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GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
FOR SEVEN YEARS, I TOOK CARE OF MY AUNT MARY, the love of my life, who raised me – and who died of complications from dementia. On the bad days – and, let’s face it, they were mostly bad days on the slow march to the inexorable twilight – I said to her, “You cannot remember and I cannot forget.” Which was the same as talking to myself. Caring for her was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done – and the only thing, apart from publishing my books, that I’m proud of. Still, the experience confirmed what I have long suspected – that there is perhaps no greater hell than losing your mind. This month, we consider the mind – and the organ that is its basis, enabling us to think, feel, move and remember – in our “Brain Power” issue. We begin with the latest developments in brain research, which may really be the ultimate frontier and for that we’re grateful to neurosurgeon Ezriel Kornel and psychologist Harris Stratyner for taking their time to explain the research’s intricacies. There have been plenty of brainiacs in our area, from Yonkers’ Edwin H. Armstrong, father of FM radio, to New Haven native Charles Goodyear, who developed the vulcanization process. Mark has a look at these and other historic inventors, with an assist from Danielle. Take a bow, guys. Of course, few people define brain power the way Stephen Hawking does – not only for his contributions to everything from black holes to string theory, but for the idea that as his body deteriorates from ALS, his presence, his existence, his very being is his mind. Perhaps more than anyone alive he is his brain. His life, work and illness are the subject of a new, Oscar buzz-worthy film, “The Theory of Everything,” starring the beautiful Eddie Redmayne. And that gets us into the complex mind-body connection that relates to two other stories in the book. Bill visits with Carla Zilka, a formerly hard-charging GE exec and Wall Streeter, who now teaches others how to “change the body, quiet the mind” through aerial yoga and other forms of the discipline at her Mantra Mind Body studio in Old Greenwich. And we consider the tension between brains and beauty in a story on a provocative new exhibit at the Hudson River Museum that explores the peacock as a metaphor for gender bending and our Selfie Nation. (Note that
Ensemble by Ted Baker. Photograph by Bob Rozycki.
Zilka is wearing peacock print yoga pants in Bill’s photos. Danielle’s story about thinking woman’s lingerie designer/philanthropist Catalina Girald also features peacock prints. As Freud would say, there are no coincidences. To me, such moments of synergy make the mag sing and let me know it’s all coming together.) Our yoga and peacock stories, though, are also reminders – as are Mary’s take on the 100-year-old Woolworth Building, Leif’s visit with Lainie Wimberly of Brigadoon Show Stables at Turkey Hill Farm in North Salem, Frank’s peek into Neiman Marcus menswear – that you don’t have to be a Stephen Hawking to have a beautiful mind. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, our cover subject, has employed hers in service to our country – kudos to her in particular for tackling the topics of sexual assaults in the military and on campus – and in her new book, “Off the Sidelines.” Whether you’re reading that book – and we know the chapters on her weight struggles and balancing career and family have already gotten heavy play – or getting in one more round of golf before the clubs close for the season, you are using the old noggin. One of our more poignant stories involves an ArtsWestchester program that uses the arts to engage the mentally ill in a way that is not arts therapy. “The mind,” Milton’s Lucifer observes in “Paradise Lost,” “is its own place.” And while that place can be terrible and terrifying, it can be wondrous and transcendent, too. Georgette Gouveia is also the author of the new novel “Water Music,” the first in her series “The Games Men Play.” For more on the book, series and related blog, visit thegamesmenplay.com.
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The game that we know as Scrabble was created by Alfred Butts. But it was his friend James Brunot (and his wife) who gave it its name.
FATHERS OF
INVENTION THE LOCAL MEN BEHIND SOME GREAT MODERN PRODUCTS BY MARK LUNGARIELLO
WE RIDE IN THEIR CREATIONS, LISTEN TO THEM, PLAY GAMES WITH THEM. WITHOUT THEM, THE WORLD WOULD BE A TRULY INCONVENIENT, LESS EXCITING PLACE. AND YET, WE DON’T REALLY KNOW THE LOCAL MEN BEHIND SOME OF THE WORLD’S GREAT INVENTIONS. HERE NOW ARE THEIR STORIES: 12
EDWIN HOWARD ARMSTRONG Invention: FM Radio Local connection: Yonkers
Ken Burns documentary, “Empire of the Air,” which PBS broadcast in 1992. A tale of communication and miscommunication, it portrays the brilliant, brittle Armstrong as a latter-day Greek hero, whose strength was his weakness and whose triumph contained the seeds of his tragedy.
THE HOUSE OF THE SOMETIMES FORGOTTEN – AND OFTEN DISPUTED – FATHER OF FM RADIO STILL STANDS AT 1032 WARBURTON AVE. IN YONKERS. Edwin Howard Armstrong was born in New York City, but at age 12 moved to Yonkers with his family. It was at a friend’s house in Yonkers that the first public FM broadcast was made in 1935, according to the Yonkers Historical Society. Armstrong’s house was designated a historical landmark by the society in 1978, the attic where he began his career as an inventor still intact. After graduating from Columbia University, Armstrong developed several radio circuits and in the World War I-era built the regenerative and super-regenerative circuit and the superheterodyne receiver. These paved the way for his seminal creation, FM radio, which allowed for the reception of more frequencies and an overall crisper sound than AM radio. It was controversial because its transmission required new equipment for the media giants of the time. Though he became a millionaire during the radio boom of the 1920s, selling patent rights to major corporations, FM radio brought Armstrong into conflict with onetime collaborator, RCA, and its president, David Sarnoff, a Scarsdale resident. Seeking to develop TV technology, RCA parted ways with Armstrong, who continued to pursue the implementation of FM while Sarnoff used his considerable corporate might to hinder him at every turn. Eventually, Armstrong filed 21 patent lawsuits related to his FM creation, among them a suit against RCA that claimed the company had no right to the patent. His status as inventor of regenerative circuits was also contested. Emotionally and financially drained by his rivalry with Sarnoff and ongoing legal battles, Armstrong committed suicide in 1954, jumping out of the window of his 13th story apartment in Manhattan. Though his inventions changed the broadcast industry, the principles of regenerative circuitry and the superheterodyne are still used in radio and other transmissions today, Armstrong is not a household name. This despite the compelling
LEO BAEKELAND Invention: Bakelite Local connection: Yonkers BELGIUM-BORN INVENTOR LEO BAEKELAND DIED WITH MORE THAN 50 PATENTS TO HIS NAME. IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY, HE WAS A PARTNER IN A CHEMICAL COMPANY IN YONKERS. The company was later sold, but the eccentric Baekeland set up a laboratory in his Yonkers home, which historians refer to as Snug Rock. In the early 1900s, he patented Velox, a photographic paper that he eventually sold to Eastman Kodak. Still, it is his invention of Bakelite in 1907 Yonkers for which he is best remembered. Bakelite was the first synthetic plastic and it became a common component in everything from toys to telephones. Moreover, it set in motion the 20th century’s plastics revolution, as Bakelite was used in car components and light sockets, among other modern conveniences. By Baekeland’s death in 1944, global production of phenoplastics exceeded 175,000 tons, according to the Hudson A set of Bakelite buttons. River Museum. Photograph by Gregory Tobias. Want to impress your friends at your next dinner Courtesy the Chemical Heritage Foundation. party? Memorize and learn to pronounce Bakelite’s chemical name – polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride.
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ELISHA OTIS Invention: Otis Elevator Local connection: Yonkers
CHARLES GOODYEAR Invention: Vulcanization of rubber Local connection: New Haven
THE OTIS ELEVATOR CO. WAS STARTED IN YONKERS IN THE MID-1800S BY ELISHA OTIS, WHO WAS BORN IN VERMONT AND STRUGGLED THROUGH SEVERAL PROFESSIONS BEFORE DEVELOPING WHAT IS CALLED THE “SAFETY ELEVATOR” WHILE LIVING IN YONKERS. Although Otis didn’t come up with the concept of an elevator system himself, he revolutionized elevation by removing its No. 1 safety concern. Prior to Otis, if the rope holding an elevator broke, that elevator would plunge. Otis developed and later patented a system that included a cab, allowed for braking and improved safety so that the ropes could break and the elevator would not plunge from its hoist. The Otis Elevator Co. was formed after a successful demonstration of the safety elevator at New York’s Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1853. The company would become perhaps the best-known of its type in the world, with Otis elevators installed in such iconic structures as the Empire State Building. Indeed, the elevator, along with the manufacture of steel, made the skyscraper possible. They don’t make ’em like they used to: This Otis elevator was exported from the U.S. to Today, the company is owned by Scotland in 1856 for Gardner’s Warehouse in conglomerate United Technologies and Glasgow, the oldest cast-iron fronted building in the British Isles. is based in Hartford County.
This Goodyear blimp, the Spirit of Innovation, is set to retire in 2017. The company took its inspiration and name from Charles Goodyear, developer of the process that vulcanized rubber.
CHARLES GOODYEAR WAS BORN IN NEW HAVEN IN 1800 AND STRUGGLED FINANCIALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY FROM HIS EARLIEST DAYS. GOODYEAR WAS OBSESSED WITH IMPROVING THE LIMITS OF RUBBER, WHICH IN ITS NATURAL STATE IS STICKY, NOT DURABLE AND AFFECTED GREATLY BY CHANGES IN THE WEATHER. He worked to develop an improved rubber gum but faced increased debt. His focus undeterred, he reportedly sold many of his family’s possessions to finance his experiments. He even went to jail several times due to his outstanding debts,
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but biographers said he continued to formulate new ideas for rubber while behind bars. The inventor finally figured out vulcanization, the process of heating rubber and substances like sulfur to make rubber stronger and more solid. (The name comes from Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the smith.) Vulcanization would be used in shoe soles and Diego Velázquez’s “The Forge of Vulcan” tires. How exactly Goodyear discovered (1630), depicting the Roman god of the smith, whom Goodyear’s vulcanization process how to vulcanize rubber is a story lost to for was named. history. Some say he learned the process serendipitously. His claim to having invented the process was later contested. Goodyear lost the patent, beat out by Thomas Hancock, an Englishman who had a better scientific understanding of the physics of the process. Goodyear died in debt, but became the namesake for the famous Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which has no affiliation with his family.
ALFRED MOSHER BUTTS, JAMES BRUNOT Invention: Scrabble Local connection: Poughkeepsie and Bridgeport ALFRED BUTTS WAS A POUGHKEEPSIE-BORN ARCHITECT WHO INVENTED SCRABBLE IN THE 1930S. THE GAME COMBINED SKILL WITH THE LUCK OF THE DRAW OF THE LETTERS. BUTTS ANALYZED IN-DEPTH LETTER FREQUENCY IN WORDS TO DEVELOP THE SCORING METHOD AND NUMBER OF TILES, LIMITING THE NUMBER OF “S” TILES SO THAT YOU COULDN’T RACK UP POINTS BY PLURALIZING WORDS. HE CALLED THE GAME CRISS CROSS WORDS. According to legend, the word lover tried to sell the idea for the board game to
A MASTERS MIND IS BRAVE
several manufacturers who rejected the idea and he continued his day job as an architect. His friend James Brunot, a Bridgeport resident, became its promoter. He and his wife renamed the game Scrabble and opened a manufacturing plant in a converted schoolhouse, according to the National Scrabble Association. The Brunots struggled in the early days, with Brunot keeping his day job for several years while sales were slow. One year, the company lost $450. By the 1950s, the game’s popularity caught on and became a household item, but the Brunots couldn’t keep up with demand and licensed the game to a commercial manufacturer. Brunot died in the 1980s and Butts in the 1990s. They never got to try “Words with Friends,” the cellphone app and deliberate Scrabble knockoff.
JOSEPH ENGELBERGER AND GEORGE DEVOL Invention: The Robot Local connection: Bethel THE WORD “ROBOT” WAS COINED BY ISAAC ASIMOV, BUT IT WAS ONE OF HIS STUDENTS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY WHO’S CONSIDERED THE FATHER OF ROBOTICS. Joseph Engelberger was born in New York City, but it was his work as president of Fairfieldbased Unimation Inc. that set the robotics industry in motion. Engelberger, a bow-tied businessman, built Unimate, which was the first truly industrial robot in the world. He did so by licensing the 1953 patent of George Devol, a Kentucky-born inventor who had previously worked on photo cell technology. With the financial backing of Condec, which owned Unimation, and Devol’s patent, Unimation built Unimate Unimate and Engelberger eventually appeared on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” in 1960s and the technology was employed at a General Motors factory in New Jersey. It is now in the Smithsonian Institution. Devol died in 2011 at his Wilton home, while Engelberger still lives in the area and has since worked with other robotics-developing companies. With Reporting by Danielle Renda.
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Ezriel Kornel
WHAT DO YOU THINK? BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY YAEGER PUBLIC RELATIONS
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NEUROSCIENCE IS HAVING ANOTHER BIG MOMENT. Not a day goes by that there isn’t an article about the neurological applications of, well, almost anything. There’s the neuroscience of racism in the aftermath of Ferguson. (Supposedly, we’re hardwired for prejudice but can overcome it.) And the neuroscience of stress and success. (We can use our minds to de-stress and become our best selves. Duh.) Then there’s neuroscience as “Star Trek,” boldly going where no man has gone before. In the future, we might not only be able to access lost memories, but the memories of others, feel the emotions of actors in our own bodies and communicate with the minds of the departed. It boggles the mind to think where the mind might venture. But what about the current landscape of the brain? Where are the new and next frontiers? And what myths of the mind do we need to debunk once and for all? We turned to neurosurgeon Ezriel Kornel and psychologist Harris Stratyner for some answers and found that we don’t need seeming science fiction to be excited by what’s going on in brain research.
“In terms of medicine, what is critical is dementia,” says Kornel, a principal of Brain & Spine Surgeons of New York and director of the Institute for Neurosciences at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco. “There’s dementia from Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia, which is related to strokes. That has declined considerably.” Among the factors contributing to the decline are control of diet, cholesterol and high blood pressure, a decrease in smoking and an increase in exercise. Treatment of vascular dementia has also become more proactive, he adds, with the use of a stent, for example, to open a blocked basilar artery, which supplies blood to the brain. While Alzheimer’s is trickier, Kornel says, “I’m very excited by significant research into certain proteins blocking the metabolism of proteins that then build up in the brain,” forming plaques and tangles that damage the brain’s synapses and cause the disease. The key to unlocking these proteins
is not far off, he says. In the meantime, neuroscientists can now at least more readily identify those who are at greater risk of Alzheimer’s by using genetic markers. “With the genetic work that’s going on, it won’t be many years before we’ll be able to alter the genes of those individuals,” he says. Kornel advocates a mind-body balance – physical exercise as well as reading, studying, playing games, constantly learning – to decrease our risk of Alzheimer’s. That’s easier said than done in our sedentary digital age. But even here, the computer can be an aid if we’re using it for study and video games that increase our skill. “It’s a tool,” he says. “It’s how we use it.”
