New York Social Diary

Another marathon night
Taking their bows at last night's American Ballet Theatre gala after the performance of Agnes de Mille's "Rodeo" at City Center. 9:10 PM.
Photo: JH.
Another beautiful day in New York. The kind where, if you’re like me,
walking the dogs down by the riverside, sun glistening, light breeze
gusting here and there, you say aloud: what a beautiful day, and for a
moment there everything is All Right.
At about six-thirty I went over to the Fifth Avenue apartment of
Georgette Mosbacher where she was throwing a cocktail/book party for
Michael Gross and his new tome 740 Park Avenue; The Story of the
World’s Richest Apartment Building (see NYSD 10/4/05) which is one of
the most interesting non-fiction books you’ll ever read about New York
society in the last 75 years.
Mrs. Mosbacher, the cosmetics
and skin-care tycooness, invited
200 of the most prominent talkers,
opinion-makers, blabbermouths
and social gadflies, along with
their best friends, acquaintances
and the people who make up the
media. Very smart, Mrs.
Mosbacher, she is. Because
practically everyone in the room is
dying to read the book to find out
if Michael Gross wrote what they
already know (but wouldn’t tell
him), and just exactly where he
drew the line in revealing the
“inside” on all the families that
have lived in this famously sought
after residential building that sits
on the northwest corner of Park
Avenue and 71st Street.
Michael Gross
Jackie Onassis’ grandfather James T. Lee built it, beginning in the
same year she was born (1929) and completing it two years later when
the world had fallen apart and a lot of the formerly rich were still jumping
out windows. Nevertheless, like Scarlett and Tara, the sun did come up
tomorrow, paving the way for all kinds of new family sagas (including
Jackie’s parents Janet and Jack Bouvier who lived there briefly, thanks
to the generosity of Mr. Lee), most of which, like all family stories, are
gone with the wind.
There were a number of people at Mrs. Mosbacher’s quite palatial
apartment who either lived in the building or were related to those who
lived in the building. Dasha Epstein, the Broadway producer lived there
from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. David and Julia Koch
have just moved in. Alice Mason, the absolute empress of private
residential real estate brokers had a hand in the puchase and sale of
several of the apartments (and sometimes the same apartment more
than once). Jesse Araskog and her husband recently sold their co-op
there. Diana Quasha who recently sold her 720 Park Avenue apartment
lived at 740 before that. Kathy Steinberg, the sister-in-law of Saul
Steinberg, was the broker on both sides of the deal when Steve
Schwarzman paid $31 million to buy the old John D. Rockefeller Jr.
apartment from Mr. Steinberg. Dominick Dunne never lived there but
more than one character in his novels has lived in a buildling Just Like It
(fiction, of course).
In many ways, New York is a
small town, and like all small
towns, there are the pieces of real
estate (the biggest house in town,
for example) that stimulate
interest, envy, greed, and all the
other Machiavellian traits that
taunt our psyches at one point or
another. 740 Park is the place that
frequently haunts the dreams of
the must-haves in Manhattan.
The fabulous Mosbacher digs had
more than enough room (and then
some to go around) for the
clamoring crowd last night, and so
many of them knew each other, or
knew of each other, or always
wanted to know each other. So it
Click image to order 740 Park
was like Old Home Week visits
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (without what’s-his-name’s bellowing
voice to distract).
There will be discussions for some time as to whether or not Michael
Gross was fair or mean to the tenants of the building. It doesn’t matter.
As I’ve written here before about his book, it is a testament to the fact
that all gossip ultimately becomes history, even, alas, the stuff that’s not
true.
Geoffrey Thomas, Sharon Sondes, and David Koch
Jamie Whitehead, Deborah Schoeneman, and Robert Zimmerman
Dominick Dunne and Christopher Mason
Ron and Harriet Weintraub
Somers Farkas and Jesse Araskog
Mario Buatta and Anthony Haden-Guest
Georgette Mosbacher and Lyn Paulsin
Tiffany Dubin and Kevin Krier
R. Couri Hay, Rupel Patel, and Robert Burke
Deborah Schoeneman and Richard Meier
Leba Sedaka, Martha Kramer, Neal Fox, and Gina de Franco
Byron Wien and Barbara Goldsmith
Jeanne Lawrence and Marjorie Reed Gordon
Nancy Holmes and Michael Gross
Phoebe Eaton
Dasha Epstein and Olivia Hoge
Barbara Goldsmith and Kathy Rayner
Gail and Kevin Buckley with Warren Hoge
Leslie Stevens and friend
Allison and Leonard Stern
Ann Rapp and Nancy Holmes
Jill Brooke, Phyllis George, and Mr. and Mrs. Henry Schlieff
Kathy Steinberg
Kenny Lane and Wendy Stark
Mr. and Mrs. Ed Klein
Wendy and Geoffrey Gates
Catherine Saxton, Cornelia Bregman, and Lloyd Grove
Mai Harrison and Alan Grubman
Cindy Adams and Robert Zimmerman
Alice Mason
Wendy Sarasohn, Christine Biddle, and Nancy
Gillon
Dominique Richard
Dominique's shoes
Lyn Paulsin and Lesley Stahl
The Mosbacher living room
Christine and Carl Bernstein with Deborah Grubman
Dr. Richard Bockman and Gale Hayman
Champagne makes the rounds
John and Nancy Burges with Mallory and Roy Kean
Kirk Henckels and Fernanda Kellogg with a friend
After almost an hour of schmoozing, gnoshing, quaffing (shloshing)
and picture taking, JH and I decided to move on down the Avenue to the
apartment of Linda and Arthur Carter who were giving a book party for
their very good friend Peggy Drexler who’s written a book on a recent
phenomenon in American domestic life called Raising Boys Without
Men.
