Tuesday On The Town

Tinsley Mortimer at New Yorker's For Children's 8th Annual Fall Gala.

It was a perfect New York day and night for it. Indian summer cool. There was jubilation in some quarters from the Fed’s 50 point rate cut, with a ripple effect that ran across the lives of many New Yorkers. And many were out there and in an Up mood last night.

Much going on, and this is only the stuff that I know about. A luncheon at Bloomingdale’s -- a Benefit for Lincoln Center Theater’s Open Stages education program. Michael Gould (Bloomie’s Chairman and CEO), Allison Blinken, Memrie Lewis, Brooke Neidich and Daryl Roth hosted. Plus a Designer Fall/Winter 2007 Fashion Presentation.

At 5:30 Random House and Diane Fisher hosted an Outdoor Terrace Cocktail in somebody’s penthouse on East 84th Street – a book party for Norris Church Mailer and her new novel “Cheap Diamonds.”


	Norris Mailer

Norris is creative, talented and beautiful. She’s sophisticated and worldly, a country girl and a monumental novelist’s wife. She’s soft-spoken but plucky, and if you sat down to have a sandwich with her or at some fancy black tie dinner, you’d have no idea she could accomplish so much so well and have such a rich inner life with so much going on around her. Especially considering her domestic environment which has always been flooded with family and friends and activity. And the husband. I haven’t read “Cheap Diamonds” yet but I know I will take something away from it I will never forget. That’s a Norris quality. Achievement.

What you mighta missed. Moving on down to the Mansion on 530 West 28th Street they were having the StarChefs.com Rising Stars Revue. A Gala tasting from 8 to 10:30, savoring the fare of 15 of the top New York chefs. $125 per., the ticket including a pre-event champagne and caviar reception. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Autism Speaks, the national charity working to change the future for those struggling with Austism.

Back to the Upper East Side, over at Sotheby’s the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center hosted a reception for the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention, and its founder and presaident Harold P. Freedman, M.D. Dr. Freedman was honored for “forty years of exemplary service to the Harlem community.”

Farther west down the road, Leila Heller was holding an opening reception at her gallery on 22 East 72nd for a show called “Flowers Flowers.” Many artists involved: Warhol, Firooz Zahedi, Donald Baechler, Annette Davidek, Lisa Eisner, Rachel Hovnanian, Takashi Murakami, Martin Saar, and many more. Leila means business.

And so does Eartha. Business at the Café Carlyle where last night I missed the opening of Miss Eartha Kitt who I hear is sensational. They say she shows New York how it’s done. The way it used to be is still the way it is.

Meanwhile at 583 Park Avenue, the newly refurbished Delano & Aldrich church/space, the New Yorkers for Children were holding their 8th Annual Fall Gala. I remember when they launched this Gala several years ago. Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, who was once a foster child wanted to focus attention on these children in the community. He has succeeded.

Last night’s presenters were LeAnn Rimes, Isabella Rossellini, Lydia Fenet, Commissioners Scoppetta and John B. Mattingly. Co-chairs for the evening were Oscar de la Renta, LeAnn Rimes, Dayssi and Paul Kanavos and Ashley and Jeff McDermott and honoree Laura Baudo Sillerman.

Vice Chairs were: Muffie Potter Aston, Susan L. Burden, David Chu, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Simon Falic, Richard E. Frick, Rachel and Ara Hovnanian, Deborra-Lee and Hugh Jackman, Susan Korb, Stephanie Leigh LaCava and Bryan Weiss, Simone and David W. Levinson, Nina Matis, B. Michael, Thomas J. O’Neill, Alexandra Lind Rose, Karin and Steve Sadove, Jessica Seinfeld, James Seuss, Susan Shin, Terri Sohrab, Kelly Behun Sugarman, Rory and Elie Tahari, Shirin von Wulffen and Frédéric Fekkai, and Natasha and Dirk Ziff.

The New Yorkers for Children Gala is also one of the more “cutting edge” uptown glamour events, the younger established or establishment-bound crowd. It’s a glamorous turnout because the women really dress. And look great. It was perfect night for this and I missed this one also, but NYSD was there in camera.

I was at a reception at Doubles in the Sherry Netherland, hosted by Quest Magazine and publisher Chris Meigher celebrating the 20th anniversary of the magazine that was founded 20 years ago by the irrepressible Heather Cohane as a real estate advertising magazine.

Heather is an Englishwoman who’s live a lot of her life at various times in Monte Carlo (where she’s recently re-moved to), Ireland, England, Italy, California, and New York. Heather, who is nothing if not imaginative and enterprising, founded Quest after her second husband, Jack Cohane died suddenly leaving her a widow with three children. She had an idea for a local magazine advertising real estate. She knew nothing about magazines or publishing or selling advertising. But Heather is one of those people who never lets the details get in the way. By the time I met her in 1992, she had already survived the ’87 market plunge (when business dried up overnight) and had become an established publisher around town. Quest was the first to advertise co-op apartments with a color photo of an interior. Now it’s commonplace.

Chris Meigher acquired the magazine in 1996-97 (I left about then to be the editor-in-chief of Avenue, and returned to Quest in 2001). In the ensuing years he’s grown Heather’s media enterprise into an avidly read, influential, high end magazine famous across the world for its portrait of the scene of New York corridors of power, fashion and finance, as well as its sumptuous advertising including high end real estate.


Topsy Taylor

There were about 360 guests at the reception at Doubles. Lots of familiar NYSD and Quest faces. Both JH and I were working the Digital. Today we’re running his, tomorrow mine.

The party broke up about eight o’clock. Outside on Fifth Avenue there were crowds of guests departing as well as crowds arriving at Cipriani next door. As I was about to grab an arriving cab, Topsy Taylor was getting out to go into Cipriani’s for dinner. So I walked her in and said hello to Hassan.

The place was jumping. Dick and Francesca Nye were there. Ron Perelman at his table, John Jakobson with his son Nick and friend and Ezra Zilkha; Mario Buatta and Pat Altschul, Arlyn and Ed Gardner, Oscar and Lynn Wyatt with Gale Hayman, Aileen Mehle and Boaz Mazor; Topsy dining with Emilia and Pepe Fanjul and friend.

Enough, I was due up at Swifty’s where Robert Caravaggi and Stephen Attoe were hosting a dinner for Quest and Heather. Swifty’s was jammed too.