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 A busy night on the town
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| Manhattan sunset. 6:15 PM. Photo: JH. |
November 3, 2009. Not a sunny day, yesterday in New York. But not a rainy one either. Cool but not cold.
I went down to Michael’s to have lunch with four very interesting people to talk about the upcoming New York City Opera “Theater Debut Celebration” which takes place this coming Thursday in the newly renovated David H. Koch Theater. But more on that later in tomorrow’s Diary.
Last night was a busy one in New York on the social, philanthropic, arts and culture scene. Many good and worthwhile benefit dinners and parties deserving attention.
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| Lawrence Herbert, Outstanding Contributions to the World of Dance Award. |
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| Patrick Swayze, Rolex Dance Award. |
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Lloyd E. Rigler, Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation
Outstanding Contributions to the World of Dance Award. |
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The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art held its “Urban Visionaries” 150th Anniversary Award Dinner at 7 World Trade Center. They honored Terry Lundgren, Chairman and CEO of Macy’s, Yoko Ono, Cesar Pelli, Shirley Ann Jackson and Leslie M. Hewitt.
Back uptown, at City Center, Career Transition For Dancers held its 24th Anniversary Jubilee with Laura Benanti, Valerie Harper, Samuel Ramey, Ann Reinking, Ethan Steifel; New York City Ballet’s Ashley Bouder and Andrew Veyette and special performances by a number of performing artists and dance companies. And honoring Larry Herbert, the late Patrick Swayze, Lloyd Rigler and the Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation.
Career Transition is an under-the-radar organization that does very good work assisting dancers who are no longer dancing professionally into changing careers. Dancers come to their new professions equipped with invaluable qualities like commitment, discipline and gratitude (for having a job).
Also last night in New York: The Dramatists Guild of America’s 2009 Awards Night at the Players club at 16 Gramercy Park. This year’s award recipients were David Ives for New Jerusalem, Tom Kitt for Next to Normal, Lanford Wilson for the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, and Polly Pen for the Flora Roberts Award – presented to a theater professional in recognition for distinguished work in the theater.
Wait, there’s more. The Academy of American Poets held their celebration of the Academy’s 75th Anniversary, honoring Lyn Chase and Jonathan Galassi, with cocktails and dinner at the Colony Club.
I went down to the New York City Library in the Stephen Schwarzman Building at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue for the annual Library Lions gala benefit.
The New York Public Library is one of the most important institutions not only in the city, but for the country and the American culture. It is a miraculous achievement of community. We are so used to the existence of libraries as edifices in our lives that we forget that this is the storehouse, safe deposit box and main lender to the genius of the community and the world. I make these lofty descriptions because they are most appropriate.
That said, the annual Library Lions dinner is the biggest and the mostest of the Library’s copious events. It is their fund-raiser of fund-raisers, and last night they took in $2.7 million. The women dress and bring out their jewels (modestly, it seems, nowadays) and the men wear black tie. By black tie, I mean no gussying it up, no ruffles and flourishing neckwear. With the exception of a couple of men who simply don’t wear a tie. |
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| The entrance to the Rose Main Reading Room and last night's dinner for the Library Lions. |
It is a huge dinner with more than 600 guests, and held in the Rose Main Reading Room (preceded by cocktails in the gallery nearby). After dinner beginning about 9:30 there is a dance/drinks party for the younger set and that draws several hundred also.
The library is one of those great majestic buildings constructed back in the days when men and women imagined institutions as being forever, the mere mortal’s infinity. Beautiful marble halls, sweeping staircases, vast wood paneled rooms, beautiful floorings. And the gargantuan and serene Reading Rooms. Larger than any of us, as it ought to be.
