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 Day and Night
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| Newsstand. 4:30 PM. Photo: JH. |
Thursday, October 11, 2012. Sunny day, perfect temperature in the mid-60s. But amazing cloud formations. The city was very busy traffic-wise. Slow going heading for midtown.
The Michael’s-it’s-Wednesday lunch. At Table One in the bay, Michael’s wife, the painter Kim McCarty was hosting a girls-lunch for her nearest-and-dearest including Blythe Danner, Bette Midler, Patty Hansen, Jolie Hunt, Desiree Gruber, Patty Smyth McEnroe. At the table right next door to them and me: Chris Noth with producer Fred Zollo.
Next to them Kerry Kennedy and Henry Schleiff; and next to them: Boaty Boatwright and Sherry Lansing. Back to: on the other side of me was Julie Macklowe holding forth; across the way Micky Ateyeh up to something with Tim Landi; closeby, a real star Star Jones; connecting the dots: Diane Clehane with Joan Gelman and Robert Zimmerman. They talked about politics. How do I know? Put Gelman and Zimmerman together and you get politics. Leslie Stevens was lunching with Barbara Diamonstein-Spielvogel. They talked about strategy. How do I know? Put those two together and you get strategy.
Nearby Vin Cipolla, head of the Municipal Art Society; Freddie Friedman with Vera Blinken; Barry Frey with Ardy Khazasel and Chris Lederer; Tom Goodman with Ben Madden and Dan Brown; Kate Capshaw and Kristie Macosko-Krieger of Dreamworks. Moving around the room: the Chuck Pfeiffer; Wednesday Martin; Kent Karsonen and Betsy Gotbaum; David Adler and Chris Ariens; Ed Adler and Stu Zakim; Ene Greenfield, Jane Hartley; Anthony Cenname; JackKliger; the Mary Boone: Kent Slotnick with this month’s Architectural Digest cover boy Nate Berkus; Heidi Roberts; Nick Rubenstein; Richard Bressler. And that was just the half of it. |
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| Splendid cloud coverage over the East River. |
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Last night in New York. Best intentions aside, I didn’t get there but over at Mallet on Madison Avenue and 73rd Street they were celebrating the opening of “A Rare Garden,” an exhibition of new work by Clare Potter. You may have read about Clare here. She is a ceramicist. I think that’s the word. She is also a potter, obviously. Her personality has the same gentle luster and kindness that you can see in her work.
If you’ve never seen Clare’s work, even if you don’t have an especially strong interest in ceramic sculpture, go and have a look. It’s a wonder, and you will be amazed at what she can do with her art. (929 Madison Avenue/212-249-8783). |
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| Clare Potter's stunning porcelain arrangement of hydrangeas on her dining room table. |
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It was a black tie night for me but I did stop by Archivia where they were holding a booksigning for Helen Nash. Mrs. Nash’s first two cookbooks, “Kosher Cuisine” and “Helen Nash’s Kosher Kitchen,” are classics of the art of kosher cooking.
This latest book represents the best and most health-conscious addition to the art of kosher cooking. Using ingredients that have only recently become available, It contains many new and imaginative fusion recipes.
Mrs. Nash was born in Krakow, and arrived in the United States as a teenager in 1949. As a very young girl, she spent the Second World War in labor camps in Siberia and Central Asia with her parents and her sister. As it happens I’m reading Antony Beevor’s “Second World War” right now outlining the early stories of what happened to ordinary people when Hitler and then Stalin unleashed their monstrous sadism on the world around them and elsewhere. |
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| Helen Nash with Tom and Alice Tisch. |
The author, who thinks the photographer is either crazy or funny. Click to order or buy immediately at Archivia. |
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Coincidentally I had lunch today with a friend who with her parents were escaping refugees from Estonia as the Soviets and the Nazis moved in on the country. This massive evacuation forced on millions of people where everything had to be abandoned instantly for the sake of a hoped-for safe arrival, suddenly devoid of one’s life. Millions never made it, murdered by these same men professing leadership. My lunch partner told me how she and her mother and father left by small boat headed for Sweden, at night, so that they wouldn’t be seen in the dark. Larger boats were torpedoed by the invader. Those people drowned.
