as the “queen of mean”) for her meteoric personality. Vincent loved her. When they met, he reminded her that they were first introduced at one of Judy Green’s parties. She didn’t remember. He also told her they came from the same neighborhood in Brooklyn. That was it; he was hired.

He only stayed on for seven months because he missed the action of the city and the Hamptons. “Mrs. Helmsley was a very lonely woman. She told me that having a lot of money made her life complicated and lonely after her husband died,” Vincent recalled.


According to Vincent, Mrs. Helmsley was a very lonely woman.

"Sinatra loved to cook," said Vincent.

Vincent plays the piano. It started when he was a toddler and his parents gave him a toy piano for Christmas. When he was twelve, he’d save enough money to buy a used Baldwin grand for $750. Big big money in those days and especially for a kid. It’s still in his mother’s living room out in Brooklyn. The Hamptons house has one and every Summer he holds recitals for local kids studying piano. At parties, there’s music and singing always.

In summertime business moves out to the Hamptons. His catering clientele run from old Social Register families to hot hedge fund people. Vincent provides the staff, the food and sets it all up. He’s not one to participate in his clients’ parties – as this Diary might be mistakenly conveying. But he sees it all, enjoys what he sees, and thinking of only one thing: making the client happy with what he can deliver. Many of those clients get to know him, just as I did, as a friend because he’s open and kind and quick to laugh.

He talked about the golden days for him in Southampton when both Judy Green and Ann (Mrs. Morton) Downey used to entertain Frank Sinatra. Vincent loved Sinatra. They spoke the same language (different inflection), the boy from Brooklyn, the kid from Bayone. Sinatra had a wicked sense of humor and very quick wit. He loved to cook too and was often in the kitchen kibitzing and checking things out. Laughter abounded.

Nowadays, his best friend out there is Loraine Bracco. “Because she’s totally real.” And then he laughs. “And Joy Behar” who tells him he’s “a gay man in a Mafia don’s body.” More laughter. “I get it,” he explained; “I’m Sicilian.”

I asked him how business was at Hampton Domestics. Not being one to need, let alone afford, domestic staff, I tend to forget anyone might. Very busy in Vincent’s world. He always pays for his quarterly ad in advance (which is always surprising and delightful to receive), because, he told me, his ad in the NYSD has brought him very good luck in business. So he honors that, much to our pleasure.

Our lunch ran into the quiet time at Michael’s when the customers are gone and they’re setting up for the dinner hour. Vincent’s has so many adventures, met so many people, so many different kinds of people -- many of whom are/were famous and celebrated and even notorious -- that this writer was all ears hearing about the stage he works on and the people he loves, no matter who they are. Or were. Joie de vivre; it’s catching.

Two recent job listings on Hampton Domestics.

Meanwhile Michael’s. The joint was jumping. At the table next to mine, Peter Brown, the international P.R. guru was lunching with New York Post’s distinguished theatre critic Michael Riedel. Next to them it was Joe Armstrong, the Mayah of Michael’s with Dave Zinczenko of Men’s Fitness and ABC television as a news correspondent. Behind Brown and Riedel at Table One, ATV Music’s Martin Bandler. Across the way, three of Da Boyz:Michael Kramer, Dr. Gerry Imber and Gerry della Femina; across from them, producer/casting agent Bonnie Timmerman with stage and film producer Fred Zollo; Diane Clehane (our very own Brenda Starr) with Steven Stolman of Scalamandre. Steven, who is assiduously expanding the “brand” of the textiles and fabrics house in to china, flatware, wallpapers, is now writing a book on the long and fascinating life of Scalamandre.

Around the room. Nikki Haskell with Rikki Klieman and Eva Mohr; Desiree Gruber with Marc Graboff, President of NBC Television; Simon & Schuster’s Alice Mayhew and her author, Jennet Conant; Sam Shuman; Sharon Bush and Bettina Zilkha; Michael Mailer; Glenn Horowitz; Nan Talese; Ryan Kavanaugh with Claire Atkinson of the New York Post;Tony Hoyt and Charla Lawhon; Pauline Brown of LVMH with Hamilton South; David Adler, founder of Bizbash.


	Jonathan Alpeyrie.

	One of Jonathan's photographs while in Syria.

More: Jim Friedrich of Empirical Media; Sanford & Stein; Jim Casella of Case Interactive; Michael Del Giudice of Millennium Partners; Newell Turner of Hearst; Richard Descherer; Peter Gregory; Ted Hathway; Jerry Inzerillo; Dan Lufkin; Shelly Palmer; Jake Ottman of Warner Music; Susan Blond; Justin Cauli of Pandora; Tom Prassis of Sony Pictures Classics. Meanwhile, at the bar– the preference for some regulars lunching (they can catch the world walking by) – Kira Semler and Liz Wood (in from DC), and Kim McCarty, wife of the proprietor.

And at the table in the corner, Jack Kliger, President of TV Guide, with a young man who looked like he could have been Kliger’s son. He was dressed very casually in a tee shirt and jeans. My friend/Brenda, Diane Clehane scooped me on this but it’s worth repeating no matter. The young man is the son of a friend of Kliger’s.

His name was Jonathan Alpeyrie. Kliger referred to him as a combat photographer who, on his third trip to Syria, was abducted at gunpoint by masked men at a checkpoint near Damascus. He was held for 81 days, finally freed on the paying of a $450,000 ransom. During captivity he was often chained to his bed, and was almost shot by a guard one night when he went to the bathroom without permission.

Mr. Alpeyrie, who has been in town photographing Fashion Week, told an interviewer in the British Journal of Photography that he owes his freedom to “A Syrian man close to the regime, a member of Parliament and a businessman looking for Douard Elias and Didier Francois (two French journalists who went missing in Syria on June 7th), who stumbled upon me.”

Wednesday lunch at Michael’s.

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Looking east across Central Park from the fifth floor of the Time Warner Center. 12:30 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, September 16, 2013. Beautiful weekend in New York and very early Autumn weather: sunny, temps in the low 70s, high 50s at night. Friday night, a one hour torrential (torrential) rainfall, and then a brilliant half moon rising over Manhattan.

Thursday night, 7 p.m. Looking south toward the 59th Street Queenboro (now Ed Koch) Bridge. It was overcast and the air thick with moisture, but it didn't look like it was going to rain.

Waiting for my car. A parents' reception at the Brearley School. 7:15 p.m.

I parked on the corner of 80th and Lexington at 8 o'clock. There were raindrops on my windshield. I'd forgotten my umbrella. I decided to wait until the "shower passed." Across the street was a new business I'd never noticed before.

Two minutes later, the clouds broke. It was pouring. I wasn't going to leave the car. I thought it was momentary. It went on, torrentially, for 45 minutes.

Friday night, looking South on East End Avenue at the half moon rising above.

Sunday afternoon at 2:30. A private yacht heading north on the East River.

The view south, same time.

The smaller yacht, heading South.

A bigger smaller one, same direction.

Someone's kitty out for a walk. Cats usually do NOT do this. Won't do it. This cat was actually strolling along behind its master at a good, albeit slow pace. It was straying to the left, somehow distracted by something it was seeing or smelling. I asked the man (who was always carrying a small transport bag for the cat also) if he always did this? Yes. He liked it.

Heading south.

Sunday night I had dinner at Sette Mezzo, Lexington Avenue between 70th and 71st) which by 7 p.m. was jammed with regulars from the neighborhood including some familiar faces such as Barbara Walters, who was dining with Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia and Pamela Gross and Jimmy Finkelstein; also the Newhouse brothers, Si and Donald, and their families; also Amanda Burden with Charlie Rose; Jeanne and Herb Siegel; Susan and John Hess and friends. The Hesses recently returned from their annual Summer in Malibu.

I was with my longtime friend Channing Chase who millions might know as Dorothy “Dot” Campbell, the mother of that rotten Peter Campbell (Vincent Karthheiser) on “Mad Men.” Currently Dot is suffering from early dementia and “lost.”

Channing as Dorothy “Dot” Campbell.

Channing and I have known each other for a very long time, since the days when I was a kid, new in New York and also pursuing an acting career. We were acting partners auditioning for agents. I was not an actor -- a lesson, I fortunately learned early on. (Although if someone offered me a role in anything I’d take it. Ham.) Channing, however, was, is, an actress; and she’s worked diligently and dedicatedly, and made a good living at it all these years since.

Back in the early 80s, when I living in Los Angeles, I persuaded her to leave New York and come out to pursue her career in film and television. Channing is, and always has been, a determined, dedicated actress. There are no let-ups with this girl. She later married (26 years there too), former advertising executive now art gallerist Dan Saxon and they live happy (really) in a beautiful vintage Spanish Colonial house in Los Feliz.

To demonstrate her “determination” -- to keep herself busy between auditions when she was first living out there, she and a group of friends founded the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California. To make work, to give actors work, to keep honing their craft while waiting the endless wait for the next call from their agent.

That was 26 years ago too. The company now has one major theater, and two small houses operating for their productions. Currently they are presenting Arthur Miller’s“A View From the Bridge" (Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3), running through October 27th.

If you don’t watch Mad Men, you’ll recognize Channing from her appearances in such films and TV series as Evan Almighty, Charlie Wilson’s War, Family Matters, Life with Bonnie and ER, as well as such national TV commercials for Dell Computers, Discover Card, Glade, Arm & Hammer, Campbell Soup and other major sponsors.

A Delicate Balance by Eward Albee at the Pacific Resident Theatre (2002-2003 season): Greg Mullavey, Channing Chase, Bruce French, and Andi Carnicke.

Longtime readers of the NYSD may remember Channing had the remarkable experience of “sudden death” 31 years ago last Good Friday, at the beginning of her stay in Los Angeles. We’ve published the story a couple of times here. This is what I mean about determination.

Contact DPC here.

7:15 PM. Photo: JH.

Tuesday, September 16, 2013. Nice day, yesterday in New York. Temperatures around 70. Partly sunny, often cloudy. And then noticeably cooler, autumn cooler at nightfall.

There’s something about the clouds. I don’t know if it’s just that I never noticed, but the skies have often been very dramatic lately. At six last night, I took the dogs down to the Promenade by the river and was glad I brought my camera because ...

View from the entrance of the Promenade of Carl Schurz Park at East 83rd Street looking across the East River northeast toward Roosevelt Island, Queens, and the RFK Triboro Bridge.

And to the southeast to Roosevelt Island and the 59th Street Ed Koch Bridge.

Look at that cloud cover over Roosevelt Island and Queens stretching out over Long Island Sound. It’s so beautiful. and yet casually threatening ... a storm maybe; an omen?

The tide was coming in. You can always see the river flowing north with a strong, swift current full of large eddys. This is power; it’s not a notion, this it. A beautiful sailboat. About a 39-footer, with two people on deck, was coming up from the South. These boats are never full sail (or any sail) when moving on the river. I’m not a sailor so I don’t know if that’s the law or if it just doesn’t work as well. So they motor. It’s interesting to watch them moving north when the tide is going out. Motor and all, they barely move upstream when she’s going out. Patience provided by Mother Nature.

Last night, just about sundown, a single sailboat, La Nelga (I couldn’t read the port) was motoring north with its mainsail open also. Sail or motor, nothing was necessary: the current was carrying them along rapidly. The travelers were on Alert. Attention must be paid now. You’re entirely in the moment and nowhere else. The world was moving on in that single boat.

La Nelga moving north. They were moving right along with the strong tidal current.

The wind and the water picks up their speed.

