10.15.08: Banks no longer | New York Social Diary

Banks no longer

Two former banks on 14th Street and 8th Avenue; now Balducci's and a men's spa. 8:30 PM. Photo: JH.

10/15. Yesterday in New York: Fair Weather; sunny autumn day. Finished off by the most spectacular Full Moon. From the purview of the Promenade along the river in the East 80s, it shows its large round orange-and-blue-tinged white face at dusk just to the northeast over the Triborough Bridge, rising slowly into the graying blue skies with a canopy of large feather-like pink clouds, like a gossamer quilt over the the great big town.

The best of times and the worst of times. The daily news is now about the banks in trouble. For some of us this seems almost cynical. A recently published Gallup poll of consumer attitudes toward banks found the highest level of distrust in decades -- only one in five Americans “trusts banks.” Many trust their own hometown banks, but the big ones and the Wall Street ones are now on the march of shame in the public mind.


	The banker's banker, JP Morgan.

Quite a few of us remember when we had our first bank accounts as kids in school. Fifty cents a week and you earned interest. Five or six years later when I was twelve and wanted a piano because I pictured myself a budding (and brilliant) concert pianist playing Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” we bought a second hand upright from the druggist with some of those savings. Mr. Crotty’s widow: $35 out of my very own bank account. Rewards. (I still play; no brilliance, however; just banger.)

I was probably a teen-ager when I heard the term “he keeps bankers’ hours,” meaning his day finishes at three. In those days banks closed at 3. And opened the next morning at nine or ten. Bankers themselves were rich, often had solid paunches, vested; wore grey suits, and had time for a cigar or a game of golf. The man on the Monopoly game.

When I got my first apartment in New York – a hole in the wall in East 87th Street between Lex and Third my roommate worked for Morgan Guaranty which was just down the Road of Life from Piping Rock.

He was a guy with a generous trust fund, a Social Register listing, and his parents had a mile long driveway out in Westbury. He went into the office at nine and was out by three. Then, almost by genetic predisposition, he headed for the Racquet and Tennis Club for some squash and whatever, followed by an extra dry martini at the bar. He also got his job through family connections. Just like everybody else he knew or was related to. Because that was what a banker was. He was 25.

The brokerage houses also had names of the families who owned them. White Weld, McDonnell & Co., Salomon Brothers Hutzler, Lehman; Harris Upham, Loeb Rhodes; Stiegletz, Hornblower Weeks, Hemphill Noyes, Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner and Beane. Yes, Mr. Beane (later replaced by Mr. Smith). Even the newcomers like Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, the hotshots of the 60s were three individual guys. They were not considered bankers in the general public consciousness although some were legitimately -- by definition -- investment bankers.

A bank was a temple of thrift, above the fray, vaulted cathedral ceilings protecting a large vault with a shiny round four foot thick polished steel door. Financial sanctity.

That’s gone. A lot of it left long ago. Three of Cipiriani’s biggest event venues in Manhattan now were once grand banks. They exuded confidence. Few doubted it.

But I am referring to prosperous times in the United States especially. The big war was over. The Depression was over too. This was the real morning in America in the second half of the 20th century.

However, since then, we’ve changed. “Money changes people,” my incisive friend, the late Dorothy Hirshon used to say, adding, “and quickly.”

She didn’t think much of that kind of transformation. Another bright and financially wise friend of mine explained the current situation thusly: “Liquidity depends on confidence, and that is evaporating rapidly. How do the authorities create confidence once it's lost?”

Possibly through the banks. Confidence, it is believed, is cultivated by the banks. This may be what’s influencing current official thinking. Confidence also comes from certainty of self, unencumbered by the self-delusion that believes the lie. Always a problem.

Banks, shmanks, the social calendar in New York is full. Last night there were two significant events involving many of the same prominent New Yorkers. Over at Rockefeller University on York Avenue, the New York Stem Cell Foundation finished up the first day of its 3rd Annual Translational Stem Cell Research Conference. This very serious business is taken very seriously by a number of leaders and lay people in the city. This conference is aimed to demonstrate the potential of stem cell research to advance cures for the major diseases of our time. This is such an enormous concept that it looks, on the whole, so simple. Like last night most beautiful moon.

The conference is designed for those with an interest in stem cell research, including physicians, researchers, clinical investigators, professors, government and health officials, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students. Yesterday’s panels were designed specifically to reach a broader audience, to expand the public consciousness of the matter.

The day was completed with a gala dinner with “Remarks” by Mayor Bloomberg and Douglas A Melton, PhD, Co-Director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. There was also the Presentation of the New York Stem Cell Foundation Leadership Award to New York Governor David Paterson. The gala co-chairs were Marlene Hess and Jim Zirin, Leslie and Chuck Close, Fiona and Stan Druckenmiller, and Noelle and Dick Wolf. The Druckenmillers and the Wolfs also underwrote the evening.

While across the Park over at the Mandarin Oriental in the Time Warner complex on Columbus Circle, the Casita Maria held its annual fundraising Fiesta. Casita Maria was founded in 1934 in a small apartment in East “Spanish” Harlem. Its mission was to create all kinds of opportunities through after school education in the Arts, Literacy and Job Readiness. While addressing the needs of youth, families and the elderly. A blessing.


	Ann Nitze with Roman and Helene Martinez.

The annual Casita Maria Fiesta is their big annual fundraiser. And it is notably a good party because, as a dinner partner of mine put it, “The Latins love to dance and the women love to dress and to wear their best jewels and have a good time dancing.”

There were several hundred guests, black tie with an hour long cocktail beginning at 7:30 (another Latin touch; 6:30 is the usual hour in New York) and 8:30 dinner.

This year’s Honorary Fiesta Chairmen were Iris Cantor, Mr. and Mrs. Gustavo Cisneros, Mr. and Mrs. Martin gruss, Agnes Gund, Dr. and Mrs. Henry Kissinger, Pilar and Juan Pablo Molyneux, Tom Quick, Liliana and Federico Sada, Mercedes and Eduardo Sanches Junco, Fereico and Violy McCausland-Seve and Daisy and Paul Soros. The Dinner Chairs were Jackie Weld Drake, Aileen Mehle and HRH Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia. HOLA Fiesta Chairmen were Carmen and Alvaro Garcia-Alaman and Asunta and Eduardo Sanchez Perez.

They honored Joana Caparros Masip, Pepita Serrano and Thalia Mottola. Senor Mario Buatta was Master of Ceremonies and music was provided by the very bilingual Bob Hardwick Sound. And they got out there and they danced. Lots and lots of them. Such as: Stephanie Stokes and Raul Suarez, Marife Hernandez, Bill and Ann Nitze, Ellen and Ian Graham, Jamie Figg, Jamee and Peter Gregory, Margo Langenberg, Esty and Dan Brodsky, Pepe and Emilia Fanjul, (former Governor of Puerto Rico) Sila Calderon, Alejandra Cicognani, Ann Rapp, Roy Kean, Chris and Alison Brown, Hunt Slonem, Howard and Karen Clark, Dick Coons and Kristi Witker, Rod Drake, Martha Bograd, Mercedes Bograd Levin, Gaetana Enders, Sabina Forbes, Yaz and Valentin Hernandez, Gail Hilson, Ellery and Marjorie Reed Gordon, Ed Gallagher, Irene Grassi, John Marshek, Amanda Haynes-Dale, Dayle Hadden, Jonathan Marder, Alberto and Anabelle Mariaca, Roman and Helena Martinez, Frannie Scaife and Tom McCarter, Mary McFadden, Alberto and Peggy Mejia, Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza, Tommy and Thalia Mottola, Alina Pedroso, Adam Clayton Powell IV, John Punnett and Elsie Nelson, Euan and Lucy Sykes Rellie, Kalliope Karella Rena, Wilbur and Hilary Ross, Matt Rich, Bob and Joyce Sterling, Christine Schwarzman, Ann (Mrs. Vernon) Jordan, Todd Sowers, Pierre Durand, Yanna Avis, Adrienne and Gianluigi Vittadini, Barbara and Donald Tober, Paul Wilmot, David and Neva Anton, Muffie Potter Aston, Ashley Baker, Pauline Boardman Pitt, Sarah Baker Pereylongue, Tony Bechara, Fabiola Beracasa, Violaine and John Bernbach, Samuel Botero, Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Brokaw, Maria Cristina Anzola and John Heimann. And on and on into the night.

The Bograd sisters: Martha Bograd, Esty Brodsky, Jackie Weld Drake, and Mercedes Levin.

The pundits and journalists are wondering what it’s like “out there” at this moment in these turbulent financial times. This, last night at the Mandarin Oriental was a good taste of what it was like. A big crowd, dressy, bejeweled, dancing especially to the infectious Latin rhythms and lots of conversation about many things. Tomorrow (today actually) is another day.

Often overlooked with all these sumptuous dinner danced and high profile public dinners with boldfaced names is their ultimate purpose and intent. Both Stem Cell Research and Casita Maria are necessities for the continuation of the community, for its peace, flourishing and even survival. So financials aside, these matters must continue to exist and proliferate. This is the core of the matter and it cannot change. People, like many of those supporting these organizations, know that. Deeply.