10.14.10: Don’t Rain On My Parade | New York Social Diary

Don’t Rain On My Parade

Stealing a look inside the library of the University Club on 54th Street and Fifth Avenue. 9:50 PM. Photo: JH.

October 14, 2010. A beautiful autumn day in New York, sunny and mild.

Down at Michael’s, the Wednesday lunch was packed. At table one in the window they were having a lunch to celebrate Debra Shriver’s publication of Stealing Magnolias, which is about her love of her adopted city New Orleans. Debra is also a New Yorker and Vice President and Chief Communications Officer of the Hearst Corporation. More on her book in tomorrow’s NYSD.

In yesterday’s Shriver lunch party: Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Pamela Keogh, Jesse Kornbluth, Susan Sully, Amy Wicks, Melissa Coan, Marcia Sherrill, Lesley Jane Seymour and last but never least, Debra’s partner in adopting cities, her husband Jerry Shriver.

Meanwhile, just as the main course was about to be served the Shriver party, in comes jazz man, saxophonist Craig Handy for a surprise solo performance for the celebrants (and everyone else in the place).

The Michael's lunch for Deb Shriver. Standing: Jesse Kornbluth, Jerry Shriver, Lesley Jane Seymour, Melissa Coan. Seated: Susan Sully, The Author, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Marcia Sherrill, Pamela Keogh, Amy Wicks. photo by Steve Millington.

Around the room: Chris Licht with Nancy Jacobson and Kevin Sheekey; the Dr. Gerry Imber crew: Jerry Della Femina, Andy Bergman, Michael Kramer; Peter Brown and guest; Men’s Health editor Dave Zinczenko with John DeLucie, former chef of the Waverly Inn, now proud proprietor of The Lion on 9th Street. Not everyone knows that the Lion was, way back in the early 60s, a gay bar where the hatcheck girl won the amateur contest with first prize of a two-week engagement at the club. Her name: Barbra Streisand. So long hatcheck, hello Broadway.

Continuing around the room: Nikki Haskell back in town promoting her new product: StarShapes, lunching with her glamorous Beverly Hills neighbor Jolene Schlatter. Also: Toni Goodale and guest; Isaac Mizrahi and guest; John Jakobson with his long time friend Ezra Zilkha, whose daughter Bettina was just a couple tables away lunching with Judy Cox; Rob Weisbach with Kellan Lutz. Continuing, also Charlene Holt; Randy Jones – celebrating a birthday; Micky Ateyeh; Jay Cross, Laura McEwen; Martin Puris; attorney Richard Descherer; Judy Licht a/k/a Mrs. Jerry Della Femina, with guests; Adam DeVito, Steve Zide, Bill McGowan.

The entrance last night to the Wade Thompson Drill Hall at the Park Avenue Armory where NewYork-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center was holding is annual Cabaret 2010.

Last night at the newly refurbished Park Avenue Armory, in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, the NewYork-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center held its Cabaret 2010 with Katie Couric as Evening Program Host and featuring singer/actress Idina Menzel.

Co-chairs of the evening were: Helen and Robert Appel, Charlotte Ford, Kim and Jeff Greenberg, Margaret and Ian Smith. The event committee was: Patricia Allen MD and Douglas McIntyre, Serena Boardman, Stephanie and Chase Coleman, Lee and Jeffrey Feil, Shoshanna and Josh Gruss, Mary and Mike Jaharis, Julia and David Koch, Pamela Lipkin MD and Bruce Ratner, Claudia and Nelson Peltz, Jill and William Roberts, Samantha Boardman Rosen MD and Aby Rosen, and Daisy and Paul Soros.

Charlotte Ford and Katie Couric.

My dermatologist, Dr. Cheryl Karcher and Mr. Karcher.

