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 A busy one
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| Children at recess at rooftop. 1:00 PM. Photo: JH. |
Thursday, November 10, 2011. Another beautiful, sunny day in New York. And a busy one.
At noontime there was the 2011 "Hope" Luncheon Seminar at 583 Park. The topic: Diagnosing Depression As A Mind and Body Disorder. Moderator was Steven P. Roose MD, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.
Speakers were Jerrold Rosenbaum MD, Psychiatrist-in-Chief at Mass General, also professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; Vijay. B. Vad MD, Sports Medicine Specialist at the Hospital for Special Surgery, and Joshua Gordon MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Integrative Neuroscience, NY State Psychiatric Institute.
The Invitation carried the words: back pain; fatigue; social isolation; insomnia; headache; hopelessness; chest pain; lack of pleasure; joint pain; loss of interest; irritable bowel syndrome; negativity; dizziness. Recognize any of those? So do a lot of other people. |
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Co-Chairs were Samantha Boardman MD, Jackie Drake, Kim Heirston, Patrick McMullan, Dailey Pattee, PhD, and Lis Waterman. Junior Chair was Coralie Charriol Paul, and of course, the Hope For Depression Research Foundation, founder and chairman, Audrey Gruss.
One of the speakers was Patrick McMullan, the premier social photographer here in New York. You've been looking at Patrick's pictures of parties and social characters for more than 30 years.
Patrick's got a Facebook page with 6000+ friends. When I saw that, I thought to myself: "and he knows everyone of them by face and name" (quite an achievement in any business, aside from his). Patrick had a story to tell about Depression in his life, in his family's life, his father, his grandfather, and all the problems it added onto their problems. There wasn't a dry-eye in the house when he was finished. Patrick is straight-forward and frank, for one thing. But there were also many in the room who could relate. There was relief all around, and solutions and possibility of solutions developing. |
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That was lunch. Last night was a social marathon. Over on 77th and Central Park West they celebrated the re-opening of the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library. There was a Statue dedication at 5:30, followed by an Exhibition Preview of the museum's new show "Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn," and the premiere screening of "New York Story," a film experience narrated by Liev Schreiber.
Hosts for the evening (with a big crowd) were Diana and Joseph DiMenna, Simone and David Levinson, Jacqueline Sackler, Rory Tahari. If you happened to have been watching over the last few years, the N-YHS has been going through a re-birth led by several individuals starting with Richard Gilder, Roger Hertog who is the chairman of the museum, Louise Mirrer, President and CEO and Pam Schafler who is Vice-Chair. The theme of the evening was "This Is What A Revolution Looks Like." More coming on this ...
Also on the calendar. Love Heals celebrated its 20th Anniversary at the Four Seasons restaurant. They honored Julianna Margulies, Cristina Greevan Cuomo, and Michael Lorber. Hal Rubenstein was emcee. Gala co-chairs were Richard Farley and Stefani Greenfield, Eric Rudin and Dini von Mueffling.
Love Heals was founded in 1992 to carry on the work of the late AIDS activist Alison Gertz. The leading provider of HIV/AIDS education in the New York City public schools, Love Heals partners with hundreds of schools and community groups annual. Members of the organization representing Love Heals have spoken with more than a half million young people, parents, guardians, educators and community leaders.
Then there were the book parties which are hosting with increasing frequency as well as much frequented by a wide variety of New Yorkers who like getting out and about. Solomon Asser, Ian Graham, Cathy Franklin, Raphael de Niro hosted a book launch for Ellen Graham and her new book Talking Pictures at Mr. Asser's newly renovated townhouse on the Upper East Side.
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| The top of the steps at the Asser house last night: Ellen Graham's Talking Pictures. Click to order or buy now at Archivia. |
The next landing, a blow up of the photographer in portrait. |
| Ellen signing. |
Our great friend Adolfo. |
| The cows in the corner. |
Carrie Fisher having a laugh on Ellen and the booksellers. |
This is a beautiful book of movie stars looking like movie stars (in some cases, legends). Ellen and her husband Ian have lived in Beverly Hills for more than three decades (which is how we first met), and her access to the stars has been serendipitous and highly favorable. But that's for another diary.
Mr. Asser, incidentally, has a cow in his backyard. Just like the old days. Although not quite, since this one can't calf or even provide milk, as you can see. |
| CZ Guest at Belmont Park. "She was always simply dressed, with a sweater over her shoulders or in a suit by Adolfo." Judging by her expression here, her horse lost. |
| Janet Leigh, one of the nicest women in Hollywood. She told Ellen: "George (the dog) loves to sit on my lap and watch TV. When my husband leaves in the morning, George gets on our bed. He usually comes between me and anyone I'm paying much attention to. He's very regal about it." |
Clint Eastwood, 1974 at a celebrity golf tournament in Pebble Beach, California. "He liked my pictures so he posed for me." |
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From the Graham party I went down Fifth Avenue to the French Consulate at 934 where the Consul General of France Philippe Lalliot was celebrating the publication of Lest We Forget: Masterpieces in Patriotic Jewelry and Military Decorations by Judith Price.
