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| Looking south from the Lake in Central Park. 6:30 PM. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch. |
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| Monday, August 5, 2013. A beautiful early August weekend in New York, with a lot of sunshine and little if any humidity. Sunday’s sky was filled with the tall, snow-white puffy, cumulus clouds. I took the car out, put the top down and drove over to Zabars. So much more convenient. And cheaper if you don’t factor in the cost of the car, upkeep and garaging. So we don’t; for a day. None of the streets going across town was very busy with traffic or pedestrians -- although there were a lot of people were out enjoying the weather. There was a crowd, as there always is, on Saturday afternoons along the four block facade of the Metropolitan Museum on Fifth Avenue and 81st Street; people going to and coming from. The front steps of the museum is a mecca for people congregating or just people watching. |
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| Directly across the 79th Street transverse which opens onto West 81st Street and Central Park West, is the vast complex of buildings (and architectural styles) that make up the American Museum of Natural History – another magnet for New Yorkers on their days off, and especially (although far from entirely) young families. These two great world class museums overlooking the verdant forests of Central Park were planned to be what they became for New Yorkers and its visitors more than a century ago. This was done long before the neighborhoods surrounding were much of anything. This was vision. With the community in mind. The West Side had light traffic also, but a lot of people out strolling in their neighborhoods. It’s on days like these that you see what’s so great about living in New York. Because it’s quieter and more restful, the pace slows to a gentle stroll. You see all kinds of people, families, children, dogs, food shopping, ice cream shopping, banking, or just out walking and looking. It’s a cavalcade and never fails to impress.
In Southampton, the Southampton Hospital held its 55th Annual Summer Gala. The Southampton Hospital is the only major hospital on the East End of Long Island. Over the decades, the Summer People (many of whom are now year-round weekenders) have contributed to its growth and capacity. This gala is their biggest fundraiser for the year and it is a local tradition. Because it’s been around for more than a half-century, re-inventing it annually is an enormous challenge. Also, unlike its first thirty or forty years, it has competition. There are always a half dozen or more large cocktail, fundraising parties across the East End on any weekend night. And just as many in the afternoons. You do enough of these and the whole idea of weekending in the Hamptons can get enervating. But not for everyone. This year’s Southampton Hospital Gala co-chairs were Audrey Gruss and Jean Shafiroff, and they pulled it off with aces. The evening was a great success: they raised over $1.7 million. The hospital also received a gift of $5 million from Mrs. Gruss and her husband Martin.Adriann Swann covered the party for us on the Party Pictures page. |
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| Each year, Hamptons summers used to provide at least one good story or juicy marital scandal that occupied idle conversation throughout the season. You’d hear about it even in New York. It was usually about New Yorkers having affairs or stealing someone’s wife or husband. The story usually carried into the following autumn season with divorces or reconciliations (not as often), new marriages and the old story of who got what and who didn’t. These days it takes a lot more than some marital infidelity to get people talking (or looking). Very little can survive the 140 characters of Twitter, and even then it’s swept away into the terminal morass of quadrillions of lost voices traveling across the universe. However, there is one going on right now in the Hamptons that has got a huge coverage in the British tabloids but practically nothing over here, and even very little in the Hamptons. I asked one of the local hostesses about it, mentioning the woman involved, and she replied: Do we know her? It’s a reality TV scandal, if you will. |
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| It involves Simon Cowell, the British TV producer/ personality, and a woman who summers in Bridgehampton named Lauren Silverman. The possibly soon to be former Mrs. Andrew Silverman. Mrs. Silverman is an old friend (more than a year) of Mr. Cowell. So is/was her husband. They were such good friends that evidently she is now pregnant with Mr. Cowell’s child. Mr. Cowell does not deny that he’s the father. He’s made it clear that he will cover his responsibility for the child’s welfare and well-being, but he did not indicate he was going to marry Mrs. Silverman, who is said to be in love with him and plans to divorce/dump her husband ... and run off to the Show Business Xanadu of Mr. Cowell....if she were writing the happy ending. |
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| I’m one of those media-malnourished who’s never seen Mr. Cowell on TV except for a couple of clips where he tells some performer what he thought of their performance in no uncertain terms. This point of view has made him really rich. The Daily Mail Online (the world’s greatest tabloid, at least on the internet) has pictures of the two of them aboard Mr. Cowell’s yacht. I wished they had pictures of the yacht itself as it’s always nice to see just How Big it is. After all in today’s yachting world, size matters even to us media voyeurs. Big enough, it is for Mrs. Silverman, that’s for sure. |
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| This is a story that almost needs to no words to explain it after you’ve seen the pictures. Mrs. Silverman looks at once unsure, yet gaga over the beefy Mr. Cowell who looks like he’s looking for his sunblock....or in some nearby mirror. There’s one of the two next to each other, leaning against the deck railing where she looks like she’s wondering what she should do next, and he looks like he’s wondering what’s for lunch. The story being put out is that Mrs. Silverman has been lonely, was bored with Mr. Silverman who’s just a boring old real estate businessman who’s good enough to rent (at $150,000 a month) a place in Bridgehampton for his lithesome Mrs. and their young son. Mr. Silverman knows Mr. Cowell too. Oh, he’s been on the yacht too. But so have a lot of people. Mr. Cowell is noted for inviting his old girlfriends to join the cruise too, so everyone gets to meet everyone. |
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| When and if the Silvermans actually get divorced, evidently Mrs. S. has a pre-nup which will bring her about $4 mill. Nice maybe for some of us, but chickenfeed for Mr. Cowell who’s filthy rich pulling down that (four mill) and more on any and every given week of the year. Evidently Mrs. S. is in love with the media mogul. They’ve known each other for a few years, so this is no sudden coup de foudre. But the media mogul, who resides on this side of the Atlantic in Beverly Hills or thereabout has other fish to fry (or something like that). Last week he flew off in his fabulous private jet to St. Tropez for his “annual” visit with friends. Lots of friends. Now the papers are running stories of the “pregnant” Mrs. Silverman dawdling around Bridgehampton husband-less and boyfriend-less, taking her little one out for an ice cream cone. Actually, she’s not really husband-less. Mr. S is said to be still residing in the summer house for the sake of their son. |
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| Do you think she’s a gold-digger someone asked? No, I think she’s starstruck. It happens all the time. Unfortunately, it’ll never be no Taylor-Burton or even Jen and Justin. And Mr. Cowell, is he in love? I wouldn’t know of course, but it wouldn’t surprise me if, as someone suggested, this was just a convenient bit of ballyhoo for the old boy, now fifty-three and still a confirmed bachelor. Besides, at this age and with all that dough (a hundred mill a year, according to the Mail), why would he marry? Old dog, new tricks? Probably not. Besides, he's got a new season coming up, a whole new ball game in a world where you're only as good as your last.... |
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