TREATING MENTAL ILLNESS AND ADDICTION As far as brain applications are concerned, the most important is the use of electrode implants for the management of pain and movement disorders such as Parkinson’s, says Kornel, in the
vanguard of those physicians using minimally invasive surgery. But, he adds, electrode implants have the most interesting potential for those suffering from refractory depression, for whom medication is not effective. Kornel isn’t talking about the old electric-shock therapy depicted in the movies but a safe, refined treatment that could alleviate certain forms of “a disease we haven’t completely understood.” That’s where psychologist Stratyner comes in. With offices in Yonkers and on the Upper East Side, Stratyner, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is an expert in co-occurring disorders such as bipolar disorder and alcoholism, which he says is what Robin Williams suffered from. Stratyner also developed the technique of “Carefrontation,” in which addicts and those suffering from co-occurring disorders own their situations in an atmosphere of dignity and respect. “What’s fascinating,” Stratyner says, “is we’re starting to understand
so much more about the brain in terms of the neocortex, which is the most advanced part and makes up two-thirds of the brain and particularly the frontal lobe, which governs reasoning, impulse control, empathy, altruism and memory.” The frontal lobe is a work in progress among those ages 14 to 26 who don’t realize the damaging effects that alcohol and drugs like marijuana can have on it. “If the brain is the seat of our minds … then it’s also the seat of our spirituality,” says Stratyner, a contributor to the “PDR Guide to Pediatric & Adolescent Mental Health.” “There’s a lot we can do to get naturally high.”
BRAIN MYTHS BUSTED Stratyner and Kornel say one of the biggest misconceptions about the brain is the notion of a right brain and a left one, which holds that the left hemisphere of the brain is analytical, logical, verbal and mathematical while the right hemisphere is spatial, visual, intuitive and emotional. The
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Psychologist Harris Stratyner
theory began to take shape in the mid-20th century with Caltech neuroscientist Roger W. Sperry’s research on severely epileptic patients, who had had the hemispheres of their brains separated in an effort to control their seizures. But the notion that the hemispheres might be two independent operators really took flight in the 1980s when it was applied to everything from art (Betty Edwards’ book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”) to learning disabilities. It was not long before the advertising world picked up what was essentially a metaphor and ran with it – as in the 1982 Saab print ad campaign “a car for the left side of your brain, a car for the right side of your brain.” (Turns out it was the same Saab Turbo that was at once a sensible purchase and a thrill ride.) While someone may be more analytical than intuitive, Kornel says, “in fact people do use both sides of their brain extensively. …Both sides have to interact.”
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And that’s crucial as well as heartening, Stratyner says, because it means that “one area can take over for the one that’s been damaged.” Another myth is that we only use a small portion of the brain, which is made up of millions of neurons. Granted, Kornel says, they’re not all in play at once. But many are. We still don’t much understand the leap from neuron activity to such phenomena as private thought. There’s much we have to learn about the interplay of the unconscious and conscious minds and the mind-body connection, he says. What’s key here, Stratyner says, is that just because we have millions of neurons doesn’t mean we should waste them. “Don’t gamble with the brain,” he says. Instead, celebrate it for the unique organ it is, he says, for we are the only species with a brain engaged in the wondrous, poignant activity of trying to understand itself.
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
THE
EVOLUTION
OF A MASTERPIECE STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB ROZYCKI
W
Where some see a fallen tree as kindling, sculptor Judith Economos sees artistic potential. It was right after Superstorm Sandy that Judith and her husband, Andrew, spotted some very large American black walnut trees that had crashed to the ground in Westchester County. After a quick inspection and a monetary exchange with the homeowners, the logs were trucked to the spacious Economos home, itself replete with the couple’s creative endeavors of sculpture, paintings and even mahogany furnishings.
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As the wood was sitting and seasoning in the backyard, Judith was in the house brainstorming about what to turn it into. Andrew suggested that she create a sculpture from a Picasso-like line drawing she had done years earlier that hung in an upstairs bedroom. While it may appear simple on paper, Judith would have to translate its folds and curves into a three-dimensional object. “So how in the world can I do it?” she asked herself. She grabbed modeling clay and sat herself down at a desk in her studio. Her fingers formed the overall look and small metal instruments helped with the detail work of the eyes, mouth and strands of hair. With the model done, it was onto the more physical work. Judith walked among the wood and sized up one log as being just right. She called on friend Raphael Lima to “saw it into a usable hunk.” The first time we visited with Judith was in January 2013 when she was astride the “usable hunk,” all 400 pounds of it. With mallet in one hand and chisel in the other, this wisp of a woman hammered away, in turn answering the unasked question as to how she keeps in shape. Each blow of the mallet removes but a chip from the hardy walnut, as this writer can attest from a short-lived, hands-on (and none too pretty) experience. But as Judith hacked it down each successive day, her back “got bad.”
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Back surgery followed as the doctor “cleared disc debris.” It would be a year in June when she would feel physically ready to return to the wood. Was there any fear such as a fallen bicyclist or thrown horse rider might feel in the mechanical aspect of picking up the mallet and chisel after a year’s time? “None,” Judith says. “The only fear is when you have to make tiny little cuts. The smallest (mistake) could change from a smile to a clown face.” So it was at the beginning of June that Judith returned to her work. “I didn’t feel so bad,” although she admits with a smile to “whacking a few fingers.” It began as a few hours at a time and grew. Sometimes she had to get past a design problem and as she did the sculpture got better. As you proceed, “it draws you in,” she says. As she puts it, “I was done with the hacking in late August.” Then came the sanding, with which Andrew helped. “You start with coarse and end with triple aught sandpaper,” she says. It was a week of sanding with the crevices posing the most problems. Then it was the oiling, “walnut oil first.” After soaking in for a few days, the sculpture received its chrism of lemon oil and was baptized “The Lady with the Long Neck.” “I love that velvety feel,” Judith says as the caresses her work. “Sculptures should be touched. It’s a very tactile experience.” Since the start, the sculpture shed about 300 pounds in wood and water weight. It rests inside the house on a round glass table supported by the log from which it was created. But there is no time to admire for Judith. “I’m already planning my next,” she says.
OCTOBER at the Center Mike Birbiglia: Thank God for Jokes October 2 • 8pm Opera at the Cinema: La Traviata October 5 • 2pm
An Afternoon with David Sedaris October 12 • 3pm Black Violin October 19 • 3pm Harlan Jacobson’s Talk Cinema October 21 • 7pm New Orleans Legends Preservation Hall Jazz Band & Allen Toussaint October 24 • 8pm
TICKETS
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: Fauré & Ysaÿe October 25 • 5pm
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WWW.ARTSCENTER.ORG or in person at the box office 735 Anderson Hill Road Purchase, NY Box office hours: Tues-Fri noon to 6pm
DAVID SEDARIS | Photo © Anne Fishbein
Major sponsorship of The Performing Arts Center’s 2014-15 Season is provided by THE VIVIAN AND SEYMOUR MILSTEIN ENDOWED FUND • The Performing Arts Center’s programs are also made possible by ArtsWestchester with support from Westchester County Government • • The Orchestra and Chamber Music Series are made possible in part by support from the Tanaka Memorial Foundation • • Special thanks to our corporate sponsor Steinway & Sons and media sponsor WNYC •
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CULTIVATING BEAUTIFUL MINDS BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY ARTSWESTCHESTER
The lady in blue Walks through the park She feels the dawning of the day Painting by Nicolas S. Drift on by The autumn air Trees changing Sadness FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS, ARTSWESTCHESTER – a Mental Health, ArtsWestchester provides residencies ms and paintings displayed were created by clients of Rockland Psychiatric Center under the direction of David Surface and flagship arts council in New York state – has partnered in the visual, literary and performingRemembering arts to 26 agen- the summer heat Westchester County’s Department of Communithroughout the county – an increase of six over A school teacher der, through an artist residencywith made possible by ArtsWestchester withcies support from Westchester County. ty Mental Health in a program that helps participants last year. Some 260 people, who come from every deuse their minds to heal their minds. mographic group, will be served this No year rush alone. to get home For those suffering from mental illness, the arts proThe residencies are seven to eight Tired weeks long, andwith alone vide “one of the most normalizing experiences,” says each class being two to two and a half hours. As she escapes Joanne Mongelli, ArtsWestchester’s deputy director of “It’s a nice chunk of time that an artist gets to spend Worriment crosses her mind programs and policy. with eight to 10 (people),” says Jessy Méndez, Arts“If we can provide them with enough support, Westchester’s coordinator of arts in education. So easy to let go chances are they can stay in their communities.” Both she and Mongelli stress that this is different of the thoughts racing Using funds from the Department of Community from arts therapy. The participating artists are not
24 created by clients of Rockland Psychiatric Center under the direction of David Surface and displayed were rtist residency made possible by ArtsWestchester with support from Westchester County.
licensed therapists, Méndez notes. Nor do they know their students’ diagnoses, Mongelli says. It is, Méndez adds, “a judgmentfree zone.” “What we stress to the artists is that it’s not their job to figure out what kind of mental illness the (participants) have, but to tap into their inner creativity.” Some might discover a hidden talent. Some might find that their talent lies more in the appreciation of the arts. Whatever it is, Mongelli says, “self-expression is good for all of us.” What is perhaps most exciting – and moving – is that from these residencies, new connections are made. It could be that the individuals in one residency join to make a mural. Last month, some 70 participants came together to display more than 150 works in all visual media in “Visions 2014: Art of the Mind,” the latest installment of the annual ex-
hibit held at ArtsWestchester’s Arts Exchange headquarters in White Plains. This year, two residencies bore unusual, collaborative fruit. At the Mount Vernon office of the Rockland Psychiatric Center, painter Tova Snyder led a residency in which 12 students learned the basics of painting – including the use of chiaroscuro or shading – as well as how to frame their works, which were then displayed in the halls of the facility. They inspired poet David Surface, leading another residency, to get his students to create imageryinspired poetry based on them. The marriage of words and images resulted in the creation of three posters that grace the 329 Bee-Line buses that thread Westchester and the Bronx. One featured an abstract painting by Jibaro in waves of lime, or-
Painting by Jibaro.
ange, red, purple and blue, accomArtsWestchester, celebrating its The poems and paintings displayed were created by clients of Rockland Psychiatric Center under the direction of David Surface and panied by C.M.’s poem “Face of the golden anniversary in 2015, presents Tova Snyder, through an artist residency made possible by ArtsWestchester with support from Westchester County. People”: “Drawing Line into Form: Works on “We have suffered for so long, Paper by Sculptors From the Collecbeaten and broken tion of BNY Mellon” (Oct. 3-Dec. Our bodies are in pain but our 6). The show is a window into the minds are free creative process of a Who’s Who of The hunger will never subside but Modern and contemporary art as the spirits of our people two dimensions become three. will keep us fighting For more, visit artswestchester.org. We believe in the unbelievable.”
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A legacy of architectural GENIUS Celebrating Cass Gilbert through his masterful Woolworth Building 26
BY MARY SHUSTACK PHOTOGRAPHS BY THOMAS MCGOVERN PHOTOGRAPHY
T THOUGH JUST SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN A TRADITIONAL BUSINESS CARD, THE FULL-COLOR, FOLDOUT HELEN POST CURRY HANDS YOU SAYS IT ALL.
“Woolworth Building Lobby Tours… A 1913 Landmark by Cass Gilbert.” The lower Manhattan icon soars, even in miniature, as vibrantly as its mosaic-and-marble lobby is majestically captured on the reverse. That the tiny glimpse into history has just been shared by a descendant of Gilbert, the architect behind the Manhattan
landmark, makes it all the more special. Curry, a great-granddaughter of Gilbert, has been spreading the word about her family’s legacy for the past few years. “I first really became aware of his work roughly 10 or 15 years ago,” she says. “It really was fascinating to me.” As she says, “one thing led to the next” and the more she learned about the man and his work, the more she wanted to know – and share. “This just grabbed me. What can I say?” the New Canaan resident says with a smile. And since the summer of 2013, Curry and her California-based brother Chuck Post have headed up the only company that offers tours of the National Historic Landmark building’s lobby. “We’re allowed in here on the good graces of the management of the building,” she says on a recent afternoon within 233 Broadway. Ever since 9/11, she shares, access had been restricted to those who worked in the skyscraper that once held claim as the world’s tallest building. “A couple of years ago, I became very involved in wanting to celebrate the
in Ridgefield.” Though Curry long knew of the Gilbert connection, the legacy was not part of the family’s day-to-day life. “I think that in Cass Gilbert’s era it was quite typical for there to be a big separation between the professional and personal life,” she says. Curry, who graduated from Finch College in New York and later the New York School of Interior Design, runs her own interior design company in New Canaan. Creating the tours and honoring a legend in the field of architecture seems to fit. “I don’t think it’s such a big stretch from the work that I’ve been doing,” Curry says, noting her own affinity for design and color. She specializes in personal color palettes, helping clients in “creating an environment in which they look their best.” And the tour company isn’t the first collaboration with her brother. Curry says she has often worked with him on his real-estate renovation and development projects. Still, the launching of Woolworth Tours has provided quite a challenge. “I didn’t know I was taking on a mar-
centennial of this building,” Curry says. And that led to “Woolworth Week,” a series of lectures, exhibitions, tours and celebrations marking the April 2013 milestone. From those events that drew scholars, authors, design fans and tourists alike, Curry quickly realized the enduring interest in Gilbert, whose early career in Minnesota led to the creation of the Cass Gilbert Society there. “The tours were a big success,” Curry says. “People who are aware of the art and architecture are thrilled to get in.”
FAMILY TIES Curry, who grew up in Manhattan and has lived in New Canaan for more than 35 years, recalls many summers spent at the Gilbert family retreat in Ridgefield, the property now known as The Keeler Tavern Museum. “That’s the place in my earliest childhood memories,” she says. Curry says “people always ask” if she got to know Gilbert. No, she shares with a laugh, as he died in 1934, when her own father was only 12. She did, though, get to know her great-grandmother and recalls “having tea with her
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keting opportunity,” Curry says of the many tasks involved in this very defined element of the building that has again been in the news of late. This summer, it was announced that the penthouse – the building has two separate owners, the lower floors housing businesses with the top half being developed for residential use – will sell for some $110 million.
ON TOUR Though Curry can easily discuss the finer points of the building, from its “Byzantine barrel vault” ceiling to the “medieval guild hall” influences, she and her brother do not regularly conduct the tours themselves. “We’ve had fun building up the team of guides,” Curry says. “They all come with a basic knowledge of the history of architecture. They come from different disciplines, though.” WAG had the pleasure of taking an hour-long tour – options range from 30 to 90 minutes, with custom and private tours also available – prior to meeting up with Curry. Lisa Renz, a preservationist and architectural historian specializing in 19th and early-20th century American architecture, was the guide on a recent evening. Through her intelligent commentary, presented in a manner both informative and entertaining, the group learned of the storied building’s origins. At 792 feet, the Woolworth Building was created to hold the headquarters of F.W. Woolworth Co., Frank Woolworth’s famed empire of fiveand-dime-stores. It would also house retail and business offices, remaining the tallest building in the world for some 15 years (until it was eclipsed, in rapid succession, by 40 Wall Street and then, the Chrysler Building), with an observation deck open to the public until the early 1940s. Gilbert, who found success in the Midwest and already had impressive national and New York credentials (the U.S. Custom House), was commissioned by Frank Woolworth in 1910 to design the dream for which he would pay $13.5 million in cash. Renz shares she has spent countless hours delving into the Woolworth and Gilbert history. “I go through pages and pages of onionskin at the New-York Historical Society,” she says. “I just let it speak to me.” And she loves passing on what she finds. “Frank Woolworth wanted this building to be a comment on his place
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in the world of commerce,” she says. It remains a standout with its terracotta exterior highlighted by flying buttresses and intricate spires that lend it a cathedral-like air, leading some to call it “The Cathedral of Commerce.” The entire project, though, she shares is “not any one architectural style,” Renz says. “It became exceedingly clear this building was a fantasy.” And to that end, there are countless elements that continue to inspire awe, from the intricate mosaic ceiling of the lobby to the dramatic staircase that once led to the headquarters of the Irving National Exchange Bank. “This building was built in a time when there were a million changes in technology,” Renz adds. Fancifully decorated doors by Tiffany opened to the first high-speed elevators from the Otis Elevator Company of Yonkers, while the building’s steel frame and other design decisions created elaborate fireproofing. But equal parts of the story are the personal touches, which truly bring
Helen Post Curry at the Woolworth Building. Photograph by Bob Rozycki.
the building to life. Lobby corbels feature “grotesques,” or exaggerated, comical interpretations that “represent people involved in the construction of the building,” Renz says, pointing out both Gilbert and Woolworth himself. (Later, Curry will share that her “favorite aspect of the building, in a way, has to be the sense of humor.”) It all adds up to something truly special that can once again be explored, Renz concludes. “People are really excited about it, and it’s a fabulous building,” she says. The tours offer a glimpse into history, technology, decorative arts, commerce… “almost too much to take in, on so many levels,” Curry adds. And we agree. At one moment during the visit with WAG, when Curry has granted us access to the usually restricted mezzanine, she seems to savor our reactions. “It just takes your breath away, doesn’t it?” For more, visit WoolworthTours.com.
