Social Diary 2/5/04 - New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation, metropolitan club, Time Warner building, Rigoletto, Vanderbilts, Hamiltons, Cromwells, Browns, Whitneys, Roosevelts, cornelius vanderbilt, Metropolitan opera house, Paul Krugman, New York Times, VIPs

A busy one (or two or three or four) in Manhattan

Yesterday at the Metropolitan Club for the New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation luncheon. Photo: JH.

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day in New York, with the chill warming to the slightest hint of Spring. Only the slightest and I know it’s only early Feb, but hey ...

The Day. At noon I went with JH and the Digital down to the Metropolitan Club on 60th and Fifth Avenue where the New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation was holding its annual “Lunch at a Landmark.”

Marianna Kaufman, Sam White, Julia Koch, and Christina R. Davis

The Metropolitan Club is a sensational monument to New York. It was built 110 years ago in 1894 when the avenue it sits on was populated with enormous private mansions. It was commissioned by JP Morgan and designed by Stanford White and built on property (purchased from an American Duchess of Marlborough) at a cost of almost $2 million. In today’s dollars that translates to about $40 million although a comparable cost today would be inestimable because of the artisanship the building contains. Such artisans no longer exist.

Seven hundred members, including Vanderbilts, Hamiltons, Cromwells, Browns, Whitneys and Roosevelts, pledged the funds. I will venture a calculated guess that there were descendents of some if not all of those families present at the luncheon today.

Topsy Taylor and Anne Ford

Jean Doumanian and Tina McPherson

When it was newly built, from its windows one could see the Grand Army Plaza, the old Plaza Hotel (the current one didn’t open until thirteen years later in 1907) and to the left of the Plaza — where Bergdorf Goodman stands today — stood the 153 room mansion of Alice and Cornelius Vanderbilt II which occupied Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Street. The avenue at that time was cobblestoned and the horses’ hooves and the carriage wheels were so noisy that when Mr. Vanderbilt lay dying in 1899, they covered the streets surrounding his palace with hay to soften the racket of the passing vehicles.

Legend has it that Mr. Morgan organized the club because a friend of his was blackballed from joining another club.

Coincidentally or not, it is also, to this non-clubmember, one of the least stuffy (they all could be described, to varying degrees, as stuffy) of the very grand clubs. One is easily aware of the snobs and snobbery, all of which seems quaintly irrelevant in these times in some (not all) of the other remaining private clubs in New York. None of that at the Metropolitan Club; the spirit of Pierpont Morgan prevails.

The New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation was established in 1980 to assist the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission, a publicly chartered agency of the City of New York. Projects undertaken by the Foundation include the Historic District Street Sign Program, the Bronze Plaque Program identifying individual landmark buildings, the Historic District Marker Programs, the Guidebook to New York City Landmarks, School Education Programs and Public Awareness Forums.

Today we went in to have a look and get a picture of the Co-chairs and honorary chair. During the luncheon, Jaquelin Robertson, of Cooper, Robertson & Partners, an architectural firm, gave a lecture called “Living History”: That was Now, This is Then.

Harry Cipriani's maitre d' Hasaan

When we left, about 12:30, beautiful day that it was, we walked a few blocks down the avenue. JH got a shot over the head of the gold General Sherman statue and through the trees of the new Time Warner Building that was having it’s grand opening last night.

Then we stopped by Harry Cipriani’s to say hello to our friend, Cip’s brilliantly genial maitre d’ Hassan. Hassan, as you see in the picture is impeccably dressed. Always. He has, I’ve been told, something like 69 bespoke suits, and God knows how many shirts and ties, and he changes twice daily – one for the lunch hour and another for the dinner. So he always looks … impeccable.

One day last summer, I was coming out of Michael’s restaurant when a young couple were walking by. The man of the couple had a full curly head of hair and was dressed in jeans and an open shirt. He said hello to me as if he knew me I had no idea who he was. Turned out to be Hassan in his street clothes. He looked like a college kid out shopping with his girl.

Looking west towards the Time Warner Building. 12:30 PM.

Onward: I left JH at 55th and went over to Michael’s where I had a lunch date. At just about that hour, the East Midtown Association through its president Rob Byrnes issued the following message over the internet:

The NYPD has informed us of two incidents of *authorized* low-flying aircraft: a low-flying plane in the Downtown/Hudson River area is an authorized Navy P-3.

At approximately 1:00 PM today, there will be a low-flying blue and white helicopter (Tail #355AG) in the vicinity of the United Nations. It is on an authorized photographic flight, and has been cleared by the NYPD Aviation Unit.

