D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A woman named Helen verDuin Palit. Palit started back in the early 1980s managing Yale’s Dwight Hall Soup Kitchen in New Haven and a program she designed called the New Haven Salvage Project to re-distribute unused food to soup kitchens, shelters, and food pantries. In 1982, she expanded the idea in New York as City Harvest. Since then the “Harvest” programs have expanded in other major cities in Japan, Germany, and Australia. In both these cases, one woman had a simple objective: cure and feed. Now with the new season upon us, the social calendar
of the city comes alive again. At the beginning of the month just passed, on a mild and sunny day in the low 40s, I spotted the Witch Hazel blooming in Carl Schurz Park. It was visible from my terrace, a half a block away, on a Sunday. It is always the first sign of spring to me here in the city. This year it was two weeks earlier than last year (and last year’s was two weeks earlier than the year before). Two weeks later, the forsythia began to blossom. Then came the pears, and suddenly everything’s beautiful on the cross streets and along the avenues. After a typically quite late
winter season, the calendar began to fill up with events both philanthropic and cultural. Over at the Park Avenue Armory, the Art Show opened with a preview gala benefiting the Henry Street Settlement. This was the 28th year of the show, which is produced by the Art Dealers Association of America. The Henry Street Settlement is one of the New York neighborhood philanthropies that nurtured New York for more than a century—mainly for immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th century. These Settlement houses—and I’m thinking also of Lenox
Hill Neighborhood House and East Side House Settlement—are all still vibrant and crucial, teeming with activity and participants. This is a large part of the foundation that makes New York the city of the nation. Helping our neighbors strengthens the community all around. When we do help, that is. Two nights later, on March 3, at the Tomas Maier boutique on Madison Avenue and 76th Street, Tomas and his partner, Andrew Preston, along with Margaret Russell, editor of Architectural Digest, hosted a book signing for Firooz Zahedi, the pho-
C L E V E L A N D C L I N I C F L O R I D A H O ST E D “ L A D O LC E V I TA” B A L L AT M A R - A - L A G O
Mary and Thomas Gilbane
Mickey Beyer, Diann Scaravilli and KK Sullivan 26 QUEST
Linda and Bill Schecter with Sydell Miller
Beth and Sean Lang
Karen and Chris Watkins
C A P E H A RT P H OTO G R A P H Y
Betsy and George Matthews