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THE CREATIVE MIND OF JUDY COLLINS
A
BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY JUDY COLLINS.
A LOT OF ELEMENTS – A LOT OF THOUGHT – GO INTO A JUDY COLLINS CONCERT. “There’s the element of surprise – something new, something different,” she says. “It has to have some well-known songs. But I never sing all of my hits.” If each song is a story – woven with poetic lyrics, a haunting melody and limpid vocals – then a concert “stresses the arc of the songs selected. There has to be a beginning, middle and end. I tell many stories along the way. And it always ends with me at the piano.” For her Oct. 25 gig at Manhattan’s Town Hall, she says she’ll probably include “New Moon Over the Hudson,’’ which she wrote for a concert taped in Ireland a year ago that’s become a popular feature of PBS’ pledge drives. Collins’ Irish ancestors fought in the American Revolution and the Civil War. “New Moon” is her way of keeping faith with those who live to see me born and in their dreams…saw the Irish morn. This being autumn with the dreaded “w” season approaching, she’s
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planning on singing “The Blizzard” and a song that should hearten all those who despise the winter, “The Fallow Way”: I’ll learn to love the fallow way And listen for the blossoming Of my own heart once more in spring As sure as time, as sure as snow As sure as moonlight, wind and stars The fallow time will fall away The sun will bring an April day And I will yield to summer’s way “I can get into it in many different ways,” she says of her creative process. “The Fallow Way” came to her as a poem when she was in the country, watching it snow. She called up a friend, the novelist Erica Jong, who said, “Oh, that’s not a poem. Those are lyrics to a song.” So off Collins went to the keyboard. “Sometimes the music comes first and finally the lyrics.” Some
songs are in pieces, waiting for Collins to get into the studio to weave them together. It isn’t easy to find that time. “You have to earn a living,” she says. And that means going out on the road as she has for five decades, putting a stamp not only on her own unique songbook but on the songs of others. Indeed, such are her gifts as an interpretive artist that many of the songs we think of as Judy Collins songs were written by others. Is there a more poignant arrangement/interpretation of Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” or a more powerful one of “Amazing Grace”? Can you remember anyone else singing Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”? Or Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne”? Some or all of these might turn up on the Oct. 25 concert, with one or two selected for encores – codas to the aria that is the night. There are other, less well-known renditions that get some play, deservedly so. A reading of Joan Baez’s “Diamonds and Rust” – her tough, tender account of her love affair with Bob Dylan – turns up on Collins’ PBS concert set against the dramatic backdrop of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur, complete with her recollections of the young Baez and Dylan. And her rollicking version of “City of New Orleans,” on the double-CD “Forever: An Anthology,” is sure to set toes to tapping and heads to bobbing. Songs are not all that dance in Collins’ fertile mind. She’s written nine books, with a 10th manuscript – which she can’t discuss yet – now with her agent. Most of these are nonfiction, including memoirs like last year’s “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes,” in which she dealt with her alcoholism and suicide attempt and her son’s suicide. “Shameless,” a mystery set in the music world, provided an escape. “It was so much nicer to be let out of one’s own story for a change,” Collins says with a laugh. She has an idea for a new novel, drawing on some of the characters in “Shameless.” As to when she finds time to practice, compose, record, tour, write and do speaking engagements, well, credit the discipline of her upbringing and her classical music education.
“I grew up in a family in which you had to do your homework. You had to do your practicing,” she says. Seattle-born and Denver-raised, Collins was the oldest of five children. She describes her father, the blind singer/DJ Chuck Collins, and her mother as liberated. So was her classical piano teacher, Antonia Brico, who became a conductor at a time when few women dreamed of such a musical career. Collins’ classical background “grounded me in organizing my time and putting in the hours practicing the piano.” And while the East Coast folk revival in the 1960s called to her, setting her on her path, she never forgot Brico. Collins and Jill Godmilow made a documentary about her in 1974 for PBS. “Antonia: A Portrait of a Woman” was also released in commercial theaters and nominated for an Academy Award. Collins says it will return to PBS this year in honor of the film’s 40th anniversary. She has had a long relationship with public television, with another PBS special planned for 2016. “I love it. PBS has been very good to me.” A friend of the late Jim Henson, Collins appeared with The Muppets on “Sesame Street” three or four times, performing 16 different songs. Despite Miss Piggy’s reputation, Collins says there was no diva-dom on the set: “They play well with others.” Given all that she’s accomplished, it’s hard to imagine downtime for Collins. But she makes downtime – reconnecting with her far-flung family on the road, going to the movies and heading off with husband Louis Nelson – a designer who created the mural wall for the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. – to their Connecticut hideaway. WAG can’t resist asking if it’s true that she and Nelson actually maintain separate households – an arrangement we know some wives wish they had. Collins laughs her throaty laugh. He maintains the Connecticut place. She maintains the Manhattan apartment. “And it works out that way.”
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FEW PEOPLE EMBODY THE IDEA OF “THE BRAIN” – THE MIND, REALLY – THE WAY STEPHEN HAWKING DOES. The word “embody” is not used lightly here. Hawking’s thinking on the origins of the universe, the limits of time, the limitlessness of space, the radiation from black holes, the phenomena of parallel universes and the relationship of the theory of relativity to quantum mechanics leads us to utter his name in the same breath as Einstein’s. The very circumstance of that thinking – in a body increasingly wasted – has become a poignant metaphor for the complexity of the mind-body connection. Hawking’s illness – amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a motor neuron disease – has trapped his body. But it’s also, in a sense, freed his mind. That disconnect is the subject of a new movie, “The Theory of Everything” (Nov. 7), which stars Eddie Redmayne as Hawking and is already generating Oscar buzz. That Hawking should be played by one of the most devastatingly attractive actors around – a man who has modeled for Burberry and was named to Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed List in 2012 – is both ironic and fitting. (Not that Redmayne is any slouch in the brains and talent departments, with Eton, Cambridge and Tony and Olivier awards on his résumé.) Still, think of all those absent-minded professors played by Cary Grant in glasses (“Bringing up Baby,” “Monkey Business”) or the elegant Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon as radium-discovering scientists Marie and Pierre Curie in “Madame Curie.” Or the virile Russell Crowe as schizophrenic mathematician John Nash, using his mind to heal his mind, in “A Beautiful Mind.” The new film “The Imitation Game” (Nov. 21), about another mathematician, closeted World War II Enigma Code-breaker Alan Turing, stars incandescent Sherlock Holmes du jour Benedict Cumberbatch. (Perhaps not so coincidentally, he played Hawking in a 2004 film.) It’s as if Hollywood must assure its audience and its own insecure self that hey, nerds can be sexy, too. And remind us in turn that it is in the business of illusion. Redmayne, after all, can contort his body, deliver a performance that’s drawing comparisons to Daniel Day-Lewis in “My Left Foot,” unwind that lanky frame and bound off to the Toronto International Film Festival in a natty turquoise suit. Hawking cannot. But then, he would
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THE BIG BRAIN
THEORY The stunning mind-body connection of Stephen Hawking BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
Stephen Hawking. © Alessandrozocc | Dreamstime.com.
say that from a scientific standpoint, reality is an illusion, too. The reality is that the mind and the body cannot exist without one another. To be brain-dead is to be dead, in ef-
fect. But even the most willing of spirits will ultimately be done in by the flesh, which is weak. When you read about Hawking’s life, what strikes you immediately is
not just how intellectual it has been, but how physical as well. Though he came from a family that placed a high premium on education, Hawking was no classroom recluse but a funny, popular kid who liked to build model airplanes and boats, shoot off fireworks and play board games, all with his pals. At Oxford University, where he studied physics and chemistry, he was a daredevil coxswain, charting risky courses for the rowing team. Even after he was diagnosed with ALS at Cambridge University at age 21, he didn’t slow down. He continued his doctorate work there and married his first wife, Jane Wilde, whose memoir “Travelling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen” is the backbone of the movie. They had three children – Robert, Lucy and Timothy – and despite other entanglements (she fell in love with organist Jonathan Hellyer Jones; he married and divorced one of his nurses, Elaine Mason) have remained close. Once the fiercely independent Hawking accepted the use of a wheelchair, he became as reckless in his “driving” as he had been in coxing the Oxford rowing team. As his fame increased with the publication of his mass-market success, “A Brief History of Time” – which he wrote to supplement his income as the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge and director of research at its Centre for Theoretical Cosmology – he traveled, lectured, organized conferences and partied, with the aid of wives, nurses, assistants and a computerized voice (albeit with an American accent) that he and we have come to think of as distinctive. That voice coupled with the impish figure have proved to be an irresistible presence on everything from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” to “The Simpsons” to “The Big Bang Theory.” You have to think, though, that he would not have become a cultural icon without a transcendent mind both spurring and defying a humbled body. At the same time, that body has liberated his mind. Not for him the mundane tasks that bedevil so many creative types. And yet, that kind of freedom has come at such a price. Still… In the film, a 21-year-old Hawking is given two years to live. He’s now 72. “There should be no boundary to human endeavor,” he says in the movie. “However bad life may seem, where there is life, there is hope.”
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Carla Zilka of Mantra Mind Body in Old Greenwich.
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YOGA’S TRANSCENDENT POSSIBILITIES STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL FALLON
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CARLA ZILKA KNEW STRESS. Her published book might even be considered must-read material for certain high-stress achievers – “Business Restructuring: An Action Template for Reducing Cost and Growing Profit.” Her work experience includes a vice presidency at GE and a stint as a Wall Street trader. Zilka knew, too, how to de-stress, using yoga. In an occupational battle of the wills, yoga with all its serenity would trump big business with all its big busyness. For three years she’s been owner and principal instructor of Mantra Mind Body in Old Greenwich. She also partners with Yoga for Everybody in Fairfield, where she runs the aerial yoga component. “Linking mind and body is the only way to find fulfilled happiness,” she says. “That’s our job, to teach people how to transform into their highest form. The inside has to be transformed for that best person to appear.” She has studied and teaches several types of yoga – a heated variety began in September and the already-popular aerial yoga is getting a dedicated room as well in the 3,000-square-foot space – but admits aerial and Yin are her favorites. Aerial yoga is just what it sounds like, using outsized elastic bands suspended from steel girders. Yin features long-held and firmly grounded poses. “You have to slow down and be grounded before you can lift up and progress,” she says of Yin. As for aerial, “I try to get upside
down every day.” Attired in peacock-patterned pants, Zilka says, “We’re pretty individualistic and crazy with what we wear around here.” But she also mentions an outfit company known for its showy styles and says, “We’re not about that.” Besides Yin and aerial, Zilka has trained in Hatha, Vinyasa and restorative yogas. Additionally, she has developed and teaches what she calls “smart yoga.” She was always an athlete (NCAA track and field; Syracuse University cheerleader), but said yoga offered her something more profound: “Change the body, quiet the mind.” In the world of finance, Zilka says, part of her job was to lower the stress and anxiety of big deals. “That is exactly what I do for people now. I reduce their stress and anxiety and transform them into their happier self. I used to go deep into a company during restructuring. Now I go into people’s souls.” There the broad-brush suppressors of personal growth are societal pressures and egos. “Men, interestingly, can be the first to see their ego is in the way.” Whatever the challenge, she says, “We want to figure out what’s blocking you from being your higher self.” Mantra Mind Body, at 1455 E. Putnam Ave., hosts 35 classes per week, taught by 15 instructors. For more, visit mantramindbody.com.
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Lainie Wimberly with Quartermaster.
A different kind of matchmaking
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BY LEIF SKODNICK PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB ROZYCKI
LAINIE WIMBERLY HAS IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSATIONS ON A DAILY BASIS. Wimberly, an equestrian, can’t verbally converse with her athletic collaborator. Instead, she uses physical commands – a tug on the reins, pressure with one leg or the other – to direct her horse through the show ring. “Like I tell my clients, you’re communicating with your animal through sign language,” said Wimberly, who owns Brigadoon Show Stables at Turkey Hill Farm in North Salem. “You might want to make him stay out in a turn – you’ll use your thigh, your knee and your calf to push him out – but you won’t use your spur or your heel, because that would move him forward.” Wimberly won the 2002 World Champion Hunter Rider professional challenge championship on Nobleman, a horse that won more than
$100,000 that season. Jumping is all about coordination between rider and horse, with the rider maximizing cues to her mount. “There’s a whole array of different aids you can use, and the trick is to coordinate your aids and use them in balance with one another so you can have the horse do what you’d like him to do in varying degrees.” The way Wimberly explains it, it all sounds so simple. Nestled amongst the northern Westchester hills, Brigadoon Stables is where Wimberly built a career around teaching riders how to communicate with their mounts to negotiate the jumping course. Located just off of Grant Road, Wimberly’s immaculate facility has stalls for 24 horses, paddocks for the horses to graze, an indoor practice ring
and other features. As a horse walked on a treadmill in the barn with the indoor practice ring, Wimberly explained the device’s importance to the training of hunter and jumper horses. “It’s low impact and helps build up the horse’s core muscles. You’ll notice it helps keep the horse very straight,” Wimberly said. “When I’m teaching horses to carry adult riders or children, one of the three components of riding that I stress is straightness.” For show hunters, the judges look at the horse’s form as it leaps the eight to 12 jumps on the course. The horse should have even strides between the jumps and make the traversal look effortless. “The judges will notice the results of a horse being straight or not being straight – a horse that is straight will
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Lainie Wimberly with Caruso.
