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 Hot days, quiet nights
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| Looking south along 7th Avenue from 53rd Street. 3:30 PM. Photo: JH. |
July 15, 2010. A hot day in New York with city’s streets washed by a very early morning torrential shower and a steady, cooling, heavy rainfall at the day’s end.
Quiet nights around town in New York: Tonight the Frick Collection hosts its 3rd annual Garden Party, a benefit reception offering rare access to the museum’s Fifth Avenue Garden and an evening of cocktails and jazz. Proceeds support a full range of programs at the Frick including educational and curatorial initiatives and Library activities.
Chairs for the evening are: Emily T. Frick, Fiona Benenson, Clare McKeon, Caroline Milbank, Lisa Morse, Alexandra Porter, Barbara Reiel, Deborah Royce and Jennifer Wright.
Guests will be able to visit a new display in the Cabinet gallery created to mark the museum’s transition in 1935 from private house to public institution, From Mansion to Museum: The Frick Collection celebrates 75 years.
Very civilized, from 6:30 to 9 pm, and a perfect summer evening for it.
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| The invitation for Inspired, a photography show curated by Beth DeWoody. |
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Meanwhile, forty-seven blocks to the south and five to the west at the Steven Kasher Gallery at 521 West 23rd Street, they held the opening reception of “Inspired,” a Beth DeWoody curated show of photography, which runs through August 13th. This opening drew an amazingly huge crowd – with more than 1000 attending.
The exhibition presents contemporary photographs inspired by iconic photographs. Artists include Meghan Boody, Jen DeNike, Jordan Doner, Sante D'Orazio, Alinka Echeverría, Jonah Fay-Hurvitz and Kyle DeWoody, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Greg Friedler, Henny Garfunkel, Ralph Gibson, Josh Gosfield, Joel Grey, Tim Hailand, Lyle Ashton Harris, Noritoshi Hirakawa, Lisa Kereszi, Terence Koh, Chase Koopersmith, Eric Kroll, Liz Magic Laser, Erica Lennard, Gideon Lewin, Burton Machen, Patrick McMullan, Leonard Nimoy, Karen Ostrom, Grear Patterson, Alexandra Penney, Anton Perich, Scott Peterman, Len Prince and Jessie Mann, Kathy Rudin, Mark Seliger, David Benjamin Sherry, John Silvis, Dan Tague, Mickalene Thomas, Chris Verene and Cheri Nevers, Jaimie Warren, and Martabel Wasserman.
They were still packed in like hippest sardines when the witching hour (8 pm) arrived and Mrs. DeWoody departed. |
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| The crowd at the Steven Kasher Gallery. |
Meanwhile twenty-nine blocks to the north at 52nd Street (between Fifth and Sixth), George Farias was hosting a dinner for Beth, her friend gallerist Craig Starr, and Susan Stroman, the Broadway director, choreographer, film director and performer, and this reporter.
“21” was packed; there wasn’t a spare table in the entire club room. Next to us was Broadway’s theatre owners/producers, pere et fils, Jimmy and Jim Nederlander with Linda Wachner. Also at tables nearby, Elaine Sargent, Vartan Gregorian, international literary agent Ed Victor and many many others too numerous to mention.
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| Susan Stroman, George Farias, Beth DeWoody, and Craig Starr outside "21." |
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You’ve seen Susan Stroman’s shows even if you don’t know it – such as Crazy For You, Show Boat, Picnic, Big, Steel Pier, Contact, The Producers, Young Frankenstein, and many more.
She’s won Tonys, Drama Desk Awards and is now in rehearsals for John Kander and Fred Ebb’s (new) musical, The Scottsboro Boys, which played off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre earlier this year, and will open next month at the Guthrie in Minneapolis pre its Broadway opening on Halloween night (October 31st) at the Lyceum.
This musical show is based on the historic rape case in Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931 that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was the last collaboration between Kander and Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago, and many others) before Fred Ebb’s death on September 11, 2004.
So there was, not coincidentally, a lot of talk at table about the theatre, various shows, performers, etc. I don’t know how we got on the subject, but Susan told us about the opening night of a Liza Minnelli concert in 1991 when she went backstage afterwards to say hello to the star. As she was waiting outside Liza’s dressing room, a very tall man came along whom Susan described as “the handsomest man” she’d ever seen. He looked so familiar to her that she was sure he was a movie star whose name she forgot because she was so overwhelmed by his looks.
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| Liza, John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Susan Stroman. |
He’d obviously come by to say hello to Liza too. So she introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Susan,” she said, trying to hide the fact that she couldn’t think of his name. “Hi, I’m John,” he replied. They shook hands. After the introductions, she left for a moment to attend to some matter down the hall. “John,” she kept repeating to herself, trying to revive her memory. “John. John,” she repeated to herself; “John, John ... oh-my-god, John-John!” it suddenly occurred to her.
A few minutes later, someone took a picture of her with Liza and John outside the dressing room, and all these years later, someone sent it to her recently. She had it on her iPhone, and here it is for the world to see.
After dinner I took a picture of the group outside the restaurant and then they all jumped into George’s car and headed off into the night. It was a lovely night, after all this heat, and I preferred a little stroll up Fifth Avenue which looks even more magical at night than in the day. As you can see ... |
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These two buildings on the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street are the only two remaining houses from the Vanderbilt era of the late 19th, early 20th century. The Cartier building was completed in 1905 for Morton Plant, son of a railroad tycoon, on a plot purchased from the estate of William H. Vanderbilt who built and lived in the twin brownstone mansions that occupied the entire block directly across the avenue. In 1913-14, Plant (about whom, it is said, the word "playboy" was coined) met a 19-year-old girl named Mae (Maisie) Manwaring, a waitress, in a coffee shop in New London, Connecticut where he'd moored his yacht. Although she was married, she soon became available and married the millionaire and moved into the big house on 52nd Street. Plant died three years later, leaving a fortune and the mansion to his young wife. She later sold the house -- legend has it -- to Pierre Cartier for a pearl necklace she'd seen in the jeweler's window, valued at $1 million. She later married Col. Bill Hayward, father of Hollywood/Broadway agent/producer Leland Hayward and grandfather of my lunch partner yesterday, author Brooke Hayward.
Next door to Cartier, the Versace store, completed in 1904 as matching mansions (later known as the Marble Twins) by Hunt & Hunt for the Vanderbilts in their effort to prevent the corner from going commercial and becoming another hotel (like the St. Regis, building at that time, by John Jacob Astor three blocks up). As reported by Christopher Gray in the New York Times, number 647 (Versace store) was rented out in 1905 to real estate investor Robert Goelet who lived there with his wife and son and 14 servants. Next door (645), the twin, no longer standing, was owned and occupied by William Osgood Field and his wife Lila, granddaughter of William H. Vanderbilt. In 1922, the house was sold out of the family. |
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| On the corner of West 54th and Fifth, taking up a half space is a solution to the traffic mass of the Big Apple, the SmartCar. |
| The lighted reindeer antlers are actually the pears of the Trump woodland growing up the side terraces of Mr. Trump's New York residence, the Trump Tower on the northeast corner of 56th Street and Fifth Avenue, now home of Gucci. |
| Bendel's windows promoting the advantages of accessories. |
| Some of the windows down at Bergdorfs. |
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