David Monn and Gayfryd Steinberg always decorate this evening. Because Monn has become a very prominent events designer in his own right, I asked Mrs. Steinberg last night what her contribution was. She told me she filled all the breadbaskets on all the tables. The breadbaskets, incidentally, were beautifully packed with all kinds of breads, all of which (I tried a few) were fresh and delicious. |
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| The Reading Room transformed by David Monn for last night's dinner. |
| The table cloths, the breadbaskets, the floral holders and the platecovers are paper. |
| The plate covers hid artichokes stuffed with chopped shrimp. |
Everything on the table with the exception of the glassware, flatware, candles and crystal, was made of paper, including the aforementioned breadbaskets, as well as the table clothes and vase holders.
About eight o’clock the crowd began moving in for dining and the program. I saw Mort Janklow, the legendary literary agent who told me that seat to which he was assigned turned out to be the same chair in which he sat for weeks and months as a kid writing his thesis, which was on Propaganda and its effects. It was there, at that chair, in this great room, that he read the 23 volumes of Goebbels diaries, and where young Janklow witnessed firsthand through the written word, the art of the Big Lie.
It’s become custom at this dinner that people take their time finding their tables (which are the rooms actual reading tables). The room is full of conversation and enjoying the experience of seeing Who’s Here. |
| The Gayfryd Steinberg-packed all-paper breadbaskets. |
| Listening to the Library's CEO, Paul LeClerc. |
It’s a very good list, a vast array of the city, its leaders, its entrepreneurs, its real estate owners, lawyers, actors and writers. The best upper sets in Cole Porter-speak, adjusted for the early 21st century. Such as Gordon and Peggy Davis, Daniel Boulud, Roy Blount Jr., Susan Baker, Billy Crudup, Jean and Raymond Troubh, Vicki and Spiro Skouras, Catie and Donald Marron, Hermes Mallea and Carey Maloney, Annette and Oscar de la Renta, Nancy and Henry Kissinger, Diana Quasha, Robin Pogrebin, Vicky Ward and Matt Doull, Hilary and Bryant Gumbel, Gillian and Sylvester Miniter, Joan Hardy Clark, Calvin Trillin, Anna and Graydon Carter, Kimberly and Jonathan Schulhof, Saul Steinberg, Zibby and Andrew Right, Nathan Bernstein and Katharina Otto-Bernstein, Pamela Gross and Jimmy Finkelstein, Peggy Siegal, Ira and Ingeborg Rennert, Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz, John and Jenny Paulson, Sean Wilsey, Mitch and Nina Davidson, Christopher Mason, Susan Fales-Hill, Linda and Harry Macklowe, Barbara and Evan Chesler, Toni Goodale, Charlotte Moss and Barry Friedberg, Anthony Appiah, Howard and Abby Milstein, Carl Spielvogel and Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Joel Connaroe, Henry Louis Gates, Susan and Donald Newhouse, Nancy and Harold McGraw, Hannah and Gavin McFarland, Emily and Harold Ford, Joe Cohen and Lally Weymouth, Lynn Nesbit, Hannah Pakula, Clifford and Lea Brokaw, Susan and John Hess, Jon Meacham, Debby and Leon Black, George Baker, Marshall Rose, Richard Meier, Damon and Liz Mezzacappa, Mike Ovitz, Charlie Rose, Peter Heywood and Shirley Lord Rosenthal, Amanda Foreman, Harold Evans, Steve Rattner, Commissioner Ray Kelly and Veronica Kelly, Frank Langella, David Beitzel and Darren Walker, Hilary and Wilbur Ross, Robert and Ina Caro, Nan and Gay Talese, Jackie and Ira Neimark, Sarah Medford, Joe Armstrong, Emma Bloomberg, Joan Bingham, Serena Boardman, Tony Bechara, Kathy Sloane, Ken and Kathryn Chenault, Jean Strouse, James and Meryl Tisch, Becca Fribourg, Caroline Weber, Alan Wanzenberg, Fran Lebowitz, Nick Pileggi and Nora Ephron, Louise Grunwald, Pallavi Shah, Lesley Stahl and Aaron Latham, Joan Hardy Clark, Barbara Goldsmith, Peter Brown, Louise Mirrer, Rod and Jackie Weld Drake, Jill Buttenwesier, Felix and Elizabeth Rohatyn, Emily and Leonard Blavatnik, Lynn Sherr, Liz Robbins, Maureen Orth, Roger Altman and Jurate Kazickas, Ellen Futter, Kimba Wood and Frank Richardson, Linda Fairstein, Dick and Diana Beattie. And hundreds more from that special universe called New York.
