Empire State Building. 4:45 PM. Photo: JH.

September 14, 2009. A week and a day to the autumnal equinox. It rained over the weekend, letting up with some cooler temperatures on Saturday night. In New York yesterday it was partly cloudy and sunny and surprisingly warm, even hot in the Sun, reminding of Indian Summer. Late last Thursday afternoon over in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium of the Metropolitan Museum, there was a memorial service for the late Charles Gwathmey, one of the city’s most prominent architects, who died of cancer at age 71 this past August 3rd. I didn’t know Mr. Gwathmey personally although from all I’ve heard of him, he was a man who evoked (and provoked) affection in a lot people. In short, they loved him and adored him, so his passing left a void for many. The sunshine in the face of almost any photograph I’ve seen of him is mirrored in the faces of those who did know him when they speak of him. My friend Jesse Kornbluth was also a good friend of his. On today’s Guest Diary, Jesse reports on the Gwathmey Memorial with care and insight, inspired by that affection.

The clamoring corwd at Chado Ralph Rucci's 2010 Spring Collection in the big tent this past Saturday night.

This past Saturday night I went down to the Tents in Bryant Park for the Chado Ralph Rucci 2010 Spring Collection in the big tent. The show was called for 7 although at quarter after we were still clamoring with hundreds of others just to get into the big tent. I got in at about 7:30 and the place was already packed. Mr. Rucci, who is the heir apparent to the tradition of American couture, has a large following among the best-dressed women in New York. He drew a huge crowd of the social ladies and the fashion media as well as fans such as the great James Galanos who, though retired (and living in L.A. and Palm Springs), keeps up with the world in which he remains legend.

Patrick McDonald

Keisha Whitaker and Rachel Roy

Rosemary Ponzo

Amy Fine Collins, Iris Apfel, and Carl Apfel

I didn’t see Anna Wintour, although I did see Glenda Bailey from Harper’s Bazaar and Vanessa Friedman of the Financial Times and Suzy Menkes of the International Herald-Tribue. Andre Leon Talley of Vogue was present in the first row, looking very much the potentate awaiting his litter (or magic carpet), bedecked in a vast raiment of ivory silk. Just across the aisle from him was Mario Buatta the Prince of Chintz who also moonlights as a comedian in all the right places. Mario often carries little tricks or jokes in his portfolio, many of which can turn the slightest pomposity into a veritable panic button. For example, he possesses a large bug which is made of rubber but from the distance of a foot or so, it looks exactly like a large and creepy cockroach. Grown men have been known to jump into their wives’ rescuing arms (I’m exaggerating but you get the picture).

Mario Buatta, Andre Leon Talley, Valerie Simpson, and Nickolas Ashford

Mario has been known to plant such “creatures” very near (almost on top of) someone while casually in conversation with them, and then casually pointing it out. This is what he did with Andre Leon Talley this past Saturday night while people were still finding their seats in the Rucci show. Well, let me just say -- the Sultan of Chic almost jumped straight out of his luscious vestment on first sight of that thang! He was definitely not amused. Warm-up completed, coincidentally the actual show got under way right after seven-thirty, and it was over in a little more than fifteen minutes.

Being the weekend hermit that I am, I was amazed to see so many at the Tents on a Saturday night even for the great Ralph Rucci. However, these next few days dominate the social life as well as much commercial life of New York They are very exciting for a lot of people, from the participants to the media to the guests. Fashion is always about the new, the fresh and the happening going on around us. The Ralph Rucci Show was impeccably elegant, so architectural, so chic, a triumph in progress and a big hit.

This past Friday night in the Penthouse Loft at the Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking, SHINSO Japanese Skincare and Japanese businessman S. Kawasaki held a champagne reception in honor of design legend Mary McFadden.

Yuko Takahashi, Kawasaki Sensie, Mary McFadden, and Naoteru Tsuruta

Elaine Sargent

Carmen Dell'Orefice

Caroline Ingram

Mary has been in the fashion business since first working for Vogue in the early 1960s when she was living in South Africa. Her interests and her work have taken her all over the world, acquiring authority on culture and the exotic. Five decades later Mary still possesses that rare vision that she brings to all of her creations.

