Social Diary 10/22/03 - Garland Appeal's benefit, cocktail party for Gilles Bensimon and his photography, Casita Maria was holding its annual gala, Fiesta 2003, Esquire magazine and Harry Abrams Publishers gave a party for Harry Benson and his book, Once There Was A Way

Balmy breezy autumn nights in Manhattan; All kinds of stuff going on

Looking west towards Rockefeller Center. 7:45 PM.

Looking through the open doors of St. Patrick's Cathedral. 7:50 PM.

JH and I started out at Christie’s where The Garland Appeal (Supporting Early Breast cancer Detection and the Healing Power of Music commemorating the life of Linda McCartney) were holding a benefit – dinner, dancing and live and silent auctions of musical, photographic and celebrity memorabilia from Sting, Muhammad Ali, the Presley family, etc. Michele Herbert, Constance Holmes, Diane Weiss and Deborah Miller were the co-chairs and Sabina Forbes II, Catherine Forbes, Moira Forbes (of the magazine family) and Allison Weiss were the junior co-chairs.

We were there early so we didn’t see many of those they were expecting such as Candace Bushnell and her husband Charles Askegard, Miss USA Susie Castillo, Diane Schuur, Irina Dvorovenko and Beloserkovsky from the American Ballet Theatre, which is opening its season tonight at Lincoln Center, Ivana, Jackie DeShannon, and Elizabeth Banks (from “Seabiscuit”).

Aiden Turner from “All My Children” was the emcee and there was promised “surprise” entertainment. We didn’t stay long enough to find out the surprise.

Larry and Michele Herbert

Diane Weiss

Michele Herbert and Dennis D'Amico

David Kirsch and Peter Kupprion

Jim Kaufman and friend

Todd and Carole Rome

Nikki Haskell and Aiden Turner

Mrs. and Mr. Richard Steinberg

From Christie’s we ambled along Rockefeller Plaza where the skating rink had opened, with about fifteen or twenty skaters and cameras and sound equipment – someone was making some kind of a film. It’s impossible not to stop and watch and think about how nice it would be to be down there skating with everyone else.

Up Fifth Avenue at Bergdorf’s they were having a cocktail party for Gilles Bensimon and his photography. Big crowd on the sidewalk waiting to get in.

Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia

We were on our way to the Plaza where Casita Maria was holding its annual gala, Fiesta 2003. Casita Maria is New York’s oldest settlement house serving the Hispanic communities of the South Bronx and East Harlem.

Every year at their gala they honor individuals who have made “outstanding humanitarian, philanthropic and cultural contributions to the community at large and the Hispanic community in particular.”

This year’s honorees were Juan Pablo Molyneux, the internationally renowned interior designer, Cristina Saralegui, the world-famous talk show host and Daisy (Mrs. Paul) Soros.

The Soroses and Mr. Soros’ brother George Soros are from a very distinguished Hungarian family that emigrated to the United States several decades ago. Both brothers made their fortunes separately but are deeply committed to philanthropy in their community and in the world.

Daisy Soros is a name you read on these pages often because she is highly active in a number of cultural and health- and education-oriented philanthropies. Also a native of Hungary, she retains a bit of her native accent, which adds to her charm, in my book. She is very outgoing and friendly; winning combinations all around in this or any society.

Rockefeller Plaza. 7:40 PM.

Leaving the Plaza we ran into Liz Smith who was attending so that she could present Daisy Soros with her medal. Liz was a recipient last year.

I’ve known Liz Smith personally for a few years now and I've been a fan of hers almost as long as she’s been writing a column in a New York newspaper. Last year she turned 80 which is a marvel because she’s one of the most youthful girls around town and I am not exaggerating. However, every time I see her come round a corner or turn up at one of these galas we’re covering, I’m again astounded at the sight of her. And that is the word: because for whatever it sounds like, this beat is a demanding one and requires stamina the likes of which most people I know, no matter their age, do not possess. Liz does and what’s more when she’s not covering the beat, she’s beating the drums, emceeing and organizing so many of these events for so many worthwhile projects in the city.

And here she is (3 rows below), thanks to JH and the Digital with Mary Hilliard, another New Yorker approaching legendary status, with her camera (for the last several years she’s been under contract with Vogue to cover these nights). I hadn’t seen Mary around in the past few weeks and it turned out it was because she was in Bhutan trekking.

Peter and Jamee Gregory

Cristina Saralegui and Daisy Soros

Joel Bell and Marifé Hernandez

Ann Rapp and Hunt Slonem

Carolina Herrera

Faith and Phil Geier

Liz Smith and Mary Hilliard

Chris Brown (right) and friend

Goldy Guinand and Ada de Maurier

John Loeb and Sharon Handler

Rodolfo Valentin and friend

Arnold Scaasi and Parker Ladd

Steve and Christine Schwarzman

Nixon Richman and Melanie Seymour

Somers Farkas

Norrisa O'Keeffe and Lue Ann Eldar

Alex and Jeannette Watson Sanger

Anne Eisenhower and Wolfgang Flöttl

Joanne de Guardiola and Denise Rich

Paul Soros

Sam Michaels and Kathleen Hearst

Jackie Weld Drake, Juan Pablo Molyneux, and Cristina Saralegui

The Troudts and Rojas families

From the Plaza it was over to the World Trump Tower, that black glass 90 story tower that Donald Trump built a few years ago across from the United Nations.

