 |
 1000 and still counting!
 |
| Steve Millington has just announced to the lunch guests at Michael's yesterday afternoon that DPC (pictured with his hand trying to cover his face) was celebrating his 1000th visit to Michael's since 2000. I didn't know this was coming and it seemed very strange. That's Michael, to the left, standing applauding, with Gerry Byrne partly obscured by the pine bough; Caroline Weber, my lunch partner seated next to me, and Jolie Hunt of Reuters next to Caroline. |
Friday, December 8, 2011. Sunny, much chillier day, yesterday in New York. Holiday traffic all around town, bumpa-ta-bumpa.
I went down to Michael’s to have lunch with Caroline Weber, the author of Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. Caroline is French literature professor up at Columbia University. She is one of those people who has vast curiosity as well as knowledge about her subject. French. History. Fashion. Politics.
 |
 |
| Click to order Caroline Weber's Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. |
|
I’d almost rather talk to Caroline than anyone I know. Conversation with her (if you can keep up) is like an exploration. And of course the most interesting subject is always people.
Caroline’s signed with Knopf to write a history of the women that the three main female characters in Proust are based on. She’s just begun, and just beginning to discover what Proust discovered when he got to know all those ladies.
So this was what the conversation was around yesterday at Table 8 in Michael’s. The place was very busy; full tables everywhere.
About halfway through our lunch, Steve Millington, the restaurant’s General Manager/Bon Vivant did something I’d never seen him do before.
He took a small stool, placed it in the middle of the front room, and with a mike in his hand, and a glass of champagne, he tapped on the glass and asked everyone in the room to be quiet for a moment. It worked. We all looked over and up at Steve who told us that today (yesterday), they were marking a special occasion. Which was: “today (yesterday) was the 1000th visit of David Patrick Columbia to Michael’s.”
What??!! Now Steve loves a good joke, and wondered why he’d decided to make that joke then, in the middle of lunch! A thousand; that’s a lotta visits. Even sounds like Too Much. Then he asked everyone to raise their glasses and drink their champagne. And they did. |
 |
| Steve Millington telling the guests about this "milestone." |
I was sitting there feeling odd. A thousand times at one restaurant? How could they know such a thing?
Since 2000, it turned out, when the computer at Loreal’s (the receptionist) desk registered a reservation, it kept a record of whom, and each time one was made in that name.
It turned out I liked the absurd spotlight and thought it was funny. I’d never seen Steve silence a (very talkative) clientele suddenly and successfully, but it had that almost-fraternity feeling – it was funny. I also thought how 1000 lunches must have added up to a lot of dough. I justified it as my work, and also remembered I have often been a guest.
|
| Then Michael brings me a glass of champagne. I'm saying, "oh no, I can't believe this!" |
 |
|
Michael’s has been a big assistance to the NYSD simply because it is there and is what it is – a restaurant and a leading New York meeting place for a large segment of American media and publishing people, including their clients and writers. Because of the nature of its clientele’s business, it is a mecca for all kinds of prominent, interesting, ambitious, creative people in the city.
In the years I’ve been going there so many individuals from all kinds of professions, including movie stars, and presidents and models and socialites and famous writers in swarms, who have passed through its doors. The atmosphere created by the restaurant’s staff, its design and pieces of Michael McCarty’s private art collection – including the many pieces painted by his artist wife Kim McCarty is smart, bright and kind of collegial. The staff is very agreeable and business-like. Everyone who comes through the door is treated with the same deference. |
 |
| Millington, Kim McCarty, Michael McCarty, and the milestone boy. |
For me it has been a source, something to write about; people I’d seen, things I’d been told. New York at its heart a small town. Michael’s in its way is not unlike those little luncheonettes and breakfast places you find all over America where local people go and meet and share the news. It’s very much like that despite its Noo Yawk high-struttin’ ways.