I love watching the boats. There’s not one, especially the sail boats, that I don’t imagine myself on. I look at the crew and I equate it with not-having-a-care-in-the-world. It’s a moment of private relief for me. I know; it’s delusive. But it’s my trip to bountiful at the end of a New York weekday in mid-September where the Sun and the Clouds and the Changing Tides are all around us, at our door, or closeby. The Washington Navy Yard shootings. You can feel them in New York. You could feel the dark moment right after. You could see them in the clouds. 9/11 did that. Period. Those clouds I was watching were carrying messages. Moving on. Peace somewhere out there. East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

La Negla in the distance moving toward the bridges and Long Island Sound. 5:45 p.m.

Over the weekend, I got caught up in reading“The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy” by David Cannadine. I’ve had this extraordinary book for years, for so long that I have now two copies, one more recently published. It was originally published in hardcover in 1990. It’s a tome, 600 or 700 pages.

The new (top) and old versions. Click to order.

I probably first bought it in paperback a few years later. It was another one of those books that I bought because of the cover. In fact the newer different cover was as alluring as the original and I bought it a second time last year, having forgotten that I owned it. Anyway, I am glad to have two copies, one updated.

Mr. Cannadine is a scholarly writer. You have to pour yourself into the thicket of information about a world, a way of life, a point of view that is unimaginable to us Americans — or anybody else for that matter. It’s jammed with facts and information detailing an epoch. In fact, I’ve never finished it. I just go back every now then mainly because I’m curious about something.

The British aristocracy in its 19th century heyday at the height of the Industrial Revolution and old Queen Victoria was a way of life that is still imitated, perhaps, in a kind of faux way – and maybe now moreso than ever. Nowadays the plutocrats have their fantastic and fabulous lairs and estates, yachts and jets, greater than anything, technologically than the British aristos could even have imagined.

However, back then they lived on a different planet and they lived well. So well that when Americans see depictions of that way of life (all coming from the UK), such as Upstairs, Downstairs, Brideshead Revisited, Downton Abbey, we swoon to the dramas they provide about that way of life. Because you can only think (without thinking), I’d take that.

Of course, that was not exactly what it’s cracked up to be in retrospect (which makes it all the more believable to us working stiffs). Because as all good things come to an end with one Sundown or another, so it was for the Brit. Aristos a century and more ago.


The Marlborough Family, 1905 by John Singer Sargent. Aristocracy merges with the plutocracy in its most famous and enduring example, when Consuelo Vanderbilt married the Duke of Marlborough. Four generations later, their great-granddaughter, Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill, is a prosperous member of enterprising workforce, international interior designer and author, a 21st century working girl.

With that, I will stop writing about “The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy” except to say that in its riveting account about the evils of plutocracy overtaking it, I came upon this quote by Arthur Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby (1871 – 1946), a British writer/politician/social activist (and third son of Sir Henry Ponsonby, the long devoted Private Secretary of Queen Victoria — one of those “Serving Victoria”).

Lord Ponsonby wrote about the evils of plutocracy:

The manipulating of interests, the juggling of the money market, the mania for speculation, the creation of false money standards, the international syndicates of financial adventures to which governments have become a prey, the control of the press, the ostentatious benevolence of millionaires, and the brutalizing effect of the pursuit of wealth. — The Decline of the Aristocracy, published a century ago in 1912.

Lord Ponsonby is most frequently quoted and best remembered for something he wrote in a book called “Falsehood in Wartime: Propaganda Lies of the First World War” in 1928:

“When war is declared, truth is its first casualty.”

The things we learn from picking up a book.

One more thing. Last Thursday night I went to run an errand and found a parking place on 80th Street and Lexington Avenue. There were raindrops on the windshield and having forgotten my umbrella, I decided to wait till it subsided (a long wait, it turned out).

Sitting there waiting as it started to really rain, I noticed a group of (mainly) young women exercising in the storefront across the avenue. We ran the picture I took – first of them exercising and second of the torrential rain that blocked out any view even thirty feet away and lighted. The name of the storefront, as you can see, was the fhitting room. It’s obviously an exercise class. At first glance I thought it was a yoga class. It’s also a new business in that neighborhood.

Fhtting room the first time I saw it last Thursday night waiting to escape the rain.

Yesterday morning I got an email from a woman named Rebecca Horn, a Senior Account Exec at BrandLink Communications. She’d seen the picture I took of the fhitting room in the rain, and this is what she told me:

I saw on your site that someone had posted a picture of The Fhitting Room, which is a fitness studio that I represent. Please find information below and attached. I wanted to know if anyone from New York Social Diary was interested in attending a class.

The Fhitting Room is a High Intensity Training (HIT) fitness studio, which recently opened at 1166 Lexington Avenue. Their signature "FHIX" (Functional High Intensity Mix) of exercise moves integrates five essential building blocks of fitness to deliver optimal results. Aside from taking place in a beautiful, highly stylized, brand-new space, the benefit of The Fhitting Room is that class sizes are intimate, with a maximum of 12 participants, providing a more personalized experience for clients and allowing instructors to focus on each participant equally.

Last night about 4:30. They were working it.

So now we know. High Intensity Training Fitness studio. “FHIX it now.”

Watching them yesterday – they were really working (phew!), I thought to myself: “how could that be bad for you?” Then I got out of the car and went on my errand.

When I returned twenty minutes later, there was a woman, probably in her early forties, walking in the roadway at the red light, moving from car to car, holding a large empty plastic cup. She was asking -- with a very pained, desperate expression on her face – for money. For anything.

She didn’t notice me in my car and passed me by. She looked like she could have been someone who lived in this Upper East Side neighborhood of middle and (mainly) upper income (and very rich – Madonna, for example, lives right around the corner). She was thin and haggard, troubled, and hadn’t bothered to pull herself together – although she looked like the kind of woman who did. When not one responded she buried her face in her hands for a minute and then trudged on down the avenue. It looked as if no one was responding.

This can get to me. New York is hard rock when your pockets are empty. Like that boat on the river, it just passes you by. I think part of it is it frightens people (‘there but for the grace of God go I”).

I’m always left wondering “why” when I see this. I mean “why” in the sense of what were the circumstances that led to this, to going out on the street asking strangers for money (help). Whatever you think about it, there are more and more young, often women of (at least formerly) solvent circumstances sitting on the pavement leaning against a building with a sign asking.

In my neighborhood there are more young (late 20s/early 30s and older) Hispanic women collecting bottles and cans for money. Friday afternoons, often till late at night. When I see them on the street in the nighttime (often close to midnight), I give them a twenty. Yes, I can use the twenty, definitely; but then I think of how many bottles and cans they have to collect to fix those enormous balloon like plastic bag, I think how much more valuable that twenty will be. Who it will feed, keep warm, shelter.

Many of them are young mothers. Mouths to feed. All of them, I’ve noticed, are well turned out, neatly dressed, neatly groomed. Not like that desperate young woman I saw on Lexington Avenue at 5:45 in the afternoon. But they are desperate too; and they are doing something too. I suggest whenever we can, we give. Something. Desperate means food. Always. I know there are those to whom it means something else; but mainly it means food and shelter. Without that we’re all nothing.

Contact DPC here.

Waiting for the bus on Lexington Avenue. 11:30 PM. Photo: Jeff Hirsch.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013. It’s almost Autumn in New York, and with yesterday's temperatures dropping into the mid-50s by mid-evening yesterday, it’s beginning to feel like it.

The Social Season is beginning to reflect it too, with the calendar chock-a-block with events. Last night at Cipriani 42nd Street, New Yorkers for Children hosted its 14th annual Fall Gala honoring Nicholas Scoppetta and Benefiting Youth in Foster Care.


	Nicholas Scoppetta, Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos, and Susan Burden.

Mr. Scoppetta has been in public service for most of his life. New Yorkers have known him as the Fire Commissioner, also former Commissioner of the Administration of Children’s Services, also a former Deputy Mayor and Commissioner of Investigation for the City of New York, as well as Counsel to the Knapp Commission, Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and several other positions.

What is remarkable about Mr. Scoppetta is that all of that isn’t the half of it. His path in life, it would seem, led him to affect the lives of thousands and thousands of children in Foster Care to brighter, sustainable stable lives of personal achievement and accomplishment. Not a few of them were in the room last night.

He was born on the Lower East Side in 1932, the youngest son of Italian immigrants struggling in the Great Depression. When he was four years old, his parents turned him and his two older brothers over to the city’s care.

Initially the boys stayed in a shelter on 104th Street, and then they were separated. About a year later they were reunited by chance in a dentist’s office. It was his brother Tony who recognized the five-year-old Nicholas.

Eventually the three boys ended up in a group home in Bronx called Woodycrest, which is now an AIDS hospice. Woodycrest, Mr. Scoppetta recalled last night in the recounting of his early life, was a saving grace for the child.

Nicholas Scoppetta accepting his honor last night at Cipriani 42nd Street, recalling his brave and industrious life helping children in foster care and expressing his gratitude for his own family -- wife, son and daughter, grandchildren and lifelong friends. A great man in our presence. And a humble one also.

That time – between leaving his parents’ hearth and care, and moving to Woodycrest in the Bronx was deeply difficult for the little Nicholas, as he recalled, still deeply touched by the memories more than seven decades later. Being with his brothers, and living in circumstances where he was cared for and felt cared for, was an enormous relief for the child. When he was twelve, in 1944, the brothers were reunited with their parents.

We hear about Foster Care but if we haven’t been personally experienced it, we don’t know about the emotional impact is has on an already painfully deprived, entirely dependent child. To us it is a thing, a process, an institutional umbrella for what is in stark reality, a deeply troubling sentence for any child. Furthermore many children in Foster Care are placed there by law enforcement because of horrendous abuse, negligence and poverty. They are already beaten down before they are fully formed.

Recipients and highly successful ones of NYFC's programs to assist children in foster care, they opened the evening with their recounting of their experience of NYFC and the progress it afforded them in their lives today. Winners in gratitude.

Spirit Award Winner Crystal Cameron shares her history of abuse, neglect, loss and triumph, now the loving mother of a six-year-old daughter, and enrolled in the RN Pathway program at the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing. She attributes her bravery, pluck and achievement to the guidance and assistance of New Yorkers for Children.

Spirit Award winner, Zinyusile Brian Khumble, 20-year-old sophomore at Pace University studying Public Accounting. Brian was born in Zimbabwe and raised there and in South Africa. He moved to the US four years ago and has been in foster care since he was 17. He has also taken an active role in improving foster care for other young people. Aside from his studies, Brian works full time at Fishs Eddy and is also a youth advisor for Minds On Fire, an organization dedicated to helping young people enter adulthood with confidence, curiosity and compassion.

Unless reminded, we can easily forget or ignore how defenseless all children are in an abusive and neglectful household, or in a sea of institutional care devoid of love and affection, not to mention the inevitable sense of futility that smothers. Most adults cannot handle such circumstances without deep suffering. Children surviving it is nothing but miraculous.

Nicholas Scoppetta, however, had the natural fortitude, assisted by the care of those looking after him in Woodycrest, and his brothers, and eventually the abiding sense of family, to survive. He graduated from High School in 1950, served in the Army for two years, and with the GI Bill graduated at 26 with a degree in Civil Engineering in 1958.

The following year he won a New York State Regents Scholarship and attended Brooklyn Law School at night. During the day he assisted in the investigation and prosecution of cases in which children had been abused and neglected. In 1962 he graduated Law School and his path, as we can see in retrospect, was laid out for him.

Mayor Bloomberg opened the evening praising Nicholas Scoppetta and the NYFC for its work in improving the lives of children in foster care.

