New York Scenes

Scenes from Bethesda Terrace. 2:30 PM. Photo: JH.

October 7, 2009. Yesterday was a fair and mild autumn day in New York.

I went down to Michael’s, which was jammed and sounded like a dull roar, to lunch with Caroline Graham, in from Los Angeles, and Dereck and Beverly Joubert, National Geographic photographers from Botswana who are in town for a booksigning of their book “Eye of the Leopard” last night at Rizzoli.

The Jouberts are South African but have lived in Botswana for many years. They had many things to tell me and educate me about so I am going to write about them on another day.

Their book however, is beautiful and fascinating. If you have ever been interested in Africa – and I never have been, incidentally – this book is very compelling to look at, aside from its beauty. I may become interested in Africa yet.

Dereck Joubert, DPC, Beverly Jourbert at Michael's yesterday afternoon, 2:15 pm. photo by Steve Millington.

Those who know the Jouberts’ work already know what interesting lives they lead compared to us Americans and/or city dwellers. They are also involved deeply in a “Big Cats” initiative launched by the National Geographic “First Step: Halting Decline of Lions.”

Two millennia ago there were 1.5 million lions roaming the earth. Today across the continent of Africa there are perhaps 20,000 lions, and the numbers are declining fast.

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We’re their predators naturally, and we’ve done them in. People are still killing them just to get rid of them. Ironically some of us want to save them.

Dereck Joubert told me that with the extinction of the lions, the entire ecosystem of Africa will collapse. He said there are 4,000 in zoos across this country although every one is infected with FIV which is an animal strain similar to HIV. He said that if even one of them is taken ill with it, all of them will die.

There’s much more to tell but at a later date. If you’re interested in the Big Cats Initiative, go to www.nationalgeographic.com/bigcats [2] and also www.greatplainsconservation.com [3].

I started out the night down at the Waldorf where in the Grand Ballroom they were holding the 24th Annual Great Sports Legends Dinner. This dinner is hosted by the Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis. It is the national fundraising arm of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis which is the world's largest, most comprehensive spinal cord injury research center, based at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

This is a very successful dinner. There were 1300 dinner guests last night filling the Grand Ballroom and last year they raised $6.3 million, plus an additional $10 million was pledged by an anonymous donor for the Miami Project.

The Grand Ballroom for the Buonoconti Fund dinner last night at the Waldorf-Astoria.

This year their honorees included Troy Aikman, Clyde Drexler, Mike Piazza, Ivan Lendl, Rusty Wallace, Brett Hull, Dara Torres, Pat Day, Chris Waddell – all 2009 Great Sports Legends, and additionally they honored Stewart Rahr with the 2009 Outstanding Philanthropist Award, Adrienne Arsht with the 2009 Buoniconti Fund Award, Jack Schneider who received the Barth A. Green Spirit Award, and Dr. Maya Angelou with the Humanitarian Award. Bob Costas was host for the evening.

I’ve been to scores, maybe hundreds of dinners at the Waldorf but this one was mobbed – well-dressed, well-heeled, with many famous faces and awesome reputations; a big crowd, and very enthusiastic about being there. Sports Fans doing philanthropy, but Sports Fans.

Jack Schneider, awarded the Barth A. Green Spirit Awared.

The podium.

In the crowd I saw a few people I recognized, like Ambassador John Loeb who was with Sharon Handler; plus Jeff Tarr and Stephen Swid.

Troy Aikman had a hard time getting through the masses of photographers and men (all of whom he towered over) who not only wanted his autograph but wanted their picture taken next to him.

He didn’t look like this was the most fun he ever had, although he was very accommodating. I tried to take a picture of him but it was impossible to break through the wall of humanity surrounding him.

Alicia and Mike Piazza, shot one, and shot two,.

I got a shot of two different Piazzas: the actor, former college hockey star Vincent Piazza, with his girlfriend Christina Brucato; and the other the baseball star Mike Piazza and his wife Alicia.

I caught Mike and Alicia on the red carpet just as they arrived (bringing pandemonium with them, surrounded by a melee of lights and lenses). There was a moment with the massive sudden attention seemed a bit overwhelming, and Mr. Piazza’s smile almost ran away from itself. Alicia Piazza however, looked very cool about it all. They were both camera-ready, as you might imagine; and also very accommodating to the clamoring crowd of professional lookers.

Bob and Jill Costas

Clyde Drexler

Donna Shalala and Arlene Arscht

Vincent Piazza and Christina Brucato

Dara Torres

I left the Waldorf just as they were taking their seats for dinner and before the program started. I took a cab up to 57th and Fifth on my way to the Plaza. I walked by Bergdorf’s where their new window displays also included animal figures that looked like they were paper sculptures; really amazing to see.

The windows down at Bergdorf's, 7:45 pm.

At the Plaza, they’d opened up the Palm Court – which is just inside the entrance foyer – to a private party given by the Director’s Council of the Museum of the City of New York – “New York After Dark.”

The hotel also opened the French doors at the back of the Palm Court which give onto the Terrace Room behind. The Terrace Room is where the cocktail receptions were always held before going upstairs to the Grand Ballroom for dinner. It was reached from another entrance, a staircase on the left side of the Palm Court.

The view from the Palm Court of the Plaza looking into the Terrace Room last night at the Director's Council of the Museum of the City of New York's "New York After Dark" benefit.

