Happy Valentine’s Day.

Last night in New York. The weatherman said there would be snow. So a lot of us kids were imagining so much white stuff it’d be a no school day. 

When I got into a cab at 7:30 pm, the flurries were just beginning. By the time I reached my first destination eight minutes later, there was a dusty coating of the white stuff on the cars and the sidewalks. The thrill of the first snow is somehow optimism offered.

Alex Witchel, Virginia Mailman, and Frank Rich

First stop: Virginia Mailman was hosting a PEN American Center’s Writers’ dinner at her townhouse. These are annual affairs held all over the city and featuring prominent writers. For the past four years I’ve been a guest at Mrs. Mailman’s dinners. Last year the guest of honor was Robert Caro. The year before, biographer Ron Chernow. The year before that Paul Krugman. This year’s guest was Frank Rich, former drama critic and now op-ed columnist for the New York Times. 

This particular evening had about thirty or forty guests. After a half hour for cocktails, the hostess introduced the author. Frank Rich is a jolly looking fellow, one of those guys who has a twinkle in his eye and the willingness to laugh on his lips, all of which belie the seriousness of his perceptions.

He was with his wife Alex Witchel who also writes for the Times.  Several years ago she wrote a memorable piece about visiting Martha Stewart’s daughter’s motel in the Hamptons. I never forgot it. It was very amusing, but essentially, as they say in the theatre, a pan. I mentioned this. She told me how few years after she’d written the piece, she was asked to go on the Martha Stewart Show to show Martha how to make potato latkes (evidently a favorite and well-known recipe of Ms. Witchel). The first thing Martha mentioned when they went on air was Alex’s review of her daughter’s (Alexis) motel. Touche.

Frank Rich grew up in Washington, D.C. He told us about his childhood in the nation’s capitol in the 1950s when the city itself was run by a council of congressmen who were very negligent about the needs of its ordinary citizens (mainly black). The public educational system was so bleak they often didn’t have money to give tests. He said that even as a boy the negligence and ignoring was so great that he was aware of the shocking differences between the world of the nation’s capitol with its marble monuments and alabaster halls of power and the city’s working underclass.

Growing up, he was, like a lot of us, mesmerized by the magic of New York and the idea of living here.

He went to Harvard where he worked on the Crimson, writing, among other things, reviews of theatre including Broadway shows trying out in Boston. He reviewed Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” when it first played Boston before making its Broadway debut.

It was the early 70s, the turbulent Viet Nam years. There was a man named Daniel Ellsberg, a Harvard grad, who had been working at MIT and who often hung around the Crimson offices. To students like Frank Rich, Ellsberg was a guy who talked a lot about the War with information quite different from that reported to the public. Then one Sunday morning in June of 1971, Frank bought the Sunday New York Times only to read about the shocking revelations of the Pentagon Papers and so many of the things that Ellberg had talked about. Coincidentally, Mr. Ellsberg was also buying the paper at the same spot. Only he bought seven copies. Frank realized this guy was onto something big. 

Ellsberg soon after went on the lam and the Pentagon Papers became a defining moment in the changing public consciousness about the war in Viet Nam. Frank kept in touch with Ellsberg, over the phone, and eventually wrote a 10,000-word piece on the man and the matter. He sold it to Harold Hayes, the great editor of Esquire, one of the cutting edge magazines of the day.  Thus began the career of Frank Rich.

He said with a smile last night in recounting his background that he never dreamed as a kid growing up in Washington, longing for the lights of the big city, that one day he would be reviled by men like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Gerry Schoenfeld (the longtime head of the Shubert Theatre Organization) and then even later by the current Bush Administration.

Among the guests listening to him last night was James Goodale, the former General Counsel to the New York Times who successfully defended the paper in the suit filed against it by the government.

I had to slip out of room before Frank Rich was finished with the fascinating story of his brilliant career because I had to get over to the Carlyle for the opening night of Judy Collins in the Café Carlyle.

The place was packed for this debut of Ms. Collins in the Café which for many years was permanent home for Bobby Short, a troubadour, like Ms. Collins, of another era of popular American music of the 20th century.

