Social Diary 11/4/04 - New York Landmarks Conservancy's 11th annual “Living Landmarks”

Living Landmarks

The Plaza Fountain. 8:15 PM. Photo: JH.

Not just another Wednesday in November in New York, partly sunny, a chill breeze running through the streets, the day after Election Day.

Over at the Plaza Hotel, in the grand ballroom the New York Landmarks Conservancy celebrated its 11th annual “Living Landmarks” – New Yorkers who contribute so much to our City. Living Landmarks is an amusing, and now even prestigious technique (read: gimmick) for raising funds for the Conservancy.

The New York Conservancy was started in 1973 to save at least some of the City’s buildings from being torn down or destroyed by development interests. It is the only preservation organization in the City and one of the few in the country with the financial and technical resources to back up advocacy with assistance. In their more than 30-year history, they’ve awarded more than $25 million in loans and grants, plus advice to owners of historic homes, businesses, schools, houses of worship, theaters, cultural institutions and community centers. Their work has been immeasurably helpful in revitalizing neighborhoods in reshaping the future of our City.

The Landmarks dinner always draws a big crowd (this year’s was the most successful) of prominent New Yorkers as well as their lists of friends and acquaintances, many of whom are also prominent New Yorkers, and they all in turn, by selling those tables, raise money for the Conservancy while having a good time.

Mort and Linda Janklow

This year’s honorees were Mort and Linda LeRoy Janklow, Whoopi Goldberg, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, George Steinbrenner and Candice Bergen and Marshall Rose. Peter Duchin, another Living Landmark, and his orchestra played, and Liz Smith, yet another Living Landmark, emceed the evening.

It starts with a cocktail hour at seven. There were quite a few earlier Living Landmarks present such as David and Helen Gurley Brown, Anthony Drexel Duke, Joan Ganz Cooney and Pete Peterson, Victor and Betsy Gotbaum, Elaine Kaufman, Henry Luce III; Arnold Scaasi and Parker Ladd who were with Gill Fuller, Mike Wallace and Mathilde Krim were there. As was Nan Kempner who has never been named a Living Landmark but might as well be because she’s such a famous New Yorker and so highly visible.

Also in the crowd, I spotted Barbara and Donald Tober, Bob and Barbara Taylor Bradford, Peter Rogers, Doug Cramer, Amy Fine Collins, Hugh Bush, Robert A.M. Stern, Jill Spalding, Sarah Rosenthal, Frannie Scaife and Tom McCarter, Marife Hernandez, Paige Peterson, Audrey Della Rosario, Tom and Diahn McGrath, Beth Rudin DeWoody and Howard Blum, Holly Hotchner, Mildred Brinn, Leonard Lauder, Charlene Nederlander, Arthur Altschul, Elizabeth Stribling and Guy Robinson, Robert Benton, Ellery and Marjorie Reed Gordon, Ellin Delsener, Catie and Donald Marron, Lynn Nesbit, Arne and Milly Glimcher, Barbara and Howard Sloan, Betsy von Furstenberg, Eleonara and Michael Kennedy and Peter Brown.

We went into dinner in the grand ballroom at eight. Peter Duchin called the evening to order “take your seats, sit down and start your dinner,” he kept repeating to the crowd who were milling about yakking like school kids at a reunion. Once Duchin’s orders were accomplished, Peg Breen, President of the Conservancy opened the evening by introducing a video of the work of the Conservancy. Mrs. Breen also announced that just a few minutes before that one of the evening’s Landmarks, George Steinbrenner personally gave her a check for $100,000 for the Conservancy’s work.

After the appetizer and main course, Liz Smith took the podium and introduced the video clip on Commissioner Kelly. Then Liz called upon Beth DeWoody, daughter of the late real estate owner and developer Lewis Rudin to give an award in Rudin’s name to Commissioner Kelly.

Mr. Kelly, who is a born and bred New Yorker, like Mr. Rudin with whom he shared great affection for his city, talked about the block he grew up on at 91st Street and Amsterdam Avenue. He recalled the beauty of the buildings in his neighborhood, including the one which held the six-room apartment of his parents. It’s gone today, replaced by a McDonald’s, he told us ruefully. Most of the neighborhood he remembers as a kid, is gone too, he said, calling on his nostalgia to strengthen the argument for saving our buildings in New York.

Living Landmarks dinner at The Plaza

After Mr. Kelly, Liz called up on Barbara Walters to introduce Linda and Mort Janklow. Ms. Walters told us that she’d known Mort Janklow since she was a teenager and confided that in retrospect, he would have been good husband material except that he instead married Linda who was born a Hollywood princess, daughter of the famed film director Mervyn LeRoy (The Wizard of Oz) and Doris Warner, daughter of one of the fabled Warner brothers.

