Another beautiful Spring day in New York

Another beautiful Spring day in New York

Spring in full force on the streets of New York. 3:10 PM. Photo: JH.

Another beautiful Spring day in New York with temperatures in the high 60s. All kinds of things going on.

Over at the Mandarin Oriental where less than 12 hours before the Friends of New Yorkers for Children were holding their gala, the Studio Museum of Harlem was holding its annual Spring luncheon benefit.

While at the same time over at the Plaza, God’s Love We Deliver was holding its Authors in Kind Literary Luncheon benefit.

Then, last night in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza, the ASPCA held its 11th annual ASPCA Bergh Ball “Ain’t Nothin’ But a Pound Dog” sponsored by Chopard and emceed by the incomparable Isaac Mizrahi.

I started out down at Christie’s where Ellie Cullman of Cullman & Kravis Interior Decorators, and her associate Tracey Winn Pruzan were holding a book signing of their new work “Decorating Master Class: The Cullman & Kravis Way,” along with a private viewing of Christie’s Important English Furniture and European Furniture. The team drew a big crowd that was still there when I arrived at 7:30 only a half hour till doors were closing.

Tracey Winn Pruzan and Ellie Cullman last night at Christie's. Click images to order.

From Christie’s I went up to the Metropolitan Club for the Annual Gala of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with a performance by the Grammy Award winning orchestra. The evening honored Daisy and Paul Soros. Gala Co-Chairs were Noreen and Kenneth Buckfire and Liz and Frank Newman. Honorary Chair was John C. Whitehead.


	Paul and Daisy Soros

Mr. Soros who was born in Hungary, studied mechanical engineering in Budapest. When the Communists came to power, he began looking for an opportunity to escape the regime. In 1948 when he was 22 and a member of the Hungarian ski team at the Olympics in Switzerland, he defected. He made his way to the U.S., and took a master’s degree in engineering from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn.

In 1956, at age 30 he founded Soros Associates, an international engineering firm with projects in port development, offshore terminal and bulk handling projects in 90 counties. He is now active in Paul Soros Investments, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a board member of several corporations. His younger brother is George Soros.

Mr. Soros’ wife Daisy also grew up in Hungary and came to this country on a student visa where she studied at Columbia, at the New York School of Interior Design, as well as studying at the New York Unversity School of Social Work. She is now very active in several philanthropies in New York including Lincoln Center, the New York Philharmonic, Weill Cornell Medical College, Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Venetian Heritage, the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and Rockefeller University Council.

She and her husband annually underwrite the Midsummer Night Swing Program at Lincoln Center every summer.

View from the terrace looking south toward the newly refurbished Plaza and Bergdorf Goodman. 9 PM.

The Soroses have two sons – one of whom lives and works in London and the other of whom lives and works in Los Angeles – and four grandchildren.

The evening began with cocktails in the great hall of the Metropolitan Club, after which the Orchestra gave its concert. Dinner was later held in the club dining room on the third floor. Before going in to dinner, I went up to the roof where the club has built a new private members-only dining room. It is a penthouse surrounded by a terrace with tables for lunch and dinner in the warmer weather. It was a beautiful night and from the terrace I got a shot of the newly refurbished Plaza looking very spiffy across the way, and the vista of the Park and Central Park South across to the Time Warner towers.

Looking west across the Park and Central Park South to Columbus Circle and the twin towers of Time Warner with the Trump building and 15 Central Park West to the right. 9 PM.

Meanwhile, last Tuesday night at the townhouse of David Chu, the Accompanied Literary Society celebrated the publication of Lapham’s Quarterly Spring Issue “About Money.” The evening was hosted by the magazine’s founder Lewis Lapham, Patrick McMullan, David Chu, Tom Wolfe and Graydon Carter. Among the boldfaced ones who partook of the evening’s libations, conversations and readings were: Brooke Geahan, Lou Reed, Jim Clark, Paul Haggis, Harvey Weinstein, Josh Lucas, Euan Rellie, Celerie Kemble and Boykin Curry, Liz Smith, Aly Hilfiger, Taki and Mrs. Taki, Patty Raynes, Arden Wohl, Somers and Jonathan Farkas, Kristy Hinze, Steve Garbarino, Nicolas Berggruen, Amanda Cutter Brooks and many others too numerous and eclectic to mention.

Harvey Weinstein, Graydon Carter, Lewis Lapham, Brooke Geahan, Tom Wolfe, and Richard Dreyfus

For those who are unfamiliar with the editorial style of the Lapham Quarterly, there is something for everybody – anybody and everybody who has an inkling of curiosity, as well as for those of us who are “history buffs” and also those who just like the facts ma’am. Edith Wharton is featured in this issue, as is the Duc de Saint-Simon, and Thorstein Veblem (author of the Theory of the Leisure Class — that’s some of you kids out there), and Ayn Rand, and Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie and Jorge Luis Borges, Virginia Woolf, Karl Marx, and all kinds of people from then and now. And the facts are delicious and sometimes lugubrious such as the menu from the first class dining saloon of the HMS Titanic on April 14, 1912 (the day it struck the iceberg). Ten courses!! (the 10th being Dessert: “Waldorf Pudding, Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly, Chocolate & Vanilla Eclairs and French Ice Cream.”) Makes you think there were probably some who were sated and out cold in their staterooms after dinner and never knew what hit ‘em.