He told us last night that currently of those in Foster Care, no more than 9% of the children made it to college and less than 2% of them graduated. Today 90% of the youth in NYFC's "Guardian Scholars" program graduate from college. Not a few people believe that Nicholas Scoppetta’s personal experience and his vision of what could be possible has made that difference. Last night he also reminded those of us who never realized it or have forgotten it, that all of us need meaningful personal relationships to succeed in life.

Last night’s gala, attended by several hundred, including many people who are prominent in charitable circles here in the city, is now a major social and philanthropic event in New York. Scoppetta and Burden and their executive director Susan Magazine and their volunteers have created a very successful organization that has raised and distributed more than $50 million to benefit youth in foster care since 1996. The evening is now traditionally hosted by some of the exceptional young people whose lives have been changed because of their involvement in NYFC. The difference, as one of the student hosts reminded the guests last night is that “no one becomes someone without anyone.” NYFC provides that anyone and many “someone’s.”

View of the stunning Paper Sculpture that greeted guests entering the hall last night, by David Stark Design and Production.

It’s a heart-rending and joyful evening, energized by the enthusiasm of its supporters. Gala Co-Chairs were Donya and Scott Bommer, Susan Burden, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, Oscar de la Renta, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Lise and Michael Evans, Deborra-Lee Furness and Hugh Jackman, Susan and Tony Gilroy, Erika and Kevin Liles Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos and Paul Kanavos, Candice and Scott Posner, Kelly and Jay Sugarman and Lauren and Justin Tuck.

Among the Vice-Chairs and guests were Mayor Michael Bloomberg who opened the evening praising the Commissioner and his work, Frederic Fekkai and Shrin von Wulffen, Rebecca Minkoff, Adriana Lima, Crystal Renn, Selita Ebans, Lindsay Ellingson, Hilary Rhoda, Nigel Barker, Jules Asner and Steven Soderbergh, Annelise Peterson, Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict, Alina Cho, Susan Shin Debbie Bancroft, Nicole Esposito, Pia and David Ledy, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff and David Wolkoff, Amada and Jonathan Ellian, Julie Macklowe, Zang Toi, Martin and Jean Shafiroff, Gillian and Sylvester Miniter, Jay Diamond and Alexandra Lebenthal, Muffie Potter Aston, Tatiana and Campion Platt, Geoffrey Bradfield, Eric Brettschneider, John Demsey.

Tatiana and Campion Platt with Marisa Noel.

Gillian Miniter, Alex Lebenthal, and Yaz Hernandez.

Lydia Fenet.

Juan Montoya.

Andrew Saffir, Juan Montoya, and Daniel Benedict.

Beth DeWoody and Hutton Wilkinson.

Jill Kargman.

Jamie Niven, Executive VP of Sotheby’s conducted an auction. This year marked the 10th Anniversary of the Spirit Awards, a $10,000 scholarship awarded annually to a young person in foster care. North Shore LIJ Health System sponsored two Spirit Awards in honor of the 10th Anniversary.

NYFC works in partnership with the Administration of Children’s Services to improve the prospects of children supported by the child welfare system. It supports programs promoting paths to stable adulthood through education and sustainable relationships with caring adults. There are nearly 13,000 children in foster care in New York City today and New Yorkers for Children is committed to providing them with the essential tools to become successful, self-sufficient adults.

What is amazing is hearing the stories these young people share about their abusive beginnings and seeing how NYFC’s work has motivated, directed and infused them to become stable, dynamic, productive and confident young adults who bear the qualities and characteristics of future leadership – like their supreme mentor Mr. Scoppetta, in their chosen fields of interest, and in their personal lives. The message is the same in all of them, to all of us: It Can Be Done.

NYFC graduate and speaker last night Jessica Maxwell with Susan Burden, co-founder of New Yorkers for Children.

Julie Macklowe and Zang Toi.

Muffie Potter Aston and Julie Macklowe.

Zang Toi, Julie Macklowe, and Muffie Potter Aston getting the message.

Kathy Steinberg.

Alice Shure.

Contact DPC here.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. 12:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Thursday, September 19, 2013. Another beautiful barely Autumn day, yesterday in New York, with temperatures in the mid to upper 60s.

It was Wednesday. I went to Michael’s. It was busy, although quieter than the railroad station din and cacophony on some Wednesdays. Don’t get me wrong; I love it. You feel like you’re in the thick of it. Whatever that is.


	Jesse with his wife Karen Collins out on the town.

I had lunch with my friend Jesse Kornbluth (who writes HeadButler.com daily). He writes another column on the web also. In fact Jesse reads and writes more than anyone I know. He’s always at it which is authentically awesome. Therefore, there is always something to learn. Our conversations, however, are totally back and forth, and constantly being returned to the main subject after the distraction of some theretofore unknown fact or piece of information that appeared in the conversation.

Jesse, who has just finished a novel, has been at it for a long time in New York, having written some of the most memorable profiles in both New York and Vanity Fair. He’s been at it as a professional writer a lot longer than I (and he’s younger too). He has an excellent sense of humor, alert to the ironies that pace our life stories. He is as well as the gilded possessor of fascinating observations and anecdotal tales (sometimes known as good gossip) about many of the names that are familiar to us. Particularly in the world of what is called Media – which is practically everybody these days.

I also learned yesterday that Jesse regularly, even frequently posts on Facebook. It is always an opinion couched in something literary. I asked him why he did this. He said it was because it was a great opportunity to comment on the current state of things (and/or people) and when people find something they like, they re-posted it. The writer writes for readers.

When I got to the restaurant, fifteen minutes late, he was at the table re-reading “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting” by Milan Kundera who Jesse believes may just about be the greatest writer. Before he closed the book, he had to share a sentence from Kundera: “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”

That immediately launched our conversation about the current state of affairs in the world and some of the characters on the dance floor. From there we ascended and descended into numerous recollections and stories about them and others and us and others. I wanted to go home and read Kundera.

Meanwhile the place was full up. Next door to us at table one, Terry Allen Kramer was hosting a women’s lunch of her pals such as Margo Nederlander, Felicia Taylor and Mia McDonald. I have no idea what was passing conversation over there but I am sure it was interesting as all of these women are involved in their businesses and projects.

Also next door: the very dietarily irrepressible Nikki Haskell was lunching with prominent real estate broker Eva Mohr. Nikki spends a lot of time on the West Coast also, and has ridden several big waves in that storm with the best of them. And some others too. And next door to them Wendy Williams was lunching with her parents – which was interesting. Her parents are rather distinguished and conservative looking people. Her mother was very smartly dressed, a thoroughly modern matron. Her father, natty and proper also. You suddenly could see “the daughter” emerged from that great big television personality. Very sweet.

Also nearby:Steve Rubenstein, PR exec; Da Boyz, or rather some of them: Imber, Della Femina, Greenfield and Bergman. Across from them, Al Roker and guest; two tables beyond, Mrs. Roker, Deborah Roberts was lunching with Cosmo’sJoanne Coles. Around the room: Betsy Perry and literary agent Fredi Friedman; Documentarian Mary Murphy; Wednesday Martin with Kelly Klein; Tom Goodman with David Adler; Robert Zimmerman with Ken Schlenker and Pablo Cerrilla of Gertrude (art); Sanford & Stein were celebrating Stein’s bday; the Mayor’s lawyer (or so they say) Richard DeScherer; TV producer Joan Gelman and son Josh;Star Jones with her good pal Dr. Holly Johnson; mega-agent Mort Janklow and television mogul Ed Bleier; celebrity PR guru Catherine Saxton with Graham Gaspar and Rhona Silver; Tad Smith of Cablevision; Nick Verbitsky of United Stations Radio; Julie Hayek, Michael’s very own Brenda Starr reporter Diane Clehane with Time editor Steve Koepp; BJ Coleman; Lulu Chiang; Andrew Stein; Beverly Camhe, Bill Keller of the New York Times with Deborah Kenny of Harlem Village Academy.; and many more just like ‘em.


	Salon rose of the French Consulate in NY.

Catching Up. On Monday a week ago, the American Friends of the Paris Opera and Ballet, the Consul General of France in New York Bertrand Lortholary and Vacheron Constantinhosted a dinner in the beautiful salons of the New York French Consulate in honor of Benjamin Millepied and his new position at the head of the Paris Opera Ballet. The evening brought together 80 close friends and artists for a magical and surprise performance.

Among those celebrating Benjamin Millepied and wife Natalie Portman were H. E. Francois Delattre, French Ambassador to the United States; Olivia Flatto, Chairman of AFPOB; Hugues de Pins, President of Vacheron Constantin North America; Renee Fleming, Lily Safra, Lesley Stahl, Christopher Wheeldon, Judith Hoffman, Adrienne Arsht, Shen Wei, James de Givenchy, Laura Zeckendorf, Serena Lese, Tim Fain, Pamela Joyner, Carol Mack, Liz Peek, Sutton Stracke and Kinga Lampert among many others.

Since its inception almost thirty years ago, the American Friends of the Paris Opera & Ballet has been true to its mission of sharing the treasures of the Paris Opera directly with the American public, and to fostering artistic cooperation between the Paris Opera and the creative community in the United States. They have accomplished this through the support of U.S. tours of the Paris Opera and Ballet, appearances of guest artists, student exchange programs, and many productions at the Paris Opera that prominently feature the participation of American artists.

Benjamin Millepied, Christopher Wheeldon, Ross Rayburn, and Hugues de Pins.

Angela Thompson and Shen Wei.

Ambassador Francois Delattre and Natalie Portman.

Laure Vienot-Tronche, Judith Hoffman, James Marlas, Dina Chartouni, and Hugues de Pins.

Barry Friedberg, Patsy Tarr, Charlotte Moss, and Jennie Tarr Coyne.

Lesley Stahl and Olivia Flatto.

Olivia Flatto and Kinga Lampert.

Timothy Fain.

Timothy Jessell, Renee Fleming, Benjamin Millepied, and Natalie Portman.

Flavia Gale, Renee Fleming, and Adrienne Arsht.

Marshall Rose and Maarit Glocer.

Carol Mack and Arnaud Tronche.

Adam and Olivia Flatto with Benjamin Millepied and Natalie Portman.

Hall J. Witt, Yurie Pascarella, and Carl Pascarella.

Pamela Joyner and Liz Peek.

Laurence Mezin, Consul of France Bertrand Lortholary, and Benjamin Millepied.

Meanwhile, last Thursday, September 12th, Green-Wood Historic Fund honored two Brooklyn icons – Borough President Marty Markowitz and Terence Winter, Creator of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

The Fund was staging a benefit (with more than 200 guests) for a cemetery. Cemeteries are fascinating to visit. A couple of years ago, JH and I went up to one of the cemeteries in Northern Manhattan where several historical New York characters are buried.

Several years ago on a Sunday I visited a small cemetery with JH out in Southampton. Many of the gravestones dated back to the 18th and 19th century. Many surnames were familiar because there are roads in the general area bearing those names.

DPC roaming the cemetery in Southampton.

The more we looked at the various markers and monuments, we realized we were seeing the beginnings, the growth, development of the tiny village, all in a dozen or so key names. You could also see by the way the plots were laid out just who ranked within which family, and who outlived the rest. It seemed that often the spinsters generally had the longest lives.

You could also see how families intermarried until there was almost no one in this small but populated burial site who wasn’t in some way related to everyone else. That of course was a tiny village.


	Clinton Memorial by Henry Kirke Brown, 1855, at Green-Wood Cemetery.