Anka Alitz and Craig Dicks

Abraham Roofeh and Mike Nelson

Andrea Chafouleas, Matthew Rich, and Stephanie Fernandez, Miss Universe 2009

Debbie Dickinson, Marc Boyd, and Anne Smith

Christian Laliberte and Annabell Vartanian

Mary McFadden, Zang Toi, and Ling

Edgar Batista, Mary McFadden, Carmen Dell'Orefice, and Debbie Dickinson

Mary Morgan and Barbara Kamp

Justine Harari and Jessica MicRani

I took these pictures below last night at 6:45 when I went out on the terrace to look at the sky. When the Sun is going down in the West, East End Avenue begins to look a little dull, cut off from its colors by the tall apartment buildings on the west side of the avenue. Looking South to the corner across the street: The old buildings have been emptied of all commercial enterprise – the deli, the hairdresser, drycleaner, card shop, neighborhood restaurant – for a few years now. The last store on that group is a liquor store which replaced an earlier liquor store. This corner is a remnant of the great real estate boom of the late 90s and early 2000s. For years the property belonged to one man who, I’m told, sold it for $10 million or more to some developers. They then emptied the tenants from the buildings who were no doubt were paying very low rents (comparatively with other apartments in the neighborhood).

Looking south.

The businesses on the street level were also prosperous. The restaurant – Sirabella’s – owned by a neighbor of mine, was a local “Italian,” a sliver in the wall that employed about twenty-five people. The new owners bought Mr. Sirabella out of the lease and the 25 employees were given the heave-ho. In all of the situations, a number of people lost their jobs. This was not a problem at the time for most people. For the apartment tenants, it was no doubt a great problem finding comparable rents in comparably pleasant neighborhoods. As a result we have half a block of falling apart real estate which is a blotch. Why the buildings weren’t razed and a new one constructed I do not know, although I’d guess at this point that we won’t be seeing any razing or raising anytime soon. Looking to the north towards the end of the avenue, there was construction for a couple of years on the Chapin School on the corner. Chapin is a private girls school which first opened for business (on West 47th Street) in 1901. By a Miss Chapin. Since then it has had many famous alumna including Mrs. Onassis, Lilly Pulitzer, Vera Wang, Sunny von Bulow, Stockard Channing, Ivanka Trump and Alexandra Wolfe, to name only a few.

Looking north.

They built an addition which you can recognize because it looks nothing like the original brick building. When they built this addition, they covered many windows of the apartment building next door. No good neighbor goes unpunished, or something like that. A lot of people don’t like the addition. You could call it odd, or ugly, or inappropriate. To me it looks like the cartonnist’s version of a robot. With eyelashes. I call it arrogant, the architecture of the end of the aforementioned real estate boom. So you can see that both corners, the one to the south and the one to the left are their own kind of casualties of an era that some people like to call the Second Gilded Age. The terrace "garden." On the next corner – 85th Street – is 120 East End, the luxury apartment building put up by Vincent Astor when he was actively developing East End Avenue (originally Avenue B uptown) seventy years ago. Farther up the avenue (on 87th Street) is the glass condominium residential tower designed by Peter Marino Associates and completed in the past year. This replaced the old Doctor’s Hospital which catered to the Upper East Side elite. Mr. Marino’s building is thoroughly contemporary but a beauty. But then that’s what Peter Marino does. Right after I took these pictures, I took the dogs out for their stroll along the Promenade. It was 7:15 and the sky over the East River still reflected the sunset – swatches of pinkish grey clouds with a background of soft bright blue. Along the coastline of Queens, Roosevelt Island and Manhattan to the South, the lights were coming on in a twinkling mode, all reflected in the ebbing tide of the river’s surface. Getting close to dark, many were having their last walk, run, bicycling of the day. It was calm and peaceful and really beautiful. Even New Yorkers can have gardens at times, no matter how small and unoriginal, but when the skies turn grey, the impatiens light up.

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Photographs by PatrickMcMullan.com (McFadden)

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