have a higher… quality of jump,” said Wimberly, who at age 11 became the youngest rider to appear at Madison Square Garden. “A horse that isn’t straight will tend to be lower and flatten out and not be as square.” Ideally, the horse should make a neat bascule (arc crossing the jump), somewhat like a leaping dolphin. Often achieving that happens by the horse starting the jump at the proper distance. “If the horse is straight, balanced and in a consistent rhythm, that horse will help find the distance for the rider.” Just outside the main barn, Wimberly had an all-weather synthetic surface practice ring installed over rock. The surface has a felt base with a combination of dirt, sand, fabric and wax to protect the horses as they negotiate the course. “It’s firm and soft at the same time, so it’s solid, but you have a little bit of a cushion, which prevents soft tissue injuries,” Wimberly said, holding a handful of the surface mix. Horses can injure their joints when turning sharply at speed if the surface isn’t somewhat forgiving. “There are no
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stones in it at all, but it’s hard. And it’s not dusty. It’s expensive to put in, but it’s the best.” Back in the barn, a smiling Wimberly throws on boots and spurs while a groom puts riding tack on one of the horses. The preferred breed of horse for hunting and jumping competition is the European Warmblood. “We used to primarily, when I started as a junior rider, ride American Thoroughbreds,” Wimberly explained. “Our industry has slowly integrated and changed over to European Warmbloods.” American Thoroughbreds are bestknown as racehorses, bred to run extremely fast while carrying 126 pounds of jockey and tack. They also have a tendency to have a spicy temper. “I believe that the Warmblood offered a horse that has the same kind of jumping ability and stamina as an American Thoroughbred but has a better mind,” she said. “The horse is suitable for a lot of different riders. It’s calmer and more relaxed. They’re a little more gentle in their approach
but have the athleticism that we need.” Over the past 100 years, horsemen in Europe have developed an extensive breeding program to foal horses for show jumping, and as more Americans brought horses back from Europe for competition, the breed has taken over. As a trainer, Wimberly frequently shops for horses for clients, a job which sounds a lot like matchmaking. “I pride myself on being able to match horse to rider. It’s one of the most important things,” she added. Wimberly assesses the riders’ abilities, watching them ride their own horses or horses at her stable. She can tell whether the rider makes a horse edgy or more relaxed and then tries to find a horse that matches that rider’s personality to enhance the rider’s performance in the show ring. “She’s very good at finding young horses and bringing them along,” said Ali Sirota, a client of Wimberly’s. Sirota’s public relations agency counts Brigadoon Show Stables as a client. “My horse, we bought him when he was 5 years old. He had a lot of raw talent, but Lainie built him into the
horse he is now. She took a nice jumping horse and made him a great jumping horse.” Sirota said that Wimberly built her horse’s musculature. “Not only can you see the difference, I can feel the difference” as a rider, she said. Mental training played a role, too. “He’s learned to do that with you no matter what your state of mind is,” Wimberly said to Sirota. “Like we were talking about earlier, when riders become nervous or anxious – everyone does before a competition – there’s some tension there. There’s something that the horse is going to feel.” Wimberly guided her mount effortlessly though the eight jumps in the outdoor ring, using the reins and physical cues. The only exception was an occasional cluck, a clicking sound the rider makes with the mouth to encourage the horse. “My job is to make those horses so comfortable in their ability and confident in their own job that they disregard what the rider is feeling.” For more, visit brigadoonstables.com.
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VINCE CAMUTO Style BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
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VC Signature Vince Camuto
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RAININESS BECOMES VINCE CAMUTO.
You don’t co-found a legendary fashion company like Nine West and go on to become the chief creative officer and CEO of the Camuto Group – whose expertise extends to BCBGMAXAZRIA, BCBGeneration, Lucky Brand, Tory Burch and the billion-dollar Jessica Simpson brand, not to mention his own – without having real smarts. But the word that echoes throughout Vince’s sumptuous new “Life of Style” (Assouline, 300 pages, $250) is passion. Indeed, friend, colleague and fellow Greenwich resident Tommy Hilfiger uses it at least a half-dozen times in his foreword to the hefty tome: “Everyone says, ‘Vince Camuto has the golden touch,’ and I could not agree more. But it is not good fortune that turns everything in his presence to gold. Hard work, immense passion, solid business acumen and an immaculate, distinctive sense of style are the driving forces behind the story of his success.” That irresistible combination of qualities was apparent from his beginnings on the Lower East Side, where he and older sister Frances were raised by their mother, Louise, after their father – Louis, an Italian immigrant – died when Vince was 2. (It’s perhaps more than a coincidence that the name Louis and its feminine form, Louise, are among the most important in his life, as Vince’s wife is also a Louise. (The book is dedicated to them, along with Vince’s five children – Robert,
Vince Camuto and his “muse,” wife Louise, outside Chateau Ridge, their Greenwich estate, 2011, Harper’s Bazaar. All photographs courtesy Vince Camuto
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FEED THE DREAM 41
Andrea, John, Christopher and Philip.) The East Village in the late 1930s and ’40s was a tough but bustling place and Vince went to work early on, earning enough by age 14 to give the family its first refrigerator and taking a job in the back room of a First Avenue shoe store – a foreshadowing of things to come. But before shoe business there was show business: Hollywood came calling in the form of an agent who spotted him at Seward Park High School, where Vince studied drama. With his dreamy deep-set eyes and pompadour of dark hair, he was tabbed to be the next Tony Curtis. And as the book’s glamorous glossies and shots of a young, bare-chested Vince lounging in
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bed or by a Miami pool attest, it wasn’t a far-fetched notion. But soon Vince was a husband to first wife and childhood sweetheart, Anne Ciossi, and father to son Robert. He needed a dependable job. So after an unhappy stint in his brotherin-law’s printing factory, Vince took himself off to the unemployment office and snagged a job as complaint manager at I. Miller, the tony Fifth Avenue shoe store. It was there that the seeds for Vince Camuto, shoe impresario, were planted, as he learned from the models, actresses and other well-heeled women who frequented the shop what worked when it came to housing the tootsies and what didn’t. Soon, he was e“vince”ing another
trait that must be a key to his stunning success, the willingness to go wherever opportunity took him – shoe companies up and down the Eastern seaboard; Europe for trend-spotting; Japan’s Ginza factory to create shoes that married East and West; Brazil to work with shoe factories on behalf of the Bank of Sumitomo; and back to Manhattan to form a partnership with Jerome Fisher in 1977. “Some people dream things will happen,” Vince writes. “Some people want things to happen. Some people make things happen.” The Fisher Camuto Corp. had its headquarters in the Solow Building, 9 W. 57 St., off Fifth Avenue. You can’t miss it because of the big red “9” on
the sidewalk in front of it. The brand 9 West (ultimately Nine West) was thus born. Drawing on a network of Brazilian factories, a talent for trend-spotting and an against-the-grain philosophy that banked on the female willingness to pay a little more for quality, Vince expanded Nine West to embrace brands like Easy Spirit, Bandolino and Evan Picone; developed labels like Enzo Angiolini; and added handbags, coats and other items, doubling sales to almost $2 billion and earning an honorary doctorate from Roger Williams University in the process. At the close of the 20th century, Jones Apparel Group bought Nine West for $900 million. It was at that time that Vince – divorced from his second wife, Kristen Benson, mother of sons John and Christopher – met interior designer Louise Drevenstam. “She is Vince’s secret weapon,” Hilfiger writes. And Vince himself describes her as “my muse and the love of my life.” The Camutos are partners in every sense of the word – starting the Camuto Group in 2001, marrying two years later – and that includes in their trio of homes. Wooldon Manor, an English Tudor-style manse in Southampton once owned by a Woolworth, and Villa Maria, a neoclassical property in Water Mill that was once the home of the Sisters of the Order of St. Dominic, are the relatively understated, elegant Long Island bookends to the over-the-top ornamentation that is Chateau Ridge in Greenwich, the primary residence. “Chateau Ridge… will have you believing that you stepped back in time to the Loire Valley in seventeenth-century France,” Hilfiger writes. And then some. Built between 1924 and ’27 on a hill in Greenwich’s backcountry, Chateau Ridge underwent a five-year renovation when Vince brought the property in the 1980s that echoes the Renaissance through 19th centuries, with furnishings, wall hangings, frescoes, sculpture and gardens that pay homage in particular to Catherine de’ Medici and Louis XIV. It ushers in a new gilded age. And yet for Vince and Louise, it remains their home, a place where their children and grandson (Robert’s child, Dantino) can gather. “Shoe love is true love,” Vince writes. But family, he says, is his greatest achievement.
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President Barack Obama. Offical White House photograph.
And it went off without any glitches, even though organizers had warned of a possible lastminute cancellation. “They said ‘Hey, look, if anything happens in the world...,’” Pellon says. Some five weeks in advance, Pellon was contacted by the host, who had heard good things about Great American BBQ and wondered if the company would be interested in the event. Pellon was passed on to DNC representatives and began working on the top-secret event that would eventually serve some 190 guests, plus Secret Service and local police personnel. With a classic American barbecue requested, Pellon and his team crafted a menu featuring hot dogs, hamburgers, barbecue chicken and “our famous slow-roasted barbecue pork,” with baked beans and corn on the cob as sides. “I had asked if there was anything special they would like to see for the president,” Pellon says. No, he was told – and also learned Obama’s schedule would be so tight that he would likely not even get to eat. The décor, Pellon says, was designed to create an atmosphere he likens to “a little bit of a higher-end barbecue.” The red, white and blue theme would be given an elegant, not clichéd, interpretation. “We did nice flowers in big Mason jars,” Pellon says. In addition to the menu and décor, security had to also be addressed in advance. “We used all of our original staff,” Pellon says, noting each employee’s details had to be submitted for “clearance.” Some four chefs, a dozen servers and a couple of captains would be on hand, but Pellon wasn’t worried about the background checks. “We try to find people we know are good,” he said with a laugh, adding that many have been with the company for years. The buffet would conclude the event, which also featured photo opportunities with the president and then a speech, all playing out under several tents. “There were a few of us that were allowed in the main tent when he was giving his speech,” Pellon says. He listened intently as Obama spoke of the youth vote, unemployment and the Middle East. Pellon says he was struck by the presidential “aura,” something he also observed with Clinton. While the Great American BBQ company may cater nearly 300 barbecues each season, creating an event attended by President Obama will remain a highlight. “He’s a symbol of our country,” Pellon says. And everyone knows Americans love a good old-fashioned summer barbecue. Here’s hoping the president at least got a doggie bag.
A MEAL FIT FOR A … PRESIDENT BY MARY SHUSTACK
What do you serve a president? That was the question that David Pellon had to answer recently. Luckily, the director of catering for New York Hospitality Group knew what that question entails. “We’d done different things for President Clinton back in the day so we had an idea of the protocol,” he says. In its most recent Oval Office-related effort, the hospitality group – whose divisions include The Great American BBQ Co., Sam’s of Gedney Way and Caperberry Events – had catered former President Bill Clinton’s appearance at Westchester Community College last year, Pellon says. But the roots of the group founded and run by Peter Herrero go back decades, as it has served countless high-profile clients and designed events where upwards of 1,500 meals were served. No matter, Pellon says. This Democratic National Committee fundraiser held Aug. 29 at a private home in Purchase was still “very exciting.” “We were very happy to be chosen for the event,” which he says he quickly realized was “a big one.”
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For more, visit nyhospitalitygroup.com.
GETTING IN THE GAME Kirsten Gillibrand has used her smarts to confront tough issues. She now wants young women to do the same. BY BOB ROZYCKI PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN RIZZO
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In our myopic, attention-deficient, gossip-loving society, the mass media did not disappoint when it came to reviewing U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s new book “Off the Sidelines.” Though the book is part autobiographical and part inspirational – but all about empowering young women with the age-old, but still pertinent mantra that “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem” – media outlets seized on how she was called “porky” and “chubby” by two congressional male colleagues while she was pregnant. (She and husband Jonathan, a venture capitalist and British national, have two sons.) As she made her rounds with the book, Gillibrand was peppered with the same question: Who are these men? Name them. Inquiring minds want to know. She would not and will not. In an interview at her Manhattan office the day her book was released, I asked, “Didn’t you just want to punch those so-called colleagues?” “Many of them,” Gillibrand says with a smile. And the reason to tell those stories? “For the young girl who is in her first job and her boss or someone she works with says something rude to her – I want her to feel that she’s not alone. These things happen all the time, they happen to U.S. senators. And it doesn’t mean anything, you can push on and achieve many things and you can discount their obnoxiousness or piggishness whatever it might happen to be and recognize that sometimes you have challenges. It’s not great it’s not helpful, and it does sometimes cut your self-esteem, but at the end of the day, you’re tougher, you’re stronger and you can do what you aspire to do.” Gillibrand, 47, started her own aspiring at the age
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Gillibrand with her family on the day of her first Holy Communion. All personal photos as featured in “Off the Sidelines.”
of 6 when she said she wanted to be a lawyer, just like her mother. “My mom was really my role model. I loved the fact that she decided to become a lawyer, and combine that with being a strong and good mom and I just remember her as the epitome of multitasking – she would be on the phone dealing with some law case she was working on, sweeping the floor and putting in the roast for dinner. She was doing it all at the same time and had this ever-present role that was so warm and engaging and exciting. I want to be just like her.” Gillibrand says that she also liked her mother’s confidence. “I loved that she wasn’t afraid and that she was excited to be a lawyer and be an advocate for other people. She helped people buying their first home or adopt a baby and I love that about her career. But she was there every night, making dinner and making sure she was there for my sister and brother and me. And that also had an impression on me.” But it wasn’t just her mother who made a big impression on her; it was her maternal grandmother as well, to whom she dedicates her book. She writes in her book: “My mother and my grandmother are two of the fiercest, most capable, bighearted, and original women I know. They created my frame of reference for women and work. And they taught me the bedrock lesson of life: Be exactly yourself.” Her grandmother, Dorothea McLean, better known as Polly, was tough as nails, swore – something that rubbed
Jonathan and Kirsten at the Yale Club in New York City on their wedding day, April 7, 2001.
On being chosen a senator When Sen. Hillary Clinton was chosen to be secretary of state, there was a long list of replacements for her seat. Kirsten Gillibrand was on vacation with her family at Disney World in Orlando when she heard the news via a number of emails. “I had seen my name at the bottom of a lot of lists and I had to decide if this was something I aspired to, was it something I wanted to be asked to be considered for? “And at first, I thought, Oh no, clearly I haven’t paid my dues, clearly I don’t have the seniority to do this. … But after many long deliberations talking to a lot of friends and advisers, particularly talking to (my husband) Jonathan – when Jonathan said ‘Listen, we’re only in this to help people. If you think you can help more people in the U.S. Senate, you should put your name in’ – that was the best advice I could have been given. “So I thought I can really make a difference in the U.S. Senate and I will put my name in for consideration. I really couldn’t believe I was chosen, but I was extremely grateful to have a chance to serve the whole state.” Swearing in with Vice President Joe Biden along with sons Henry and Theo.
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Gillibrand with from left, Congressman Mike McNulty and former President Bill Clinton.
