Celebration of Ideas

Fireworks display at the Hudson Valley Hero Gala at Washington Irving’s Sunnyside in Tarrytown, N.Y.

The Aspen Institute and The Atlantic held their 4th annual celebration of ideas with the 2008 Aspen Ideas Festival on June 30th through July 6 in Aspen.

The Ideas Festival convenes more than 250 leaders from the fields of arts, science, culture, religion, philosophy, economics and politics in a deep and inquisitive public discourse on the most invigorating ideas and issues facing the world today.

Festival passes were sold out in only two hours after they were made available pre-event. They welcomed more than 1,200 festival passholders and an additional 1,800 single-ticket attendees for a weeklong series of plenary sessions, tutorials and other events that stimulate discussion across a wide range of disciplines. Programmatic tracks ranged from Climate and Sustainability; Global Dynamics; Religion and the Modern World; American Experience; Global Commerce and the World Economy; and Medicine 2025 to Children and Education; Arts and Culture; The Net Generation; Food, Fuel and Famine; India; and Innovation and Technology.

Margaret Spellings, Eli Broad, Wendy Kopp, and Brian Lehrer

Sessions in each track featured leading speakers, such as US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff; former President Bill Clinton; the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude; Tony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Austan Goolsbee, top economic advisor to Sen. Barack Obama; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, top policy advisor to Sen. John McCain; Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig; Olympian Frank Shorter; Fred Wilpon, chairman and CEO of the NY Mets; Atlantic Media Political Director Ronald Brownstein; National Endowment for the Arts Chair Dana Gioia; New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman; Segway inventor Dean Kamen; former US Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; pollster Douglas Schoen; and Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic, among many others.

Extending the dialogue from Aspen to a global audience, the editors and writers of The Atlantic shared insights and commentary on the Ideas Web Channel at www.theatlantic.com [1]. Additionally, daily video highlights from the Ideas Festival are available at www.aifestival.org [2].

Susan Eisenhower

Tyne Daly

Highlights of Ideas Festival sessions included: Alice Waters in conversation with The Atlantic’s Corby Kummer, with dessert served from her cookbook; a conversation with former President Bill Clinton; a presentation by Douglas Schoen of an exclusive poll looking inside the 2008 Presidential campaigns; US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff in conversation with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg; an evening of discussion and performance with singer and songwriter Steve Earle and Studio 360’s Kurt Andersen; Intel CEO Craig Barrett discussing The Human Impact; Richard Thompson Ford, Shelby Steele and Ta-Nehisi Coates discussing Race in America; The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman and Aspen Institute’s Walter Isaacson discussing a green revolution; a global perspective on the US elections from Der Tagesspiegel’s Christoph von Marschall, Ha'aretz’s Ari Shavit, Edward Luce of the Financial Times, and others; a West Side Story dance tutorial with New York City Ballet’s Principal Dancer Damian Woetzel; a live taping of WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, discussing the American Education System with Eli Broad and US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings; and a film screening of HBO’s The Gates with the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

The Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue.

Arianna Huffington

R. James Woolsey, Carlos Gutierrez, and Walter Isaacson

Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, Joan Walker, and George Walker

Cathy Isaacson and Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA)

Judy Dimon

Michael Wirth

Sandra Day O’Connor

Lisa and Sam Houston with Shephard and Kathy Hill

Jamie Dimon and Charlie Rose

Corby Kummer, Joan Dempsey, and Alice Waters

Dov Seidman and Thomas Friedman

Andrew Rotherman and Clive Crook

Cory Booker

Elizabeth Baker Keffer and Meryl Chertoff

John Fox Sullivan, Beth Brooke, and Chuck Prince

Katherine Bradley, Kimberly Davis, and David Bradley

Bill Clinton

Michael Chertoff and Jeffrey Goldberg

James Bennet

Ryan Grabenkort, Jay Lauf, Deborah Cunningham, Ellen Lathem, and Mary Foerster

Robert Hormats and Howard Fineman

Will Swope, Annette Mosgovoy, and General Colin Powell

Doubles ended their season in style with a Safari party hosted by Tatiana Papanicolaou, John Royal, and Kate Earls.

Guests including Georgina Schaeffer, Avery Broadbent, Caroline Rowley, Roric Tobin, and Thorne Perkin, dressed in the theme of the night, received animal print shades and straw safari hats at the door to complete the look.

The clubs guiding light Wendy Carduner and chef Steven Mellina created a buffet that featured that old favorite, McDoubles mini-burgers.

