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 Nice day in New York
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| Autumn flowers. 4:00 PM. Photo: JH. |
Thursday, October 25, 2012. Rain maybe all day yesterday. No. Overcast, brisk, nice day in New York autumn.
Down at the Michael’s Wednesday lunch there was a house full. I was lunching with someone I’d never met, Lee Robinson from Louisville (Lu-uh-vul), who had never been to Michael’s before. So he got a good look at its theatre. “Oh, I’m comin’ here the next time,” he said enthusiastically, watching the crowd.
What is this “crowd” that catches so many eyes and ears? Oh, just about everybody. It’s New York right now. It’s not a financial restaurant, allegedly a media restaurant, and not a neighborhood restaurant. There’s enough space for a private conversation even when you’re practically on top of somebody else. The Michael’s din is, paradoxically like a steel trap for private conversation. You can only hear the voices closest to you in that cauldron of the New York times at the noontime hour.
The mood has picked up lately in this particular orbit, and these are working people. Well-compensated, highly paid some of them, as well as some tycoons. Warren Buffett drops by from time to time. Star Jones is a regular and was there yesterday (with Jonathan Wald). Also among the cast (and caste) at yesterday’s matinee were: Anthony Shriver, who was also there the day before with his friends McInerney and Hearst; Caroline Hirsch of Caroline’s Comedy Club with Roger Friedman and Jill Brooke; Steven Stolman of Scalamandre with Diane, our Brenda, Clehane; Mad Men Michael Kassan with Richard Beckman; Joan Caraganis Jakobson with Pia Lindstrom; the really beautiful Melania Trump; Father-Son PR wizards Howard Rubenstein and Steven Rubenstein; Tina Brown; Julie Macklowe with Liz Peek; Cindi Berger; Chris Meigher of Quest and James Cohen; David Sanford and Lewis Stein; Da Boyz, minus two: Dr. Gerry Imber, Jerry della Femina and Andrew Bergman; Laurie Aronson (from the family that owns Haspel suits) in from Baton Rouge; Peter Price, Catherine Saxton; Brenda Exline; Lynn Goldberg, and scores more just like ‘em.
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| Landscape designer Mario Nievera at his booksigning last night at the Dennis Basso boutique on Madison and 66th Street. Click to order. |
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Last night. It was another one of those nights with a dozen do’s on in the charity/arts and culture circuit.
I started out at Dennis Basso on 66th Street and Madison Avenue where Dennis was hosting a booksigning for Palm Beach landscape architect Mario Nievera. Big crowd when you put together the lists of those two. Mario. Many of those extraordinary landscapes behind the gates and the hedges down in Palm Beach are Mario’s exceptionally clean and lush creations.
I’d gone in there just to get the picture so you could see the book. From Dennis Basso, I walked five blocks south down the avenue and over to the corner of 61st and Fifth, where Sirio Maccioni was presiding over the grand opening of his new restaurant in the Pierre, Sirio Ristorante. I’d seen the interior of this smart new venture the night before and run a picture of the bar area, fortunately because last night all you could see was the sea of humanity whom Sirio had invited.
It’s right there on the corner of 61st and the Avenue in the Pierre, and right across the street from the Park. Last night. I’d estimate at least several hundred were partaking of the champagne and cocktails. They filled not only the long narrow restaurant, but the outer rotunda of the hotel, and the connecting ballroom. I spent the first fifteen minutes making my way through the crowds (in all three rooms) looking for our host. I finally found him in the rotunda, seated like the culinary pasha that he is, taking a break from the melee he created. |
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I took this shot from outside the new Serio Ristorante from the 61st Street side. |
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Coat staff waiting last night in Fifth Avenue lobby of the Pierre. |
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Just inside the rotunda that leads to the ballroom, Sirio Ristorante (at far end) and the grand ballroom on the next floor (at the top of the staircase). 7:20 PM. |
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More, many more guests at the reception in the ballroom. |
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in the bar of the new Sirio Ristorante. |
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| The man himself with friend under the flashes of camera lights. |
Another Italian culinary pasha from way over east on Park Avenue and 52nd Street, Julian Niccolini. |
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The crowd at the entrance to the ballroom. |
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A last look as I head up the staircase to the grand ballroom where the American Associates of the Royal Academy were holding their annual fall gala. |
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After a half hour or so I made my way up the staircase to the next landing that leads to the grand ballroom of the hotel. There the American Associates of the Royal Academy were holding their annual fall gala. This year they were honoring Frank Stella with the John C. Copley Award; and the Yale Center of British Art and its Director Dr. Amy Meyers with the Benjamin West Award. Peregrine Cavendish, the 12th Duke of Devonshire, Hugh Hildesley and Christopher LeBrun, the newly elected President of the Royal Academy, led the festivities.
Among the guests, I spotted were Barbara and Donald Tober, Margo Langenberg, Ann Nitze, Kenny Jay Lane, Sir John Richardson, the honoree, Mr Stella, Dick and Mary Ellen Oldenburg, Alexandra Penney and Dennis Ashbaugh, Shirley Lord Rosenthal, Carolina Herrera, Mica Ertegun, Freddie Eberstadt, Mary Snow, Dame Jill Sackler, Mark Gilbertson, Kitty Ockendon who was the Director of the American Associates, now served by Kathleen Hearst; Gillian Attfield, Thom and Caroline Dean, Vicki Ward, Prince Dimitri, who was showing his Damascus steel cufflinks. Damascus steel, he explained to those of us who didn’t know, was the steel the ancients made their weapons with. Very hard and yet has the visual quality of having texture that gives it a wood like appearance.
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The cocktail reception outside the grand ballroom of the Pierre for the American Associates. |
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| Carolina Herrera, Mica Ertegun, and Shirley Lord Rosenthal. |
Evelyn Tompkins and Vicki Ward. |
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Margo Langenberg and Fred Koch |
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Ashbaugh and Penney awaiting the dinner bell. |
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The honoree Frank Stella with Dick and Mary Ellen Oldenburg. |
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| AARA Director Kathleen Hearst, the Duke of Devonshire, and Gillian Attfield. |
Ann Nitze and Dame Jillian Sackler. |
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The table. |
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Prince Dimitri's Damascus Steel cufflinks with diamond center. |
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From the Pierre, I decided to head back home via a quick walk up Madison Avenue by the shops, the window of a few of which I caught on the digital ...
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| Domenico Vacca. |
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| Aaron Basha. |
Roberto Cavalli. |
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Mrs. John Templeton Strong, Stationers. |
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| I ran into Christopher Mason leaving Dennis Basso, heading south. |
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| A last look inside the Nievera booksigning. |
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| The J.Crew Collection next door. |
Fogal. |
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| Frette. |
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| There was more I did miss: the 2012 AFA (American Federation of the Arts) and Cultural Leadership Award honoring artist Sarah Sze at the Metropolitan Club. The Garden Conservancy hosted An Evening in New York with Axel Vervoordt, the internationally renowned interior designer, art collector and curator who gave a talk at the New York School of Interior Design. Vervoordt, who is almost a legend with his clients, surely packed them in. And over at the Academy Mansion on 2 East 63 Street, there was an opening night preview party of Holiday House 2012 to Benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, honorary chair, Leonard Lauder. |
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