How’s she doing? Former New York Gov. David Paterson, who had Kirsten Gillibrand as first choice for the Senate seat, offers his take on her performance so far: “I think she is doing very well in the Senate. She is an exceptional people person and she understands finance as well as anyone in the Senate. “One thing she didn’t do as well when she first started was that she had a tendency to occasionally over-explain answers to questions but it is quite evident that is no longer an issue and hasn’t been for a while. Her ability to answer questions concisely and authoritatively was particularly evident during the 2012 campaign.”
off on Gillibrand – told dirty jokes, and as a secretary in the New York State Legislature, soon made herself into a force to be reckoned with when it came to politics. She also had a longtime relationship with Erastus Corning, the man who eventually became the longest-serving mayor of Albany, from 1942 until he died in office in 1983. Your grandmother seemed like a pip, I say to Gillibrand. “Yep,” she laughs, “she was a pip. She was a bit salty. Yeah, she had a lot going on, but she really aspired to have a voice in politics and that was so rare back then for women to have any role. And she galvanized other women so that together their voices could be heard and they could really amplify each others’ priorities.” Polly was all about the job and politics. “She was among all these men and women who really spent their lives in the trenches trying to win elections and make sure their values and their priorities were, you know, what was really being represented. “And she always rolled up her sleeves, she wasn’t afraid to do any task that her candidate needed. It didn’t matter if it was knocking on hundreds of doors or hosting a fundraiser in the middle of a snowstorm, she would do it. “And that really taught me the importance of resiliency and working hard and being helpful. And just saying how can I help. It really defines what
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politics is really about and that’s the extension of public service.” As Gillibrand tells stories of her own struggles and challenges in the book, she says she does so in the hope that they inspire other women to raise their voices and “really endeavor to make a difference.” It was personal stories of first responders to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that helped her get the 9/11 health care legislation passed. With the fate of all the firefighters, police officers and other emergency responders to the site where the Twin Towers once stood, who now were ill from cancers and respiratory diseases, Gillibrand needed to get the rest of her fellow senators on board to show that it wasn’t just a “New York problem.” She met with U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana who made a national issue of the families left stranded, hurting and wondering if their nation had forsaken them after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Her advice was simple: Explain the horrible dilemma facing the first responders and tell the lawmakers why they should care. “The story is what makes the difference because it’s who you’re fighting for, and their stories why it’s so urgent and why it’s so important. And frankly, nothing ever gets done in Washington unless regular people stand up and demand action. And so it has to be about regular people and what they need,” Gillibrand says. “And that’s what the 9/11 health bill is about – our heroes, our community members who desperately needed health care.” Gillibrand has learned that even the most junior senator can start a debate. In addition to the 9/11 health care bill, she fought for the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, and is also fighting for strengthening the laws of young women who have been sexually assaulted on campuses nationwide. “Young women who have started this national movement deserve enormous credit and they’re perfect examples of what ‘Off the Sidelines’ is about. Horrible things happened to them, but to fight back they decided to raise their voice and make a difference and demand change. And they are changing the world, they are raising their voices and changing the world,” Gillibrand says. “Two women in particular, Andrea and Annie, they just showed up to my office one day said we want to meet with the senator. …and I met with them and I couldn’t believe how horrific their stories were. How they were raped, and when they tried to report it they were told that they were lying. They weren’t believed and they were retaliated against for reporting these crimes! I was shocked they could be treated so poorly, but they didn’t say ‘Oh that’s too bad for me,’ they said we’re going to change this. “And they’ve galvanized women and men all across the country, on college campuses and encouraging them to raise their voices to demand action and it’s working. They’re role models for all of us and they inspire me.”
A most thoughtful
RESTORATION Pound Ridge home honors history while integrating modern amenities STORY BY HOULIHAN LAWRENCE PHOTOGRAPHS BY TIM LEE
PRESENTED BY HOULIHAN LAWRENCE
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ituated in one of the most peaceful areas of Pound Ridge, this exceptional example of a Colonial farmhouse captures the essence of country living. Built in 1810 by Sylvanus Stevens, a sergeant in the Continental Regiment during the American Revolution, it has undergone a masterful renovation and large addition integrating today’s amenities while retaining the patina of its vintage era. The easy elegance throughout the home is showcased in the cook’s kitchen with granite and copper counters, state-of-the-art appliances, a separate walk-in butler’s pantry and an adjoining large breakfast area with period-style fixtures and an original fireplace with a large stone hearth. Two front sitting rooms offer space for intimate entertaining or perfect family time. A dramatic, light-filled great room with a beamed cathedral ceiling and a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace is a centerpiece for entertaining and flows effortlessly into the richly paneled living room with fireplace and custom cabinetry side areas. French doors in all the main rooms emphasize the elegance, flowing out to the terraces. A wet bar, powder room and mudroom with a full bath finish the main level. The second floor is highlighted by the master suite with fireplace, vaulted ceiling with hewn beams and a luxurious spa bath including a walk-in steam shower and dressing closets. An additional four bedrooms and four full baths complete the second level. Outside amenities to complete this idyllic country setting include a charming two-bedroom
SYLVANUS STEVENS HOUSE AT A GLANCE • Pound Ridge • 5,923 square feet • 10 acres • Bedrooms: 5 • Baths: 8 full, 1 half • Price: $2.995 million
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guesthouse with designer kitchen and fully updated systems, a mechanic’s dream three-bay garage, a large pool and a two-floor artist’s studio with gabled ceiling and attached large greenhouse. • 1810 Classic Federal Colonial set on 10 acres. • Five bedrooms, eight baths and one powder room. • Master suite with beams, post ceiling, fireplace, luxury spa bath and dressing closets. • Two-bedroom guesthouse. • Terraced pool. • Studio/caretaker’s office with greenhouse. • Three-bay garage. For more information, contact Susan Stillman at Houlihan Lawrence Pound Ridge Brokerage at 914-589-4477, 914-764-5762 or sstillman @houlihanlawrence.com.
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Keynote Speaker
Bethenny Frankel MEDIA SPONSOR 53
GRAY’S ANATOMY MEN’S POWER DRESSING LIGHTENS — AND LIGHTS – UP WITH THE COLOR OF THE SEASON
T BY FRANK PAGANI
THIS SEASON, NEIMAN MARCUS HAS USED ITS GRAY MATTER TO DISCERN THAT “GRAY MATTERS,” HAILING THE COLOR AS “FALL’S DEFINITIVE NEUTRAL” – FOR MEN AS WELL AS WOMEN. “Our customer has shown a passion for hand-tailored suits and jackets and patterned pants designed in all shades of gray,” says Stacey Talieres, assistant general manager of Neiman Marcus Westchester in White Plains. Look for lots of men in gray flannel suits. The Neiman Marcus team has seen an increase in the use of flannel by many designers. The sharp contrast between matte suites that are fabricated with the classic soft woven material and shiny suits that were in vogue until recently was the focus of an August article (“The Return of the Grey Flannel Suit”) by the noted British menswear blogger Marcus
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(Front) Sport coat and dress shirt by Hugo Boss, pants by Zanella, tie by Robert Talbot, pocket square by Tom Ford and shoes by Prada. (Back) Suit and dress shirt by Hugo Boss, tie by Stefano Ricci, pocket square by Zegna and shoes by Prada. Available at neimanmarcus.com. Courtesy Neiman Marcus Westchester.
Jaye. He observed: “The menswear pendulum has swung back over to the nonshiny side—the matte suit, if you will— and the ultimate version has to be one in grey flannel... Oozing understated luxury and gentlemanly sophistication, it makes a versatile and practical addition to any cold-weather tailoring collection.” Some examples showcased in the Neiman Marcus fall line are Giorgio Armani’s Wall Street Wide-Pinstripe Charcoal Flannel Suit, Ralph Lauren’s Black label Charcoal Suit and Isaia’s Plaid, Blue Gray Suit. Regardless of the materials and textures used, the biggest difference in styling from a year ago is that power suits are cut to fit closer to the body, noted Joseph Senese, manager of The Man’s Store at Neiman Marcus Westchester: “It’s a much softer, more natural look, a departure from the styling in the ’90s when the shoulder and chest were bigger.” Of course, a smart-looking business ensemble also calls for well-matched shirts, ties, belts, socks and shoes as seen here. When the executive arrives at a restaurant for a power lunch or at a meeting with a
“IT’S A MUCH SOFTER, MORE NATURAL LOOK, A DEPARTURE FROM THE STYLING IN THE ’90S WHEN THE SHOULDER AND CHEST WERE BIGGER.” new client, a stylish raincoat – a significant portion of sales at Neiman Marcus – completes the look. It might be something along the lines of the classic-looking Burberry Kensington Brit Double-Breasted Trench Coat. “The raincoat goes hand in hand with the power suit and makes positive first impressions,” Talieres noted. So regardless of what the Dow does this fall, Neiman Marcus is going to help its well-attired clientele look bullish.
(Front) Sport coat by Hickey Freeman, pants by Incotex, dress shirt by Hugo Boss, tie by Tom Ford, pocket square by Charvet and shoes by Tods. (Back) Suit by Giorgio Armani, dress shirt and pocket square by Zegna, tie by Robert Talbot and shoes by Tods. Available at neimanmarcus.com. Courtesy Neiman Marcus Westchester.
Briarcliff: 914-762-3444 | Jefferson Valley: 914-245-4040
BACK TO SCHOOL... BACK TO YOU! SETTINGS AS UNIQUE AS YOUR EVENT. Memorable events seek an inspiring location and you will find it in the stunning new Harrison Ballroom with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the scenic, wooded countryside. Or try the beautiful Red Oak Mansion with cozy fireplaces and old world stonework. The Harrison ballroom seats up to 225 guests and the Red Oak Mansion accommodates up to 210. Also discover a new lobby, restaurant and rooms, which have all been reinvented with you mind. From intriguing design to impeccable service, we vow to make your event an unforgettable experience.
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To book your next event or see our new ballroom, call 888.348.6165 or visit RenaissanceWestchester.com.
RENAISSANCE WESTCHESTER HOTEL 80 West Red Oak Lane West Harrison, NY 10604 t: 914.694.5400
www.clubfit.com Not to be combined with any other offer. Regular monthly dues apply. Offer ends 10/31/14
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LINGERIE FOR THE THINKING WOMAN
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BY DANIELLE RENDA PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY NAJA LINGERIE
LINGERIE HAS LONG BEEN USED TO BOOST SEX APPEAL AND ADD OOMPH TO THE PHYSICAL. But Catalina Girald, CEO of Naja Lingerie, is more concerned about attention to detail than attracting attention. With designs inspired by travel and the sponsoring of a charity for single mothers, Naja wanders outside the status quo to empower women, not their sexuality. “Every collection is inspired by something different. I tend to look at world inspiration,” Girald says of her building brand. “Everything has a little bit of meaning behind it.” Girald’s vision stemmed from dissatisfaction with popular lingerie brands, such as Victoria’s Secret, which emphasizes sexuality rather than comfort. As a businesswoman, she felt that such undergarments contradicted her professional lifestyle. She also realized that affordable, quality lingerie was limited. Determined to introduce an alternative to an already booming industry, she left her position as an attorney at a top law firm. She pursued an MBA at Stanford University in California and founded MOXSIE, an online store for independent designers to share their collections, which she later sold. In May 2013, Naja Lingerie was born. Headquartered in Medellín, Colombia, with offices in San Francisco and New York City, Naja offers affordable products while employing single mothers. Naja’s panties have motivational quotes stitched inside, while the bra cups veil interior artwork. The products contain inspiration for the wearer, not for the passerby. As the website states, “We did away with fake wind blowing into models’ hair and created a brand that could connect with smart, courageous and sexy women.” Girald’s designs were first inspired from 18 months of backpacking through Asia, from Mongolia to Indonesia to Vietnam. Everything, from the colors used to the prints and design techniques, is symbolic of her traveling experiences. “Once I come up with a theme, I start looking into it and researching the history behind everything,” she says. Naja Lingerie offers swimwear and six undergarment collections, with
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A sampling of Naja bras.
A woman works in a Naja-sponsored program, Underwear for Hope. All photographs courtesy Naja Lingerie.
A model in Naja’s 57 Bianca lace bra.
plans for future growth. The collections include “Talavera Blue” and “Talavera Red,” inspired by Mexican folklore and 17th century Spain; “Andalusia,” inspired by mantillas; “Noir de Noirs,” inspired by French lingerie and retro styles; “One Night in Cashmere,” complete with peacocks, symbolic of beauty; and “Secret Life of Sparrows,” inspired by tattoo themes of sparrows and roses, symbolizing freedom and beauty. All Naja products are constructed with attention to detail. The bras are made with memory foam cups, which do not crack when washed and mold to fit the individual, regardless of shape; and ultrasonic straps, which don’t unravel. The panties use Peruvian Pima cotton, recognized for its luxuriousness, and lace constructed from nylon for comfort purposes. The products are affordable, with bras ranging from $45 to $70, panties from $12 to $22 and bathing suits from $20 to $28 for bottoms and $56 to $72 for tops. But Girald’s efforts don’t end with a consumer-manufacturer relationship. She uses her company to help disadvan-
taged Colombian women by offering them an education and providing them with jobs. Naja’s Underwear for Hope program donates a percentage of each purchase to the Golondrinas Foundation in Medellín, where Girald was born. The foundation uses these funds for its sewing program for single mothers and Girald in turn hires them for Naja. Each time a Naja bra is purchased, the consumer receives a complimentary wash-bag. The wash-bags are handmade at home by the women employed by Naja through Underwear for Hope. “For me, it was always important to give back with my company,” Girald says. With Naja’s expansion, Girald is looking to increase her charitable efforts and diversify her existing product line. “As we grow and as we have more resources, we plan to put in a variety – more models that are maybe different shapes and sizes that represent real women of today. For us, it’s the ongoing central theme – women empowerment.” For more, visit naja.co.
Catalina Girald
Penny Pincher Boutique The Very Best in Women’s Luxury Consignment Established 1985
STOREWIDE
PRE-WINTER
SALE OCT. 23, 24, 25, 26 l l l l l l
Luxury Designer Handbags Shoes Clothing & Furs Accessories Fine & Costume Jewelry Estate & Eclectic Home Furnishings
Penny Pincher is a women’s luxury designer boutique offering designer brand shoes, handbags, furs, clothing, jewelry (fine & costume). Contact us 7 days a week by phone, e-mail or website www.pennypincherboutique.com for more information about consigning your designer items. We also provide professional concierge service available in the privacy of your own home within NY, NJ, and CT areas. 184 Harris Road, (Rte. 117 By-Pass) Bedford Hills, NY | 914-241-2134 | Open 7 Days | Daily 10 -6, Sunday 12 -5 www.pennypincherboutique.com | info@pennypincherboutique.com
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Socialize with us!
la bottega salon IT’S MORE THAN A HAIRSTYLE, IT’S A LIFE STYLE
TRENDS
FALLING INTO AUTUMN AT THE RIGHT PLACES
If you are looking for a modern and comfortable salon experience in Westchester, La bottega is the place! With two locations one in Rye Brook and the other in White Plains owner Jon Verazza, with over 25 years of knowledge in the industry, has created a stylish sanctuary where indulgence and intimacy reach gorgeous new heights. Jon says, “as a hairstylist our goal is to communicate the message about our image and creativity.“ He invites new clients to come in and discover how they can create a totally new look or spruce up an existing favorite.
520 Mamaroneck Ave. White Plains, New York
914-948-7227 NEWLY RENOVATED 263 S. Ridge Street Rye Brook, New York
914-937-5333
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Contact us for FREE consultation to see how we can help you.
George C Shapiro MD FACC Jeffrey T Shapiro MD Maria Lufrano DO Carmelina Abbate FNP Katie Attubato FNP
THIS IS THE FIRST OF A NEW WAG ADVERTISING FEATURE. EMAIL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE FOR MORE INFORMATION.
The Caribbean’s Most Beautiful Beaches Anguilla’s Premier Resort, CuisinArt • Spacious Accommodations • Award Winning Luxury Spa • Hydroponic Farm • Gourmet Cuisine: Le Bistro at Santorini, Tokyo Bay, Café Mediterraneo and Italia • Greg Norman Signature Design18-Hole Golf Course
CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa is delighted to have been selected to host the 4th Great Golf Resorts of the World annual meeting in November 2016, following Pebble Beach, CA; Gleneagles, Scotland and Sea Pines, SC. Great Golf Resorts of the World is a collection of the world’s exceptional golf resorts. The annual directory is distributed by PGA Professional to its members and their guests at leading golf clubs across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and South America totaling 1000 Clubs.
CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa is one of only three Caribbean resorts selected for membership.
