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Looking
east from the seventh-floor Soho House deck last Thursday night
for a
benefit for Best Buddies. 11:00 PM.
Photo: JH.
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It was very hot and muggy in the city over the weekend with intermittently
threatening rainclouds. But no rain. By last Friday late afternoon
the city streets had pretty much emptied of the usual weekday and
oncoming weekend traffic. Many had left already, wanting to get
out to begin their Labor Day Holiday (still a week away) earlier
and to avoid any of the presumed, and in some corners, frantically
anticipated tumult brought on by people protesting the visiting
Republicans and their oncoming Convention. By Saturday, except
for the incoming conventioneers and the congregating protesters,
along with a few of us stalwart New Yorkers, the place was really
quiet. Beautifully quiet (except for the roaring choppers over
midtown).
A man from one of the local papers called me to ask what I thought
of the Republicans coming to town. Aside from the great inconvenience
(street closures and what seems like overly beefed up security)
which the city always experiences when a President comes to town
(even for a day), I did not anticipate problems. Protesters are
as American as apple pie, and god love ‘em for they continue
to remind us how lucky we are. It was the protesters who got the
politicians to end the American military involvement in Viet Nam
after almost fifteen years and thousands and thousands of deaths.
Politicians are historically way behind the needs and wishes of
the people, and we certainly can’t depend on the corporate
owned media as any kind of bellweather.
I’ve never been called by a pollster in my life, until this
past week when I was called not by one but two, both wanting to
know what I thought about the Republicans coming to town. and whom
was I going to vote for.
I’m always amazed at that latter question because I was brought
up to believe that our votes were our private business. So the
answer was the same to both: none of your business. As far as the
Republicans coming to New York for their convention: New York is
a city that has, since its inception by the Dutch in the 17th century,
ultimately had a place for everybody, for every opinion and religious
and political point of view.
There have been some terrible clashes with the powers-that-be (or
were) in its history, always over a specific issue when those with
the economic (and therefore political) power were lording it egregiously
over or disregarding the needs of those who were powerless economically.
But that is the way of the world. Otherwise, New Yorkers are exemplary
in demonstrating that We, the People, us humans, can live together,
despite our diversities and disagreements, now more than ever,
and often not only on the same block but in the same building and
even on the same corridor. This is why New York is the City of
the World and blesses us all.
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Richard
Ziegelasch and Anthony Shriver
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Last
Thursday night before all of this sturm und drang was
about to set upon our day-to-days, I went down to what used to
be the
Meatpacking District, to Soho House on Ninth Avenue and 13th Street
where Richard Ziegelasch and Anthony Shriver,
along with Campion
Platt, Tom Quick, Tatiana Gau, Lionel Geneste, Alex and Nick Acquavella,
Keat Crown, Ralph Destino Jr., Camille Duval-Hero and Byron Hero,
Anne Hearst, William Goodman, Christine Schott, Gene Scott, Lesley
Thompson, and Alexis Zoullas were hosting a benefit for
Anthony Shriver’s Best Buddies organization.
Soho House is a private club although it is at times a venue for
private benefits and screenings. Everyone, member or no, likes
to go there because it is considered the hip spot in town in New
York. It is also in the neighborhood that after the sun goes down
and the lights go up, feels like the center of the city, full of
the energy of young New Yorkers on the pavement, in the bars, the
cafes and restaurants; the cobblestone streets jammed with cars,
mainly the yellow cabs.
Soho House is the social center of this neighborhood whether or
not it is accessible to the crowds on the streets. There is a pool
on the roof and a dining room adjacent a bar and lounge which is
the place to see and be seen. As the Best Buddies party guests
were arriving (about nine-thirty – the party was called from
9 to midnight), there were a number of the world’s top tennis
players dining in the club’s restaurants, along with scads
of models of Elite. |
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Looking
northwest from the roof deck of the Soho House
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Among
the players expected for Mr. Shriver’s fundraiser (tickets
were $200
per) were Roger Federer, Mirka Vavrinec, Marat Safin, Rainer Schuettler,
Monica Seles, Tommy Haas, Lleyton Hewitt, Kim Clijsters, Jim Courier and Ivo
Heuberger. Add to that the mix of Elite’s roster such as Alessandra
Ambrosio, Fabian Basabe, Robert “Boyd” Holbrook, Lara Flynn Boyle,
Shaun de Wet, Anh Duong, Susan Eldridge, Laura Harring, Amanda Hearst, Penny
Lancaster, Nathalie Lyon, Paulina Porizkova, Yfke Sturm, and Linda
Vojtova, and you kind of get the picture.
