The
Henry Street Settlement held its 2005 Dinner Dance and Auction Tuesday
night at the Puck Building in SoHo. They honored Kenneth
I. Chenault, Chairman and CEO of American Express, and Michael
L. Eskew, Chairman and CEO of UPS. Co-chairs for the
even were
Valesca Guerrand Hermes, Eva Jeanbart-Lorenzotti, Cynthia
Lufkin, Pilar Crespi Robert, and Laurie Weitz. Benefit
Committee was Muffie Potter Aston, Dennis Baso, Vera
Wang, Beth Rudin, DeWoody, Dayssi
and Paul Kanavos, and Jonathan Tisch.
The Henry Street Settlement’s Dinner Dance is an annual benefit
honoring individuals who are recognized for their humanitarian
efforts and philanthropic contributors to both New York City and
to the Settlement.
This year’s gala was entitled Raj, which predicts a decadent
celebration in the midst of India-inspired ambiance.
Among the guests and attending supporters, Mark Badgley,
James Mischka, Frederic Fekkai, Barbara de Portago, Coralie Charriol
and Dennis Paul,
Adrienne and Gian Luigi Vittadini, Shirin von Wulfen, Coco and
Arie Kopelman, Averil and Gigi Mortimer, Adriana Cisneros and John
Griffin,
Meredith Melling-Burke, Alexis Bryan, Jacklyn Sackler, Ferebee
Bishop, Lauren Davis, Grace Hightower De Niro, Jackie Astier, Marisa
Noel
Brown, Somers Farkas, Genevieve Jones, Mini Mortimer, Dennis Basso,
Muffie Potter Aston.
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Lillian
Wald
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From the history of the Henry Street Settlement:
“Over broken asphalt, over dirty mattresses and heaps of refuse we
went ... There were two rooms and a family of seven not only
lived here but shared their quarters with boarders ... [I felt] ashamed
of being a part of society that permitted such conditions to
exist ... What I had seen had shown me where my path lay.”
In 1893, Lillian Wald found her life’s work
when she agreed to teach a class in home nursing and hygiene to
immigrant women on
the Lower East Side. One day, while teaching, a little girl approached
Wald and asked her to attend to her sick mother. The child led
her through the tenements, “over broken roadways ... between
tall, reeking houses ... across a court where open and unscreened
closets
were promiscuously used by men and women, up into a rear tenement,
by slimy steps ... and finally into the sickroom” where
Wald attended to the child’s mother.
Her encounter with the young girl’s family prompted Wald
to dedicate her life’s work to the tenement community.
Wald wrote,“that
morning’s experience was a baptism of fire. Deserted
were the laboratory and academic work of college. I never returned
to them ...
I rejoiced that I had a training in the care of the sick that
in itself would give me an organic relationship to the neighborhood
in which this awakening had come.” With funding
from philanthropists and friends, Wald and Mary Brewster, her
friend and colleague,
established the Visiting Nurses Service in 1893. By January
1894, the two had
visited over 125 families and offered advice to many more.
One year later, Wald moved to 265 Henry Street and founded the
renowned
Henry
Street Settlement House.
Today Henry Street is supported by many who have descended
from those families of a century ago, those “tired and poor” who,
thanks to people like Lillian Wald and her early supporters (including
Jacob Schiff whose descendents remain prominent civic and cultural
leaders in New York today), have prospered and given back.
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