Reservations and information 800.943.3210 or 264.497.4900 • Sales and Marketing 212.972.0880
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THIS IS THE FIRST OF A NEW WAG ADVERTISING FEATURE. EMAIL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE FOR MORE INFORMATION. 14cs047 wag ad.indd 1
5/7/14 11:42 AM
McMorrow NORTH SALEM, NY
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ituated on 8.5 landscaped acres & surrounded by 200 acres of Audubon land, this stunning 6 BR, 5 1/2 BTH custom home offers unmatched privacy and miles of uninterrupted views. This remarkable home is centered around a reclaimed post & beam barn. A gourmet kitchen boasts Christopher Peacock cabinetry, state of the art appliances and a built in banquette. This sensational home is further detailed with 40’ ceilings, 4 masonry fireplaces, authentic hand hewn beams, hickory floors, custom cabinetry and a dramatic, steel floating staircase. The compound’s property includes an in ground pool with a full outdoor kitchen & sound system. Additional outdoor amenities include a private putting green, fenced paddock, raised vegetable garden and a basketball court. The original barn has been converted to a charming 3BR, 2 BTH guest house. This special property offers both children and adults a variety of entertaining venues. MLS #4431334
Price: $4,395,000
Belvedere Park POUND RIDGE NY
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he stunning 1935 carriage house was recently expanded and carefully renovated on 12.01 park like acres. Highlighted by views of idyllic mix of two sparkling ponds, lush lawns, colorful perennials and mature trees. This beautiful 4 bedroom, 4.1 bath home blends the warmth and original details with state of the art updates, stone fireplaces, wide board floors, hand hewn beams, cathedral ceilings, French doors, coffered ceiling, a gourmet chef’s kitchen and a fabulous master suite. MLS# 4410761
ONTHEGREEN•BEDFORD•NEWYORK•914.234.3642•VINWHIT.COM
Price: $4,695,000
THIS IS THE FIRST OF A NEW WAG ADVERTISING FEATURE. EMAIL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE FOR MORE INFORMATION.
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chic CHOICES COMPILED BY MARY SHUSTACK
Gifts and new products ideal for any occasion
CENTURIES OF STRATEGY The origins of backgammon date from some 5,000 years ago, but it’s probably safe to say those testing their brain power back then didn’t have access to the splurge-worthy boards available today. For example, check out the elegant sophistication of the York Street Studio Backgammon Board ($1,800), from a design team that contributed to the Obama White House. Made by hand in a Litchfield County, studio and featuring steel, leather and gold screws, it can be set within a table designed around it. The board is available now through the company site and in time for the holidays at Neiman Marcus. Game on. For more, visit yorkstreet.com. Photograph courtesy York Street Studio.
A THOUGHTFUL STYLE Leave it to those ingenious Italian designers to come up with a desk that’s as sleek as it is practical. The Heritage J.S. Desk from the Philipp Selva Home Collection combines comfort, tradition and Selva’s trademark modern touch. It also features three selfclosing drawers, a solid beech frame and a tabletop available in a variety of leathers. Customization offers further finishes and fittings. ($5,768, adjusted for options). Find Selva at select retailers including Safavieh in Stamford, Danbury and Manhattan. For more, visit selva.com.
Photograph courtesy Selva.
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Photograph courtesy Mary Margrill.
FOR A GOOD CAUSE The spiritual nature of Mary Margrill’s jewelry has made it a favorite of celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry and Katie Holmes. Now, Margrill’s “i am Healed” necklace – described as having been “designed with the intention of sparking one’s ability to visualize and manifest health as well as celebrating recovery” – is not only making the wearer feel good but its purchase will help do good. Twenty percent of each purchase will support The Norma F. Pfriem Breast Care Center at Bridgeport Hospital. The necklace designs, which each feature a pink sapphire accent, include a heart, pictured here, and a circle. Available in sterling silver or sterling silver with 14-karat yellow gold plate ($160) or in solid 14-karat yellow gold ($1,200). For more, visit marymargrill.com.
STOCK UP Why have just one bag for fall? After all, you have plenty of different outfits, so – if you follow our logic – you’ll need plenty of coordinating bags. Check out the new selections from Facine, the New York-based luxury designer brand where the focus is on craftsmanship, superior leather and clean lines. Facine is carried at Bloomingdale’s White Plains, so start stocking up with options including, from top, the Carla in purple ($450), the Capri in black ($795) and the Mini Losna in tan ($550). That covers at least three days of the week… For more, visit facine.com. Photographs courtesy Facine.
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chicCHOICES OH, BABY!
Photograph courtesy Creekside Farms.
BRING AUTUMN INDOORS Welcome autumn’s bounty right into your home with an artisan-made wreath from Creekside Farms, a family-owned and operated company in California’s Monterey County. It’s hard to choose just a single design from the variety of shapes, foliage and flowers but perhaps you’ll want to start with the Autumn Leaf & Berries Square Wreath ($69) that features a blend of autumn leaves and eucalyptus foliage in an eyecatching shape. For more, visit creeksidefarms.com.
Most parents would say that nothing is too good for their precious baby. Well, they get to prove that point with the Stokke True Black Xplory Limited Stroller for Neiman Marcus. Stokke is the award-winning manufacturer of innovative, sustainable and oh-so-stylish children’s furniture and accessories. And this luxe stroller features a can’t-go-wrong in black chassis, seat textiles and bottom storage bag with black-and-white accents rounding it out. Of course, it’s functional, as well, with seat-height adjustability and wheels designed to provide the ultimate smooth, maneuverable ride. The limited-edition stroller ($1,400) is available beginning this month at Neiman Marcus in White Plains. For more, visit neimanmarcus.com. Photograph courtesy Neiman Marcus.
Photograph courtesy Krups.
GOODBYE COFFEE RUNS When you simply must have the best espresso-based drinks in your own kitchen, the all-new Krups EA9010 Barista Full Coffee One-Touch Cappuccino Machine fits the bill. The fully automated machine offers 17 recipes to create touchof-a-button drinks, with additional amenities such as a programmable customization of your favorite recipes and selfcleaning functionality. The model ($2,500) even includes the Krups VIP Service Plan, which provides owners with access to an exclusive service phone line for life. It’s like having an in-house barista. For more, visit krupsusa.com/EA9010 or Williams-sonoma.com.
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Photograph by Bob Rozycki.
RAISE YOUR GLASS It’s certainly a fine time to celebrate Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville. The Hudson Valley mainstay is marking its 175th anniversary with the opening of the Brotherhood Winery Museum, a commemorative book (“The Story of Brotherhood, America’s Oldest Winery,” by Robert Bedford, $19.99) and of course, something to toast with. We suggest pairing an autumn visit with one of this month’s introductions, a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Vintage Port ($39.99 each). For more, visit brotherhood-winery.com.
WANDERS
ITALY through the lens STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY DOUGLAS RUBY
The View at Dinner in Positano
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WHILE THERE ARE MANY BEAUTIFUL PLACES IN THE WORLD TO PHOTOGRAPH, AMONG MY TOP CHOICES WILL ALWAYS BE ITALY. IF YOU ASK ME TO BE MORE SPECIFIC – WHERE IN ITALY? – MY ANSWER WOULD PROBABLY BE “ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE.” You can focus on the gorgeous rolling hills of Tuscany, the food – either as it grows or as it is prepared, certainly the people, the buildings and structures that make all of our architecture look as though it was created yesterday, the variety of city and country life, and the spectacular coastlines. Then you could attempt to capture what many amateur photographers often miss (including me) – the spirit of a country and a culture that has its own identity, one that has been shaped over more Old Water Well in Montepulciano
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Hotel in Ravello
La Salva in Tuscany
On the road to Positano
than 3,000 years. This summer my wife Jackie and I went back to Italy for 18 days. We spent a few days in Rome, a week at a wedding in Tuscany, four days in Lucca and the final five days on the Amalfi Coast in Positano. We enjoyed day trips to the old Tuscan towns/cities of Volterra, San Gimignano, Montalcino, Montepulciano, Cinque Terre, Castelnuovo and Ravello, among others. What you cannot see from this list (which is not complete) is that each of the old towns in Tuscany has its own personality, its own special products and its own relationship with the people who come to visit them. Some produce wine, some chocolate and marzipan, some cheeses, some linen and lace and some of them focus on cultural activities. All of them take great pride in their food and all of them cater to tourists in a variety of ways. Anyone who “loves” his camera knows the joy – and the frustration – of trying to capture all that he sees in any of these places. For sheer beauty it is tough to match the Amalfi Coast, with a special note not to miss Positano and Ravello. Roads in this area are very narrow, winding and mountainous – all of which provide some spectacular views and yet make for driving conditions that are not for everyone. The road up to Ravello, starting in Amalfi, offers views of the mountains and the ocean at the same time. Once you get to Ravello, you’ll find plenty of shops, possibly a music festival (depending on when you go), and a beautiful walk to the historic Villa Cimbrone, with spectacular views of towns below
On the road to Ravello
along the coastline. Hotels in Ravello are magnificent and have been home to some of the most famous writers and artists of the last three centuries. Positano is a larger town, with great food (as you would expect throughout Italy) and extensive shopping. Views are expansive and very colorful. The beach is beautiful and well- attended in the summer and has a great walk that winds up the mountainside of the town. The bottom line is if you have not already, you must visit Italy and if you have already been there, consider another trip back. I hope that the photographs in this article provide the inspiration that you need to plan this trip. If not, I have plenty more to show you.
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WONDERFUL
DINING
Owners Jimmy Parker and Mary Beth Dooley. Photograph by Finley, courtesy Red Hat.
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Tipping our cap to RED HAT BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE A MORE WONDERFUL PLACE TO DINE THAN AT RED HAT ON THE RIVER IN IRVINGTON. Great ambience, service and nouvelle American cuisine – including such “brain food” as swordfish and salmon dishes – make this the kind of experience you’ll look forward to repeating. We visit the restaurant on a Friday night and are escorted to a corner table that boasts a magical view of the Hudson and a cozy one of the red and brick interior, graced with some 20 paintings from the 1920s and ’30s. The restaurant itself takes its name and logo from one in particular, a copy of the late Ossining artist William Auerbach-Levy’s “The Red Hat,” featuring a handsome flapper in a broadbrimmed hat. Husband-and-wife owners Jimmy Parker and Mary Beth Dooley will tell you that they’ve been told she resembles Mary Beth’s mother (although the couple tell the story in different ways). There’s lots of history at Red Hat, situated as it is on the former site of the Lord and Burnham Co., makers of such
elegant greenhouses and conservatories as the first steelframed curvilinear greenhouse (for neighboring Lyndhurst in Tarrytown) and the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. The bones of the site’s industrial past peek through the design by the owners, who used to be in film production. (The restaurant is in the former factory boiler room.) But those bones just add to the warmth of the locale, as does a wait staff that is friendly and attentive but never obtrusive. “We try to create an atmosphere that’s efficient but not fussy while having fun,” says senior manager Ben O’Connell. The effect is of one big family from the gracious Mary Beth and chatty, humorous Jimmy, who wears a cap (though not a red one) to protect his fair, bald pate from the sun, to our lovely server, Margaret Hawkins. Such is the familial atmosphere that Ben met his wife, Giusy Verni, another Red Hat manager, there. They have a child and one on the way. And Jimmy likes to tell the story of when the restaurant was on Main Street in Irvington in 2003. (It moved to its
riverfront locale in 2007.) Among the customers was Glenda Davenport, a jazz singer. One thing led to another and now she performs at Red Hat every other Wednesday. The jazz combo that backs her, led by bassist Bill Crow and keyboardist Hiroshi Yamazaki, is there every Wednesday night. That’s the kind of place Red Hat is. Yes, yes, yes, you say. But what about the food? Ah, the food. Well, first the drinks. I begin with one of the specialty cocktails, The Original Red Hat Handmade Cosmopolitan, with all-natural Valencia orange syrup providing the twist. Mary Beth says it’s sweeter than the typical Cosmo. I don’t know if it’s sweeter, but it’s certainly more luscious and such a deeply pretty pink, I can’t resist. Other special cocktails include two variations on the martini – the Pear Vanilla Martini and the Espresso one. After tasting several wines, my guests select two reds by the glass – the Barbera Govone D’asti, noted for its pleasant acidity; and Masi Compofiorin, with notes of black cherry, raspberry and plum. When it comes to wine, Red Hat has a primarily Continental palate, Ben says. But the beer served is purely domestic, with much of it coming from New York state, as do the spirits. Whenever possible Red Hat uses locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, having formed a relationship this past summer with Hudson Valley Harvest, a broker for local farms. But Red Hat is not slavish about local sourcing, Jimmy says – as you’ll see when we get to the pork chop. Save room for that. But next, our starters. We sample the Red Hat Bistro Salad – romaine and bibb lettuces, pickled red onions, croutons, green apple and parmigiano reggiano with Caesar dressing. (You can have it instead with the house vinaigrette.) We also try the Arugula and “Jersey” Peach Salad with dried cherries, roasted pumpkin seeds, applewood bacon, local apple, goat cheese and apple cider vinaigrette. Each is a flavorful mélange. For entrées, my guests go with brain food – sustainably raised Grilled Scottish Salmon, with a medley of beets, haricots verts, radishes, arugula, fingerling potatoes and pommery mustard-herb-shallot vinaigrette; and line caught Pan-Seared Atlantic Swordfish Provencal, with lemon-olive-roasted pepper vinaigrette, basil chiffonade, fried capers, haricots verts and olive oil-poached fingerling potatoes. Both dishes are savory, with the swordfish a particular revelation – a 180-degree turn from the dry stereotype. I, however, opt for a Red Hat signature, a dish that Jimmy says he especially fusses over – the Grilled Double Cut Berkshire Pork Chop with savory apple and country ham bread pudding, ham hock-braised lacinato kale, caramelized onions, golden raisin caper compote and pommery mustard jus vinaigrette. This is a good example of a dish that is not locally sourced as the heirloom pork comes from Iowa’s Snake River Farm. It’s cooked fast at very high heat. The effect is, well, sinfully succulent – meltingly, mouth-wateringly moist with just enough fat so that you can savor it and still feel virtuous. The sides are a marvelous complement, the tangy kale and onions balancing the creamy bread pudding. Totally delish, and my red hat off (if I were wearing one) to executive chef Reyes Hernandez. Speaking of creamy: The popular profiterole and Mary Beth’s own key lime pie are hits with me and one of my guests, while our gluten-free friend enjoys the lemon cake from the neighboring By the Way Bakery in Hastings-on-Hudson, owned by Helene Godin – another example of how Red Hat extends its family. You would never know this cake – the only dessert offering Red Hat doesn’t make – is from a gluten-, wheat-, lactose-free bakery. It’s a light yet rich lemony confection. We actually end our evening the way we might have begun it, at the rooftop bar, taking in the Manhattan skyline, which beckons and beguiles like the orgiastic green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Talk about your visual nightcap. Alas, the rooftop bar closed for the season in September. But hey, outdoor dining lingers and Sunday brunch is back, beginning Oct. 5. At Red Hat, there’s no such thing as disappointment. Red Hat on the River is at 1 Bridge St., Irvington. Lunch is served noon to 3 p.m. weekdays. Dinner is 5 to 9 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 5 to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Sunday brunch is 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
SEARED SCALLOPS, RED HAT STYLE Seared scallops with shiitake mushrooms, pea shoots and balsamic brown butter *Serves 4 people
INGREDIENTS FOR SCALLOPS & GARNISHES: Dry sea scallops for 3 to 4 people 8 ounces pea shoots 1 pound shiitake mushrooms, julienne Extra virgin olive oil for sautéing Sea salt to taste Black pepper to taste
PREPARATION 1. Prepare brown butter sauce and hold at room temperature. (Recipe for balsamic brown butter sauce follows.)