Over at the Green-Wood benefit, they raised $150,000. Proceeds from the 6th annual fundraiser will support a new visitors center, preservation projects, public programs and educational initiatives at Green-Wood, which is 175 years old and a national landmark.

DeWitt Clinton, the great 19th century New York Governor who is credited with having come up with the grid plan for Manhattan, is interred there. Clinton was also credited with the development of the Erie Canal which made New York the Hub for the developing territories in the Midwest and West. He was also a Mayor of New York, a State Senator, an Assemblyman and a United States Senator.

Amid alfresco dining in one of New York City’s most beautiful and historic landscapes, the evening’s highlight was the presentation of The DeWitt Clinton Award for Excellence to Borough President Marty Markowitz and to Terence Winter, Mr. Markowitz began his career in public service at the age of 26, by organizing the Flatbush Tenants Council which grew into the largest tenants’ advocacy organization in New York. Elected to the state senate in 1978, he represented Central Brooklyn for 23 years.

Green-Wood president Richard J. Moylan, DeWitt Clinton Award for Excellence honoree and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, C. Payson Coleman, Jr., Esq., chairman of The Green-Wood Historic Fund and DeWitt Clinton Award.

Richard J. Moylan, president of Green-Wood said, “For more than a decade, Marty Markowitz has been a champion of our great borough and he has done it with a style all his own. He is a true friend and an ardent supporter of Green-Wood, providing funding for our iconic trolley, as well as a major grant that will help restore the Weir Greenhouse – soon to be our state of the art visitors center. “

Markowitz said, “For nearly two centuries now, Green-Wood has been one of New York City’s most unique landmarks and one of Brooklyn’s top tourist attractions – and in a borough that is home to the Brooklyn Bridge, Prospect Park, BAM, the Brooklyn Museum, Coney Island, Junior’s cheesecake, Brooklyn Brewery, and so many other world-famous sights and sounds – that’s saying a lot.” Not to mention the Brooklyn Renasissance in real estate.

DeWitt Clinton Award for Excellence honoree Terence Winter, creator of HBO's Boardwalk Empire.

New York State Senator Eric Adams.

DeWitt Clinton Award for Excellence honorees Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Borough President and Terence Winter.

Also receiving the Award for Excellence was Mr. Winter, the creator, headwriter, and executive producer of Boardwalk Empire was a writer and an executive producer on The Sopranos. A Brooklyn native, he’s the winner of four Emmys and three Writer’s Guild Awards. His feature films have included “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” and “Brooklyn Rules.” His next film, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” was directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and will open nationwide this November.

Musical entertainment was provided by The French Woods Jazz Improv Ensemble. Auction items included a visit to the set of Boardwalk Empire; “Your Own Private Green-Wood” tour; “Who Do You Think You Are?” – a consultation with Green-Wood’s genealogy team and a full family history; “Sunrise, Sunset” – an overnight experience in Green-Wood for eight people; and more.

Guests at the cocktail hour.

Mr. Moylan extended his sincere gratitude to members of the Host Committee, including benefactors Michael C. Brooks, Payson and Kim Coleman, Adam and Lola Danforth, and Terence and Rachel Winter. He also thanked the hard-working and dedicated staff at Green-Wood and all the generous sponsors and supporters for their valued contributions that made the benefit an outstanding success.

Past DeWitt Clinton Award recipients include Pulitzer Prize winner Debby Applegate; preservation advocates Otis and Nancy Pearsall; educator, historian and landscape preservationist Betsy Barlow Rogers; novelist, essayist and journalist Pete Hamill; and award-winning landscape architect Nicholas Quennell.

Green-Wood president Richard J. Moylan and writer, director, and producer David Chase.

THE GREEN-WOOD HISTORIC FUND was established in 1999 to maintain Green-Wood Cemetery’s monuments and buildings of historical, cultural, and architectural significance; to advance public knowledge and appreciation; and to preserve the natural habitat of one of New York City’s first green spaces.

Incorporated in 1838, Green-Wood stretches across 478 acres and boasts extraordinary works of 19th-century art and architecture. Home to hundreds of famous historic figures, historic Green-Wood Cemetery offers many tours of its grounds, concerts and events to the public throughout the year. Green-Wood has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior. For more information about Green-Wood Cemetery, visit www.green-wood.com.

Joe Caniano who plays Jake Guzik in Boardwalk Empire.

Also, this past Tuesday night, Gloria Steinem stopped by the Pierre Hotel to kick-off of U.S. Trust's event series for women clients, "Your Value(s) and Financial Future."

Attended by more than 100 women, the series is being led by U.S. Trust executives, including: (left to right, bottom row): Judy Slotkin, New York Metropolitan Market Executive; Gloria Steinem; Nancy Kistner, Wealth Strategist; and (left to right, top row): Edith Cassidy, Market Investment Director; Jane Schellens, Division Trust Executive; Tom Boehlke, Regional Executive; Lori Sieber, Market Trust Director; and Jean Fitzgerald, National Strategic Marketing Executive.

Contact DPC here.

Posing on Fifth Avenue. 4:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Friday, November 1, 2013. Overcast and damp, yesterday in New York, light rain by evening and warmer temperatures up into the 60s.

Halloween was making its appearance the first thing in the morning when I went out onto my terrace to look at the street. A line of toddlers in daycare were walking in front of the building in their costumes. Very cute. A little lamb at the front of the line and a pumpkinhead at the tail end. Very sweet. Way out west in West Hollywood, a reader informed me, there were 500,000 (!!) people lining the boulevard for the fabulous parade.

My lunch was canceled last minute so I went over to the West Side to get a haircut, check out Zabar's and Fairway and Citarella. On return, the 79th/81st Street transverse in the Park returning east was bumper to bumper at a standstill.

The little ones on their way to a Halloween celebration, Thursday morning at 11:30.

We were waiting, although for what we did not know. Finally three police cars with flashing blue lights followed by one of those private Mercedes buses with the blackened windows where you can’t see the riders followed by more squad cars with the rotating lights.

These Mercedes or Mercedes-type buses have become very popular with the rich and powerful New York. Someone is being impressed. They’re very private yet far from private -- a show of power, or a show-off of power from the I-am-and-you-re-not school you experienced on the playground as a kid. They’re used to ferry politicians of the important kind around town.

There was one of those limo-buses in my neighborhood every school day afternoon, picking up one of the children from the Brearley School. It belonged to a hedge fund millionaire, as many of them do. In the best of times. The last time I saw him picking up his child, he was down to an ordinary old (new, of course) Escalade.

Waiting for the traffic to move on the 79th Street transverse going east, I focused on the foliage close to abandoning the trees. 4 p.m.

We’re at the peak of the Fall social calendar in New York. Wednesday was a good example. Downtown at the Standard, hotelier Andre Balazs hosted the party for George Rush and Joanna Molloy's new book, "Scandal: A Manual” (Skyhorse, Publishers) last Wednesday night at the Standard.

Rush and Molloy was for years the New York Daily News version of the Post’s Page Six. There was a difference because their column had a vibe that went for the joke rather than the jugular, whenever possible. Of course it wasn’t always possible in the Naked City (or Jungle), and so it was. Their book is full of those tales of show and woe.

Joanna Molloy and George Rush. Click to order Scandal: A Manual.

Joanna Molloy and George Rush.

R. Couri Hay, Joanna Molloy, and George Rush.

We've known each other for years, spoken many times, never developed a friendship (or had time for it) although they are very likeable, nice people, besides being Big Town gossip columnists. One thing that is remarkable about what appears to be their lovely relationship – they’re still husband and wife after all these years, and their little baby, born maybe 15 or 16 years ago, is now a young man. Everything changes, even the parents.

Among the guests: Courtney Love, Carole Radziwill, Nanette Lepore, Judith Regan, Karen Duffy, Ellen Newhouse, Nan Richardson, AOL editor in chief Cyndi Stivers, Vanity Fair's John Connolly, Capital New York co-founder Tom McGeveran, gossip kings and queens Richard Johnson, Michael Musto, Chris Rovzar, Ben Widdicombe, Couri Hay, Patrick McMullan, Michael Gross, Roger Friedman, Joe Piazza, Sean Evans, Marianne Garvey and Lachlan Cartwright,Chaunce Hayden, PR powerhouses Ken Sunshine, Sean Cassidy, Matthew Hiltzik, Couri Hay, Dorothy Carvello and Howard, Steven and Richard Rubenstein. "Wolf of Wall Street" actor Nick Nicholas, private eye Joe Mullen, producer Jon Furay, producer Webster Stone and fiancee Katrina Robinson, Diana Kellogg, Richard Turley, Richard Osterweil, Monie Begley. Joanna wore furry fox ears and people wore masks with the faces of Justin Beiber, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Prince Andrew, Elvis, Marilyn– all those people you either can’t get enough of or had enough of.

Katrina Robinson and Webster Stone.

Ben Widdicombe, R Couri Hay, and Jess Ann Conlin.

Ben Widdicombe and Michael Gross.

Dorothy Carvello, John Connolly, Michael Gross, Richard Johnson, and Richard Turley.

Jill Brooke and Monie Begley.

Michael Musto, Joanna Molloy, and Richard Johnson.

Patrick McMullan and Joe Mullen.

Rush and Molloy’s book party was only one of many events the night before last. Over at the David Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, the American Ballet Theatre opened their season with a grand gala benefit. This was not only ballet but theatre through and through, right down to the after-performance dinner dance on the Promenade decorated by Bronson van Wyck and his merry band of artists. But all of that is self-evident on today’s Party Pictures page.

The scene on the Grand Promenade of the David Koch Theater for ABT's Fall Gala.

While they were up at Lincoln Center paying homage to the artists and their art, down at the Mandarin Oriental, The Carter Burden Center for the Aging was holding its 42nd Anniversary Gala, “Art Works,” honoring John Phelan.

Carter Burden, who died at a very young age (fifties) in the mid-1990s was a Councilman here in New York for what was then known as the Silk Stocking district – which is the Upper East Side of Manhattan. This writer worked in the first campaign that Burden staged in seeking office.

We won. It was an interesting experience for me in many ways, too many to go into here. But the point of the win was Carter Burden, a Vanderbilt heir born and brought up with a Silver Spoon in his mouth (although in Beverly Hills, which is the catch) was a knight in shining armor.

William Dionne, Amy Phelan, John Phelan, Susan Burden, Jeff Weber, and Glenn Fuhrman.

A good part of the “district” in those days (late 60s) were the working class neighborhoods of the area – the tenements along the avenues and farther up into the streets in the 90s. Time has changed the face of that neighborhood, but in those days there were a lot of pensioners, often single people, often widows or widowers, or singles who had no family.

Their needs were immediately obvious to those of us young campaigners who had youth, education and often a bright future (imagined or otherwise) on our side. Carter Burden, the Harvard educated heir who grew up in Beverly Hills (in the mansion later own by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston), was affected by this reality that he saw, and chose to do something about it. He created the Burden Center for the Aging – a place where the senior citizens could have a meeting place, a haven, a source of information and support, in the neighborhood.

He was smart and conscientious and thoroughly believed the job of the politician was to help the community and its citizens. He worked very hard at that although – I was told, so this is only hearsay – was disillusioned by the political process that was what it was cracked up to be. And so he eventually just quit.

Glenn Fuhrman, Amanda Fuhrman, John Phelan, Amy Phelan, Stacey Weber, and Jeff Weber.

He died prematurely of a heart ailment. His political legacy is all but forgotten but nevertheless his intention and his work lives on gloriously. His wife Susan, who is the personification of community activism, took up the Burden Center, renamed it the Carter Burden Center (dignifying it, so that people wouldn’t perceive as a center for “burden”). Today the Center is involved in many activities, including a daily lunch (which we’ve covered here on the Diary) which cater to the older members, often singles, often retired, in the neighborhoods.

