Last night was the annual Living Landmarks Celebration 2006 dinner, benefiting the New York Landmarks Conservancy and held this year at Cipriani 42nd Street. This year’s Living Landmarks were all couples. There have been couples honored in the past, sometimes separately, sometimes together, but never an entire roster of couples.

Liz Smith with Beth DeWoody and Bill Rudin

The Living Landmarks designates for 2006 were Tom and Meredith Brokaw, Mario and Matilda Cuomo, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, Norman and Norris Mailer and Howard and Amy Rubenstein. Liz Smith, who with Pete Peterson made up the Celebration Committee was hostess for the evening.

Governor and Mrs. Cuomo were given the Lew Rudin Award for Outstanding Public Service. Mrs. Cuomo said that when she learned that she and her husband were to be made Living Landmarks, she asked him what could come after that. “The dead end,” he quipped. The Lew Rudin Award was given in the name of the late New York real estate magnate and philanthropist who was often referred to as “Mr. New York,” he loved the city so. The award was presented to the Cuomos by Mr. Rudin’s daughter and son, Beth Rudin DeWoody and Bill Rudin.

Liz Smith opened the evening by first quoting and then singing Cole Porter’s “Let’s Fly Away” (written in 1930 for the show “The New Yorkers”):

Let’s Fly Away
To a land that’s warm and tropic
Where Prohibition’s not the topic
All the live long day.

Beth DeWoody, when taking the podium suggested that maybe it was time for Liz to move from writing about Broadway to appearing on Broadway.

Diane von Furstenberg was the only one of all the couples who could not appear because she was in Shanghai on business. Mr. Diller told how he was brought up in Beverly Hills where the only landmark was Will Rogers’ house in Pacific Palisades. He came to New York for the first time when he was 23, and crossing the bridge looking out at “Oz,” he was amazed at how many “old” buildings there were in the City.

Mrs. Diller, halfway across the globe, and born in Belgium, brought up in Europe, is nevertheless a longtime New Yorker who long ago successfully worked for the landmarking of the Meatpacking District, as well as her neighborhood in the West Village. With her husband, they have realized the greening of the High Line, an elevated train track that runs for 30 blocks on the far west side of Manhattan. Mr. Diller also made a pitch to include for future landmarking, his company’s brand new Frank Gehry Building that is now coming to completion on the West Side Highway and 18th Street. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a thrilling project.

Norman Mailer was the last to accept his award, after his beautiful wife Norris made her brief and gracious speech. Mr. Mailer said he had agreed to become a Living Landmark simply because he loves architecture, HATES “modern architecture” and will do anything he can to preserve the old New York. He and Mrs. Mailer have a townhouse in Brooklyn Heights where they brought up their nine children (one, theirs together).

The Brokaws come from South Dakota and first came to New York as teen-agers on sightseeing trips. Mr. Brokaw, who was here all of three days called his father on the third day and asked if he could stay a couple more days since there was so much to see. The elder Mr. Brokaw agreed since, as he put it ot his son at the time, “you’ll probably never get a chance to see it again.” Nevertheless, when Tom Brokaw came here after college, he knew exactly what he wanted from the city. And he got it.

Howard and Amy Rubenstein are lifelong New Yorkers. Mr. Rubenstein runs one of the most successful public relations businesses in the city, adviser to presidents, governors, senators, bankers, movie stars and what-have-you. Mrs. Rubenstein, besides bringing up their family (now grown) also runs her family business, an authentic New York landmark, Peter Luger’s Steakhouse in Brooklyn.

Peter Duchin (himself a Living Landmark) and his Orchestra played, Roberta Fabiano sang, dinner, dessert, speeches and acceptances were over by twenty minutes to ten, and the glitterati of the city, along with Living Landmarks Past and Newly Annointed, made their way back to their private aeries, hither and yon throughout the Metropolis.