Social Diary 9/25/03 - AMC’s “Top Dog Gala” dinner

Wrapping up Monday and Tuesday night in New York

At the AMC’s “Top Dog Gala” dinner on Tuesday night at the Waldorf I sat next to an Italian woman who has lived in New York for many years (brought up her family here) and we talked about 9/11. She brought it up. She asked me if I ever think about it.

In the Grand Ballroom of The Waldorf for the AMC Top Dog Gala

How about everyday?

And her. Everyday.

She asked me how I could describe what it was like for me.

I gave her a weak but concise answer: “As if I suddenly hauled off and slapped you across the face with all my force, right now, right at this table.”

She didn’t quite get the analogy. I told you; it was weak. But to the point.
She said she thought it wasn’t like anything else she ever knew of including living (as a child) through the Second World War in Italy.

I told her that some friends of mine who had lived in Europe in the center of the warfare said that they could process the experience more easily because they had lived through the Second World War.

She said she didn’t agree, that destruction of the WTC and all those lives happening when and as it did was nothing like the experience of the Second World War.

She also said that although many of her European friends were shocked and saddened by the attack, she didn’t believe they really understood what it was like to have been here, in the City, at the time.

I told her I felt that way about Americans who felt the same way but were not here. Here, being here, it was and it is different. We were the focus of the madness.

Dick Grasso moving his way through the crowd

Then we talked about the latest theory that the PCBs in the dying salmon in the Alaskan and Pacific Northwest waters are proliferating in the food chain by the fish and animals.

Then we talked about Mr. Grasso, the recently resigned head of the New York Stock Exchange who was at a table nearby and not particularly happy when a photographer asked if he could take his picture (it wasn’t taken).

“Did I think Mr. Grasso should have taken such a big income from the Exchange?” my dinner partner wanted to know.

I always try to put myself in the position of the “taker” first. You don’t really know about something, really know, unless you’ve been there. If someone offered me $22 million or a hundred and forty-nine and called it “pay,” would I turn it down?

I’m not sure I would. I do know I’d really like to take it no matter what. I often buy a lottery ticket when the jackpot gets way up there. Two weeks ago it was at $87 million. As I as plunking down my five bucks (I bought five to measurably improve my odds) I wondered what I’d do with the money if I won. Then I told myself not to waste the time thinking about it because I wasn’t going to win. But it seems to me that’s what it would be like if someone offered to pay me a hundred million. Or even a million. Or even a lot less than that. I’d want to take it.

Jamie Niven with Eugenie Niven and Barbara Walters at the Top Dop Gala on Tuesday night

At lunch the day before, they were also talking about Mr. Grasso. One of the lunch guests told me that Mr. Grasso also got $5 million as a bonus for how he handled the aftermath of the 9/11 attack and the re-opening of the stock exchange. My informant reminded me that none of the firemen or police got bonuses. Ahem. Then it was dish Grasso time.

One year, it was said, he got forty-three mill and the exchange got twenty-three. He owns four houses, ten Mercedes, a Bentley and god knows what else. I’d definitely buy a Mercedes. Or two. Uhh, maybe three – the bigger convertible. The four houses sounds like a lot of rocks around your neck. Although one fully equipped with a view might be nice.

That’s what I might do if someone offered me millions in thanks for working for them. I’d take it. Why not? What if that were my one big chance? Do you know how great it would be not to have to worry about the continuation of rent stabilization in Manhattan?

Then, at that lunch the talk turned to love (and billionaires, of course). A well known woman, very rich, divorcee, a household name because of a “scandal’ a few years ago, is having an affair with a formerly married man. Right, he’s divorced. Or widowed. And he’s famous, even more famous than she is. On the other side of the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean basin; a powerful politician. I can’t tell you the names because I don’t know if it’s true or not. But it’s a good story. Kinda of like Love Finds Andy Hardy fuh-klempt. Well, not really, but kinda ...

Some of the guests at The Waldorf for the Animal Medical Center Top Dog Gala

Lauren Bush and Henry Kissinger

Henry and Louise Grunwald

Mai Harrison and DPC

William Goodman, Lauren Bush, and Christine Schott

Selva Ozelli, Pasha, and Henry Kissinger

Cynthia Phipps

Peggy Mejia

Frances Hayward

Carroll Petrie, Marco Maccioni, and Jamee Gregory

Peter Gregory and Cece Black

Mrs. Kenneth Langone and Nancy Kissinger

Emilia Fanjul and Reinaldo Herrera

Elizabeth Fekkai and Alfie Fanjul

Sabrina and Carl Forsythe and friend

Dick Coons and Kristi Witker

Ernesto Alvarez and Jackie Weld Drake

Pat Buckley and Louise Grunwald

Victoria Anstead and Tom Guinzberg

Henry Kravis and Ace Greenberg with a friend

Pepe Fanjul, Gail Gilbert, Donna Acquavella, and Parker Gilbert

Raul Suarez and Harriette Levine wave us on

L. to r.: Sandy and Susan Slater with John Bolt; Amy Rosi, Jane Seymour in a Maggie Norris Mermaid dress, and Sherry Ingle.

Pat Buckley, Brad Geist, and Virginia Coleman

Susan Bell

Kathy Rayner

Topsy Taylor

Suzanne McDonough

Barbara Walters, who asked the amateur, when DPC was taking this pic, "do you know what you're doing?"

Christina Grassi

Leighton Chandler and Jamie Niven with Ace and Kathy Greenberg

Monday night at Doubles to honor seven "New Yorkers Who Make A Difference"

Louis Auchincloss

Nancy Stahl and Cynthia Lufkin

Dan Lufkin and Jan-Patrick Schmitz

Liz Smith, Jamee Gregory, and DPC

On Monday night, Chris Meigher, publisher of Quest, of which I am editor-in-chief, and Jan-Patrick Schmitz of Mont Blanc held a small private dinner honoring seven such like-minded “New Yorkers Who Make A Difference.” They were: Blaine Trump, Nancy Stahl, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, Liz Smith, Cynthia Lufkin, Louis Auchincloss and Dominick Dunne.

Six of the honorees were present (Princess Yasmin was out of town.) There were four tables of ten – mainly the honorees, friends and partners, wives, husbands, etc. The group are also part of the Mont Blanc advertising campaign in the magazine. It is a noble concept as well as a Warholian method for drawing attention to people, for all of the aforementioned have made major contributions to this enormous community called New York.