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 Cool, cloudy, yesterday in New York
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| Looking towards the Central Park South skyline from the outskirts of Tavern on the Green. 5:30 PM. Photo: JH. |
December 9, 2009. Cool, cloudy, yesterday in New York, looking like rain, but no.
I had lunch at Michael’s with Barbara Carroll. We met a little more than 20 years ago when she was playing a gig at the Westwood Marquis hotel in Los Angeles. Barbara’s busy: she’s playing her Sunday brunch at the Oak Room at the Algonquin, and there’s a week at Dizzy’s Coca-Cola, the club at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Then she goes down to Palm Beach to play at the Colony for a week or two.
Barbara was telling me that she came to New York in 1947. One of her first jobs was playing the piano on stage in a Rodgers and Hammerstein show called “Me and Juliet.” She accompanied an actress named Isabel Bigley whose song opened the show. Bigley had her insecure moments with the number. Some days she would be worried about hitting the notes and so she’d ask Barbara to play it in another key. Lower. Barbara would agree but play it in the same key, knowing the actress/singer could do it. She did, and never knew the difference. |
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Then Barbara got a trio together to play with her and got a job on the same bill as Dizzy Gillespie at a club on West 52nd Street called The Downbeat. That was back when Fifty-Second Street was Jazz Street. They got union scale, which was sixty-five bucks for the week. The principal got 85. So Barbara got 85 but exchanged it with one of the boys in the trio who had a young wife and baby. He needed it more.
This pretty much says it for Barbara as a friend to this day. Although it also reminds that once upon a time, you could live in New York on $65 a week. Sounds like I’m making it up, I know.
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Last night I started out at a cocktail party at the Fifth Avenue apartment of Stephanie Krieger. You’ve seen her pictures here on the Party Pictures pages a million times. Steph was once a model for Oscar de la Renta. That was another chapter. Since then she’s been married, and she’s been a widow as long as I’ve known her which must be about twelve or fifteen years. And she’s still a kid; just imagine.
Stephanie loves fashion, and she looks like a million wherever she goes. She loves glamour too. She knows how far to go with it when to stop. The New York woman. I hadn’t been to her apartment in years. Although she goes out often, she doesn’t entertain often at home. As far as it goes for the guest, judging from last night, she should do it frequently. |
| There was a proliferation of Christmas reds in Stephanie Krieger's Fifth Avenue apartment last night, from the tree to the flowers and the bows. It felt like the holidays were upon us, and there was good cheer throughout. |
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Stephanie’s BFF Brian Stewart chose the canapés. All the small delicate stuff that you can eat compulsively like the pig-in-a-blanket, the croque monsieur, the cucumber and watercress on thinly sliced white bread. The smoked salmon, the caviar stuffed in the little potatoes, and all kinds of goodies I never got to sample. Hors d’oeuvres, canapés at cocktail parties are tricky. Some people overdo it with restaurant bank-like tables of cornucopia. De trop, as the French would say. Others pass around sparse and delicate little unidentifiables that usually have some kind of heart of eggplant skin wrapped around ground tuna and garnished with poached butterfly wings.
At the private clubs around town, they serve up a lot of the pigs-in-a-blanket and that does it. Georgette Mosbacher sets out a big round table of the basics (aforementioned) for those who wish to stand around and gnosh to their heart’s (and their stomach’s) content. Stephanie Krieger’s style was to have more than enough of the small-but-not-too-small delicious numbers, excellent champagne, a full bar and very agile staff who kept everything moving. |
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The apartment. The master bedroom. I should have taken a picture. I decided not to in the name of privacy, since it was the hostess’ boudoir and a boudoir it most certainly is. It’s enormous and red and light with lots of glass beyond the silk velvet swags. It is so inviting – the color, the comfort all around, that you almost wish you could move in. Mae West meets Elizabeth II and it’s perfect synergy. In fact either one of those girls would probably be (or have been) knocked out by Stephanie’s master suite.
I got there an hour into the party and stayed for about forty-five minutes. The hostess moved around and mingled with her guests so that everyone felt welcomed. A perfect holiday cocktail party. |
| Alice Mason and Stephanie Krieger |
Roger Webster and Mary Hilliard |
| Stephanie Krieger and David Hirsch |
Mark Gilbertson and Polly Onet |
Suzanne Murphy |
| A couple of JH's Central Park scenes decorate the walls. |
| Sandra McConnell and Chris Obetz |
Mario Buatta, Richard Heanu, and Brian Stewart |
| Tom and Diahn McGrath |
Carol Cohen and Charlene Nederlander |
I left the Krieger cocktail, grabbing a cab to take me down Fifth, on my way to Christie’s auction house on 49th. I got out of the cab at the beginning of Rockefeller Center, two blocks from Christie’s. The area was teeming with sightseers. Digitals everywhere. I decided to enjoy the atmosphere before going over to Christies, and to get a look at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
I went down to the skating rink. This setting was one of my first images of New York City when I was a little boy growing up in Massachsetts, and coming down by train for the day to visit the city. It’s been there for more than 70 years and it looks as new today as it was then. It remains one of the most New York images in the universal mind’s eye of the city. It is a beauty. And on a very cool night in December, like this one, with the crowds all out and looking and enjoying the holiday atmosphere that is coming to life, it’s a great New York moment. |
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| Nearing Fifth Avenue and 60th from the back of the cab, 8:20 pm. |
| Saks Fifth Avenue's traditional holiday decoration. Saks' windows are fabulous as they are every year. |
| The skating rink and the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, taken from the 49th Street side. |
Over at Christie’s it was very crowded. There had been a cocktail party hosted by Bulgari which preceded an auction of Bulgari jewels that would benefit Save the Children.
The Bulgaris are celebrating the 125th anniversary of the family business. The Bulgaris are also a very popular family both in Italy and Europe and elsewhere around the world. I know this only because I know people who have friendships with them. There is a generous spirit present in their charisma. Last night’s event was part of the family celebration and it is being carried out at least in part philanthropically. Save The Children (which happens to be a charity I subscribe to monthly in a very small way) is the Bulgaris’ objective.
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| Moments before the Bulgari auction at Christie's last night. |
Last night they auctioned off eighteen pieces of Bulgari jewelry and watches. The auction was conducted by Rahul Kadakia who is head of Christie’s Jewelry department, and who is also a compelling auctioneer with his vocal and physical style.
The auction rooms of houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s feel like money. So as you sit and listen to the bids rise, starting in the low thousands and within seconds elevating into even millions, it is especially mesmerizing if the auctioneer’s voice captures the intensity. |
| The multi-colored sapphire and diamond necklace by Bulgari, designed as an openwork tapered bib, set with vari-cut multi-colored sapphires, interspersed with graduated three stone circular-cut diamond panels and circular-cut diamond detail, the back suspending a circular-cut diamond and three-stone oval-cut multi-colored sapphire tassel, mounted in 18k gold. Retail value: $1.05 million. |
Mr. Kadakia provided that excitement last night. It was, after all, entirely a charity auction. And it was riveting to watch. And quick. SOLD! Bulgari had DONATED this jewelry to the auction that entire proceeds of which will benefit Save the Children. The prices ran into the tens of thousands (the ‘Serpentine” bracelets, retail value, $40,000, 44,000 and $55,000) to the low to mid-six figures. All the buyers got good buys. The fabulous multi-colored sapphire and diamond necklace with a retail value of $1.05 million went for $350,000.
The evening raised $1.6 million. The Bulgaris intend to raise 10 million euros. The money will go to Save the Children’s Rewrite The Future program which aims to bring education to children affected by conflict in fragile countries and war torn communities, in order to protect them from violence in the short term and help them break the cycle of poverty and conflict in the long term. Rewrite the Future. |
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| L. to r.: The Bulgari Serpentine bracelets: Diamond and coral and gold, retail value, $55,000; Diamond enamel and rose gold, retail value, $44,000; Diamond, onyx and rose gold, retail value, $40,000. |
On the other side of the coin: After the auction there was a “dinner” at the Monkey Bar. The Monkey Bar is the perfect party restaurant. I’m sure they knew this when they put it together. It’s dark and movie-theater theatrical in its ambience. There’s almost a film noir feel to it when the lights are low. The “dinner” came out on large help-yourself trays placed on each table. It’s ten o’clock. Have as much or as little as you wish. Little mini-shrimp rolls. You don’t have just one. Then there was a slice of something, like croque monsieur haute dawg. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. I had two.
Peggy Siegal was holding forth at the head table (middle of the mural). She had the 4th Viscount Astor (the British Astor who testified at the trial) on her left and the fashionable Marjorie Gubelmann looking throwaway chic in diamonds and black. Everyone was talking about Tiger Woods.
I sat and had something to eat with Debbie Bancroft, Tiffany Dubin and Katherine Bryan, joined occasionally by her son George Gurley, the reporter who is currently working on a book. This was Katherine’s first time at the Monkey Bar. She loved being there. Everyone else had been. It’s still one of those “have you been to the Monkey Bar” places.
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| Marjorie Gubelmann, Peggy Siegal, and William Astor. |
| The right company in the Monkey Bar will do this to you: DPC, Debbie Bancroft, Tiffany Dubin, and Katherine Bryan. |
| Billy Farrell isn't kidding. |
| Debbie Bancroft, George Gurley, and Katherine Bryan. |
Alexis Clark and friend. |
| Matt Jackson, Cena Jackson, Davin Staats, Ashley Baker, Elizabeth Meigher, and Kari Talley. |
| Stefano Tonchi and his friends. |
| Dr. Jake (looking away from camera), Brian Atwood, Marjorie Gubelmann, Peggy Siegal, William Astor, and Rubin. |
| The room at Monkey Bar, last night about 10:30. |
I left the restaurant about quarter to eleven. It was cool, just brisk out. One of those New York nights where the vibe in the air when you leave a club or restaurant, refreshes. There were a lot of vacant cabs moving down Park Avenue. Lever House has some new art exhibition covering the building’s posts.
There was a Christmas red Ferrari in the window of a showroom on 55th and Park. Almost the same red as in Stephanie Krieger’s master bedroom. I had a brief moment where I imagined myself driving along a country road in Connecticut in that red Ferrari. Then I tried to imagine what kind of life it would be if I had the kind of money you needed to own a Ferrari. Then I crossed Park Avenue and saw a vacant cab coming my way. Many forces at work here. I got in and checked my email. |
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