Linda told us that growing up in Beverly Hills, one of the treats for her and her brother (the late Warner LeRoy) was being allowed to visit the backlots of the studios. On the Warners backlot there was the Main Street, USA with its lawns and picket fences, then the “Western town,” and around the corner was New York City with its row houses and stores, and then around the corner from that was the Broadway/Times Square section. It was the New York section that fired the young Linda’s imagination. In recalling her life in Los Angeles, she said that “when it’s 100 degrees in New York City, it’s 72 degrees in Los Angeles. And when it’s thirty degrees in New York City, it’s 72 degrees in Los Angeles. But where there are hundreds, even thousands of interesting people in New York City, there are only 72 in Los Angeles.

Mort Janklow, who is one of the legendary literary agents of his era, grew up in Queens. He said he wasn’t exactly what his mother-in-law Doris Warner LeRoy had in mind for her daughter. An international prince, like the Aga Khan was more to her liking. And so when the couple were about to get married and Linda came down with chicken pox, Mrs. LeRoy saw that as a good sign and a way to get out of the marriage. But Linda said “nothing doing,” she was going to marry her prince from Queens. The mother said, “but you can’t get married looking the way you do with the chicken pox.” But Linda, spoken like a true Hollywood princess insisted and just called in one of the studio makeup artists to hide her illness so that she could get married.

Between them the Janklows are very active in New York philanthropic activities including Columbia University Law School, the Met, committees on The New York Public Library, the Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim. Linda served as chairman of Lincoln Center Theatre for 22 years, is a Director of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, is a founding trustee of the American Museum of the Moving Image and has served on the Advisory Board of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, the board of the Gugg as well as the Board of the New 42nd Street.

Jonathan Farkas

Diahn and Tom McGrath

Marshall Rose and Candice Bergen

Liz Smith then introduced Candice Bergen and Marshall Rose. Mr. Rose is a builder, civic leader and advisor to governments and non-profit institutions and has developed properties throughout the country. He was twice Chairman of The New York Public Library, was a driving force behind the restoration of Bryant Park, and has served on the boards of the NYU Medical Center, Lincoln Center and CUNY Graduate Center.

Ms. Bergen, who grew up in Beverly Hills, has been a resident of New York at different times since college age when she often worked in the city as a fashion model and then a film actress. She appeared on Broadway in Hurly Burly and was the first female host of Saturday Night Live. Her highly successful series Murphy Brown took her back to California for many years but now as Mrs. Marshall Rose, she is back in town and thrilled to be here. She’s also served on the board of the Central Park Conservancy.

Whoopi Goldberg and Ross Anderson

The Rose-Bergen acceptance included a little song, which was amusingly introduced by Bergen, explaining that when Liz Smith asked them to be Landmarks, she also asked them to do a “little something” for the audience. The three, Bergen, Rose and Smith then sang “That’s the Glory of Love,” with a little audience participation.

None of them will ever have a hit record, that’s for sure, and Mr. Rose who has a charming kind of soft but husky speaking voice and a willing enthusiasm, sings consistently off-key. What Liz lacks in musical ability is dwarfed by her love of performing: she shudda been on Broadway. The audience loved it.

Barbara Walters came back to introduce George Steinbrenner. She told us how in 1977 she was in Havana interviewing Fidel Castro who took her to a baseball game one night. There one of her crew spotted George Steinbrenner scouting for the Yankees. She didn’t know him at the time but was introduced, thinking she could get some footage of him in action. He basically told her to get lost although they later met up again in the bar of the Hotel Nacional where they became friends, and have remained friends ever since. Mr. Steinbrenner, famed for his big personality, is not one to seek the spotlight outside the realm of his home team. He demonstrated that nobly but coming up on stage, accepting his award and saying “thank you very much.” End of Story.

Whoopi Goldberg was the final Living Landmark last night. Liz introduced her and she thanked Liz for accepting her no matter what comes out of her mouth. She told us about growing up on Tenth Avenue and 26th Street in Chelsea and how her mother would take her all over the city to look at its landmarks. So the idea of being named one herself was an awesome experience for her. With Whoopi, the evening ended and as soon as she was finished, the Duchin orchestra began to play and the guests began to exit.

They raised $750,000 last night – their best Living Landmarks dinner ever.

Roberta Fabiano

Peter Duchin and Peter Rogers

Pat Schoenfeld and David Brown

Elaine Kaufman and DPC

Dr. Mathilda Krim and friends

Peg Breen

Veronica and Ray Kelly with Beth DeWoody

George Steinbrenner and Mike Wallace

Allen Roberts with Elizabeth Stribling and Guy Robinson

Robert A.M. Stern and Jill Spalding

Tom McArter, Barbara Tober, and Frances Scaife

Mort Zuckerman with Linda and Mort Janklow

Farran Tozer Brown and Robert Brown

Bob and Barbara Taylor Bradford

L. to r.: Audrey del Rosario; Eleanora Kennedy, Guy Robinson, Ellery and Marjorie Reed Gordon, and Elizabeth Stribling.

Have you subscribed to New York Social Diary?
Enter your Email address and click on subscribe to receive emails about the activities of NYSD. It's free!