Today, thanks to Susan and her merry band of supporters, helpers and friends, The Carter Burden Center for the Aging helps thousands of seniors every year, providing all kinds of benefits including the precious opportunity for friendship – a rare gift for those of us at a certain age.

This isn’t a glamorous charity but it’s The Best, the soul of the city, and they’re making a difference everyday.

The staff at The Carter Burden Center for the Aging.

While all this was going on, down at the Museum of Modern Art, they were holding a ceremony presenting the 20th Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize to director Spike Lee. The Gishes were sisters, actresses who began on the stage as children at the end of the 19th century. They were both early stars, growing up in the Silent Films working for D.W Griffith, their mentor. Both treated their profession like members of a religious novitiate. And they set a good example.


	The menu for the Rayner dinner on Wednesday night after Billy Rayner's interview by Jonathan Burnham at the New York Public Library.

At the same time, same hour, over at the New York Public Library, Billy Rayner was interview by Jonathan Burnham, the publisher of HarperCollins. Billy, a long time New Yorker, was for years in the magazine publishing business. He is a highly sociable fellow, meaning: he gets along with everybody including a lot of everybodys who in New York can be not so easy to get along with. A hail-fellow-well-met, in a way, someone said to me the other night that in all the years they’d known Billy, they’d never heard him say a “mean word” about anybody. That’s the picture and the truth.

The evening at the Library had to do with Billy’s travel diaries which he’s been keeping since he was a very young man. He’s also been painting his travels, at the same time, all his life. The two volume “Notes and Sketches: Travels with William P. Rayner” is at least part of the sum of that activity.

Billy, as his friends call him, has a modest, if sophisticated bearing. He’s quick to laugh (maybe chuckle) and unobtrusive with his opinions. But he was obviously devoted to his avocation.

Mae West once said: “keep a diary and someday it’ll keep you.” In Show Business maybe. Billy Rayner’s diary has a distinction all its own: a man’s hand expressed and described in with his brushes and his pen. It’s beautifully published – two volumes, boxed with a silken cover from a canvas of his.

One of the table settings at the Rayner dinner.

This table was named Khan Market (one of Billy's subjects on his travels). The forehead behind the flowers is that of none other than the great Tom Wolfe. The man with the glasses to the left is Darren Walker, the head of FordFoundation.

After the talk Kathy, Mrs. Rayner, hosted a dinner party for about fifty friends at the Century. Kathy Rayner is a hostess par excellence. She loves entertaining her guests visually. The tables are always interesting and intriguing, and the menu she chooses is relevant to the occasion and the situation. Many of the guests (I understand there have been more than one of these “evenings” to publicize the books) are old friends of the couple, and many of the old friends are people actively involved in New York life, including publishing, media, theater and even “society.”

The menu was delicious. I had two very interesting women on either side of me and the conversation just rolled off our tongues until we realized it was time to go home. A beautiful evening for a fascinating and charming memoir of a kind. A good way to put your mind at ease, even if briefly.

The dessert: Exotic fruit salad, Coconut Sorbet, Decaffeinated Coffee or Herbal Tea, Century Macarons, Taj Mahal Cookies, Louis de Sacy Grand Cru.

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Admiring the view of Bethesda Terrace in Central Park. 1:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, November 4, 2013. Sometimes sunny, sometimes overcast first November weekend in New York. And much chillier by nightfall. It turned cold last night: heavy jacket, sweater needed outside. Time to remember there are many of us who lack those simple requirements.

Friday afternoon on East End Avenue, looking south and north looking for spots of autumn foliage.

Friday afternoon about 5:45 looking north. You can see the pink cast on the East River.

Looking north toward the RFK Triborough Bridge, with an NYPD boating moving south.

Looking south, the same time, with a JMW Turner sky over Manhattan and Roosevelt Island.

The foliage is close to peak in the city although it's almost not-so's-you'd-notice on many trees which are still green. However, all of it, even the patches on the tops of the trees are a pleasure to see, and a reminder that now the days will be shorter, the dark will come sooner, the we'll need to keep warm. And maybe even snow; who knows. Change.

JH took his camera to Central Park ...

Who are we? Where did we come from, and where are we going?
— Paul Gauguin

I took that quote from Guy de Rothschild in his memoir, “The Whims of Fortune” (Random House 1985) which I am slowly reading, and am enjoying as I move ahead. It appealed to me as much as it obviously appealed to him. His story reflects that and there is the possibility of wisdom in the offing.


	Heather Cohane — who nows lives in Monte Carlo — on her most recent visit to New York.

That quote resonated with me personally. Early last month, Quest magazine hosted a party with Wally Findlay Galleries to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Quest 400, a list inspired by the famous 400 list of Mrs. Astor back in the 19th century. It was an idea borne at the time out of necessity – I needed to come up with some kind of story of the month if I were going to get paid. However, it turned out to be something that obviously had legs. And it’s interesting on a couple of levels, besides.

However. So Chris Meigher, the owner/publisher of Quest decided to mark the occasion. Not a bad idea; good for everybody -- anything that can last 20 years in New York media is its own champion. It was I who came up with the idea all those 20 years ago, but it was Mr. Meigher who guided its editorial and publishing shape and gave it its own legs.

Wally Findlay Galleries came up with this extraordinary montage of Quest editorial history, and covered all the walls in the entire gallery with it. I found myself drawn to it, almost peering, as if I were seeing something interesting for the first time. In those past two decades I’ve written so much about New York and the social world that I have forgotten a good deal of it. The montages overwhelmed my memory. The party was full of guests, many of whom I knew, but I just wanted to look at the walls of the magazine’s history.

The cocktail party at Wally Findlay Gallery for the Quest 400 20th Anniversary.

A lot of history over the past two decades on those pages.

Sign leading to the Second Floor of the Wally Findlay Galleries where Swifty's set up a "cafe" for the guests. Swifty's, the subsequent issue of the former Mortimer's has played a long role in the social history of New York in Quest.

I started writing for Quest back in 1992. I’d come out to New York from Los Angeles to write a book for Bobby Short, the great cabaret singer/pianist who played the Café Carlyle for several months a year for more than thirty years. That assignment didn’t work out but in the meantime I’d met Heather Cohane who started Quest back in the late '80s. She asked me to write a profile about a mutual friend of hers and mine.

That began our relationship and I wrote a score of pieces over the next few months.

One day she asked me if I’d like to write a monthly column, and so began the New York Social Diary (in print). In the mid-90s, Heather sold the magazine to Chris Meigher, a Time-Life alum, and Chris put his imprimatur on it that we see today.

In the meantime, standing there looking at the montages I was having a flashback. I realized looking at the fantastic montages that I’d been associated for all but three of those twenty years with Quest. That’s a pretty steady gig for a writer in New York chronicling the social scene or any scene. I was suddenly surprised by the realization of the outcome.

Sabrina Forsythe.

Jamie Figg and Grace Meigher.

Dixie de Koning, Alberto and Peggy Mejia, and Joep de Koning.

Polly Onet and Steve MIllington.

Melissa Morris.

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Looking towards Literary Walk in Central Park. 1:00 PM. Photo: Jeff Hirsch.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013. Election Day. Yesterday in New York it was sunny and colder – overcoat time – although not freezing.

Passing through Literary Walk. Photo: JH.

Last night was the annual Library Lions dinner at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. This is always a beautiful evening, black tie, and honoring distinguished, often literary members of the community or international community. This year’s honorees were Mayor Michael Bloomberg, authors Katherine Boo, Junot Diaz, Marilynne Robinson and the very literate and witty Stephen Sondheim, who also has a couple of books out.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Katherine Boo.

Junot Diaz.

Marilynne Robinson.

Stephen Sondheim.

This now traditional annual fundraiser for the Library is one of the most “important” events on the autumn social calendar. One of the highlights that is now anticipated by the evening’s guests is the David Monn décor of the Rose Main Reading Room. (Officially: the Deborah, Jonathan, F. P., Samuel Priest, and Adam R. Rose Main Reading Room.)

David Monn, the event designer who produced the spectacular décor at the Park Avenue Armory Fall Dinner that we ran a couple of weeks ago, decorated the room like an exotic literary woodland. Was it an artist's reference to Mr. Sondheim's "Into the Woods"? Monn’s work is always highly imaginative, delicate, compelling, and an important factor in the enjoyment/entertainment of the evening.

The evening begins at 7 with a cocktail hour in the Edna Barnes Salomon Room. At 8, the guests move to the Reading Room. Seating is a half hour process as people find their tables, chat with friends and acquaintances, and take in the environment David Monn has provided.

Once people were seated, Andrew Ross Sorkin, the writer, took the rostrum as the emcee. Then Anthony Marx the President of the Library welcomed the guests.

"Into the Woods," the Rose Main Reading Room last night, transformed for the annual dinner by David Monn.

Guests entering to find thier tables.

The table set for 28.

The place setting.

The room was restored in 1998 with a gift of $15 million from Library Trustee Sandra Priest Rose and Frederick Phineas Rose who renamed it in honor of their children. Almost two city blocks long, I love the vibrant clouds in the murals on the ceiling.

Marx then introduced the honorees, each of whom appeared at opposite end of the room, walking down the center aisle to the speaking platform that is erected for the occasion. The honorees were then given their medals with ribbons and dinner began.

The menu, provided by Sean Driscoll’sGlorious Food started with Asparagus with Baby Artichokes, and Arugula with Aged Balsamic, followed by Beef Bourguignon with Fall Vegetables, Mashed Potatoes with Carmelized Onions. Dessert was a Pear and Cranberry Crumble with Crème Fraiche. The wines were Maison Champy Macon-Villages 2012, and Domaine de la Graveirette Cotes du Rhone 2010.

In the course of the dinner, there was a brief video shown about each of the honorees, talking about their personal relationship to book and the library. With the exception of Mr. Marx’ welcoming words, there were no speeches. This is one of those dinners where people enjoyed the company of their dinner partners on the long tables. There was, no doubt, a lot of interesting conversation across the tables.

President Anthony Marx of the New York Public Library applauding last night's honorees.

Marilynne Robinson walking the length of the Reading Room to receive her Library Lion medal.

Honorees on the platform with their medals -- Sondheim, Robinson (back to camera), Katherine Boo, and Mayor Bloomberg.

The Library is a very prestigious philanthropy in New York, as it is in many other major metropolitan cities, and it attracts a distinctive and at times distinguished crowd. Brooke Astor, you might remember, gave many millions to the Library before she died. Bill Blass left them at least ten million. Mr. Schwarzman provided a $100 million contribution to what Anthony Marx referred to (as have many others) as “the greatest library in the world.”

In days of yore, from the early 19th century when books were even regarded as a luxury for most, many of the richest men and women in the city, including the first Mr. JJ Astor and Mr. Lenox gave to build collections. The greatest giver of them all who inspired more giving was Mr. Carnegie who actually funded the building of more than two thousand libraries across 47 states.

The red and the black: sisters-in-law Catherine Graham and Lally Graham Weymouth.

Joe Armstrong describing a review he'd read to Ben Brantley of the New York Times.

A donation to the library is indeed an important affirmation of a man or woman’s psychic connection to the community he or she lives in, and shares in. Mr. Carnegie who was born into poverty, attributed his great success as an entrepreneur (remembered for the steel business where he made his fortune) to his quest for “learning.” As he called it, acquired in books.

