D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A
David Patrick Columbia
NEW YORK SO CIAL DIARY NEW YORKERS WOKE the morning of Sunday, June 26, to learn the news that Bill Cunningham—the ubiquitous New York Times social and fashion photographer, who became an institution in his own right—died on Saturday afternoon in New York. He was 87 last March 14. Bonnie Strauss had emailed me the previous Wednesday to inquire if I had heard anything about him because he wasn’t in the last “Style” sec-
tion. I hadn’t heard anything. Then, that Friday, Ellin Saltzman sent a message that Bill had had a stroke and was not expected to survive; the call had gone out for “last rites.” Whatever was happening, he had also been up and out there working. Only a couple of weeks before, I saw him at the Wildlife Conservation Society dinner at the Central Park Zoo. He was there in his uniform of the blue cotton jacket and dark khaki pants,
and he was his characteristic, smiling self. Bill and I never knew each other. There was never the opportunity for me to get to know him. (And I never had the impression he was interested in getting to know me, anyway.) Frankly, we were both—wherever it was that we were—in the same room together for the same reason: to cover it. And so I learned about him by watching. Much was
obvious. Bill had a self-effacing manner; he was gracious, polite, centered with his work, but perhaps shy. This was a man who was totally a professional and a very hard worker. He was also a fashion designer in his heart, or at least in a part of his heart. A number of years ago there was an award ceremony for the designer Arnold Scaasi at the National Arts Club by Gramercy Park. I can’t remember the occasion
Bill Cunningham with Vogue Italia editor Anna Piaggi, as photographed by Marc de Groot in Paris, France (1989).
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