I always knew I was one of the more frequent Michael’s customers. Earlier in the year a reporter from the New York Observer called to tell me they were doing a piece on “who goes to Michael’s the most.” I remember saying to the girl, “Oh, that’s interesting; who does?”
“You!” she answered, adding, “You’ve gone there 34 times in the first three months of the new year. |
| My lunch guest Caroline Weber after being served my 1000th anniversary dessert. |
Oh. Well, it adds, up, 2 or 3 times a week. In my line of work, it’s my social life, and also offers the possibility of something to write about in a Diary that I try to do everyday. Regular readers know that it suffices. Plus I see and sometimes meet and observe many of these very interesting characters who are often dynamic forces in the city and even our world.
Nevertheless it was a weird, funny experience. |
 |
Only two weeks to Christmas Eve weekend. Lots of things going on last night in New York. Down at Cipriani 42nd Street, the Child Mind Institute hosted its 2nd annual Child Advocacy Award Dinner. They honored Jane and Jimmy Buffett. Also the 2012 Child Mind Institute Distinguished Scientist Award was presented to Nobel Laureate Dr. Eric Kandel. Matt Lauer hosted.
Chairs were Elizabeth and Michael Fascitelli, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, Brooke Garber Neidich and Daniel Neidich, Ron Perelman, Preethi Krishna and Ram Sundaram. This is a remarkable organization. It is fairly new on the philanthropic scene, and it is very important. The Child Mind Institute is dedicated to transforming mental health care for children everywhere. It is also another example of a group of people getting together and through focus and dedication, creating an entity to assist the community. |
| The Child Mind Institute's 2nd annual Child Advocacy Award Dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street. |
|
|
Also last night, over at the Union Club the Morris Animal Foundation honored Philip Bergman, DVM at a dinner dance. Dr. Mark Morris is the vet who created Science Diet pet food and later created the Morris Animal Foundation to fund “impactful” research in veterinary medicine. Last night’s dinner dance featured Alex Donner and his orchestra.
And over at the Plaza, there was a preview cocktail reception on the Concourse Level for “A Toast to POSH,” or “POSH at the Plaza,” the annual pre-holiday sale of designer items (and donations) with all proceeds benefiting Lighthouse International. It was mobbed by people checking out the tremendous bargains for clothing, furs, accessories, decorative items, linens, china, crystals, wreaths, leathers, lace, all top top and at amazing prices.
The sale runs ONLY today and tomorrow – from 11 a.m. to 7 pm, $10 per day at the door. Then you can go around the corner, still on the Concourse and go over to the Plaza Food Hall. |
 |
| Mark Ackermann, President and CEO of Lighthouse International. |
| Marc Rosen, a major Lighthouse supporter with his wife Arlene Dahl. On the right, Mario Buatta who was chairman of the evening reception. |
| The sales rooms full of bargains. |
Also last night down at the Forbes Gallery, on Fifth Avenue and 12th Street, Steve Forbes and Glenn Horowitz hosted a drinks party to celebrate the opening of the exhibition of Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury first editions, letters, and artwork of William Beekman.
The show features material from Woolf's childhood to her death, ending with Vita Sacvkille-West's corrected typescript tribute of enduring love to Woolf. Letters, photographs, inscribed books, and artwork by various members of Woolf's circle---Lytton Strachey, Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, John Maynard Keynes---document Woolf's central place in British culture in the first half of the century.
|
| Pieces from the collection. First Editions. |
Guests included the hosts, Mr. and Mrs. William Beekman, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Richard Howard, Ashton Hawkins, Winthrop Grant, Tracey Jackson,the photographer David Levinthal whose interpretations of Woolf's booksillustrate the catalogue of Beekman's collection published by Glenn Horowitz Bookseller.
The show will be up until mid January. A treasure; don’t miss! |
| Steve Forbes and Bunny Beekman. |
| Glenn Horowitz and Tracey Jackson. |
| Mr. and Mrs. Bill Beekman. |
|
Comments? Contact DPC here. |
|
|
|
|
