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| 7 PM smoke. Photo: JH. |
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| Thursday, June 12, 2014. It was going to be an occasionally rainy day in New York, and maybe humid. According to the weatherman. Sometimes it was sunny and sometimes not. Not rain. No humidity either, at least none that I noticed. By late afternoon the temperature was reported to be 72 but with a cooler Real Feel. That’s what we felt. It was Wednesday. I went to Michael’s to lunch with Peter Lyden, who is the President of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, a post he assumed only three months ago. We’ve known each other professionally for probably two decades. He was the executive in charge of fund raising and development for the American Ballet Theatre and most recently for the American Museum of Natural History. I don’t know much about that field of endeavor (raising money for cultural purposes) although I do know that it is, in New York anyway, very big business.
Peter’s two previous assignments were very high profile in the New York philanthropic world, and in the popular mind: both very popular in the world of New York, as well as the world itself. The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art is a newer project. The organization which is very prestigious in the architectural community, was founded twelve years ago in a merger of two classical architecture organizations. It is now the leading non-profit organization of its kind with 15 chapters nationwide. Their charter: dedication to advancing the classical tradition in architecture, urbanism and their allied arts. To you and me, the man on the street, this can sound too lofty to be comprehensible. Except when you think of it: organizing the world we live in so we can live comfortably, optimally, and well, or as well as possible is an enormous and mind boggling task. Architects and their ilk are naturally inclined to be charged with that responsibility. As the forces of nature speed up in these times, so too do the creative forces of urban and architectural planning. Peter Lyden’s vision of the ICAA is to be one of those overseeing forces, educating us (and no doubt raising the funds to actualize his vision) Meanwhile most of our conversation yesterday was about mutual friends (of which we have many), as well as the crowd in the lunchroom at Michael’s yesterday. At Table One in the bay, Shari Rollins was celebrating a birthday with Nancy Collins, Lyn Paulsen, Bess Friedman, Jolie Hunt, Susie Friedman, and Shari’s husband the uber-political advisor, Ed Rollins. |
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| At a big table in the middle of the front room were several men, all in seersucker jackets and suits and one raven-haired young woman wearing a pale peach seersucker jacket. Her name, I learned, was Laurie Haspel Aronson from Baton Rouge. She is the President and CEO of Haspel, the men’s suit manufacturer started by Laurie’s great-grandfather down there in Louisiana. Meanwhile down in our nation’s capital yesterday – I learned from Ms. Aronson – 30 members of Congress were posing for a photograph to toast the day National Seersucker Day. I’m not making this up. I’m not sure exactly what the name of the occasion was, but it was an opportunity to get some of the inhabitants of Foggy Bottom to get into something cooler. Laurie’s lunch guests, meanwhile, were James LaForce of LaForce and Stevens with Brenner Thomas,Tom Wallis, Jean Palmeri of WWD, Brian Coats, Michael Philouze, and Ben Setiawan. |
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| I love seersucker in the summer time. It not only looks appropriate for a lot of occasions out and about, but it is cooler, lighter and with some summertime zip to its colors. I’ve known about Haspel for goodlooking, well-made, reasonably priced businessmen’s suits since I first got a job behind a desk in an office after college. I know this sounds like a commercial but it’s also a reality. I never realized until today that it was the name of a family business now in its fourth generation of leadership. It also turns out that Laurie Aronson is an old friend of Michael’s and has been patronizing his establishments for a couple of decades. |
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| Across the room at Michael’s: at the corner table, entertainment mogul Ron Meyer with mega-producer Harvey Weinstein; Tad Smith with Christy Ferer; Glamour magazine’s publisher Connie Ann Phillips; Phoenix House founder Dr. Mitch Rosenthal with Pamela Gross and Melanie Lefkowitz; Diane Clehane of Mediabistro.com with Judy Twersky and media coach Bill McGowan; Nikki Haskell with uber real estate broker Eva Mohr and her husband Stanley Mohr. Moving along: Michael Garin of Abu Dhabi Media; Reese Schoenfeld Food Network founder; Susan Blond; Peter Price; Linda Fairstein with Joan Carl of D. Porthault; Jerry Inzerillo; Mickey Ateyeh with Jeffrey Aronson, financial adviser, investor to the fashion industry, former fashion executive; Jay Sures with Dan Abrams; Tom Goodman of Goodman Media with Eileen Murphy of the New York Times; Wenda Millard, Michael Tannenbaum. Also Keith Meister with Mac Levine, Doug Hirsch and Jonathan Schwartz; Tom Goodman of Goodman Media with Eileen Murphy of the New York Times; Brad Reifler; Michael Tannenbaum; and scores more more along that broad spectrum of arts, culture, business, banking, marketing, celebrity, and good old Noo-Yawk metropolitan anxiety ... |
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| Which, speaking of metropolitan and culture and architecture and fund-raising, coincidentally, last night I went down to 283 Park Avenue where the Municipal Art Society was hosting its 2014 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal to real estate developers and owners Bruce Ratner and Maryanne Gilmartin of Forest City Ratner Companies. The Municipal Art Society (MAS) is completing it 120th year of work advocating excellence in urban planning and design. Its charter is a commitment to historic preservation and the arts, and the empowerment of local communities to affect change in their neighborhoods. Vin Cipolla, President of MAS opened the evening. The co-chairs were architect David Childs and real estate developer Larry Silverstein. Premier sponsor was Fred Iseman, and Signature Sponsors were Eugenie and Bob Birch. Last night Mrs. Birch told the guests that they’d raised more than $1 million for MAS and its work. |
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| The award was named for Mrs. Onassis in 1994 in memoriam to honor her efforts in preserving New York’s architectural treasures. Her involvement in the campaign to protect Grand Central Terminal from the wrecker’s ball not only brought public awareness to the matter but also to the existence of this long-standing organization. This years awardees, Ratner and Gilmartin, with their Forest City Ratner Companies (Gilmartin is the CEO), have played an important role in the renaissance of Brooklyn. In the past 28 years, Forest City Ratner Companies have developed 44 office, retail, residential, hotel and sports and entertainment projects in all five boroughs and throughout the metropolitan area. Last night, Mrs. Birch also told the guests that both a national political convention and the Olympics were very real potentials for Brooklyn in the near future. Mr. Ratner and Ms. Gilmartin’s work has played a major role in the renaissance that brought about these very real possibilities for a borough that has been transformed radically in the past two decades. |
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Contact DPC here. |