Mrs. Drexler is a professional psychologist
and so she knows something about her
subject. She told us that now only 25% of
American families have a mother and father
living together. The rest are single parents
and their children. She didn’t mention gay
parents and their children although I would
imagine the percentage might still be in the
single digits. However it is, it’s very often an
uphill battle or at least a great challenge; one
which Mrs. Drexler addresses brilliantly.
Mrs. Drexler has her own family. Her
husband Mickey is a merchandising tycoon
who made his fortune by creating and
running The Gap for many years before his
grateful bosses asked him to leave after a
couple (that’s all it takes in la-la land) bad
quarters. Although he evidently was set for
life financially after leaving the The Gap, he
still had a hunger for the game and so now
he’s running J. Crew and quite successfully.
Peggy Drexler holding Raising
Boys Without Men. Click image to
order.
Arthur and Linda Carter
Kathy Sloane
Because we’d spent so much time at Ms. Mosbacher’s the Carters’ party
was beginning to run down when we arrived. Peggy Drexler was busy
signing books. The Carters were in conversation with Carl Bernstein
and his wife Christine, who’d also been at the Mosbacher party. We got
a couple shots and then headed over to City Center in order to make the
second act of the ABT autumn gala.
Allison Stern, Grace Hightower, and Muffie Potter
Aston
We made it to the City Center
(on 55th between 6th and 7th)
just as it was breaking for
intermission. Coincidentally we
ran into Jacob Bernstein, the
reporter son of Carl (and
writer/director Nora Ephron).
Again JH got some shots of the
opening night crowd and the bells
started ringing for the beginning of
the second act. Having not seen
the program, having no idea what
to expect, it was astonishingly
nostalgic when the curtain rose to
Oliver Smith’s scenery and the
music of Aaron Copland and
Agnes de Mille’s historic ballet of
the American Southwest, “Rodeo.”
“Rodeo” was first performed sixtythree years and three days ago by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and
became part of the repertory of the ABT when they were performing in
Wiesbaden, Germany in August 1950. Agnes de Mille, a niece of the
famous film director Cecil B. de Mille, grew up in Los Angeles where
she went to school with Louis B. Mayer’s daughters, with Jean Harlow,
Joel McCrea, etc., and went on to become the premiere female
American choreographer whose work was part of the ground-breaking
musical “Oklahoma” (which opened in 1943).
So it was impossible for me, never having seen “Rodeo,” although being
familiar with the music, to think of what it must have been like for those
European audiences, back in the terrible and wretched time of World
War II destroying so much of Europe, to see this pure and simple dance
story set in a faraway and serene environment of the American
Southwest where the issue was the age-old one for that place and most
times: a story of a woman looking for a suitable man. The audience
loved it, understandably.
Saracino Fendi and Peter Lyden
Rachel Moore
Jacob Bernstein
Jackie Weld Drake and Rod Drake
Intermission at the Ballet
Peg Ranieri, Paul Beirne, Sharon Patrick, and Lew Ranieri
Muffie Potter Aston, Somers Farkas, and Grace
Hightower
Jonathan Farkas
Outside of NY City Center post performance on our way to The Pierre
From the City Center we moved on – walking on this beautiful night
across Fifty-seventh Street to Fifth and up to the Pierre on 60th – for
dinner and dancing in the hotel ballroom. Visions of the dancers’ “roping,
riding branding and throwing” in “Rodeo,” still dancing in our heads.
Judy Peabody
Amy Fine Collins and Alex Hitz
October 20, 2005, Volume V, Number 180
© 2006 David Patrick Columbia & Jeffrey Hirsch/NewYorkSocialDiary.com
Photographs by Jeff Hirsch & DPC/NYSD.com