The dinner was over at ten, which no doubt came as a pleasant gift for many of the guests who like to be home before the eleven o’clock hour. Many attending have busy social schedules at this time of the year. As much as they presumably like it, they like getting home at a convenient hour also. There was a “Young Lions Benefit Party” beginning at 9 pm in the Celeste Bartos Forum which some of the dinner guests joined afterwards.

The Gala co-chairs were Mr. and Mrs. Oscar de la Renta, Ms. Antoinette Delruelle and Mr. Joshua L. Steiner, Mr. and Mrs. Scott Malkin, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Marron, Mr. and Mrs. John Paulson, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Schwarzman, Mr. James Tisch and the Honorable Merryl H. Tisch, Mr. and Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Wachenheim III.

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Looking towards Central Park South from within Central Park. 2:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013. Sunny, chilly, overcoat time, yesterday in New York. Terrible traffic all over town. Extraordinary foliage in Central Park, delicately lush, intense colors. The next couple of days will be the time to see it. It reassures you.

I had gone down to Michael’s to lunch with Andrew Stein and a friend of his, Danielle Schriffen who with her sister, launched a women’s sports clothing line last year called Schriffen.

A few seasons back Danielle had a stint as a model on “Project Runway.” Her designer didn’t make the cut so her TV gig was finished. Modeling, however, was not her objective professionally. The experience on Project Runway motivated her to go to school. And she did: FIT where she learned the fundamentals of designing clothes. She loved it.

DPC and Danielle Schriffen at Michael's.

The world of fashion, as Danielle sees it, is changing dramatically. Right now. So’s the world, for that matter. She can see it all around her. Her opinions interested me because they mirror those of Blair Sabol who writes the “No Holds Barred” diary for NYSD. Blair calls it symptoms of “flatlining.” Danielle sees it in city life, which has grown noticeably quieter. The downtown, which has been her mecca since she was a young girl, is quiet.


	Schriffen Anna Golf Dress & Bow Show Jacket.

A difference in attitude was evident to her in the last Fashion Week at the “Tents” at Lincoln Center. For some it seemed like a kind of Last Hurrah (my words for their perceptions), as if it had lost its mojo (again my word for it). It occurred to Danielle that there were more efficient ways to get the message across to women who need clothes, and want fashion.

Danielle’s approach as a designer is“niche.” She’s a longtime golfer; plays all the time. Women’s choices for golfing apparel has long been limited in concept. Danielle wanted clothes that could even be used or accessorized for other occasions. She and her sister who is a lawyer merged their talents and established the line: Schriffen.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting next to a young woman at the Frick dinner, who has started her own business as a shoe designer. Both of these women are visionary and industrious, as well as entrepreneurial. This is at the core of New York life which has always, since its founding, been a city of commerce. Their entrepreneurial energy is like Mother Nature and the foliage in the Park: reassuring.

New York City's new mayor.

Last night New Yorkers elected a new mayor, Bill de Blasio, by a huge margin. It was not a surprise to many who have been following the campaigns. In my neck of the woods (the UES) I heard a lot of “worries” about the possibility of Mr. de Blasio being elected. Higher taxes, less security, etc. I had no take on it: how do you know how a man or a woman is going to handle the job until they get it?

It will be a bit different in my neighborhood as Gracie Mansion (the official residence of the Mayor of New York since LaGuardia -- Michael Bloomberg was the only mayor to choose to live in his own townhouse during his mayoralty) sits on a knoll at the end of East End Avenue, overlooking the East River – much the same view readers see frequently on the NYSD – on the northern edge of Carl Schurz Park. Years ago, when Rudy Giuliani was Mayor I used to see him occasionally playing shooting hoops with his son in the court of the Park on Sunday afternoons. It wouldn’t be surprising to see the new Mayor’s family from time to time.


	Click to order Alexa Hampton's Decorating in Detail.

As election eve was drawing to its conclusion, I went down to the Newell Galleries on East 53rd Street between Sutton Place and First Avenue where they were hosting a book signing party for Alexa Hampton. I love Alexa. She took over the business of her late father, the now legendary Mark Hampton, and turned out to be a chip off the old block, although new chip and excellent block.

The book, as you can see is called “Decorating In Detail.” Alexa is a genius at detail, even at eliminating detail. A couple of years ago Sian Ballen was arranging to interview her for our weekly HOUSE section. Alexa didn’t want to do the interview in her apartment because her children were still toddlers and she had no furniture in the living room.

Instead she’d covered the floor with a plastic material so that the children could crawl around and make a mess as much as they wanted.

I thought that was genius practicality. In the meantime, I’m sure they have transformed the living room once again in to a “living” room for the whole family. And Grandmother who sometimes comes to babysit her adored little ones. Gramma being the undaunted Duane who made sure I got to her daughter’s book signing.

Alexa signing ...

Alexa's mother, Duane Hampton, with a friend.

Duane with Newel's Meyer Newman.

The scene at Newell Galleries.


	Brian McCarthy with a copy of Luminous Interiors.Click to order.

After leaving Newel, I went over to the Fuller Building (the one with the COACH store and the PRADA store on the ground floor) on East 57th Street and Madison Avenue where Brian McCarthy, the interior designer, was having a book signing hosted by Beauvais Carpets in their showroom on the third floor.

Brian had drawn a big crowd of friends and his hosts had provided a very well stocked and efficient bar as well as a buffet table of of canapes. Enough to make a meal if you were so inclined. No doubt there were quite a few so-incliners as this is New York.

I spoke to Brian long enough to take his picture. He told me he’d been signing books since he arrived at five-thirty (it was then seven-thirty).

After leaving the Fuller building I walked over to the intersection of 57th and Fifth Avenue to get a look at the annual “Snowflake” light suspended but not yet shining over the crossroads of luxury (Bulgari, Tiffany, Van Cleef and Louis Vuitton occupying its four corners). It’s still dark. I took a picture of it: you can barely see it. Give it another week and that and the Bergdorf windows will be shining up the night over there.

Beauvais Carpets in the Fuller Building hosted the book signing.

Entering the gallery.

Looking up to the center of the crossroads. Can you see the un-illuminated "snowflake"?

Catching up. Around the town. Last Wednesday night over at Sotheby’s on 72nd and York, Claude Lalanne, Paul Kasmin and Michael Shvo held a reception and private viewing of “Les Lalanne; The Poetry of Sculpture” featuring the work of the late artists Francois-Xavier Lalanne and Claude Lalanne, curated by Kasmin and Shvo. The exhibition will be on view to the public through Friday, November 22nd.

Jane Holzer, Claude Lalanne, Paul Kasmin, and Michael Shvo.

Wilbur and Hilary Ross with Paul Kasmin.

Peter Marino and Seren Shvo.

Contact DPC here.

Looking towards Fifth Avenue and 77th Street from within Central Park. 3:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Thursday, November 7, 2013. Yesterday was another beautiful sunny mid-autumn day in New York at the peak of the foliage season.

I was thinking about that when I was looking out the window of the Metropolitan Club at the trees across the avenue. It turned out, about that same time, JH was in the Park looking at the trees and their spectacular color.

Looking towards Fifth Avenue and 78th Street from the 79th Street transverse.

Fifth Avenue from 77th Street.

Underfoot on Fifth.

Into Central Park we go ...

Looking south along Central Park West from 83rd Street.

It was also one of those days for me. The moanin’ and groanin’ starts encroaching on the inner voice. I ask myself “why” I do what I do in this business of “writing about it” because at just about this time of year it gets OCD, and the stress levels rise.

The social calendar that I follow and report on is on steroids right about now. It always is although each year seems more intense. For example, yesterday there were two luncheons – both at the Metropolitan Club – plus three different book signings, and one benefit gala for Phoenix House at the Mandarin Oriental, that I had committed to in my head and with my hosts. I ask myself why so much? First of all I always dumbly forget the time element in moving around New York in traffic.

I also had had a lunch date for Michael’s but that was fortunately (and fortuitously) canceled by my guest the day before.

Looking north across the central gallery of the Metropolitan Club from the second floor landing. I'd walked the stairs from the floor above and came upon this rarefied vista of this great building.

I went down to the Metropolitan Club about noon. The Audubon Society was honoring Allison Rockefeller in the great room on the ground floor overlooking the Park and the Plaza. On the third floor in one of their smaller, yet stately dining rooms, the American Associates of the Royal Academy were hosting a luncheon with the Duke of Devonshire, guest of honor and speaker.

I went there first. Both of these events began about 11:30, which is too early for me since we never put the NYSD to bed/up before 1 or 2 am. Everyone was seated and eating when I arrived. I spoke to Kathleen Hearst who is the president/director of the American Associates. She told me the duke would be speaking in about a half hour. I was curious to hear what he had to say, but I didn’t want to miss Allison Rockefeller receiving her award.

View of the avenue from the table.

So I went down to the first floor to speak to Allison and find out when her little ceremony would be taking place.

Soon, was the answer. She directed me to an empty seat that was meant for Rachel Hovnanian who couldn’t make it, seated next to Charles Rockefeller who is a cousin of Allison’s husband Peter, and next to Lisa Woodward who lives here and in Paris.

Everyone was finishing the main course. Shortly thereafter, David Yarnold, the President and CEO of the National Audubon Society introduced Elizabeth Cushman Titus Putnam who is the Founding President of the Student Conservation Association.

Elizabeth Cushman Titus Putnam, Founding President, Student Conservation Association, introducing the awardee, articulately describing the personality and character of one Allison Rockefeller.

A shot of the Awardee's profile as she listened to Ms. Putnam. She felt very flattered and even amused by Putnam's golden words. I was thinking at that moment, how true they were, and how sweet the Awardee's natural modesty.

The official title of the event was the Thomas W. Keesee, Jr. Conservation Award Luncheon. Mr. Keesee was a longtime member of the National Audubon Society’s board. He was a lawyer by profession but a conservationist. He used his professional know how to help the cause.

The award is one of the Audubon Society’s highest, going to an individual or individuals “who have shown remarkable leadership and commitment, particularly in New York State, Audubon’s mission to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity.”

Somehow that’s how I know Allison. I’ve known her personally the way I know a number of people here in New York who are active philanthropically. We don’t see much of each other, or socialize much privately, so we’re not “friends” in that sense. But “they” are very nice to know.

Allison speaking to the guests.

Allison is one of those people who is there when you talk to her, and so am I. Our conversations are quite naturally, direct, frank, and informative. I think we share a true sense of each other. And I like her very much. I’m sure many people do; it may be that “remarkable leadership” quality that she possesses with ease. She’s also easy to laugh.

I learned a few years ago about her conservationist side. A big side. She got me to attend the luncheons of the Women’s Committee which she heads up. Audubon’s not about just the birds anymore. It’s the bigger picture: the Earth. Mother Earth. Where the birds live. If they can live. This is what Audubon is about now: Us. Here. And how. And, How.

There was much praising of Allison by those who spoke ahead of her including Erin Crotty, the Executive Director of Audubon New York, and David Yarnold, and Ms. Putnam. About her leadership and her dedication, about her charm, often referred to by all. It is subtle because she has an easy direct way about her – and her laughter, but it’s more than that: it’s her commitment that inspires.

She looks like a very young woman in these pictures, younger even than she looks in life. The face has the unblemished sincerity and pleasure of believing something good.

She talks in such a way that is resolute but so gentle yet deliberate in tone that at first you don't realize how powerful her message is.

Conservationists are not conducting a hobby. They love the outdoors, they love nature, they love fishing and sailing and hiking and bird watching and what not. It’s where we live. Conservationists are religious. Their religion is Mother Earth, and all the creatures and elements upon it. Mother Earth doesn’t need us; we need Her. In the last century it has come upon us that things are changing.

Allison Rockefeller’s speech yesterday was about that, and about a woman’s role in conserving. I took a series of pictures of her as she spoke. They’re taken from a zoom lens and are somewhat fuzzy but they describe the gentle but face-fact resoluteness of her intention with this matter. It is not really a Cause; it is about Life itself.

She's not kidding. This is a matter for all mankind, for all seasons and for now, and women, she believes can and must play a major role in getting the message across to the human race.

As she's finishing you can see the face is now that of a solemn, uncertainly concerned woman, who knows of what she speaks. She's also a remarkable speaker with a uniquely relaxed tone of certainty.

She pointed out the leadership of Rachel Carson, one woman who was one of the first individuals to change the consciousness of people about their planet. She led the way for all women to work for the two essentials needed for all mankind: clean air and clean water. She asked what business or corporation would really want to make a living killing the planet which would naturally kill all of us.

Allison Rockefeller knows she cannot convince everyone that we are endangered because of the environment. But there are many other women, like herself, who are in agreement. Those women, you women, can make the difference. Therein lies the hope.

Allison Rockefeller and Erin Crotty, Executive Director, Audubon New York.

Last night was another story. I seem to turn these things into a marathon, unwittingly, or half-wittedly. However, there were more book signings. I started out at 1A East 77th Street where Susan Burke was hosting a book signing for Howard Slatkin and his new book, “Fifth Avenue Style.”

Until last night I’m not sure that Mr. Slatkin and I have ever met, although I know his brother and sister-in-law, Harry and Laura who are the fragrant candle tycoons (and I’m not kidding). I was slightly aware of Howard Slatkin’s interior design work although I now realize I saw it out of context.


	Howard Slatkin signing his new book, Fifth Avenue Style.

	Click to order.

This book is many things, and it is in the context of the man. I opened it when I got it home just to have a quick look, with no intention of actually sitting down and spending time with it (at least not last night). Eventually, I didn’t (spend much time with it) because I had a deadline, like it or not, and I didn’t want to be up all night because of Howard Slatkin and his designing life. But I'll go back because there is much to see and many thoughts to be evoked.

Mr. Slatkin evokes all kinds of thoughts. You wonder what he’s like. Is he OCD? Like so many of us, maybe. Was he a Russian prince in another life? Possibly.

Does he have a “can’t resist” hankering for luxury of the 18th century? Definitely. But that’s just the beginning of what went through my head as I turned to page after page just to look ... I think the French might call it “de trop.” Or the Americans, over-the-top. It’s his private residence on Fifth Avenue. He takes you from its inception, includes the early drawings of the re-configuring, the tearing down of walls, and then the putting up of ... the work of Howard Slatkin. He demonstrates the meaning of luxury. It’s more than the eye, it’s more than the purse, it’s the heart of the matter.

I was kinda laughing as I wrote that last sentence because I was thinking of the man Slatkin whom I know only really from this book (which I didn’t have time to really look at last night). He’s impassioned, he loves beauty, he loves woods and stones and marble and craftsmanship and artisanship, and all those touches that came with The Enlightenment.

He loves books and you see them everywhere. You see what he reads and how curious the mind is, the curious mind never rests. You think about the cleaning lady, the housekeeper; who ever does the dusting. I mean, I don’t’ think about that so much myself but this abode has a museum quality built in and you feel compelled to uphold it even in looking at it. And he loves dogs.

The other thing you think looking at this book, the other thing I was thinking was: where does he find the time to do all that, just for himself, not to mention his clients. Anyway, it’s a triumph and you don’t have to be interested in interior design to read Mr. Slatkin’s book and really love it. It’s just the fascinating story of man. And a stylish one. On Fifth Avenue. In New York, in the 21st Century. A real New Yorker.

Dr. Patricia Allen and Lisa McCarthy in front of a Horst photograph of Marlene Dietrich wearing her Verdura, at last night's book signing.

On the road again. Grabbed a taxi down Fifth Avenue to 58th Street and Verdura where Ward and Nico Landrigan were hosting a book signing for Alexander Vreeland who edited a book of his grandmother’s memos during her years as the editor of Vogue.

It’s called “Memos.” It’s coffee-table book size, beautifully published photocopies of her actual typewritten and handwritten memos and letters. Some who are Vreelandophiles believe this is the ultimate memoir because you are exposed to her wit and clever thinking and unique point of view thoroughly through her own words.
There was a big, glamorous crowd at Verdura. I asked Mr. Vreeland to hold the book for the picture. I took it. It was pleasant but then I said, “now smile like your grandmother on the cover.”

Click to orderDiana Vreeland Memos: The Vogue Years.

And so he did. And doesn’t he have her smile? We had a good laugh. I met Vreeland (as people refer to her, the legend) a couple of times and was totally charmed by her intense yet twinkling gaze and ironic grin.


	Click to order Shooting Straight.

I knew her son Tim out in L.A. He was very much the gentleman in a most naturally sophisticated way, and bore that air about him that his mother commanded. Good company. Grandson does the same. In the genes, must be.

After leaving Verdura, I hopped a cab over to East 52nd Street and the River House where Lord and Lady Rothschild were hosting a book signing for Piers Morgan. I got there about 7:30 – quarter to eight. No doubt the bigger crowd had long come and gone – although they were still coming in when I was leaving. I just wanted the picture of Mr. Morgan.

Martha happened to have given him her book for an inscription.

I then asked him to hold it up so that I could get a picture of the cover and make it easier to see. He kindly complied, and so it was.

And that’s when I decided it was time ...

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Looking towards Fifth Avenue from within Central Park. 3:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Monday, November 11, 2013. Cool, but not very cold weather this past weekend in New York. Rain clouds that sometimes looked a bit (I’m reaching) like snow clouds passed over leaving only the slightest evidence of moisture. The weatherman’s forecasting some chance of some white stuff by Wednesday.

Friday afternoon, leaving Swifty's after lunch, I passed some ghosts left over from last week on East 73rd Street. Well, hanging around is what ghosts do anyway, no?

Friday night, sunset, close to five p.m., looking south on East End Avenue. If you look closely above the towers at the end of the Avenue, you can see the planet Venus on the rise in the night sky.

The cloud cover moving in on Sunday afternoon about three looks ominous but was just a cloud cover, passing through. View from East 83rd Street looking south.

The same spot on the Promenade looking north toward the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. You can see a ship coming around the bend heading downriver.

I've been watching this boat, "The Red Hook," for the past twenty years that I've been living in this neighborhood. It is, I believe, a tanker "Red Hook" owned by the DWP and it travels this route, along with a sister ship the "Newtown Creek.".

It was a quiet weekend for this writer, which came as a relief from jam-packed social calendar at this time of year. Although on Saturday night I went to dine with Joe Armstrong at Sette Mezzo and the evening was notable (besides an always enjoyable conversation with Joe) what with Leonardo diCaprio dining with friends.

Other treats at Sette Mezzo.

It’s always a treat for New Yorkers to see a real movie star in their midst. Way out West where Leo comes from, you see the stars in the market, at the carwash, at a red light or in many restaurants. Also always a novelty sighting. But in the Big Town, it’s a different kind of thrill because they’re not so visible in the crowds of Gotham.

How did Leo look? Well, like Leo, although like he doesn’t give a damn how he looks so you might think on first sight: “that guy looks a lot like Leonardo DiCaprio…” before you realize it is he. As he was leaving, he had what looked like an electronic cigarette in his mouth.

Autumn nuptials in Central Park.

Today is Veterans Day in the United States. It had been called Armistice Day when it was created after World War I to honor, in the words of President Woodrow Wilson “the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…” After World War II and the Korean War, someone had idea of changing the name to include those wars. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the change into law in 1954.

Those of us who were alive at the time of the Second World War, and/or Korea and Viet Nam can recall a day of parades, laying of wreaths at cemeteries and public speeches remembering especially those who gave their lives in those wars. Schools and banks were closed. There were parades but it was entirely solemn day.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signing HR7786, changing Armistice Day to Veterans Day 1954.

Last Thursday night I missed the Friends of Tusk USA benefit at the Tribeca Rooftop but our friend author/composer/lyricist Christopher Mason did attend and kindly reported on it to us as well as providing some of his pictures:

The Friends of Tusk USA converged at the Tribeca Rooftop to support Tusk's vital efforts in Africa to protect threatened species, including elephants, rhinos, cheetahs, mountain and lowland gorillas, and chimpanzees. Guests were told of a horrendous statistic: Last year, it is estimated that 35,000 elephants were slaughtered for ivory trinkets.

"Big" by David Yarrow. Amboseli, Kenya, 2012. One of the photographs exhibited for sale at Tusk's benefit dinner on Thursday night, available at tuskusa@tusk.org.

Under the royal patronage of HRH Duke of Cambridge (aka Prince William), Tusk supports conservation projects in 18 African countries. In addition to its efforts to protect wildlife, the group works to combat poverty through sustainable development and education programs. During the evening, 240 guests admired magnificent large-scaled works by British-born photographer David Yarrow of endangered African animals, being sold to support TUSK. For more information, visit
www.tuskusa.org

African leaf decor.

Tablecloths designed by Tusk Patron Peter Dunham.

Daniel and Yvonne Lalonde.

Daniel Lalonde and Meredith Ogilvie-Thompson.

Lucy Rose Singh.

Damola Araoye, Bola Sagoe, and Abi Bolarinwa.

Beth Sachs.

Robby Browne.

Lee Auchincloss and Sean Driscoll.

Bearing tuna-and-cucumber canapés.

Rhea Breck.

Wendy Breck and Greg Rasmussen.

Elizabeth de Rosa and Tom de Rosa.

Paula Kahumbu and John Heminway.

Luke Fairbairn, auction volunteer.

Sydney and Stan Shuman.

Alan Rogers, Kathleen Gerard, and Mayann Mullins.

Dr. Soren and Maria White.

This past Friday nightSonya Tremont-Morgan and Hunt Slonem hosted a cocktail party at the artist’s studio for the American Friends of Blerancourt who are holding a gala event tonight (11/11) at the Pratt House on 68th and Park.

Blerancourt is in Picardy in Northern France. Built in 1612, it was purchased in 1919 by Anne Morgan, daughter of J. Pierpont Morgan, it had only two small pavilions remaining when Morgan acquired it. She turned one pavilion into a residence for herself, and the second into a museum dedicated to French-American history.

he Château de Blérancourt.

Anne Morgan was there when the Second World War broke out and Nazi Germany invaded Belgium. Blerancourt became a center for refugees. It then became a regional center providing medical care. When she died in 1952, Morgan left the chateau to the French people. It became a Musée National de la Coopération Franco-Américaine.

At tonight’s gala, former Ambassador to France Craig Stapleton will receive the Blerancourt Award. Chef Daniel Boulud will be present to prepare an exquisite dinner for the guests in the great Harold Pratt Mansion which is now the headquarters for the Council on Foreign Relations.

Board Members Andrew Kotchoubey, Artist Hunt Slonem, Sonja Tremont-Morgan, Eugenie Angles, Baroness Mary Sargent d'Anglejan, Jay Paul, Jean Astrop, and Carla Darlington.

Hunt Slonem and Sonja Tremont-Morgan.

Robin Cofer and Lauren Roberts.

Robert Wynne Parry and Alexander Werz.

Baroness Mary Sargent "didi" d'Anglejan (right) and friend.

Dominick D'Aleva and Robin Cofer.

Lauren Roberts and Director of American Friends of Blerancourt Elaine Leary.

Last Wednesday night at Cipriani 42nd Street, Phoenix House hosted its 2013 Fashion Award Dinner honoring Tory Burch,John Demsey, Group President, The Estee Lauder Companies, and Frank Doroff, Vice Chairman of Bloomingdale’s. Alina Cho emceed the evening. Rose Marie Bravo, Andrew Rosen CEO of Theory, and Leonard Lauder were presenters.

More than 600 attended Phoenix House’s largest annual fundraising event where they honor leaders in the fashion, beauty, retail and media industries. The event and its honorees help in raising awareness about substance abuse and addiction and Phoenix House’s pioneering treatment and recovery programs. They raised $1.5 million.

Cipriani wait staff with Tiffany & Co. Mystery Blue Boxes.

There are many “heroes” in this cause which was begun by Hero Number One, Dr. Mitch Rosenthal whose pioneering work in treatment and recovery programs has touched the lives of thousands and thousands of men and women and their families in overcoming substance abuse of one form or another.

The evening itself is fashionable but cozy, fun and heartening to everyone attending because the tone is celebratory — for personal triumphs and everyone has a good time.

Mitch’s wife, Dr. Sarah Simms Rosenthal, who is a therapist, had the additional joy of observing a former client (of years ago) speak of her personal triumph working with Sarah and Phoenix House, and reflect on the results (success) in her life.

Marilyn Gauthier, Alina Cho, John Demsey, Renee Demsey, and Jamie Tisch.

Louise and Vince Camuto.

Sarah Rosenthal and Anais La Rocca.

Leonard Lauder.

Frank and Stephanie Doroff.

Andrew Rosen, Rose Marie Bravo, and Dr. Mitch Rosenthal.

Kathleen Kelley, John Forte, and Ricki Roer.

Stacy Bendet.

Tiffany & Co. Mystery Blue Box Grand Prize Winner.

Elizabeth Lindemann and Tory Burch.

Carol Mack and Alex Hitz.

Andrew Rosen, Lazaro Hernandez, Shirley Cook, and Jack McCollough.

Kyle Hotchkiss Carone and Olivier Theyskens.

Khajak Keledjian, Andrew Rosen, Ashley Rosen, and Austin Rosen.

Photographs by bfanyc.com (Phoenix House); Andrew Werner (Blerancourt), Christopher Mason, TUSK.

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Looking west (towards the Beresford) from Turtle Pond in Central Park. 2:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013. Chilly grey Veterans Day in New York with “a bit of snow and rain” forecast in the early morning hours tomorrow. You wouldn’t know it to look at the sky at midnight. Still cold, however.

The city was not quiet on yesterday’s holiday. There was a lot of commerce going on, lots of delivery trucks double parked along the streets and avenues, slowing down the already heavy traffic. I look at it as a Zen challenge – not that I meet the challenge that often.

Looking northeast across Central Park, taken by Duane Hampton at the School of American Ballet's Advisory Council fall lunch at One Central Park Club, on the 51st floor atop the Time Warner Building on Columbus Circle.

From the same perch looking directly east along Central Park South, Duane reports: "As one critic of obnoxious overbuilding said, 'Where is Jackie O when we need her?' She stopped Mort Zuckerman (I think he was the builder) from sending the Time Warner Building into the stratosphere, which would have sent a diagonal shadow southwest to northeast over the park."

I went to lunch at Swifty’s which was jammed. At a table nearby Lisa Schiff was being feted for her birthday (they brought in a cake with ONE candle; she made a wish and blew it out). I ran into the legendary jazz piano virtuoso (I can’t say enough), Miss Barbara Carroll who told me she and Mark Stroock got married six months ago. The second time around, folks. Barbara is appearing at Birdland this coming Saturday. Doors open at 5 PM.


	Newlyweds Barbara Carroll and Mark Stroock.

Barbara and I met through an editor friend of mine, Lisa Drew, in Los Angeles about 25 years ago (!). Lisa was staying with me editing the Debbie Reynolds book I’d (ghost) written. I was playing a CD for her “An Evening at the Erteguns,” a great double CD of a lot of the great cabaret and jazz artists from New York in the '40s and '50s.

One of my favorite artists was this pianist/singer called Barbara Carroll. It turned out that Lisa knew her and coincidentally Barbara was playing a gig at a hotel over in Westwood. We went one night and we’ve been friends ever since Barbara grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, a musician from childhood. She came to New York after attending a music school in Boston in the late 1940s. The club scene in New York was bursting; and so was the market for entertainment. Barbara got herself an agent but it was hard to book women jazz pianists.

So she went out with the name Bobby Carroll, and the club owner wouldn’t find out he’d booked a woman until she showed up. “No no, I’ve already some guy named Bobby Carroll for the job.” “But I’m ...” That’s right. The rest is history. Her music is like herself, delicate, deliberate, gentle yet resolute, a kind and Zen optimist, a good friend, and a masterful musician who loves that keyboard and the great American Songbook that loves her and us back.

The city wasn’t quiet last night either. Over at the Mandarin Oriental Pratt Institute was hosting its annual Scholarship Benefit Honoring Icons of Art and Design. This is a fashionable dinner.

They honored David Easton, an alumnus and a renowned interior designer; the legendary Pete Hamill; Margaret Russell, the Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Digest; and James Turrell the contemporary artist. Great New York crowd including Kurt Anderson, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel; David Walentas, Margot Bingham (“Boardwalk Empire”), Mario Buatta, Juan Montoya, Judy Collins, Richard Meier, Carmen Marc Vlavo, Jeffrey Banks (Pratt alumnus also); Martha Stewart, David Rockwell, Ted Allen.

While up on Park Avenue and 68th Street, at the Council on Foreign Relations, the old Harold Pratt mansion, The American Friends of Blerancourt (you read about it here yesterday) hosted their black tie dinner to honor The Honorable Craig R. Stapleton, former American Ambassador to France. The piece de resistance: Chef Daniel Boulud personal prepared the dinner.


Click to orderNo Better Friend.

And down on West 57th between Fifth and Sixth, Rizzoli Bookstore hosted book signing Elke Gazzara and for “No Better Friend, Celebrities and the Dogs They Love.” If you love your dog or you have a friend that loves his or her dog, or you always wanted a dog (there are lot of them looking for homes out there), this book is for you. I opened it up at random to a picture of Gay and Nan Talese. The first words are Gay’s (in a letter to Elke on her request for something about their dogs):

Dear Elke, I’m sorry I didn’t get this to you with your New York Times but I’m also trying to get working on a book already overdue.

You wanted dog comments, and I’m afraid that our dogs (two Australian terriers), Barclay and Benchley, are really Nan’s and not mine. One dog is about seven and the other about four. They are males, cousins, and probably homosexual, though they have lost interest in sex, it seems. Perhaps this is because both dogs need variety ... and, since they’re stuck with each other all day and all night, they’ve become asexual dogs, paying interest in nothing more than their thrice-daily feedings for which they arrogantly bark at precisely 9:00am, 3:15pm, and 7:45 pm. Nan feeds them promptly when they bark. She always looks at her watch and is amazed at how the dogs can tell time.

Meanwhile, last Thursday, Larry Gagosian hosted a reception at the newly reopened Gagosian Shop and the new ground floor Gagosian Gallery on Madison Avenue to celebrate the publication of Notes and Sketches: Travel Journals of William P. Rayner. This is a beautiful book, an actual diary that Billy Rayner kept over the years, accompanied by the watercolor paintings he did of the sites on his many trips. It’s an elegant two volume package, the perfect gift someone who loves travel, travel notes and a very comfortable and quietly charming travel partner and artist.

William Rayner signing a copy of Notes and Sketches: Travel Journals of William P. Rayner.

William Rayner and Bette Midler.

Patrick and Mia Demarchelier.

Timothy Forbes and Kathy Rayner.

Kelly Klein.

Hilary Geary Ross and Wilbur Ross.

Adrienne Vittadini and Muffie Potter Aston.

Calvin Klein and Isabel Rattazzi.

Larry Gagosian and Christine Erpf.

Kathy Rayner and Nancy Caine Marcus.

Peter Marino and Christy Ferer.

Bettina Zilkha and Peter Duchin.

Clifford Ross and Judy Hudson.

Lea Carpenter Brokaw and Bettina Zilkha.

Emily K. Rafferty and Bette Midler.

Alexandra Kotur, Jonathan Becker, and Reinaldo Herrera.

Also last Thursday was the beginning of Graham Arader weekend. Graham, if you didn’t know, is one of the world’s largest and most influential dealers of antique works on paper, paintings, maps, and rare books. He has two galleries here on Madison Avenue.

Graham has been in the business for more than a half century, having started out of his rooms at Yale. It’s a quiet subject to many if not most of us, but it is an exciting matter to scholars and collectors.

Friday afternoon ended a busy week of previews, with hundreds of guests having visited 1016 Madison Avenue to examine the 272 lots in the sale. This was the largest exhibition of the printed works of John James Audubon to be seen in decades.

There was a fascinating talk by Steve Zack from the Wildlife Conservation Society about efforts being made by the WCS and others to preserve bird populations and the habitat on which they depend. Audubon's observations of the passenger pigeon were a key part of the talk.

A standing-room-only crowd heard noted botanist and author Barney Lipscomb's lecture "Art and Science: A Botanist's Eye: Redoute and the Art of Floral Illustration.” Barney's lively multi media presentation took the rapt audience through four centuries of botanical illustration, culminating with the work of its greatest practitioner, Joseph Pierre Redoute.


	John James Audubon's "The Iceland or Jer Falcon" fetched $170,000 at the Arader sale on Saturday last.

Saturday afternoon, buyers gathered in person, by phone and online for Guernsey's third Arader Sale, More than 100 hand colored aquatint engravings from the masterwork Birds of America were sold in a spirited bidding session demonstrating the continuing appeal of these works of art. Multiple bidders took one of the finest works in the sale, the Iceland or Jer Falcon (Plate 266), feteched $170,800 with
premium.

Bidders also responded strongly to the rarely seen masterpiece The Wood Ibis ($118,950), and the popular Purple Heron/Reddish Egret to a final $122,000. Other works from Audubon's "great work" also did well, with collectors from around the country and around the world successfully adding to their collections at the sale.

Hand colored lithographs from Audubon's Quadrupeds of North America were also popular with bidders, some of whom got tremendous buys on these quintessentially American artworks. The American Bison, Male and its counterpart American Bison or Buffalo, Female each brought $30,500 with premium, and multiple bidders competed to acquire exceptional examples of The American Wildcat ($30,500) and The American Elk ($20,740).

The sale was not limited to Audubon. Astute connoisseurs acquired five of the six original watercolors by Georg Dionysius Ehret, most of the hand colored engravings from George Brookshaw's Pomona Britannica were sold to mutiple bidders, and collectors obviously saw great value in the selection of photogravures from Curtis' great The North American Indian.

At each Arader auction, up to 20% of the hammer price is earmarked for charities like the University of South Carolina, where a love of learning and of nature will yield benefits for generations to come.

Contact DPC here.

Traveling Eye

The last week of Summer

Stops along the way

The end of the last long weekend

In the News

Summer’s over. That was quick.

Loving the upcoming season

Twelve years later

You could “see” it, let alone feel it

All the world's a stage

There’s something about the clouds

It’s beginning to feel like it

In the thick of it

Frolicking for Fall

The foliage is close to peak

Fall décor

Delicately lush

Deliberate in tone

Hoping for the white stuff

Slowing down the already heavy traffic