Mrs. Price and I (and JH) go way back to when I was E-I-C of the magazine she created Avenue in the late 1990s, which was when JH and I first worked together before we founded the NYSD. Since selling her magazine more than ten years ago, she's embarked on a new career, having founded the National Jewelry Institute and writing books about the subject. I think this is her sixth or eighth volume on the subject.
Lest We Forget is a pictorial compendium of patriotic jewelry and military decorations. It's a beautiful book and a perfect gift for the person in your life who is an aficionado of military history. Even for those of us who aren't, like this reporter, it is fascinating.
There was a big crowd attending in the old Charles Mitchell mansion on Fifth Avenue between 74th and 75th, including Bob and Barbara Taylor Bradford, Barbara and John Lehman (former Secretary of the Navy), Bill and Susan McDonough, Kenny Lane, Stephanie and John Foster, Vanessa Friedman of the FT, Nohra Haime, Roz Jacobs, Steve Forbes, Corice Arman, Geraldine Fabricant, Christine Dutreil, HRH Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, Mark and Peter Schaffer of A la Vielle Russie, Nan and Gay Talese, Amanda Haynes Dale, Anne Eisenhower and Wolfgang Flottl, Martha and George Patton Waters, descendents of General George S. Patton, Barbara Cirkva and John Schumacher, and Peter Price, husband of the author.
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| From left George "Pat" Waters (Gen. Patton's grandson), Don Randall--president of the Mellon Foundation, judy Price, Mrs Randall and Robert Wilson Hoge, Curator of the American Numismatic Society . |
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At the same hour over at Archivia was a very special celebration for Romain De Plas, published by McCall Associates, a first monograph of paintings by Romain de Plas. This work is realized nine years after Mr. de Plas's untimely death.
The seventy reproduced works reveal the progression from his earliest mature paintings to the full flowering of his talent when he was in his early thirties. Written contributions by Agnes Gund, David Frankel, and Michael Whittaker Martin, along with a recently discovered interview with the artist himself, place the work within a broader cultural context while revealing de Plas's unique personal history.
Romain de Plas was born in Paris in 1971, and lived there until his family moved to New York City in 1980. He studied liberal arts at Brown University and painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he received his bachelor of fine arts degree in 1998. He lived and worked in New York, with regular extended returns to Paris, for the rest of his life. |
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| Roberta Gootrad, Joanna de Plas, and David Zaza. |
When he was seven years old, he suffered a devastating sledding accident resulting in extensive injuries to his face and skull, which required reconstructive surgeries at regular intervals over the next 25 years. It was against this background that he developed as an artist.
At the time of his accidental death in September 2002, Mr. de Plas had completed nine of eleven planned paintings of the World Trade Center. This final body of work extended his previous artistic explorations of his interior and exterior environments. These remarkable pictures are being exhibited for the first time at the Museum of the City of New York, in conjunction with the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
The book is available for purchase at The Museum of the City of New York and Archivia for $35. To learn more visit www.romaindeplas.com. |
| Roberta Gootrad, Agnes Gund, and Theresa Carpenter. |
Also on my personal calendar last night was a Meatloaf Bake-off between international literary agent Ed Victor, and Phoenix House founder Dr. Mitch Rosenthal, at a dinner for twelve hosted by Mitch and his wife Sarah Sims Rosenthal at their Upper East Side apartment. How this came about, I was told, was that one of the "chefs" was boasting about "greatest meatloaf" when the other overheard the conversation and begged to contradict that he, indeed, made the greatest meatloaf.
We were told before dinner that the plate would be served with the two different slices on either side with broccoli and scalloped potatoes in the middle. One of the slices would have a toothpick in it, to differentiate. This came with an excellent green salad with grated blue cheese. |
| The dueling chefs last night as guests were arriving for the bake off. |
And ... the winners! I brought home some of the leftovers for a sandwich on Friday. |
Being a "judge"/guest presented a challenge to everyone because no one wanted to reject their friend's effort. Mr. Victor prepared his meatloaf in author Linda Fairstein's apartment nearby. Richard Cohen, the political columnist, also brought another meatloaf, just in case.
When the plates were put before us, the two looked different. One had a sliced hardboiled egg in it. The other had a sauce that wasn't as red as ketchup – and I later learned was one of Mitch's own sauce concoctions, especially for his meatloaf, along with pieces of crisp bacon on it. Also, for the record, the broccoli and the potatoes were really good, and not your run-of-the-mill versions.
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| The view from the Rosenthal apartment looking east on East 71st Street. 9 pm |
That might seem like a lot on the plate and it kinda looked that way, but no one seemed to have a problem cleaning his or her plate. I had intended to take a picture of the dish but was in too much of a hurry to eat, and forgot about it. When it came time for judging, no one could really decide because as similar as they were, they were different and delicious.
Ed Victor's was a recipe of his mother who brought it with her when she emigrated from Odessa. Mitch's recipe came years ago from a wonderful Jamaican housekeeper he had. The guests had the best of both worlds, as well as pecan pie and ice cream for dessert. Enough calories to last a week for some of us. |
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