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Inside
the courtyard of One Beacon Court for the Municipal Art
Society's annual gala. 8:10 PM. Photo: JH.
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Autumn
in the air; temperatures in the sunny and mild low 60s, time
for sweaters and jackets.
Big
doin’s in the Big Town. Last
night was the annual Municipal Art Society’s Gala where they
award the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal to member
of the community who does much for the community. This year’s
recipient was Agnes Gund, the art collector and
philanthropist who hails from Ohio and is heiress to the
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes fortune. Mrs. Gund, known affectionately as “Aggie” to
her legions of friends and artists she supports with her enthusiasm as well as
largesse, is a great patron of architecture and public art as well as champion
of preservation and protector of the public realm.
According
to the evening’s press release: “From overseeing
the selection
and installation of public art in New York’s great public places, to presiding
over the planning of MoMA’s Taniguchi building and the restoration of its
original International Style home, Aggie is one of those rare leaders in the
arts who understands the city as a work of art capable of being sensuous and
energizing.”
The Municipal Art Society was founded in 1893 by architect Richard
Morris
Hunt with a mission to promote a more livable city. It advocates excellence
in urban design and planning, contemporary architecture, historic preservation
and public art. Mrs. Onassis’ interest in the work of the society in the
1980s revived its mission, gave it a greater public attention. It even stages
regular tours of the city’s landmarks. You can learn more by going to www.mas.org.
In the years since her passing, Mrs. Onassis children, Caroline and John
Kennedy
Jr. took up their mother’s cause. It is now left to Caroline,
who was present tonight to participate in the introduction of Aggie Gund. Mrs.
Gund who is famously from Ohio (here in New York) is well known for being one
of those people who uses her wealth to promote interesting and constructive projects
for the community, especially children, and especially art-driven causes for
children.
Christopher Mason, author of the currently popular “The
Art of the Steal” about
the Christie’s-Sotheby’s price-fixing scandal and an old friend of
Mrs. Gund, came out of retirement from his former profession as a songwriting
entertainer with a special lyric that he wrote for the honoree using a medley
of melodies from Broadway. Mason’s song was a brilliant show-stopper, a
veritable biography in song, and a witty one too. CLICK
HERE TO VIEW. |
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Sitting
down to dinner
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Last
night her
acceptance speech consisted mainly of thanking all the people
who help her with her multitude of interests and projects.
She confided that she wanted to end with the work of a poet
regarding New York and Walt Whitman had
been suggested. She finally chose the words of another, later
New Yorker, (later than Walt Whitman), a person from the
midwest like herself – a man from Peru, Indiana, Cole
Porter,
who in
1930 wrote a song called “I Happen to Like New York.” Mrs. Gund finished
her acceptance speech with a reading of this lyric:
I HAPPEN TO LIKE NEW YORK
I happen to like New York, I happen to like this town.
I like the city air, I like to drink of it,
The more I know New York the more I think of it.
I like the sight and the sound and even the stink of it.
I happen to like New York.
I like to go to Battery Park and watch those liners booming in.
I often ask myself, why should it be that they come so far across the sea.
I suppose it's because they all agree with me. They happen to like New York.
Last Sunday afternoon I took a trip to Hackensack,
But after I gave Hackensack the once over, I took the next train back.
I happen to like New York. I happen to love this burg.
And when I have to give the world a last farewell,
And the undertaker starts to ring my funeral bell,
I don't want to go to heaven, don't want to go to hell.
I happen to like New York. I happen to like New York.
This was a major fund-raiser, one of the sterling ones of
the season and tables of ten went for $50,000, $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000.
The Dinner Committee (many
of whom attended – for they don’t always, despite their financial
commitment) consisted of: Donna and Bill Acquavella, Anne Bass, Melvyn
Blum, Leslie and Chuck Close, Gabriella de Ferrari, Cheryl Cohen Effron and Blair
Effron, Katherine Farley and Jerry I. Speyer, Susan K. Freedman and Richard Jocobs,
Milly and Arne Glimcher, Gail Gregg and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Garham Gund, Ashton
Hawkins and John Moore, Kitty Hawks and Larry Lederman, Alexandra and Paul Herzan,
Ellsworth Kelly, Tony Kiser, Carol and Sol LeWitt, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Michael
Maltzan, Catie and Don Marron, Robert Menschel, Marshall Rose, Steven Roth, Jack
Shear, Louise M. Sunshine, Nan and Stephen Swid, Hoshio Taniguchi, Hendel Teicher
and Terry Witners, Clare and Gene Thaw and Helen Tucker.
The evening took place in a brand new New York landmark, Beacon
Court the almost completed twin residential and office tower on the block of
Lexington Avenue
that for years was occupied by Alexander’s Department Store – between
58th and 59th Street and Lexington and Third Avenues. Built by Steven
Roth’s
Vornado Realty, designed by Cesar Pelli with interior’s
by the celebrated
French interior designer Jacques Grange, part of the building
will be the new home of Bloomberg (the company). Michael Bloomberg, the founder
of the company and now the mayor of New York was on hand at the beginning of
the evening before
dinner to congratulate the honoree.
There was a lot of excitement in the air tonight – being in this spectacular
new building with its round cobbled courtyard surrounded by Mr. Pelli’s
glass and steel structure and the crème de la crème of New York
on hand to witness the honoring of the now distinguished Mrs. Gund.
Kent Bartwick, president of the Municipal Art Society, in his
introduction to
the evening. talked about New Yorkers. “New Yorkers” he said, “are
toughies – lawyers, politicians, businessmen; but softies when it comes
to their neighborhoods.” Therefore it was appropriate that this year they
were honoring, in his words, “the high priestess of everything we care
about in New York” – the nabes, the kids, the buildings, the art.
A beautiful evening. |
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Phyllis
Samitz Cohen, Agnes Gund, Randall Bourscheidt, and Anna
Traggio
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Louise
Sunshine with Jerry and Pat Schoenfeld
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L.
to r.: The scene in the lobby of The Bloomberg
Building; Christo and Jean Claude.
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Coralie
Charriol, Justin Rockefeller, Dennis Paul, Damon Mezzacappa,
and Philip Howard
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Veronica
Hearst and Jacques Grange
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John
and Anthony Dobkin with Kitty Hawks
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Mr.
and Mrs. IM Pei with Rosamund Bernier and John Russell
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Bob
Shapiro and Ellen
Liman
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Darryl
and Steve Roth
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Robert
A.M. Stern and Marjorie Reed Gordon
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Gretchen
Rubin and Paul Beirne with Elia and Marianna Zois
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Charles
and Jan Cowles
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Sharyn
and Steve Mann
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Damon
and Liz Mezzacappa
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Sue
and Marco Stoffel |
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Eve
McGrath, Kelly Mack, and DPC
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Betsy
Gotbaum and John Moore
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Duane
Hampton
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Sean
Driscoll
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Hope
Winthrop and Alexandra Howard
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James
Reginato, Gordon Davis, and Diane Coffey
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Christopher
Mason and Barbara Tober
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