Social Diary 4/25/05 - New York’s young lions and lionesses held their annual New York Public Library Young Lions benefit

Literature Nights

Looking east towards the Chrysler Building from 5th Avenue and 42nd Street. 7:30 PM. Photo: JH.

New York’s young lions and lionesses held their annual New York Public Library Young Lions benefit last Thursday night over at the New York Public at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. The theme was “An Affair in Havana” and it took its inspiration from Papa Hemingway’s Cuban sojourn which lasted throughout most of the 1950s. His Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Old Man and the Sea was inspired by that time in his life. The New York Public also houses a typescript of the novel, as well as other Hemingway manuscripts and correspondence.

Meanwhile, back at the party. This was, I think, the second year of this fund-raising event and from the looks of the crowd, Young Beautiful People and Bright Young Things, it’s a big success. Co-chaired by Stacey Bendet, Cristina Greeven Cuomo, Melissa Gellman and Punch Hutton, this year’s honorary co-chair was that man with a name straight out of a Hemingway novel, Ethan Hawke. I don’t know if Mr. Hawke was there because I didn’t see him in the crowd – there were about 200 for dinner and another five or six hundred who came in after dinner for the dancing.

Phoebe Gubelmann and Oakley Duryea

Because of the theme there were an abundance of Panama hats. Dr. Paul LeClerc, the CEO and president of the Library gamely searched for one to wear for his NYSD picture but came back with one so big it covered his eyes. Dress was “Haute Havana” and black tie. A lot of the girls were dressed in the spirit of old Havana where the ladies dressed, to the nines, even for lunch. The very rich, that is. Ah, life in old Havana -- some might say -- where private luncheon parties had large orchestras serenading them through their leisurely repasts. Thursday night a lot of the boys, however, eschewed the black tie and went for the white jackets (or even, like this reporter, a navy pinstripe suit).

No doubt there were quite a few people in this group who had parents (and more likely grandparents) who used to hop down to Havana for a jaunt. I was seated between Phoebe Gubelmann and Ivanka Trump. Ms. Trump dates Ms. Gubelmann’s brother Bingo. Bingo was not there on Thursday night because he’s teaching young children down in the Bahamas.

But Ms. Trump, who is following the family tradition of being in the real estate business (she graduated from Wharton), told me that she and Bingo see each other as often as they can, and also happen to share a passion for Hemingway. In their leisure time together, they often read passages of Hemingway to each other. For Bingo’s birthday, she was going to buy him a first edition of the The Old Man and the Sea but then she found out he already has one that had originally belonged to his father. Which was lucky for her because a first edition Hemingway now runs in the thousands. She told me a first edition autographed of The Sun Also Rises, which is originally what she had in mind because it’s “their” favorite Hemingway novel, goes for $35,000. So, none of that for Bingo from Ivanka, of course. But it’s the thought that counts.

The scene at an Affair in Havana

Ms. Trump has a very effervescent personality, warm and friendly and very smart. A chip off the old you-know-what. I think in this case, it’s two chips: mama and papa. We had a great time talking about Papa Hemingway and other writers, as well as love and romance (she’s crazy about Bingo) and love and marriage (she’s seen a lot of it and the best of it, and not always), and she strikes one as a sensible girl with both feet on the ground (and her head in the clouds when it comes to Bingo and Papa H).

Ms. Gubelmann, my other hostess, is an identical twin. She too is gracious and welcoming, and with lots to say. Her sister Tantivy is married to Tommy Bostwick, who were also at our table. Ms. Gubelmann is single, but her boyfriend Oakley Duryea was there at the table too. She and I talked about the phenomenon of twins and the remarkable piece on the subject that appeared several years ago in the New Yorker.

After dinner, which featured an authentic Cuban cuisine (and a starter which looked like a shrimp, lettuce and cheese sandwich – I probably have it all wrong, but it was great) provided by Creative Edge (décor was provided by Grayson Bakula), everyone headed downstairs to the Celeste Bartos Forum where the music was already in full swing (anyone for a samba? I don’t think so).

By then the party had taken on the conviviality of a fraternity/sorority, maybe-prom night atmosphere, a lot of moving around, lots of boys and girls together, clusters of girls, clusters of boys (young men and women is a more authentic description) eyeing one another, talking, laughing, drinking. There were at least a few Hemingway short stories to be mined amongst the crowd. And maybe there was a young would-be Hemingway in their midst taking it all in. George Gurley, the scribe for the Observer and Vanity Fair was there, surely taking it all in, with his tape recorder at the ready.

The evening was, like many of Ivanka Trump’s conversational points at dinner, a lovely romantic notion to these eyes, injected with an innocence that us older ones look upon as youth, but in reality is nonetheless hope springing eternal.