Esquire magazine and Harry Abrams Publishers were giving a party for Harry Benson and his latest book, Once There Was A Way, about traveling with the Beatles on their first American tours in the mid-1960s. Harry has photographed the world in the past half century. So many of his images are so famous that I suggest you Google him or go to Amazon.com to get a full picture.

The World Trump Tower has, among other things, the world’s fastest elevators. For example: The party was in one of the grand 90th floor apartments (which are on the market for millions). The elevator ride to the 90th floor takes something like less than 60 seconds. And, with natural exception of the ear-popping, it’s so smooth and comfortable you barely know you’re moving.

L. to r.: Richard Johnson, Sesta Richthofen, Harry Benson, and DPC; Gigi, Harry, and Tessa Benson.

The apartment is now known as The Esquire Apartment and now fully furnished and decorated and it looks like a multi-million dollar bachelor pad. We rode up in the elevator with Page Six’s Richard Johnson and a lady friend by the name of Sesta Richthofen and I could imagine them moving right in.

It has a south east and west view of the world as far as the eye can see. Some of the great buildings, like Rockefeller Center, the Empire State, the Citicorp, the older towers in the Madison Square (the lower 20s) are very dramatically lit and often with colors. From an aerial view they are like large islands of concrete and light of a constellation twinkling all around in the vast darkness surrounding us.

Down along the East River Drive you see the endlessly undulating streaks, white and red lights of the thousands of cars moving along the edge of the river. Farther down island you see the necklaces, pearly white lights of the Brooklyn Bridge. 120 years ago that was the highest view in all of New York.

I’ve been up to the 90th floor apartment in the daytime, and it’s like being in a plane (of all glass). You look down on the Chrysler Building and directly across at the top of the Empire State. On clear days you see three or four states and of course the City in all its early 21st-century glory, a wonder that takes your breath away, no matter how many times you see it.

Views are the best and these apartments have without question the best views in all of New York. I suppose a helicopter could beat it. But who could live in a helicopter?

The view from the 90th floor of the World Trump Tower. 8:45 PM.

Back to the beginning: Monday night in New York was as busy as Tuesday. No waiting around in this crowd. The Whitney was having its annual gala and five blocks down and around the corner, The Frick was having it’s annual Autumn Dinner. Black tie.

I went over to the Whitney on my way to The Frick. The two museums were created early in the last century by two very rich New Yorkers. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, and Henry Clay Frick, the former Pittsburgh tycoon who built his monument to himself in Fifth Avenue and filled it with great art of the last four centuries.

The two personalities were diametric opposites beginning with gender and generation. Mrs. Whitney was a rebel; Mr. Frick, a patriarch. Their museums reflect those differences brilliantly.

The Whitney Gala is always a production; glimmering glittering glorious glamorous; that’s the idea. That’s why I stopped by. Just to see. Red was the theme.

Jacqueline and Maxwell Anderson

Edgar and Clarissa Bronfman

Ted Kruckel and Beth DeWoody

I got a look, a couple of pictures (above), and went on over to The Frick where there about four hundred guests, black tie, women in long dresses and dressy cocktail. This is a benefactors’, friends’ and supporters’ dinner. Many have been associated with the museum for more than one generation including several members of the Frick family.

The benefactors of this evening were Mr. and Mrs. Howard Phipps. Mr. Phipps great-grandpa or someone thereabouts, was a partner of Mr. Carnegie in the steel business back in Pittsburgh, as was Mr. Frick. Back before Mr. Morgan bought them out and created US Steel, then the world’s largest corporation.

Way back, they go, this group. Very crusty, this atmosphere, transported, as one always is at The Frick, to an earlier age in New York, more solid and serene (imagined in retrospect, that is).

We dined on the terraces surrounding the Edwardian atrium. They honored Schuyler Chapin, who was introduced by The Frick Collection’s new director, Anne Poulet. Mr. Chapin is a New Yorker directly descended from 17th-century Dutch settlers of Manhattan. He has been active in New York culture, especially music, all his life.

Guy Robinson and Elizabeth Stribling

CZ Guest

Irene Roosevelt Aitken and Conrad Kessee

At The Frick

After dinner and dessert at The Frick and interesting conversations with Susan Galassi, its curator, and Inge Reist who runs The Frick Collection Research Library, said to be one of the best art resource libraries in the world, I went back to the Whitney, knowing dinner would be breaking up and people would be arriving for the After Dinner party. Mainly the younger set mixing with the heavy-hitter dinner guests, on the basement floor in the Whitney restaurant. That’s always lively and colorful and a mass-of-people-party amidst the rock and the drinks and the lights. An up; a celebration.

I took a few more pictures, as you can see below. A lot of the women were carrying Tiffany blue boxes tied up with red ribbon. I asked Chicago’s own Sugar Rautbord whom I often find around this town, what was in the box. She gave it to me. “It’s for you,” she said. Hmmm. I opened it. A red heart. Designed (and signed) by Elsa Peretti. I love Elsa Peretti, the one, the only; I love her designs, and I love hearts. And Sugar; don’t forget Sugar.