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 3. Sauté most of the pea shoots (leave a small amount for garnish) over medium heat in olive oil just until they wilt. Set aside at room temperature. 4. Spread mushrooms in a single layer on a sheet pan. Coat with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes or until the edges turn brown. 5. Pat scallops dry and season with salt and pepper. Add olive oil to sauté pan and heat until barely smoking. Sear the scallops until thoroughly caramelized on one side. Flip them over and put the pan in the oven for 5 minutes to cook the scallops to medium. 6. While the scallops are in the oven, sauté the mushrooms and pea shoots until warm. 7. Place the mushrooms and pea shoots in the center of the plate. Place 3 or 4 scallops around the mushrooms. Drizzle the balsamic brown butter around the rim of the plate. 8. Garnish with a few raw pea shoots. Balsamic brown butter 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 cup white balsamic vinegar 1/3 cup soy sauce ½ tablespoon cornstarch ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1. In a medium-sized pot melt the butter over medium-low heat until it just starts turning brown and has a nutty aroma. 2. In a separate small pot, heat the balsamic vinegar and soy sauce to a boil, then add cornstarch and reduce to simmer for 5 minutes. 3. Remove from heat and let cool. 4. Add all ingredients to a blender to combine. 5. Hold at room temperature. Do not heat in pan.
For more, call 914-591-5888 or visit redhatbistro.com.
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WINE & DINE
Jean Gardiés, winemaker and proprietor of Domaine Gardiés in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France, offers up a sample from an organic wine barrel.
ORGANIC WINE COMES OF AGE STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG PAULDING
FIFTEEN TO 20 YEARS AGO, THE ORGANIC WINE INDUSTRY WAS IN ITS INFANCY, driven by crunchy-granola eating farmers who expanded their estates to include organic grapes and wine production as families increasingly embraced the concept of back-to-nature livestock, fruits and vegetables that had little or no chemical intervention. Organic wines were made by farmers with little or no wine-making experience and the wines were short-lived and horrible, with little structure and no age-ability. Essentially, they were alcoholic KoolAid. But the farmers found a market and real winemakers took notice. When trained winemakers began going green, a serious revolution in the industry began – one that turned away from chemical pest control and pictureperfect vineyards that in counterintuitive fashion had caused grape size and color, vineyard yields and the resultant wine to suffer. To go organic comfortably, though, you need the right weather and topography. The dry, almost desert-like areas found in Chile and Spain, along with the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France, are conducive to organic wine. The Languedoc-
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Roussillon area also has its impressive tramontane winds that predictably roll in from different directions, making it difficult to walk against but drying out the vineyards quickly and thus eliminating the need for fungicides. Areas with more rain, such as Bordeaux and the Pacific Northwest, have a more difficult time controlling vineyard fungi. Whether they are certified organic or not, most vineyards use integrated pest control techniques in lieu of chemical controls. Insects and birds that eat leaf- or grape-damaging insects are introduced into the vineyard. Pheromone traps are judiciously placed to disrupt insect reproductive cycles. Flowers that attract damaging insects are placed away from the vines, focusing the pests in one area, which makes gathering or eliminating them easier. And soil depleting weeds and grasses competing with the vines for minerals, nutrients and water are controlled with grazing animals, such as sheep and cows, rather than with mowers. Certified organic can mean different things to different regions as local governments are responsible for definitions and enforcement. It takes three years
of no chemical interference to become organic within the European Union and the vineyards and winery needs an annual inspection by the EU organic commission. Growing grapes organically requires a thorough understanding of insect and fungal life cycles and when to anticipate the need for nonchemical intervention. These rules are essentially the same in the U.S. But the EU has hundreds, if not thousands, of organic-wine producers making wines all across the pricing spectrum. Most wine producers in the U.S. are not making premium wines organically. And the reason is simple – sulfites. In Europe, certified wine production can employ the use of sulfur dioxide as a stabilizer and as a preservative. The EU allows for the addition of sulfites up to 100 parts per million for red wines and up to 150 ppm for whites and rosés. The U.S. organic industry is overseen by the Department of Agriculture, which believes that wine, like all other beverages and foods, should not be able to call itself organic if it has sulfites. The problem is that most foods are supposed to be consumed fresh. Well - made and high quality wines are
meant to improve with age. Without minimal amounts of added sulfites, the wines will not age to their optimal tasting profile and are likely to have a much shorter life span. I was in Montpellier, France at Millésime Bio, the massive World Organic Wine Fair, in January and interviewed many producers regarding the use of sulfites. Virtually all of the better producers told me they would not make wine without adding the necessary sulfites for preservation and durability. If you are determined to go organic with your wine selections, there are now many good choices. Look for the green EU organic wine certification logo on the bottle. I tasted some very high quality wines from prominent producers all over Europe who have moved to organic production. These wines can be consumed now or put down for better development and expression. If I were to buy an organic wine from the U.S., I would be looking to open it soon, just as I would do with milk, eggs or other produce. Write me at Doug@dougpaulding.com.
2014
Touc� �e Sky Reception To Benefit Kids X-Press, Inc.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM 42 The Restaurant One Renaissance Square White Plains, NY
Kids X-Press, Inc. is a literacy enrichment program that was founded in 2001. Based in White Plains, Kids X-Press, Inc. provides outstanding educational programs that includes a publishing forum for children of all backgrounds and abilities to express themselves through writing, art and photography.
Dream Big Award Honorees Gina Cappelli President & Founder Formé Urgent Care and Wellness Center
Marsha Gordon President & CEO The Business Council of Westchester
JeanMarie Connolly Senior Director BNY Mellon Wealth Management
Tony Sayegh Executive Vice President Jamestown Associates
For tickets, sponsorships or more information visit www.kidsxpress.net 71
WHAT’S UP
Wedding planning and the male-female IQ gap
0
BY MARK LUNGARIELLO
ne night in the spring of 1997, some unlucky teenage dope parked his car under a tree during a rainstorm. The next day, the kid, who had only had his driver license six months, realized the tree had dripped some goo onto the roof and hood of the car. The goo had hardened like wax and bonded to the surface. It was a1988 Chevy Celebrity, a model that had already been discontinued and had some wiring issue in which the fuse would blow nearly any time you honked the horn. The Chevy was white and the wax like substance attracted pollen and dirt and formed unsightly splatter marks all over the car. People who’d see it would think the car had been vandalized, but the fool explained the culprit was a tree. That dope couldn’t get the substance off the car. He even took it to the car wash for one of only several times he professionally cleaned the car during the year he ended up owning it. One day, with the help of his high school buddy Dan Walsh, the fool decided to wash the car until the substance came off. Walsh, who like his friend was a senior in high school, finally had an idea after an hour of washing the car – Brillo pads. The pads worked. They removed the hardened goo, dirt and buildup – in fact they worked so well that Dan and the other fool wondered why Brillo didn’t advertise itself as a car-cleaning product. Why was it, they asked, that everyone didn’t use Brillo pads to clean their cars, too? It wasn’t until the car dried that they realized Brillo takes away dirt but could also leave small steel-wool strokes in the finish of the car. I’ve been thinking about the dumb things guys do lately, as my fiancée, Julie, continues to bar me from any decision-making as our Nov. 1 wedding approaches. Julie, too, had owned a Chevy Celebrity in high school, but unlike that guy I know she understood that cleaning a car with Brillo pads was a bad idea. Julie had one advantage over the unlucky teenager: She was a girl. Women surpassed men in IQ testing for the first time in history in 2012, according to studies by James Flynn that had men everywhere puffing up defensively like peacocks and women shrugging and no doubt saying, “We already knew that.” Both sexes are scoring better, which Flynn attributed to the modern world forcing brain adaptability. But women may be pulling ahead thanks to their greater verbal ability, more structured approach to test-taking, dominance in college and postgraduate enrollments and increased opportunities in the workplace. Michelle Obama mentioned the gender smarts divide at a recent U.S.-Africa summit where she and other panelists discussed how countries that oppress women often struggle financially. “Change is needed,” she said, according to Time, adding with a laugh “and women are smarter than men.” I asked my fiancée if she agreed with the first lady that women are smarter, and more specifically, if she herself thinks she’s smarter than me. We were chatting while I watched the Yankees game and Julie sat with two laptops open – one with an Excel document on the RSVP list for our wedding and the other with our total budgets, including amounts owed and amounts already paid.
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Julie said she thought I was kind of smart, maybe just not organized enough to apply that brain power. She said my disorganization, not lack of intelligence, has led to her doing everything for the wedding. “If I weren’t so organized, we would just have a band and show up with nothing else,” she said. That may be true, but what she left out is that it’s a really, really good band. But if she doesn’t think I’m dumb and she does want help, then why did she recently reject my offer to help with the invitations? Julie, who is a creative director in e-commerce, designed our wedding invitations and put them together herself by hand. “You just don’t have the attention to detail of the aesthetics of things,” she said. I was also barred from making any interior decorating decisions in our apartment – this included Julie’s not allowing me to hang my “Shaft in Africa” poster that has the catchphrase “The Brother Man in the Motherland.” These vetoes are not insults to my intelligence, she assured me, just to my decorative abilities. I like to think outside of the wedding planning and decorative input I pull my own weight in the relationship – like when I put together that IKEA cabinet and when I put up the bookshelves in the living room. When I mentioned the shelves, Julie noted the difficulty I had in finding the studs and how I put a few extra holes in the wall while looking for them. (By a few I mean a half dozen.) “I like that they’re up, but we both agree they’re messed up,” she said, except she used a phrase that was a little more R-rated than “messed up.” Julie blamed my upbringing for some of these shortcomings. She said I was raised by a mother who took care of many things. To this day, when going to a birthday party, my mother buys a card at Hallmark for me to give to the person celebrating his or her birthday – in case I forgot to get one. In my mother’s office when I was a kid, she had a sign that said, “The best man for the job is usually a woman.” I asked my mother if she ever felt that my father or any of her three sons were ever lagging behind her in intelligence. She kindly said no. Suspiciously, I asked her what the dumbest thing I had ever done growing up was and she quickly tried to change the topic. I shook my head. “I have a story,” I said. “It’s about my old Chevy Celebrity and Brillo pads.”
The author pictured on an old New York City subway car. Like other men, he has often had to learn life lessons the hard way.
Rizzo in Myanmar: “The novice ceremony where young girls become nuns is a moment of inmense pride for their families.”
PHOTOGRAPHER: JOHN RIZZO INTERNATIONAL EVENTS WEDDINGS PHOTO TOURS TO AFRICA & ASIA PRIVATE INSTRUCTION
John Rizzo Photography 10 Cedar St., Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522 (914) 231-9513 studio (646) 221-6186 worldwide mobile www.jrizzophoto.com 73
WHAT’S NEW
A SAVVY SOLUTION Holly Alexander’s SavAdate designed to help nonprofits BY MARY SHUSTACK PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROZYCKI
H
olly Alexander is at home in the world of nonprofits. That is quite clear on a recent morning as she checks in with her longtime client Adopt-A-Dog at its Armonk sanctuary. Alexander has been working with the rescue agency for years through TopSpin Communications, her socialmedia marketing company. On this day, she is juggling not only an adorable puppy but an update from the organization’s director, Allyson Halm. Its mega fundraiser, “Puttin’ on the Dog” was at this time just weeks away. Though it is already a well-established event nearing its 30th anniversary, its importance cannot be taken for granted. And that’s why Halm was happy to hear about SavAdate, Alexander’s newly launched Westchester-based venture. SavAdate is an online event-planning hub designed to help nonprofits select optimum dates for their events and also access high-end service providers. Halm says there was definitely a need and so was more than interested when Alexander explained SavAdate to her. “We were very excited because the competition for the right date is just that – a competition,” Halm says. The venture, Halm adds, is simply another way Alexander is drawing on
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her natural talents. “She’s a computer, this woman,” Halm says. “The brain is like a computer.” Indeed, Alexander saw a problem and came up with a solution. “The goal of SavAdate is to draw attention to the nonprofits,” Alexander says. “It’s such amazing work.” And, she notes, “They’re all competing for everything, the same day, the same dollar.” Events, from Friday night, black-tie galas to Saturday morning walk-athons to weekday golf tournaments, need to be carefully planned. “One of the biggest problems has always been event conflicts, two or three events happening on the same day,” Alexander says. “When you’re planning an event, you need to know – and the picture was never clear.” By starting this informational hub, Alexander says the “hope is that people will put their event in” as soon as they decide on a date. From there, others can use the information to plan their own events accordingly and increase both exposure and, ideally, attendance. “It’s free to search and it’s free to list an event,” Alexander says, adding that vendors pay to advertise their services. As founder of SavAdate, Alexander sees unlimited potential. While the initial rollout is in this area, SavAdate is a “national platform,” already gaining traction. Alexander has some 50 charities signed up, from local organizations to those based in California and Florida.
Holly Alexander’s new SavAdate company will help nonprofits such as Adopt-A-Dog in Armonk, where Alexander is pictured with rescue dog Spike.
“They’ve jumped on, regardless,” she says, of where they are based. When organizations hear of the concept, Alexander says the reaction has been universal: “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” For Alexander, it’s simply the latest step in a career based on maximizing potential. Alexander, who grew up in Greenwich and now lives in Goldens Bridge, graduated with a degree in psychology from Tufts University. She went on to spend some dozen years in the luxury retail industry, working at Mary Jane Denzer, her mother’s eponymous – and legendary – business in White Plains. Alexander was involved in “every end” of the designer fashion boutique, “which was great training for any business,” she says. She would then go on to start her own company, TopSpin Communications. Helping small businesses, nonprofits and individuals maximize their social-media presence has what Alexander calls “a good synergy” with SavAdate.
“My goal is to really help promote the organization,” Alexander says. And, she adds, the audience here is prime. “We’re living in a very philanthropic community.” Nonprofits, she adds, not only benefit from such generosity but also rely on it, with special events often counted on for major support. “In a lot of cases it could be upward of 50 percent of their operating budget that they’re hoping to achieve,” Alexander says. Alexander has also built an element of giving back into SavAdate with its Dividend Fund, where she will allocate 10 percent of the company’s annual profits. Organizations registered with SavAdate will be eligible to apply for a grant from the fund each year. After all, SavAdate is designed to help make fundraising rewarding on many levels. As Alexander says, “It shouldn’t be a heavy lift.” For more, visit SavAdate.com.
LEAFING OUT
ARBOR CARE KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL
With
BY X. L. TREED
WESTCHESTER - FAIRFIELD
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With the professionalism one would expect of a London concierge and the thorough working knowledge one would expect of a professor of entomology and plant pathology, Doug Paulding has turned Eager Beaver Tree service into the area’s premier tree and shrub care establishment. The freshly and artistically painted equipment adorned with whimsical beavers provides a friendly atmosphere. And the current approach to reduced fat is epitomized by Mr. Paulding. His labor force and equipment purchases are indicative of a no-fat approach to business. It is refreshing to call on anyone in the company, from pest control technicians to expert tree pruners to the ground crew, and be able to get intelligent answers. This is no accident. Mr. Paulding is dedicated to providing and ensuring quality personnel. Every member of the team has attended the field and classroom seminars specifically tailored to their role. And what a team! It’s a pleasure to watch them work, reminiscent of a finely tuned athletic team. Each goes about his job with an enthusiasm and an anticipation of everything that needs to be done. Start with the deep root liquid fertilizer as a first course. The loosening of the soil and introduction of critical but depleted nutrients will snap your trees and shrubs out of their winter dormancy with exuberance and excitement for growth and anticipation of what’s to come. The horticultural oil is not to be missed. Expertly prepared and presented, this early season approach to pest reduction will see to it that aphids, adelgids and scales are smothered under a thin layer of oil and neutralized. Monitoring and timing are essential for quality control and Eager Beaver Tree Service is committed to these procedures.