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| The introductory video of John Lithgow asking a librarian to help him research a political quotation that he can use for his speech ... |
| Lithgow, now having stepped out of the video and onto the speaking platform. |
John Lithgow was Master of Ceremonies. We were first introduced to him on the big screens at either end of the room, playing a man who was about to go and give an opening speech for a dinner at a major cultural institution.
At first you thought you were watching a previously filmed clip as you followed the actor’s comic antics. Until, you saw the actor walking down a darkened passage way and appearing ... in the room before us.
Mr. Lithgow is very funny. He introduced the several film clips about the library. These were very well done but the audience of adults watching just couldn’t stop talking with each other and eventually the din of their charmed voices pretty much drowned out the message coming across from the big screen. |
| The honorees: Janice Moore-Smith, Hilary Knight, Julia Chang, Annie Proulx, and David Smith. |
Not to worry. It’s preaching to the converted anyway. Being in that beautiful room last night, surrounded by the innovative and creative decor briefly flouncing up the distinguished sanctuary, would know this library is an extraordinary place. Just like its results – like the aforementioned Mr. Janklow who began his fantastically interesting path in life in this same room.
We were at the Source. You can feel it. It reassures.
They honored Julia Chang, the NYPL’s children’s librarian along with Hilary Knight, the illustrator of the Eloise children’s books; Janice Moore-Smith, education and career specialist at the NYPL, David Smith, senior research librarian at the Library, and Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain.
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| Barbara Goldsmith and David Smith |
Annie Proulx and Paul LeClerc |
When the honorees came down from the platform, I introduced myself to Annie Proulx by informing her that she and I both attended Colby College. She’d lived also in Freeport, Maine at that time in her life (she now lives in Wyoming and Alberquerque).
She told me I was the first person she’d ever met from Colby since leaving. Interesting. I’m a little ahead of her there but not by much. However, my memories of that college and those days of my life are sweet and full of fondness and reverie for even the long cold Maine winters. I think I struck that same reverence in Annie Proulx last night. She, like me, never finished (about which I have no regrets whatsoever). I have no doubt that she, like me, was very impressed to be in that grand room last night where the days are spent by Man at his best. |
| Gayfryd Steinberg and Hilary Ross |
Ira and Inge Rennert |
Pamela Gross and Jimmy Finkelstein |
| Barbara Walters, Frank Langella, and Linda Janklow |
Darren Walker, Deborah Tolman, and Luis Ubiñas |
| Mitch and Nina Davidson |
Bill Cunningham and Ira Neimark |
Susan Fales-Hill |
| Wilbur Ross with Nathan Bernstein and Katharina Otto-Bernstein |
Linda Jankow and Richard Meier |
| David Beitzel |
Peter Eyre and Lynn Nesbit |
Hilary Gumbel, Joe Armstrong, and Gillian Miniter |
| Bryant Gumbel with Gillian and Sylvester Miniter |
Peter Heywood and Shirley Lord Rosenthal |
| Elizabeth Rohaytin |
Len Blavatnik and Vicki Ward |
Nan Talese |
| Gay Talese, Hilary Gumbel, Joe Armstrong, and Nan Talese |
Paul LeClerc |
| Diana Quasha |
Emily and Len Blavatnik with Peggy Siegal |
Dr. Judith Ginsberg |
| Hilary Gumbel from the back |
Dustin Hoffman (left) and Susan Hess (middle) |
| Joan Hardy Clark and Pallavi Shah |
Evan Chesler and Toni Goodale |
| Mort Janklow at the table where he sat while writing his thesis |
Peggy Siegal |
Hannah Pakula |
| Bryant Gumbel and Dustin Hoffman |
Bryant Gumbel and Ken Chenault |
| Wilbur Ross |
Peggy Siegal, Serena Boardman, and Pamela Gross |
| Ellen Futter, Len Blavatnik, and Peggy Siegal |
Nora Ephron, Graydon Carter, and Louise Grunwald |
Also last night in New York: Thomas Campbell, the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and His Excellency Pierre Vimont, Ambassador of France to the United States, hosted a preview reception for the opening of the exhibition “The Young Archer Attributed to Michelangelo.” NYSD's contributing photojournalist (and associate editor) Jill Krementz was there.