The party was held in the fifth floor reception room and
the crowd on this hot night made it hotter. Literally. So that
there were quite a few of us who stayed close to the large fans
assisting. Lots of good-looking people, more than usual it seemed
to me. Lots of very tall and willowy beautiful young women – quite
a few blondes – no doubt quite a few of them models. There
was an open bar although if you wanted something other than the “house” booze,
you had to pay. Lots of milling around and lounging on sofas, chairs
and ottomans. Lots of familiar (to me) faces although I didn’t
see Mrs. Hearst and her beautiful daughter Amanda.
Mr. Shriver is very tall – I’d guess six-four or close – a
big strapping guy with those Kennedy cheek and jawlines and
piercing blue eyes – and as handsome as his lamented late cousin John
Kennedy Jr. who was a close friend of his. Also like his cousin he’s
very gracious to one and all.
His father, Sargent Shriver, some of you might know, started
the Peace Corps during the Administration of his late uncle John F. Kennedy and
was also the American Ambassador to France during the Lyndon Johnson Administration.
His mother Eunice Kennedy Shriver started the Special Olympics,
and he has followed in their footsteps brilliantly.
Best Buddies, which Mr. Shriver started in 1989 (when he was only
twenty-four), is a non-profit dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with
intellectual disabilities (people who are mentally retarded, for example).
The program assists by finding opportunities for one-to-one friendships and integrated
employment. From its one original chapter there are now more than ONE THOUSAND
middle school, high school, and college campuses across the country, in all 50
states, and across the world participating in Best Buddies. This year there are
50,000 volunteers serving. Within the next six years, they’d like to see
that number increase to a half million volunteers. They also help people connect
with others through their online friendship program e-Buddies.
There are 7.5 million people in the US and 250 million worldwide who have intellectual
disabilities that inhibit and limited their participation in their communities.
Shriver looks at it this way: with 14 million college students in the US and
77 million college students worldwide, there is an opportunity to make a huge
difference in the lives of not only those in needs but in the lives of the volunteers.
You can find out more about it by visiting their web site www.bestbuddies.org.
Meanwhile, back at the party: by ten-thirty, the place was jammed.
I saw Vogue’s famous editor Anna Wintour as well
as Connie Spahn, the force behind the great American Museum
of Natural History’s annual Environmental Luncheons, as well as artist Hunt
Slonem who looks wonderful, having lost 60 pounds on a diet of mainly
fruits, vegetables and no carbs; Felicia Taylor, who told me
she was on a yacht in the Mediterranean at just about the same time I was. JH
and the Digital were there and he saw, as you will see, even more than
I did. |
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Claudia
Mason
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Georgia
and Charles Kaufmann
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Tom
Quick, Hunt Slonem, and Chris Phillips
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Ashton
Hawkins
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Anna
Wintour
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Gustav
Demarchelier and Christine Schott
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William
Goodman IV Christine Schott
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Dr.
Cap Lesesne and Melanie McJannet
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Gillian
Hearst
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Christian
McPherson and Shawna
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Anh
Duong
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Lionel
Geneste and Richard
Ziegelasch
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Annalise
Peterson, Jim Courier, and Holly Lemkau
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Andrew
Black, Alexandra Bogen, and Peter Washkowitz
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A Vogue photographer
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L.
to r.: Felicia Taylor and Alexis Zoullas; Tommy
Haas with Connie and Kirk Spahn.
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Benjamin
Doller
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Victoria
Silvstedt ...
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...
and Victoria Silvstedt
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Carlton
DeWoody, Sessa von Richthofen, and Jason Hirsch
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Richard
Ziegelasch, Mirka Vavrinec, and Roger
Federer
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Looking
southeast from the Soho deck with the Gansevoort Hotel in
the background
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