Jay and Allison Aston

Safari party style

After dinner, the dancing began. Elizabeth Walker, Rory Hermeleu, Lara Meiland, Billy Cooling, Clairborne Swanson, Branwen Buckley, Melissa Berkelhammer, Matthew Reiss, Laura Zuckerman, Henrik Werdelin, Charolotte and Carla Snyder, Christopher Leach, Gil Homles, Sandy Beuerlein, Marius Jungerhans, Laura Farris, Laura and Leslie Hill, Edward Barsamian and dozens more just like them left the club high on the possibilities of the summer parties to come.

Elizabeth Walker, Rory Hermeleu, and Wendy Carduner

Sandra Venco

Georgina Schaeffer and Edward Barsamian

Alixe Laughlin, Ross Thompson, and Charlotte Bocly

Chris Leach and Melissa Berkelhammer

Tatiana Papanicolaou and Thorne Perkin

Alexandra Wilkis-Wilson

B. Cooling and Avery Broadbent

Frederica Tompkins

Wendy Carduner and R. Couri Hay

John Royal and Laura Zuckerman

Alessandra Baker and Matt Rees

Mike Elliot and friends

Charlotte and Carla Snyder

More than 300 guests attended Historic Hudson Valley’s Hero Gala honoring Joseph Cotter, president of National RE/sources at Washington Irving’s Sunnyside in Tarrytown, an historic site owned and operated by the non-profit education and preservation group. Each year, Historic Hudson Valley honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the preservation and conservation of the Hudson Valley.


	Natalie Derby and Claire Hallock

Mr. Cotter and the Greenwich-based National RE/sources were cited for the company’s responsible stewardship of the Hudson River, where it owns more than one-and-a-half miles of shoreline, making it the largest private owner of riverfront land. The company was established in 1996 as the first institutionally funded Brownfields developer with a diverse portfolio of office, mixed use, industrial, and residential properties.

Under Mr. Cotter's leadership, NRE has worked close with civic organizations, transforming outmoded industrial sites to vibrant use and employing green practices that respect both the environment and the character of Hudson River communities. The company has earned Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for environmental stewardship, including the use of sustainable materials and siting near public transportation.

The event raised nearly $325,000 for Historic Hudson Valley, which for more than 55 years has celebrated the region’s history, architecture, landscape, and culture.

Event chairs were John T. Cooney, Jr., HHV Board of Trustees Chairman Michael Hegarty, John R. Peckham, HHV board member Mark F. Rockefeller, and Lawrence D. Stewart.

Andrea Benza, Philip Benza, HHV Trustee Jinx Chapman, and HHV Board Chairman Michael Hegarty

A private, nonprofit organization, Historic Hudson Valley welcomes more than 220,000 visitors annually at six National Historic Landmarks: Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow, NY, Washington Irving’s Sunnyside in Tarrytown, NY, Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson, NY, The Union Church of Pocantico Hills in Pocantico Hills, NY, Montgomery Place in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, and Kykuit, the Rockefeller estate, in Pocantico Hills, NY. At each site, dynamic educational programs bring the past to life for visitors of all ages, including some 35,000 school children annually.

For more information please visit: www.hudsonvalley.org [6] and www.nationalresources.com [7].

Gail and Bob DeDona

Shannan Myers, Bea Herrick, Ellie Urstadt, and Linda Douglass

Alfred DelBello, Dee DelBello, John Cahill, Brenda Spano, Westchester County Executive Andy Spano, and William M. Mooney III

Westchester Arts Council Executive Director Janet Langsam and Brenda Spano

Robert DeLaMater, Jenny du Pont, Kristen DeLaMater, and Pierre du Pont

Norma Burnette, Jim Burnette, and Juliet Krieger

Connie Roosevelt, Tom Barry, Pat Barry, Tom Israel, and HHV Trustee Barbara Israel

HHV President Waddell W. Stillman, Westchester County Executive Andy Spano, and honoree Joseph Cotter

HHV Trustee Charles J. Urstadt, Tom Myers, Bea Herrick, Robert Douglass, and Peter Herrick

Joel H. Sachs and Kevin J. Plunkett

John P. Cahill, HHV Trustee Mark F. Rockefeller, and HHV President Waddell W. Stillman

Clare Sheridan, William Sheridan, and HHV Trustee Peggy Race

Photographs by Matt Gillis (HHV); Cutty McGill (Doubles).

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