Almost summertime

Playing solo in Central Park. 1:50 PM. Photo: JH.


JFK in the Oval Office

The 90th anniversary of the birth of John F. Kennedy. Born on this day in 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts; murdered on November 22, 1963 in Dallas; age 46.

Almost summertime. The run-up. On Thursday night for those New Yorkers who couldn’t stay home, aside from the whole city to choose from, down on 42nd Street at the Cipriani, El Museo was holding its 2007 Gala. It’s ‘masked ball” gala—with Carolina Herrera as the Honorary Chair and Yaz and Velentin Hernandez and Isabel and Ruben Toledo as Gala Chairs. Junior Chairs were Mayra Hernandez, Jana Pasqel and Samantha Thompson.

And where did they get their masks? Well more than 40 designers contributed masks especially to be worn that night. Among the designers attending were Narciso Rodriguez, Francisco Costa, Maeria Cornejo, Gemma Kahng, Angel Sanchez, Zang Toi, Gilles Mendel and Jimmy Galanos.

Dinner scene at Cipriani for El Museo's 2007 Gala.

And did they party? Honey, they’re Latin; and Latins know how to party. Arrrrr-riba!

And all for the benefit of El Museo del Barrio, the only museum in New York City that specializes in representing the cultures of the Caribbean and Latin America. Founded in only 1969 by a group of Puerto Rican educators, artists, parents and community activists in East Harlem’s Spanish-speaking El Barrio. A tribute to its success is that El Museo del Barrio is now a major stop on the Museum Mile of Fifth Avenue at 104th Street, and has evolved into New York’s leading Latino cultural institution.

Bonnie Morrison, Angel Sanchez, and Fabiola Beracasa

Claudia Madrazo de Hernandez and Alicia Rodriguez

Daniella Ruiz and Robbie Antonio

Carolina Herrera

Farrah Sanders, Yaz Hernandez, and Alexandra Seegers

Michelle Goff and Daniel Perry

Jana Pasquel and Yaz Hernandez

Marianna Kauffman, Angel Sanchez, and George Kauffman

Yaz Hernandez and Claudia Madrazo de Hernandez

Gustavo Arango and Fabiola Beracasa

Narciso Rodriguez

Tony Bechara

Matthew Morris and Cristina Roig Morris

Ruben and Isabel Toledo

Candy Pratts Price and Julián Zugazagoitia

L. to r.: Richard Turley; Narciso Rodriguez, Gustavo Arango, and Julián Zugazagoitia; Gemma Kahng.

Ruben Toledo, Tony Bechara, Isabel Toledo, Carolina Herrera, and Yaz and Valentin Hernandez

Reed Rubin

Zang Toi and Ling

Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler

Valentin and Yaz Hernandez

And while they were dancing up a storm at Ciiprani 42nd, just down the way and across the river in Brooklyn, the Cunard Line was welcoming guests aboard the docked Queen Mary 2 for the The Britannia Ball, held for the benefit of the New York City Opera and Brooklyn Academy of Music. There were cocktails, and then a concert by Patti LuPone in the ship’s Royal Court Theater; and then dinner, and dancing to the music of Peter Duchin and his orchestra.


Carol Marlow

Swell-egant and elegant: The shipboard-under-the moonlight evening was sponsored by CIT Group Inc. CIT’s Chairman and CEO Jeff Peek and his wife Liz also served as co-Chairs of the event. Brian Leary of Massey Knakal was Vice Chair. Hosts for the evening were Carol Marlow, President of Cunard, Paul Kellogg, General and Artistic Director of the NYCO, Jane Gullong, Executive Director and Susan Baker, Chairman fo the NYC Opera; as well as Karen Brooks Hopkins, President, Joe Melillo, Executive Producer and Alan Fishman, Chairman of the Academy of Music. Big doin’s on the Cunard Line stateside brought out hundreds of course, including Chevy Chase, Cynthia Nixon, Jill Hennessy, Debi Mazar, Dana Delany, LaChanze, Michael Emerson, Michelle Ray Smith, Carson Kressley, Robert Verdi, Lloyd Boston, Patricia Field, Nick Arrojo, Vivienne Tam, Dhani Jones, Michael Lynch, Jim and Marie Nugent, NY StateSenator Velmanette Montgomery, BrooklynBorough President Marty Markowitz and Jaime Markowitz, Princess Alexandra of Greece and Nicolas Mirzayantz, Paul Beirne, Jayne Bentzen and Benedict Silverman, Celeste and Cornelius Boele, Kevin Brine, Olivia and Adam Flatto, Lydia Fenet, Edmee and Nicholas Firth, Simon Hammerstein, Michael Newhouse, David and Julia Koch, Elaine Sargent, Denise Sobel and Norman Keller, R. Couri Hay, Janna Bullock, Ben Livingston, Mark and Lorry Newhouse, Arrie and Coco Kopelman, William H. Mann and Anna Maria Murdoch-Mann.

The Queen Mary 2 was docked especially for this night at its New York home, the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. And then, the next day, for the luckier ones, QM2 set sail the next day for her Memorial Day cruise to the Bahamas, taking some of especially fortunate revelers with them. A five-day cruise luxuriating in one of the ship’s Premiere Suites, and then returning to the Big Apple at just about the time most intrepid New Yorkers were returning from their weekend in the Hamptons. And was it fun? Arrrrr-riba!

Clockwise from top left: Dinner scene aboard the Queen Mary 2; Carson Kressley and Michelle Ray Smith; Jill Hennessy; Cynthia Nixon; Derek Fourjour and LaChanze; Patti Lupone and Joseph Melillo.

Photographs by Patrick McMullan

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