It was a very successful night for the Library. They raised more than $200,000 and proceeds go to the International Fiction Fund which helps to protect and maintain the Library’s unique and vastly treasured collections.

Olivia Chantecaille and Sasha Tcherevkoff

Dylan Lauren and Cristina Cuomo

Melissa Gellman and Celine Rattrey

Karenna Gore Schiff and DPC

Matthew Doull, Vicky Ward, and Lucy Sykes

Euan Rellie

Paul LeClerc

Brad Comisar, Karen Duffy, and Sasha Tcherevkoff

Joe Cheng

Hilary and Edward Hemingway

Dr. Paul Mullin and Dr. Susan Douglas

Fawn Galli, Tara Gallagher, Patricia Garcia Gomez, Meg O'Rourke, and Christina Wayne

Amelia Vicini and Seema Mehta

Deborah Schoeneman and Jamie Whitehead

Rebekah Hirsch, Meredith Melling Burke, and Phoebe Gubelmann

Jamie Johnson and Jessica Joffe

Anita Tanintuan Fusco, Alicia Thanasoulis, and Suzanne Studier-Feldman

A Havana Affair

Bryan Johnson and Donna Simonelli

Adam Laukhuf and Lucy McIntyre

Carter Brooks and Tommy Bostwick

Chris Melling and Oakley Duryea

George Gurley and Hilary Heard

Brian Solon, Lucia Bryan, and George Gurley

L. to r.: Kim Hicks; Stacey Bendet; Elizabeth Scokin; Lighting up.

Ivanka Trump and Lindsay Powers

Julia Stiles and Jonathan Cramer

Fiona Thomas

Peter Washkowitz, John Auerbach, Lisa Royce, and Andrew Black

Smokin' on the Bloomberg steps

From the Library, we hoped a cab down to West Street to Salon where our friend R. Couri Hay was holding a birthday celebration. The invitation had a host of hostesses but Mr. Hay is his own maestro at orchestrating. Because this was his party, and not something he plans for one of the major uptown charities or major product launches, it had a distinctly get-down-town-way-out-there atmosphere that left Hemingway in the dust long ago and headed for Kerouac and Burroughs. Also a lot of uptown people too, some from the Library but many more from black tie parties going on elsewhere, and downtown parties yet to begin.

Tony Ingrao and Janis Cecil

It was a mob scene, the center of which was a pneumatic looking young man on a round revolving platform, arms raised and tied at the wrists to a long bar above his head. The theme was several million miles from the Havana they were celebrating up at The New York Public Library but in this world, god knows, maybe only just around the corner from another Havana. After dark, that is.

Leitmotif aside, Couri Hay has lots of friends, and all kinds of friends, and he loves nothing more than bringing them all together and mixing them up. It’s times like this when the Digital becomes an excellent instrument for getting around for it parts the crowd, at least long enough to catch a closeup and manages to bring out the best (or the best of the worst, depending) in most everybody. They were having fun, mainly watching…whatever…as good parties in the Big Town often go. Alex Donner and his orchestra in their Havana whites were playing and there was some dancing (on a dime-size dance floor). It was, hands down, a scene. Bentley Meeker lit up the night and Matthew David planned the whole shebang.

About twelve-thirty, a friend with a car and driver offered me a ride back uptown. But first she wanted to stop at Bungalow 8, a nightspot which I have never visited. Bungalow 8, is, if you didn’t already know, another one of those nightspots where some jomoke who looks like his previous employment was “un,” stands at the door and selects you to enter. If he does. If he doesn’t, well tough you-know-what. Steve Rubell started this post-hippie discriminatory standup back in the 70s with Studio 54.

People ate it up although of course the club’s nightly clientele were some of the most famous people in the world at the time and of course everyone wanted to get in. And when they did, let me tell you, it was fantastic. Today’s club scene is not, to put it mildly, quite the same.

Entertainment at R. Couri Hay's birthday

For whatever reason, and in this present culture “reason” presumes there is some wit or thought involved -- which from the looks of the situation, is highly doubtful – we were not welcomed with open arms. In fact we were not welcomed at all. I am one of those who has no desire to go anywhere I am not welcome, and have no curiosity about that which is denied me. So I turned around and went back to the car, relieved, actually, that I’d be getting home sooner.

But no, she wanted to get in, to show me Bungalow 8. So I waited while she attempted to negotiate. If it’s anything like Bungalow 7 or the Polo Lounge, I’ve already seen it. If it’s not, I saw Studio 54. Meanwhile she got an email on her Blackberry from a friend inside telling her they were all waiting for the party to begin.

Finally, my friend gave up the ghost (to put it politely) and we went sailing north to the end of a long day in little 'ole New York.