Many of us remember Judy Collins from the earliest days of her fame with hit songs like “Both Sides Now.”  Her rise to stardom occurred, coincidentally, about the same time as Frank Rich was learning the official secrets of the Nixon Administration through Daniel Ellsberg. Therefore it came as no surprise when, in reminiscing about her career, she talked the era of the War and how it has so many similarities to today.

I love Judy Collins' performances so it is impossible to review her with much objectivity. Her beautiful voice, her hair (now blondish grey and massively gathered up to frame her lovely face and blue eyes – Stephen Stills wrote “Judy Blue Eyes” about her), and her gentle, yet powerful demeanor with a song – her message is compelling and very emotional. She performed only with her guitar and an accompanist on the piano (eventually taking over the keyboard to sing “My Father ... always promised us that we would live in France”).  And, like Frank Rich and many of us, she too always dreamed of living in New York.

Those of us who’ve followed her career are aware of how much she embodies the values, the experiences, the triumphs and the tragedies of her generation (she is now a very young 67) all the while maintaining a timeless serenity in her work and performances. Last night was a perfect example: she held her audience spellbound for more than 90 minutes, evoking more than a few quiet tears in the room. Soothing is the word to characterize the beauty she shares. It was like a lullaby to soothe us in these troubled times.

I shared a table at the Café with Jimmy Norman, who was introduced to me as the man who wrote the lyrics to “Time Is On My Side.” Jimmy who now records for Judy Collins’ label was for years a member of the Coasters, now one of the most golden of the Golden Oldies groups of early rock.

Meanwhile, a few blocks down the avenue at the Seventh Regiment Armory at 67th and Park, financier Stephen Schwarzman was staging a 60th birthday party for himself in the presence of 450 guests with a roster of entertainment which included Marvin Hamlisch and his “Chorus Line” chorus, Patti LaBelle (with her own chorus), Martin Short the comedian, and Rod Stewart.

The Schwarzman party has been much talked about about since the plans for it were first speculated on several days ago in an article by Landon Thomas in the New York Times.

Although Mr. Schwarzman claims to eschew publicity (there were only a handful of select media present at the Armory last night – and a number of media names were over at the Carlyle for Judy Collins), he creates news in the columns and popular press with his business deals and his personal lifestyle (mainly about his multimillion dollar residences). 

The original speculation had 1500 attending the party which some estimated to cost as much as $15 million. Only Mr. S knows the bottom line, and fifteen mill does sound like a pretty penny for a dinner for 450 people. Although Rod Stewart’s fee for a private performance is (as it is with some of his peers) said to be $1 million for an hour's work. The flowers alone (the evening was designed by Philip Baloun) were also said to have cost $1 million.

Whatever the cost, it was a spectacular display of the enormous new wealth of these troubled times, albeit for a handful of people. Although I didn’t attend, I did get a first hand report from one of the guests right after the party.

The Armory, I was told, was decorated in red, with white flowers, and had the look of a nightclub (“Rainbow Room goes Moulin Rouge” was how it was described to me). Evidently in an effort to give an intimate feel to the affair, there were trompe l’oeil panels referring to the famous Schwarzman apartment at 740 Park Avenue along with some actual paintings from the apartment. Upstairs at the Armory itself, ironically or no, is a home provided every night, serving as a shelter, run by Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, for about one hundred adult women of all ages.

The evening, which was called for 7:30 was said to be very well organized, logistically (the room can hold 1500 at tables – which is probably where the rumor about the number of invited got started). However, according to my observers, the excitement of the party, as it most often is with large scale occasions such as this, preceded the actual event, in the gossip and press accounts.

Perhaps it was the anticipated snowstorm, or the time of year (Mercury retrograde), but, I was told, there was “no energy” in the  sensationally decorated room and by the time the dinner, with a great menu from Glorious Foods, was served, it was, at least for my sources, cold. Like the weather outside. And unlike the warmth and gemutlich atmosphere at the PEN dinner with Frank Rich and Judy Collins over at the Carlyle singing: “Send In the Clowns.” All in a New York night.