A Wintery cold in New York yesterday, followed by a light rain and warmer temperatures in the evening. 

It was the opening of the 53rd annual Winter Antiques Show at the Seventh Regiment Armory at Park Avenue between 66th and  67th Street. A rainy  night, which I emphasize because despite the weather, by 6:30 the Armory had a very big crowd attending the opening benefiting the East Side House Settlement.

It was one of the biggest opening night turn outs I’d seen in several years. I asked Arie Kopelman, who serves as the chairman of this event why this event seemed different. He told me they had a very big turnout because the people who support the East Side House Settlement are very supportive of this event,  and that he and the organizers concentrated on dealers with very “buyable” inventory.

It certainly looked that way. And furthermore, they’d redesigned the stalls, opening everything up. It was a big success. Mr. Kopelman told me that after all was done, East Side House Settlement would clear more than $1 million to assist their good community works.

I toured the place with my digital and JH and his digital, catching some familiar faces and some interesting new ones (see NYSD Monday morning).  After JH left, I stayed on to help myself to the mini-buffets placed in the various aisles. Gravlax and smoked salmon at one, excellent cheeses, freshly carved baked ham and/or roast beef on rye at another. Chinese veggie dumplings, cold asparagus stems, shrimp smothered in some kind of dill sauce, crudités, as well as the dessert table when I ran into Ellen and Jim Marcus, two of the great supporters of the arts in New York.

Ellen and Jim Marcus

By that time I’d already decided all that gnoshing was going to be dinner which of course came with dessert. I focused on the cheesecake squares while the Marcuses and I discussed the wisdom of giving into culinary temptation. Give in, I decided. The Marcuses agreed with me. I took their picture to celebrate the anticipated pleasure of our resolve.

Dining on the fly at the buffet tables of the art and antiques show (along with the Champagne flowing at the several bars set up throughout the vast drilling room) is a very popular activity with New Yorkers. The menu is always diverse and tasty, a feature to complement the diverse collectible riches of the show, a gift to the benefit ticket buyers. Like everything else, it is evaluated with relish (and other garnishes) and a lot of sampling.

At 8:30, the party was scheduled to be over but the crowds seemed quite happy to continue browsing the great inventory and congregating at the buffets.  The Armory itself is a wonderful New York decorative arts and antiques expedition. Its interior contains some of the finest surviving 19th Century rooms in America, including the earliest major commissions of the Associated Artists, the firm of Louis Comfort Tiffany, as well as rooms decorated by Alexander Roux Co., L. Marcotte Co., Herter Brothers, and Pottier Stymus, all which were leading American decorating firms of the last quarter of the 19th century.

The Winter Antiques Show runs through Sunday, January  28th.  It’s worth the tour,  a trip through dreamland (“what shall I buy/what would I buy...”), a tour of the keen eye of antiquaries, an actualizing of those dreams, a cozy and amazing respite from the hustle-bustle-helter-skelter outside the Armory’s ancient doors.