More coincidence: Vera Blinken, stopping by our table at Michael’s today, as I wrote here last week, was another who as a child escaped the Russians when they invaded Hungary after the Germans were routed. |
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| Kitty Ross, Judith Ginsberg, and her husband Paul LeClerc. |
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Meanwhile, Mrs. Nash was rewarded with a good life here in the United States. With her time and interest, over the years, she has taught widely, giving cooking demonstrations and lecturing at NYU and Yeshiva University. She’s also taught at De Gustibus at Macy's. Much of her teaching has been to benefit charities in New York City, where she lives.
Cynthia Conigliaro, proprietress of Archivia and also an authentic la buona forchetta herself, told me that she did one of the tuna tartare recipes, found it “super easy, super delicious,” and her husband asked if they had ordered in from Le Bernardin. |
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| The window, designed and installed by Mrs. Nash's 11-year-old grandson Jason Nash. |
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A few blocks down the avenue over at the Park Avenue Armory, which has just celebrated its fifth birthday as an exclusively cultural venue and institution, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center was holding its Cabaret 2012 honoring Maurice R. Greenberg, known has Hank to one and all.
Mr. Greenberg and his wife Corinne are long time supporters of the hospitals. They have not only donated millions to building and improving the hospital’s plant and work but they also have used their considerable influence to raise many millions more.
Dr. Laurie Glimcher who introduced the honoree last night, listed at least a half dozen different projects that the Greenbergs have undertaken (and underwritten) successfully, raising the level of care and medical attention that the hospital offers. |
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| The cocktail reception area designed and installed by Bronson van Wyck. |
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| The Ernst Lubitsch autumn bar. |
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| The interior dining room, all within the vast Park Avenue Armory main hall. |
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Medical philanthropy has its own breed of givers. Iris Cantor, another major medical philanthropist who was also there last night, belongs to that classification. They are impassioned individuals. It’s almost as if they never stop thinking about what needs to be done, and how and when it can be done, and who can do it. Charlotte Ford, who is a longtime member of the Board of Trustees, is another. They all know each other because they are all helping. They are the underpinnings of a hospital as a great institution in the community and their interest is 24/7.
There were 850 guests joining Dr. Steven J. Corwin, CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian and Dr. Robert Kelly, President of the hospital at the black tie evening. The great hall was decorated by Bronson van Wyck, the Barnum of the event planners; he who lends his talents extravagantly to the spectacular and the beautiful, in this case creating an atmosphere of the monumental. Like the client. |
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| Iris Cantor and Bronson Van Wyck. |
Charlotte Ford opening the evening, reporting the progress of the past year and introducing the program. |
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| Dr. Laurie Glimcher on stage with Dr. Steven Corwin. Dr. Glimcher is introducing Hank Greenberg with a biographical record of his contributions and devotion to the work of the hospital. |
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| Dr. Corwin, CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian. |
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| Hank Greenberg accepting his honor. |
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| Joan Weill introducing the Ailey II Dance performance for the evening's "Cabaret." |
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There were touches of autumn (leaves) all around, and masses of MDs and their friends and spouses enjoying the cocktail hour and then the dinner. It is always one of those evenings where many of the guests (the doctors for example) rarely go out because of their work schedules, so it has the feeling of the fresh and new. In the program there is more information to be imparted in a couple of videos about patients about the work progress.
After the dinner and dessert we were treated to the “cabaret,” which this year was Ailey II, the dance company founded to continue Alvin Ailey’s pioneering mission to establish an extended cultural community providing performances, training and community programs for all people. |
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| Dr. Glimcher and the honoree. |
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| The wild-eyed reporter and the Ford sisters. |
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I happened to see them during the cocktail reception where they were standing in a group as if ready for a photograph on the red carpet. All that was missing was the photographer. So I asked them why they were standing there, and one of them kindly explained that they were the entertainment for the dinner, and waiting for the camera.
Duh.
And great entertainment they were. This was a wonderful evening. Charlotte Ford announced that they’d raised $2.6 million to benefit the medical center by supporting the ongoing work in patient care, research an medical education. |
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| The Ailey II company agreeably waiting for the wandering photographer so they could get ready for their performance. |
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