D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A T i f fa n y & C o . H o st e d “A S pa r k l i n g E v e n i n g ” C e l e b r at i n g the sevent y-fifth Anniversary of the Frick Collection
Alexis Light
memory of reading her book. You will too. The month just past: Early on was the eighty-seventh birthday of that Grande Dame of Dish Liz Smith. The number is correct but the concept has wandered so far from reality for her that it’s actually funny. She’s younger today than I was at forty, or even thirty, and hipper than any twenty-yearold I’ve ever met. The little girl from Texas who stepped off the bus here in Manhattan in 1949, after graduating from the University of Texas journalism school, has seen it all, done it all, written about it all, and lived to tell about it all. One 26 QUEST
Megan Kultgen, Caitlin Davies and Sean Dailey
day I lunched with her and Charlotte and Anne Ford at the Four Seasons, and she’s the most fun date in town. On the night of her birthday, Liz spent the evening with the entire wowOwow.com gang at the Café Carlyle, taking in the peerless performance of her friend Elaine Stritch, who is also celebrating her birthday on this day. Elaine’s just a kid, however; she’s eighty-four. The secret of eternal youth seems to be simple: work for a living and love it. You’ll just get better as you go along. So, happy birthday Liz and many thanks for all the wonderful things you’ve done for New York, your busloads
Lydia Fenet
Ed Swenson and Liz Walker
of friends, and for literacy in America. The social calendar. The book party. Joan Rivers hosted a reception at her sumptuous east-side duplex for her daughter, Melissa Rivers, and Melissa’s new book, Red Carpet Ready: Secrets for Making the Most of Any Moment You’re in the Spotlight, which she wrote with Tim Vandehey. This was a good party. I knew it would be because Joan is a gracious and welcoming hostess, and her digs are spacious, rarefied, and glamorous. For a little New York history, Joan lives in an architecturally famous building that was
Alina Cho
Sloan McClure and Maggie Borner
designed and built in 1903 for Alice and John Drexel by Horace Trumbauer, who built that famous E.T. Stotesbury house, Whitemarsh Hall, outside of Philadelphia. Stotesbury started out in business working for Drexel’s father, Anthony J. Drexel. Young Drexel didn’t see eye to eye with the up-and-coming E.T. Stotesbury, and at the elder Drexel’s suggestion, he left the business and moved to New York. Coming from Philadelphia, Mrs. Drexel especially wanted to impress New Yorkers with her house. And she did, as well as no doubt impressing the succeeding tenants who
Pat r i c k M c M u ll a n
Allison Aston, Elisabeth Saint-Amand and Joann Pailey