Library and Lineage

LGBT Honorary Chairman Edmund White, Nancy Mahon, LGBT Committee Chairman Hermes Mallea, Deborah Krulewitch, LGBT Committee Chairman Carey Maloney, and Nancy Louden

Susan Morganthau and Hermes Mallea

The New York Public Library archive of gay and lesbian social history has led to a newly organized donor committee called LGBT @ NYPL, for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Carey Maloney and Hermes Mallea are cochairs. The goal is to get everything catalogued and digitalized.

New York Public Library President Paul LeClerc, LGBT Committee Chairman Hermes Mallea, New York Public Library Chairman Catie Marron, LGBT Committee Chairman Carey Maloney, and New York Public Library Trustee Gayfryd Steinberg

They also need an endowment for caring for and maintaining the collections. At the party Mr. Maloney announced that the committee had raised $1.5 million thus far.

LGBT Committee Ambassador Karla Jay and Carey Maloney

Jesse Johnson, LGBT @ NYPL Steering Committee member Joe Chang, Sarah Gunter, and LGBT @ NYPL Ambassador Sarah Schulman

Jack Martin, New York Public Library Trustee Joan Hardy Clark, David Ferriero, and LGBT Committee Ambassador Martin Duberman

Lisa Quiroz

LGBT Honorary Chairman Tony Kushner, Mark Harris, Nancy Louden, and LGBT Committee Steering Member Donna Dennis

Paul LeClerc presented Hermes Mallea and Carey Maloney with a framed poster of the Library’s 1994 exhibit Becoming Visible

LGBT Committee Steering Member Matthew White, Christopher Spitzmiller, and Eric Boman

Diego Binetti, Mario Egozi, and LGBT Committee Steering Member James LaForce

Rosario Varela, Cathleen Carmody, Matthew White, Barbara Howard, and Norah Burden

Nicholas Pentecost and Jay Jolly

Artis Wright and Laini Madhubuti-Lee (The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center)

LGBT Committee Steering Members James LaForce and Stephen Henderson, Dawn Ladd, and Claire Dishman

Edmund White, Tony Kushner, and Mark Harris

Looking at treasures from the Library’s LGBT holdings: Celeste Dupry-Spencer, Melissa Plaut, Katy Browning, Jay Jolly, and Nicholas Pentecost

There was a dinner for the Whitney Fellows hosted by Fiona Donavan, Michèle Gerber Klein and Mike Latham at Latham’s Great Jones Street loft.

Ms. Donavan is the great granddaughter of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney who founded the museum for American art. Guests were given a tour of Latham’s Arts Corporation creations, designs that merge architectural design, art, and technology.

Attending were Stephanie LaCava, Anna Rothschild, Kipton Cronkite, Bozidar Brazda, Rita Ackerman, Diane and Clyde Brownstone, Alfred and Ann Ruesch, Carter Smith, Hikari Yokoyana, John Mollett, April Gurnow, Paige Bradbury, Giancarlo Canavesio, Linda and Gregory Fischbach, Kristen Leipert, Lana Bittman, Neil Grayson, Pat Caporaso, Alice Judelson Jill Sussman, Kristin Baker, Tracy Hook, Waqas Wajahat, composer Tristan Perich (who serenaded guests on and off through the evening) Sam Kusack, Katie Rashid, and the Whitney’s Sarah Milestone, Erica Samuels, Stacey Gorgen, and Gary Carrion-Murayari.

The evening’s salon featured Whitney Biennial Artists’ Rita Ackerman and Bozidar Brazda who discussed their latest books and the place of books in art.The Whitney Library Fellows provide crucial support to the Whitney Library which evolved from Gertrude Whitney’s personal art book collection.

Sam Kusack, Kristin Baker, and Mike Latham

Bozidar Brazda and Rita Ackerman

Mark Donovan and Bozidar Brazda

Gary Carrion-Murayari, Stacey Gorgen, Erica Samuels, and Sarah Milestone

Stephanie LaCava

Carter Smith and Hakari Yokoyana

Fiona Donavan

April Grunow, Rohit Pursram, and Paige Bradbury

Tristan Perich

Linda and Gregory Fishbach

Kipton Cronkite and Alice Judelson

Crystal Fanale and Anna Rothschild

Jane Stubbs and Alice Judelson

Pat Caporaso, Jill Sussman, and Fiona Donavan

Last week they launched what their flacks were calling “Luxury Reborn” in the form of an extravagant nightclub ritual and the exclusive “Jagger Dagger.”

The “Jagger Dagger” was designed by Jade Jagger, daughter of You-Know-Who and Bianca. The dagger boasts an 18-carat white gold hilt studded with 12 carats of brilliant-cut diamonds, 42 stunning pieces of pale sapphire and is inlaid with a central blue lapis lazuli square sitting above the blade. The handle is bound with a twisted thread of white gold and crowned with a giant moonstone and lapis lazuli bead.

For what you might ask? For god, man and Belvedere. As in vodka. A limited number of these ultimate ice daggers will be created, according to the creators, each with a retail value exceeding $250,000. That’s what they say; a cool (like vodka on the rocks) quarter mill and you can have your own dagger, just like the best pashas and sultans do.


Jade Jagger

The Jagger Dagger’s blade is crafted from mirror-polished carbon steel and adorned with an engraving of the same delicate frosted tree branches that decorate the Belvedere bottle itself. You’ll be able to purchase these precious ice daggers at select retailers, such as Harrods in London. And if that’s too rich for your Amex Titanium, there’s a range of identical-looking daggers—studded with 12 carats of white topaz, 42 pieces of stunning aquamarine and valued at $10,000 each, also available at exclusive retailers for trendsetting party-goers wanting to enjoy Belvedere’s “Jagger Dagger” experience for themselves.

"I was excited when Belvedere asked me to design this ice pick for them,” says Jade Jagger. “I drew my inspiration from medieval daggers and worked with the finest stones to create the pieces, which are fun and work to bring a pure experience to enjoying vodka." I’ll bet you never knew a glass of woidka could bring out the gemologist, did you?

The “Jagger Dagger” will be part of an extravagant and outrageous, to say the very least, experience when a magnum of Belvedere is ordered at select exclusive nightclubs. Currently a trend in top European night spots, revelers can now enjoy their Belvedere cocktails with chiseled chunks of hand-cracked ice, increasingly in demand among discerning vodka drinks. The dagger that melts in your mouth. You too can be a sword-swallower and all the while enjoying your Belvedere vodka. Who wudda thot?

Just so you know how it works (it’s not magic): The irregular surfaces of hand-cracked ice melt down more slowly than traditional evenly-shaped ice cubes, keeping the vodka cold without diluting its rich taste and potency. The ritual is completed with a giant block of ice and tableside ice-picking service with the bejeweled “Jagger Dagger,” provided by servers suited in Jagger’s Jezebel collection. This exclusive experience will be available at top nightclubs around the globe—including 1OAK in New York, Crystal in London and VIP in Paris. So hurry on down. You never know you might run into the rocker’s daughter in one place or another.

Rock and Roll is here to stay.