In all the years I’ve gone to the Plaza I had no idea that these two rooms were connected. There were many others there last night who also hadn’t known that. It was a new beautiful vista within the hotel.

This was the first fundraising event that the Director’s Council has hosted outside the museum, and no doubt it was very successful. A big crowd along with a big buffet, the passing canapés and drinks bars.

Ian and Mary Snow with Teresa De Sequera and Bruce Colley

The Fendi models. FENDI sponsored the evening and donated the Benefactor Prize.

This is a very established crowd, socially, in that the core have been working to raise funds for the museum for many years. Many of its members started out as junior members. This has strengthened the position of the museum which because of its location (104th and Fifth) and its funding limitations has had to work twice as hard to build attendance.

The Director’s Council and its members have succeeded in changing the model.

Teresa De Sequera and Bruce Colley

Liliana Cavendish and Nina Griscom

Peter and Kara Georgiopoulos

Allyn Magrino, Shayne Krige, GM of the Plaza, and Susan Magrino

Lucio Salvatore and Valesca Guerrand-Hermes

Chappy and Melissa Morris

Anait Bian

Christine Schwarzman and Mark Gilberston

Stephen Murray and Scott Snyder

Blaine Caravaggi and Ellie Libby

Kim Flaster, Beth Amorosi, Charlie Scheips, and Melanie Holland

Mary Hillard making an adjustment for Hilary Dick

Amy Hoadley, Todd Romano and Hilary Dick

Polly Onet and Amy Hoadley

The Director taking the shot

Ready for that pose: Evelyn Tompkins, Jonathan Farkas, Somers Farkas, and Mario Buatta.

Vicky Ward and Matt Doull

Wilbur Ross, Peggy Siegal, and Hilary Ross

Allison Rockefeller

Peter and Allison Rockefeller

Julie Dannenberg and Cricket Burns

Cricket Burns and Ulla Parker

John Betts and Anne Shearman-Betts

Norman Ambrose, Melanie Holland, and Todd Alric

Anthony Addison and Amanda Taylor

Geoffrey Bradfield and Eric Javits

Peggy Siegal talking to Carole McFadden

Mark Badgley, Muffie Potter Aston, and James Mischka

Martha Glass

Cynthia and Dan Lufkin and Caroline Dean

Michelle Smith and Andrew Oshrin

Marjorie Gubelmann

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Memories are made of this. Hedge Fund Ex-Wives. (with a hat tip to Tatiana Boncompagni and her novel “Hedge Fund Wives”). Recently, someone who knows of my interest in the financials and the players who make up the financial world, sent me a piece on a hedge fund manager who has ridden out the current storm very successfully thus far.

The article was about his prowess and “philosophy.” What was impressive was his offhand confidence and certainty of purpose. Because a number of years ago this man was married to an heiress and far less confident appearing. At the time it came off as comic arrogance.

At that time he was between jobs. It was puzzling only because he was well-educated and had very good credentials. At that moment in his life, however, he was at sixes and sevens.

When he married the heiress, many had the impression that that was his ambition. His wife, however, didn’t think so. She believed in his capabilities and told him so often.

However, it turned out that time was pressing with youthful impatience. The strategy of marriage to a wealthy woman with a network of influential connections didn’t do the trick.

One night he woke her up from her sleep to tell her that he wanted an increase in his pre-nup arrangement or he wanted a divorce.

Just like that. Now you can go back to sleep. His wife, who really liked him, and understood his drive and his disappointment, was upset by his demand. She assured him he didn’t have to do this to secure financial success. This is what she believed even if he didn’t (seem to).

The wife decided to let him pursue his options. In the divorce he also asked that the monies agreed upon in the pre-nup come to him at once since he would need it to capitalize himself. The wife agreed.

The divorce appeared – from this vantage point – to be amicable. The wife was hurt and disappointed but understood that the man’s agenda obsessed him.

A couple of years passed and I heard nothing more about him. And then the wife’s father died and she came into a large inheritance – how large I do not know, but ample. Ample enough that the ex-husband decided to take her to court to get more for his marriage settlement than the pre-nup had been agreed to.

So off to court they go. The judge, a woman, is amazed/astounded by the ex-husband’s demand. But, for whatever reason, he was awarded some more funds.

The ex-wife was more than disappointed. She told him it wasn’t necessary to demean himself by making these demands. And then she filled them. The End.

But then, as life goes on without you, a couple of years later, the market crashes. People are wiped out. Madoff mania infects the national psyche. The Masters of the Universe on Wall Street start to lose their shirts. Banks are Too Big to Fail.

Except for those rare chosen few for whom everything goes right. Such as, of all people, the ex-husband, the guy who once lost sleep over what turned out to be a measly pre-nup, the man who raided a dead man’s will for some more gelt.

Suddenly his ship came in working at a hedge fud, and with it came the bags and barrels of money. When the ex-wife heard the “good news,” she called him and suggested that since he had earned in one more year more than she possessed in one lifetime, he might return the funds squeezed out of her personal pension plans.

After all, it was a mere pittance in the scheme of things (my words not hers), not much more than he now boasts of spending on personal transportation.

But no. Uh-uh. He couldn’t. Or rather he wouldn’t. And so it was, the last I heard. Although maybe there’s been a change of heart. Maybe Dame Fortune has since blessed him with a stout heart along with a hot computer model. Dame Fortune is very talented. Although not responsible for moral hazard, alas.

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