D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A hoods, who are often singles and often retired. The center now helps thousands of seniors every year, providing all kinds of benefits including the precious opportunity for friendship—a rare gift for those of us at a certain age. Meanwhile, on the same day, at the same hour, down at the Museum of Modern Art, they were holding a ceremony presenting the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize to director Spike Lee. The Gishes were sisters, actresses who began on the stage as children at the end of the 19th century. They were both early stars, growing up in the silent films working for their mentor, D.W. Griffith. Both treated their profession
like members of a religious novitiate. And they set a good example. And there was more, same hour, over at the New York Public Library, Billy Rayner was interviewed by Jonathan Burnham, the publisher of HarperCollins about his new book, Notes and Sketches: Travel Journals of William P. Rayner. Billy, a longtime New Yorker, is a highly sociable fellow, meaning: he gets along with everybody, including a lot of everybodies, a hail-fellowwell-met. Billy has been keeping these diaries since he was a very young man. He’s also been painting his travels at the same
time, all his life. This book is part of the sum of that activity. Mae West once said: “Keep a diary and someday it’ll keep you.” In Show Business, maybe. Billy’s diary has a distinction all its own: a man’s hand expressed and described with his brushes and his pen. It’s beautifully published in two volumes, boxed with a silken cover featuring a depiction from a canvas of his. Meanwhile, even more… Ward and Nico Landrigan were hosted a book signing over at the Verdura salon at 745 Fifth Avenue for Alexander Vreeland, who edited a book of his famous grandmother’s memos during her years as the editor of Vogue.
It’s called Memos: The Vogue Years. It’s coffee table-book sized, beautifully published with photocopies of Mrs. Vreeland’s actual typewritten and handwritten memos and letters. Those of us who are Vreeland-ophiles believe this is the ultimate memoir of hers because it is her wit and clever thinking and unique point of view in her own words of the moment. Tuesday, November 5, 2013: New Yorkers got a new Mayor, Bill de Blasio. That night was the annual Library Lions dinner at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. This is
A S P R E Y C E L E B R AT E D I N T E R I O R S BY N I N A C A M P B E L L
Chesie Breen, Jane Walkowicz and Shannon McLean
Nina Campbell with Deepak Narula and Anju Murari-Narula 28 QUEST
David Easton and Nancy Sloan
Sophie Coumantaros and Ellie Cullman
Ellen Niven Deery, Mark Gilbertson and Lisa McCarthy
T K T K ( A B OV E ) ; PAT R I C K M C M U LL A N ( B E LO W )
John and Darcy Rigas