This is a hugely successful annual event and the closest thing to a family affair that you’ll find in a New York evening. More than 900 guests attended and they raised $2.6 million for the hospital. There might have been more doctors present in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall of the Park Avenue Armory that you’d ordinarily find present in any one hospital at one time. Year in and year out, this affair brings out the medical men and women, their staffs and supporters, wives and husbands.

This was their first year in the Park Avenue Armory, and as it was last week at the Carnival event honoring Elihu Rose, the “new” armory is shaping up to be a perfect venue for many things including large fundraising dinners. This has always been true although now they’re ready for it. You can see by the photo I took upon entering the Drill Hall what an impressive venue it is.

Dr. Pat Allen and Dr. Michael Stewart.

Tony and Janet Goldman with Charlotte Ford.

Katie Couric called the evening to order. She introduced Charlotte Ford who spoke briefly about the success they’d had at raising funds this year and then told the audience there would be no speeches (except for hers and Couric’s); just dinner and entertainment. New Yorkers on the go applaud a black tie evening where everything is over and out by ten, or even 9:30 – a more challenging time, admittedly.

Katie Couric told the audience about the founding of the Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health at the hospital, the result of her experience with the hospital during her husband’s fatal bout with stage 4 colon cancer.

After a film about cancer treatment at the hospital, Couric introduced Idina Menzel, star of stage, film and television (most recently: Glee) who performed a lovely concert of five songs including “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” which she sang at the Kennedy Center Honors before Barbra Streisand, who introduced it on Broadway in “Funny Girl.” At ten p.m., the show was over and the guests were exiting on to Park Avenue for their waiting cars and taxis.

Last night's 2010 Caberet guest performer Idina Menzel singing "Don't Rain On My Parade."

Charlotte Ford and DPC.

Anne Ford.

DPC and Iris Cantor.

Meanwhile, over at the Plaza last night, saris and otherwise glittering gowns were out in full force at the World Monuments Fund annual gala, a tribute to Indian businessman Ratan Tata.

In contemporary India, the Tata name is associated with the Nano, billed as "the world's cheapest car" and also "a comfortable, safe, all-weather people's car, high on fuel efficiency and low on emissions." But beginning with generations preceding him, the family has also been tied to serving the public good through philanthropy, particularly in protecting and developing the nation's cultural heritage. Or, as Mr. Tata himself put it last night, "We are trustees of the nation, spreading wealth among the people."

A WMF project in India.

A WMF project in Iraq.

Preservation and restoration has been an important part of the Tata's family work in India, which has helped turn historic sites into focal points of sustainable tourism. The same idea is at work in the family's Taj hotels. "We've tried to refurbish and decorate them as they used to be," Mr. Tata said. "We did this to share the splendor of days gone by, rather than develop modern hotels that could be anywhere in the world."

The Plaza Hotel, itself the beneficiary of a careful restoration of late, was an ideal setting for the event. As slides of World Monuments Fund sites flashed on the big screens in the ballroom, a foil to the pillars and arches of the room in which the event took place, the message was the importance of architecture, of place, of environment. Architect Rahul Mehrotra paid tribute to Mr. Tata by noting that he was trained as an architect. Mr. Mehrotra cited the renowned Indian architect Charles Correa, who said, "architects are and should be agents of change ... which is why a leader like Gandhi is called the architect of a nation and not the dentist of the nation or engineer or Historian of the nation." Mehrotra then concluded, "Ratan Tata is one of the most important architects of contemporary India."

Ratan Tata, WMF's 2010 Hadrian Award recipient, with Elbrun Kimmelman.

This Tata patriarch bears a resemblance to his successor.

Ancestors of Ratan Tata.

The evening’s dinner chairs were Sangita Jindal, Fernanda Kellogg, Dilip Advani, Amin Jaffer, and Jack Shear. In conjunction with the event, a travel-themed silent auction is taking place online until October 20 at www.charitybuzz.com/wmf. One lot includes a two-night stay at the Taj Mahal Palace and a private jet ride to the city of Vijayanagara.

-- Amanda Gordon for NYSD.