It was a typical Michael’s day. The place was packed. Jann Wenner was lunching. Two tables over was Barbara Walters. In the bay there was a girl’s lunch including Toni Goodale, Linda Janklow, Judy Corman, Lynn Sher, Kathy Hoge. Amy Fine Collins and Leila Luce were lunching with Larry Ashmead. Also, investment banker Roger Hertog, editor/writer Myrna Blyth, Jonathan Tisch with Andrew Cuomo, Shubert Theatre head Gerry Schoenfeld, Alberto Vitale of Random House, ICM’s Sam Cohn in his signature crewneck pullover with the shirtsleeves underneath rolled up; Sara Fitzmaurice, movie producer Stanley Jaffe, NY Post (and Quest Magazine) columnist Keith Kelly, concert producer Ron Delsener, Lucy Danziger, Steven Greenberg; Paris Hilton’s recent public relations adviser, Dan Klores and editor Alice Mayhew, for starters. Those are the ones I can remember.

The lines waiting to go through security to get in to the Time Warner Building. 7:15 PM.

Last night was the Private VIP Preview grand opening of the Time-Warner Building, the view of it now dominating 59th Street from the East River all the way over to Columbus Circle where it sits like a towering glass post-modern Sphinx.

JH, who was going up to the Met with his bro to hear Rigoletto, planned to stop by the reception which began at six-thirty. At 7:15 when he arrived, there were lines around the block – everyone with VIP cards – waiting to go through security to get in.

Stealing a shot of Act I of Rigoletto at the Met

Forget it, he went on to the Opera. Afterwards, however, around 11, he stopped by again. There were still crowds on the dance floor. Governor Pataki had been there as well a Mayor Bloomberg. The VIP Previews which were held on the third and fourth floors had cocktails and tastings with Thomas Keller, Gray Kunz, Masa Takayama, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Rande Gerber. If you don’t recognize the names, you haven’t lived ... to eat. Music was provided by Jazz @Lincoln Center which will have its home in the middle section of the twin towers. At 8 PM, there was a performance by Cirque de Soleil and at 10 there was desserts and dancing (as you can see for yourself!).

Upon returning to the Time Warner Building at 11:00 PM, the party was still mobbed. The lobby (left), second and third floor (right).

I was elsewhere, over at Virginia Mailman’s on the Upper East Side where she was having a dinner for PEN with about forty guests and New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman speaking.

PEN is a professional membership organization of 2600 distinguished poets, playwrights, essayists, editors, novelists, and translators, who have pledged themselves “to do their utmost to dispel race, class, and national hatreds and to champion the ideal of one humanity living in peace in the world.” It was founded in 1921 and is the world’s oldest human rights organization and the oldest literary organization.

Virginia Mailman, Paul Krugman, and Joanna Simon

I’d seen Mr. Krugman a couple of weeks ago at a large awards luncheon that Tina Brown and Harry Evans hosted for The Week magazine. I got there too late to hear Mr. Krugman’s acceptance and I saw him only across the room.

Tonight I got a better look. A Princeton professor of Economics and International Affairs, he writes a column twice at week – on Tuesdays and Fridays in the New York Times. Also: the Washington Monthly called him “the most important political columnist in America.” He’s also written or edited 20 books (!)(he’s not that old) and more than 200 professional journal articles, many of them on international trade and finance. He’s also written, as a columnist for Fortune, and has published in The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Newsweek and the New York Times Magazine.

Click to order

In person, he looks like a Princeton professor. Well trimmed salt-and-pepper gray beard, gray suit, not impeccable like the aforementioned Hassan; presentable but unassuming — like a professor. His manner is like a guy who has complete command of the information he imparts but does it matter-of-factly and a kind of modestly.

He told us how he came to write for the Times and what he thinks of the current state of the political circumstances and the economy of the United States. He is very alarmed, and he articulates far better than I could in his latest book which is called The Great Unraveling.

After his short talk, we all went to dinner (a buffet) and then Mr. Krugman spent a few minutes at each table so that we could ask him questions.
One of the most impressive things about the man, an acknowledged scholar and authority, now famous for his work, is his down-homeness and utter lack of pretense. His enthusiasm for his work, when he speaks, is almost boyishly fresh, and so talking to him one on one is like talking to a favorite professor who fires you up with his passion for his subject.

The Legacy Continues for the American Foundation for the University of the West Indies

Dancing at The American Foundation for the University of the West Indies' 2004 gala celebration

The American Foundation for the University of the West Indies held its 2004 gala celebration, The Legacy Continues, where they honored Cicely Tyson, Congressman Charles B. Rangel, and The Rockefeller Foundation.

The gala saluted eight Caribbean luminaries from the past 100 years who have left their indelible mark on the Caribbean region and the world and inaugurated the Vice Chancellor's Achievement Award, honoring seven individuals who are rising stars in their respective fields and have made made contributions to important issues affecting the Caribbean. The Honorable Harry Belafonte was the Honorary Patron and the gala cochairs were The Honorable Rex Nettleford, Sir George Alleyne, Dr. Karl B. Rodney, and Gerri Warren-Merrick.

The University of the West Indies was granted its Royal Charter a half-century ago by King George VI. At the time, a total of 33 students were enrolled at a single campus, located in Mona, Jamaica. Today, with campuses located in Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago, and centers in all 13 independent, English speaking Caribbean nations, this regional institution enrolls over 20,000 students each year.