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 The sidewalks of midtown were a little quieter
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| Sunset sky. 7:49 PM. Photo: JH. |
Thursday, August 16, 2012. A nice rainy day in New York, yesterday, with temperatures dropping thankfully into the high 60s by mid-evening. The weatherman’s been predicting rain for days now but it always seemed to pass Manhattan by. Yesterday he delivered.
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It was Wednesday, so I went down to Michael’s for the Wednesday lunch; where else? The sidewalks of midtown were a little quieter for a summer day when they are usually teeming with New Yorkers and the city’s many tourists braving the raindrops.
Michael’s was busy, noticeably calmer with so many of its patrons off on the summer vacations. Liz Smith was there, lunching with Ellen Levine of Hearst and Joni Evans of wowowow.com which is now live every Wednesday at 11 o’clock on Sirius.
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| This solar-powered model of Her Majesty was a gift from Joan Gelman last week, who is still very much in the Olympic spirit. |
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Moving around the room Mickey Ateyeh, in New York briefly, taking a break from her round the world tours and turns; Debra Fine, author of “The Fine Art of Small Talk,” with David Berkin; Kevin Magee and Scott Greenstein, head of Sirius XM Radio; Martin Bandier of Sony's current publishing arm, Sony/ATV, with Marshall Rose, real estate investor husband of Candice Bergen; Jason Binn who has just launched a new quarterly luxury magazine D Jour with Gilt Groupe, with media mogul Richard Beckman; Carmine Coppola; Ed DeYoung; Michael Fricklas of Viacom; Harold Holzer, Senior VP for External Affairs at the Metropolitan Museum; Stefan Kaluzny, Managing Director of Sycamore Partners, a New York based private equity firm; Chris Meigher of Quest, which comes out with its 19th annual Quest 400 List this week; Shelly Palmer of Fox TV; National Jewelry Institute’s founder Judy Price and Aggie Gund; Henry Schleiff of the Discovery Channel, with Paula Zahn; Allan Schwartz; Gillian Tett of the FT; Pete Peterson, co-founder with Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone; Stan Shuman and Alan Patricoff; Shelley Zalis; mega-agent Boaty Boatwright with the multi-tasking cooking, gardening, animal rights advocate and handbag designer Cornelia Guest.
Across the way: Zachary Karabell, the author, historian, money manager and economist; Ari Emanuel, the man behind William Morris Endeavor, and brother of President Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, now the Mayor of Chicago, with Joe Kernan, of CNBC’s "Squawk Box"; marketing and public relations executive Desiree Gruber (who in real life is married to Kyle MacLachlan) with Gina Smith; Star Jones with the legendary Suzanne de Passe, Co-Chairman of de Passe Jones Entertainment Group; Diana Taylor and Liz Robbins, first woman-headed lobbying firm in Washington; Paul Wilmot; Jack Rains with Rona Michel; and scores more just like ‘em.
Quiet as it might seem compared to the shout-out days of cooler weather, you can be sure that many matters of much import in terms of business were being mulled over, pitched, planned and dreamed up by this group.
After lunch, I caught a cab just as the rains were re-appearing, and took myself up to Archivia Books on 72nd and Lex where they were holding a new book for me that is perfect for a rainy day in New York, especially for those of us who love American social history and a look at a cycle that preceded our boom-and-bubble times known as The Gilded Age – “Love Fiercely; A Gilded Age Romance” by Jean Zimmerman about these two, captured here on canvas by the master portraitist of his age, John Singer Sargent. |
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