Other courses are further enhanced by their approach to pest control. It’s a pleasure to see pioneers such as Mr. Paulding using bio- and photodegradable materials. Pests today are specifically targeted and controlled by bacteria, fungi and viruses that affect only the intended victim. Once again Eager Beaver’s expert, flawless timing sees to it that the homeowner can relax as the target pest is controlled. The broad spectrum, highly toxic approach of yesterday that is still employed by a shocking number of companies today will be changing due to regulations and consumer awareness. Until then call on Eager Beaver Tree Service. The problems and fears generated by the deer tick need not prevent enjoyment of your property. Their technicians can reduce the tick population dramatically and reduce the threat of disease in an environemntally responsible way. The pièce de résistance of Eager Beaver’s menu of services may well be expert tree pruning. Those who choose to skip it will have missed an extraordinary presentation. Grand old oaks are restored to their former glory by selective thinning and dead wood removal. Apple trees are delicately shaped into a flowering cascading waterfall. Overgrown and dense trees of all varieties can be thinned to allow dappled sunshine to brighten the atmosphere that has darkened with time. Properties can be further enhanced by a deft hand-pruning of the foundation plantings. When Eager Beaver removes a tree, it’s an arboricultural tour de force. The effortless fluidity Mr. Paulding and company bring to your home will draw crowds and applause. His commitment to safety and cleanliness leaves everyone feeling contented and satisfied.
EXTRAORDINARY Serving Westchester and Fairfield 914-533-2255 | 203-869-3280 |
203-966-6767
www.eagerbeavertreeservice.com ATMOSPHERE: Professional and personable with scrupulous attention to detail. Carefully maintained equipment and impeccably trained personnel. RECOMMENDED PROCEDURES: Being the owner of a small company, Mr. Paulding never has to “sell” to keep his crew busy. You can be sure all the recommendations are arboriculturally sound and will improve the host plant. His knowledge and no pressure, soft-sell approach is a pleasure to experience. PAYMENT METHOD: Check and cash. Steep discounts apply to pre-payment for seasonal pest control and fertilizing. HOURS: Emergency service always in effect. Otherwise reservations necessary.
BIRD-BRAINED, YET SO BEAUTIFUL
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Peacock love at the Hudson River Museum BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
FEW CREATURES WOULD SEEM TO OFFER THE ANTITHESIS TO MENTAL HEFT THAT THE PEACOCK DOES. Those feathers with the shimmering blue-green eyes. That fanning, undulating tail. That strut. That pea brain. An exhibit on peacocks, though, that’s another story. The curators at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers have plumbed the plumage to reveal a rare bird, a protean metaphor for our ambivalence toward beauty, the tension between male regard and female power and the narcissism of what we might call Selfie Nation. “I feel like we’re riding the crest of a wave,” says Bartholomew F. Bland, the museum’s director of curatorial affairs, who together with Laura L. Vookles, chief curator of collections, has put together “Strut: The Peacock and Beauty in Art” (Oct. 11-Jan. 18). Indeed, you know you’re on to something when The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a lot of peacock-themed stuff, wants your catalog for its gift shop. From peacock candles and paintings at Pier One to peacock rugs, wine holders, wall art and vases from Touch of Class, the peacock is having another moment, thanks to what Bland calls “the neoVictorian return of the last decade.” For those who can’t get enough peacock tchotchkes, the Hudson River Museum exhibit is just the ticket. “A lot of the show is dec(orative) art,” Bland says. “Vases, fabric and posters.” There’s a Crown Derby hand-painted porcelain “Vase, With Peacock Feather Motif” (circa 1878-90); “Peacock Fabric” (mid-20th century) on printed cotton; and a Judith Leiber “Peacock-Shaped Multicolor Rhinestone Minaudière” (2004) made of gold-plated brass, Swarovski crystals and semiprecious stones with a gold kid-skin interior. These items befit a museum whose Victorian-era Glenview mansion contains a fire screen of a stuffed peacock, which, Vookles writes in the accompanying catalog, “signaled consumption and refined taste in the 19th-century home.” Tastes change, however, and beauty is, as they say, skin-deep. “I keep coming back to the idea of beauty and art and how suspect beauty is,” says Bland, who remembers the peacock’s nocturnal shriek from childhood visits to his grandparents in northern Florida. “We have a feeling that (beauty) is unjust, because who gets it doesn’t necessarily reflect moral goodness.” Then again, neither does the distribution of brains or talent. Yes, Bland adds, but brains and talent imply exertion in their cultivation. Brains and talent do. Beauty just is. And what it is can be crass. “Just think of the peacock strutting about,” Bland says. “It can be blatant in its beauty. And it can be seductive.” The indifference to virtue can veer into vice. We’ve all heard the expression, “Proud as a peacock.” The pride that goeth before the fall is represented in Paul Cadmus’ egg tempera painting “Pride” (1945), part of his postwar “Seven Deadly Sins” series, featuring a bloated blue hermaphrodite with peacock eyes for nipples. Four centuries earlier, Pieter Brueghel the Elder cast the peacock in the same haughty role in his engraving “The
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Seven Deadly Sins: Pride” (1558) – though his son Jan chose instead to portray the bird’s visual splendor in his painting “The Five Senses: Allegory of Sight.” There’s even a sly reference to pride in the exhibit’s “Nureyev” (2011), Rikki Morley Saunders’ tribute to the arrogant beauty of the dancer in the form of a crested, tiptoeing bronze peacock, whose feathers trail it like a bridal train. Feminine analogies are inescapable here, for part of what unsettles us about the peacock and the beauty it represents is its either-or transvestism – a subject Bland develops in his catalog essay, “Peacocks, People, and the Sexual Masquerade.” On the one hand, “it” is a “he” in the most traditional sense of the word. Notwithstanding Darwin, who at first thought the bird too ornamental to survive predation, the peacock is a macho male – strutting, displaying and emitting a shrill sound that is an assault on the central nervous system, all for love of the drab peahen; and squaring off against its own kind, again for said peahen, and even snakes, which are among the creatures this omnivore eats. (This reporter once saw a peacock in full display face off against an Old English Sheepdog.) The masculinity of the peacock is further consolidated by its symbolic voyeurism. In Greek mythology, its feathers are made of the 100 eyes of Argus, Hera’s watchful servant, killed in his vain attempt to keep the jealous goddess’ philandering hubby Zeus from the maiden Io. In Christianity, those same feathers become the wings of St. Michael the Archangel, their all-seeing eyes weeping at humanity’s failings. The peacock, then, represents male regard and particularly male regard of the female. It’s also a reminder that in nature at least (and quite possibly in art history as well) the male of the species is the sex symbol. Yet human nature is more complex. It wasn’t long after the peacock made its way from its native India to the West that its feminine prettiness was co-opted by the female. The peacock pulls Hera’s chariot. It adorned the spectacular Worth gown that Lady Curzon wore in 1903 to the ball after the Delhi Durbar, a festival proclaiming Edward VII and Queen Alexandra emperor and empress of India. Lady Curzon’s subsequent death reinforced the idea of the peacock as a harbinger of doom. But that didn’t stop modern-dance diva Ruth St. Denis and elegant ecdysiast Gypsy Rose Lee from taking inspiration from the peacock for their acts. Not that the relationship between a girl and her peacock has always been an easy one. Bland points to a 1921 Life magazine cover by artist F. X. Leyendecker, in which a showgirl tussles with a peacock. It’s part glam prizefight, part mating ritual, and it is light-years away from “Peacock,” a 2010 dance hit in which Katy Perry, employing both peacock plumage and strut, asks her male listeners, “Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?” The female has assumed not only the peacock’s prettiness but its aggressive stance. Its sexual transformation is complete. Perry’s performance encapsulates the peacock’s flamboyance – “there’s nothing ‘less is more’ about the peacock,” Bland says. But in our own time, the bird signifies not only our “showoff culture” but the triumph of the visual over the verbal and the auditory, that how you look is more important than what you say or how you say it. “In an age of photography,” he adds, “you do not think of the voice.” So there we are – dumb bird. And yet beauty remains beguiling. “I hope people come to the show and … dig into its riches,” Bland says, “because the works are so beautiful.” For more, visit hrm.org.
Hedy Lamarr in “Samson and Delilah.”
PET OF THE MONTH
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT, ALFIE? This sweet senior mini Australian Shepherd came to the SPCA after he was abandoned at a local veterinarian office. Although the little guy is older and can’t see or hear very well, he is otherwise healthy, still gets around well and will even start to play like a puppy when he gets excited. He loves going on walks and is easygoing. He’d be a great couch potato companion or a great dog for someone living in an apartment, as the SPCA haven’t heard him bark once. Alfie just wants somewhere he can live out his golden years with someone who understands these words from Robert Browning’s poem “Rabbi Ben Ezra:” “Come and grow old with me! The best is yet to be….” To meet Alfie, visit the SPCA of Westchester at 590 N. State Road in Briarcliff Manor. Please note: The SPCA does not accept deposits, make appointments or reserve animals for adoption even if it has spoken about a particular dog or cat with you. It’s always first-come, first-served among applicants, pending approval. The SPCA is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays. To learn more, call (914) 941-2896 or visit spca914.org.
PET PORTRAITS
Tyler, taking it easy. Photograph courtesy Lynnette Clemens.
TYLER TAKES IT EASY We were charmed by this restful pose featuring Tyler, submitted by Lynnette Clemens. She shares the following: “Tyler is an 8-year-old Welsh Terrier bred by the Collings family from the Syracuse area. We live in Old Greenwich, where Tyler walks in Binney Park and, in the winter, walks and plays at Tods Point. He is smart, strategic, stubborn, loves people and treats and rides in the car. He lives with his good friend, Carrey, an energetic 6-year-old Welsh Terrier/Parsons Russell mix whom we adopted from the Port Jefferson animal shelter.”
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Elizabeth Bracken-Thompson and Geoff Thompson with Molly.
WHEN & WHERE
THROUGH OCTOBER 12 The College of New Rochelle, Mooney Center Gallery presents “A Retrospective: Harriette Chelnik,” featuring sculptures and paintings that chart her versatility. 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays through Sundays. 29 Castle Place; 800-850-1904, mycnr.com.
casing their signature dishes. The celebratory evening raises money and awareness for Community Plates in Fairfield. A VIP cocktail reception will be followed by an event that includes featured restaurants, libations, music, dancing and more. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Darien Community Association, 274 Middlesex Road; communityplates.org/FFA14 for tickets.
THROUGH OCTOBER 18
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3
Madelyn Jordon Fine Art Gallery presents an exhibit of works by Pierre Javelle, Akiko Ida, DJ Leon and Christina Stahr who work in photography, collage and printmaking. 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. 37 Popham Road, Scarsdale; 914-723-8738, madelynjordanfineart.com.
“It’s Only Natural:” Two artists, Cynthia McCusker and Carla Goldberg, two unique expressions of the animal world, one by land and one by sea. Opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m., Gallery 66 NY, 66 Main St., Cold Spring; 845-809-5838, gallery66ny.com.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8 The New York Times best-selling author James Van Praagh seeks to bridge the divide between the world of the living and the realm of the dead. Tarrytown Music Hall, 13 Main St., Tarrytown; 914-6313390, tarrytownmusichall.org.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9 Rob Thomas will perform a special concert for Open Door’s biannual benefit concert. Girish Navani and Isabel E. E. Beshar will be the honorees for the event that begins with a VIP cocktail reception at 6:30 p.m. followed by the concert at 8:30 p.m., Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, 735 Anderson Hill Road; 914-502-1414, opendoormedical.org/robthomas.
THROUGH NOVEMBER 15
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10
Featuring 43 contemporary ceramic artists, “Lineage: The Art of Mentorship” explores works by artists in and out of academia that have had a profound effect on clay culture. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, Clay Art Center, 40 Beech St., Port Chester; 914-937-2047, clayartcenter.org.
Macy Gray makes her only area appearance at Ridgefield Playhouse. Best-known for her international hit single “I Try,” she released seven studio albums and received five Grammy Award nominations, winning one. 8 p.m., 80 East Ridge; 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.
The Cab Calloway Orchestra under the baton of Cab’s grandson, Calloway Brooks, delivers the snazzy jazz that is part of Calloway’s legacy. Complimentary wine-tasting and reception with the artists in the lobby at 6:30 p.m., followed by the show at 7:30 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge; 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.
THROUGH JANUARY 11
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4 THROUGH SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16
“This Leads to Fire: Russian Art from Nonconformism to Global Capitalism.” Selections from the Kolodzei Art Foundation Collection feature works from the 1950s through glasnost to the present. Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, 735 Anderson Hill Road; 914-251-6100, Neuberger.org.
THROUGH MARCH 22 “Greenwich Faces the Great War.” A multimedia exhibit on the homefront during World War I, noon to 4 p.m. Wednesdays to Sundays (Saturdays and Sundays in January and February), Greenwich Historical Society’s Storehouse Gallery, 39 Strickland Road, Cos Cob; 203-869-6899, greenwichhistory.org.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2 The Bangles play Ridgefield Playhouse. Best known for their hits “If She Knew What She Wants,” the Prince-penned “Manic Monday” and the smash dance track “Walk Like An Egyptian,” these songs rocketed the Bangles to superstardom. 8 p.m., 80 E. Ridge, Ridgefield; 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org. The Breast Cancer Alliance partners with Greenwich merchants for an inaugural event called “Go For Pink” that will kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The day begins with a flag-raising ceremony at Greenwich Town Hall at 9 a.m. and ends with special shopping receptions at participating stores from 5 to 8 p.m. Greenwich Avenue; breastcanceralliance.com. “Food for All - A night to End Hunger in Fairfield County” features Darien’s newest restaurants show-
“The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze” contains more than 5,000 individually hand-carved, illuminated jack o’ lanterns in an 18th-century riverside setting. Van Cortlandt Manor, 525 S. Riverside Ave., CrotonOn-Hudson; hudsonvalley.org for information and timed tickets.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5 The hits of the supergroup America were cornerstones of 1970s Top 40 and FM rock radio, including “I Need You,” “Ventura Highway,” “Don’t Cross The River,” “Tin Man,” “Lonely People” and “Sister Golden Hair.” 8 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge, Ridgefield; 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org. Guiding Eyes for the Blind hosts its fifth annual wine-tasting benefit, “Wine, Music & Puppies,” at its headquarters and training center in Yorktown Heights. Attendees will join sommelier Amy Dixon and musician Blessing Offor, both Guiding Eyes graduates, for a unique concert and paired wine-tasting experience. 3 to 6 p.m., 611 Granite Springs Road, Yorktown Heights; 914-245-4024, guidingeyes.org.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11 An evening of stand-up comedy from Whoopi Goldberg. 8:30 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge; 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12 Chef Lidia Bastianich and 2006 Copland House resident composer Daniel Brewbaker team up for “The Awakened Palate,” a culinary and musical gala in celebration of Copland House, Aaron Copland’s landmark home. