Dresses and dresses at New Yorkers For Children's "A Fool's Fete."
A beautiful weekend in New York. Saturday, with temperatures in the 70s, was like a late Spring day, and New Yorkers came out in droves -- strolling, basking, jogging, cycling, lunching all over town and in the parks.
The big big news was the presence of the Pope Benedictus XVI which brought a great deal of pleasure to a lot of people for a variety of reasons, some religious, some spiritual, some curious.
For those who live on the Upper East Side and most specifically the block of 72nd Street between Fifth and Madison it was also something of a challenge.
There were sharpshooters on rooftops surrounding the area. Residents of the buildings within visual proximity of the Pope’s lodgings were given ID cards and told to keep their windows shut. Opening them might place them under suspicion.
The maid of a friend of mine accidentally opened a window to look out at all the goings-on and immediately received a warning from the doorman carrying the message to close it from the “security” force “protecting” Pope Benedictus.
On Friday afternoon and throughout Saturday and Sunday there were helicopters hovering overhead the entire area where traffic was often brought to a standstill. In the East River there was a lone police boat on guard.
On many blocks to the south, east, north and west, there were NYPD stationed. Someone told me that the Pope is the third most threatened (by assassin) person in the world. Is this true? I don’t know; that’s what someone said. It serves as a partial explanation for the grandiose security.
Residents of 19 East 72nd Street, a Candela building which contains some of the most expensive co-ops in New York and is very difficult to gain board acceptance to, were restricted at times from leaving their building. Not for hours, but long enough to briefly curtail their freedom to come and go from their own homes.
All this in the name of “protecting” the poor Pope who has nothing to do with our modern obsession with “security.” In fact it must terrify him. Who could possibly feel secure knowing that an army is required to insure your safety?
New Yorkers experience the same thing every time a President comes to town, and on United Nations week when there are corteges of black vans everywhere with their police escorts and whirling red lights so that all over vehicles will move aside for them.
The subliminal message is: power; be afraid. We are, don’t worry. The irony is that if something terrible really did happen during one of these visits, the entire city would be tied up by traffic putting everyone in danger.
Years ago when the USSR was really the evil empire run by Josef Stalin and his Politburos of apartchiks and lackeys, that was also the message, and often pointed out by us as an example of how the Russian people had no freedom.
The obsessions with “security” for public officials in this country took on the current form during the Administration of John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War. Before Dallas, not after. Why, I do not know; but it did.
Credit: Egan-Chin/News.
Before that even Presidents came and went with a handful of Secret Service and some local police escort. Harry Truman was famous for his daily “constitutional” from the Waldorf Towers, up and down Park Avenue with two or four Secret Service agents. Even JFK had secret liaisons at Orsini’s restaurant (which would be closed for the Presidential tete-a-tete) when he came to town, and no one even in the neighborhood, or in the Carlyle where he stayed, was ever the wiser.
Nowadays a President can’t pay a courtesy call to someone’s apartment without pre-inspection of the site weeks in advance, changing/adding phone lines, checking out rooftops. God knows what they went through to prepare for the Papal visit. Now it is a major business and all paid for by the taxpayer, You, the People.
What’s bad about it is that every citizen in proximity of these major figures (Presidents, Popes, Prime Ministers, etc.) is considered with suspicion, guilty until proven innocent. What does that say about us? That we’re all potentially a bunch of criminals?
Anyway, the Pope had beautiful weather for his visit which -- a few of you may not know (I didn’t until I looked it up) -- began on his 81st birthday, April 16th. And his visit brought cheers, and smiles and joy to millions of New Yorkers as well as millions and millions of Americans.
Today on our Party Pictures we’re running a record amount for one party – last Wednesday night’s Friends of New Yorkers For Children’s annual Fools Fete at the Mandarin Oriental. This particular party was originally conceived as a way of bringing “younger” New Yorkers into the fold. The organization which was started by Nicholas Scoppetta about fifteen years ago, had an important founding group and supporters.
They succeeded. But the Fools Fete has turned into one of the most glamorous fashion parades in New York social life. For the women, that is; and they really look great.
Susan Burden, Nicholas Scoppetta, Susan Magazine, and Michael Curran
It is also about the fundraising (they raised just over $500,000) for the organization that lends a helping hand to children of foster care when they are old enough to go out on their own (and maybe go to college). But has become a major New York fashion show. There must have been easily $500,000 - $750,000 in gowns and dresses on the 250 or so women attending. And everyone was sparkling, glittering and fresh as a daisy.
The Mandarin’s ballroom is also a spectacular spot for this party, with its surrounding glass walls 36 stories above Columbus Circle and a backdrop of Central Park and the Manhattan towers.
Visually, the scene was a romantic dream. Of course back on the dance floor there were scores of scenarios -- for this is the Naked City too -- including even material for a novel of two. Or three. I don’t doubt there were novelists, real and aspiring taking it all in. It was a lively and gorgeous parade. A Fools Fete (the novel, soon to be a major motion picture — right now in the purview of the NYSD).
Patrick McMullan talking to Rory Tahari and Pamela Fiori