The sculpture stood for years in the old Payne Whitney mansion at 972 Fifth Avenue which had become the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York. It went for decades without attribution and was a big story when Michelangelo became the attribution. The French Cultural Services has granted the Met the sculpture for ten years. |
| Sculptor Mark di Suvero with Michelangelo's The Young Archer. |
Diane Fisher. |
| Rosamund Bernier with Olivier Bernier. |
Thomas Campbell, Director of the Met, talking with Philippe de Montebello, former Director of the Met. |
Also last night: (Amanda Gordon reports) An esteemed crowd gathered at a private club in midtown to toast the new book, The Citizen’s Constitution: An Annotated Guide (Basic Books) by newspaperman Seth Lipsky, who founded The New York Sun and before that the English edition of the Forward after a career at The Wall Street Journal.
The book is, as Mr. Lipsky describes it in his preface, “a marbling of the Constitution’s cake with a newspaperman’s batter.” That means an edition of the constitution in which the living history of the document is described in concise footnotes running about two-thirds the length of every page.
“You are in for a real treat,” said Judge Reena Raggi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in her toast. “Not only the language, but the people who wrote it, come alive.” |
| Seth Lipsky and Henry Kissinger |
Milton Esterow and Michael Steinhardt |
| Judge Reena Raggi |
Jane Eisner, editor of the Forward |
Alana Newhouse, Joseph Goldstein, and Tamar Newman |
Judge Raggi was thrilled to find the Door War in Rhode Island in the 1840s included, as it was the first test of the first clause of Article 4, Section 4, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” The Door War was the subject of her thesis.
“Everything I spent 75 pages writing about is in there” in just three pages, Judge Raggi said. “I thought, now that’s a newspaperman.” |
| Ken and Ann Bialkin |
Peter Kann and Judge Andrew Napolitano |
| Ira Stoll and Adam Brodsky |
Monica Wambold |
Jeff Peek |
Mr. Lipsky said he came up with the idea for the book when he was working in the Detroit bureau of The Wall Street Journal, and had a discussion about abortion and the right to privacy. Most of the writing and research for the book, however, took place over the last year.
The crowd grasped the pressing need for the book. “There’s a lot of Constitutional illiteracy out there,” said writer Norman Podhoretz. His favorite part of the document? “You’re supposed to say the Bill of Rights, if you’re pious. I like it all,” he added. |
| John Seeley and Meghan Clyne |
Mychal Springer and Philip Gourevitch |
Asked his favorite part, the editor of ARTnews, Milton Esterow, said, “The Bill of Rights, especially the part about freedom of the press.” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page editor, Paul Gigot, had referred to his copy of the constitution earlier in the day, to check an editorial writer’s reference to bankruptcy and the Constitution.
Hosts were Peter Kann, Michael Steinhardt and Ali Wambold. Guests included District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, Sir Harold Evans, Andrew Whist, Nancy and Henry Kissinger, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Thomas Tisch, Neal Kozodoy, Myron Magnet, John Stossel, Bernard Nussbaum and Esther Dyson, as well as many former colleagues of Mr. Lipsky’s, such as Ira Stoll, whose biography of Samuel Adams comes out today in paperback, and Philip Gourevitch, the editor of the Paris Review.
-- Amanda Gordon, society editor of The New York Sun |
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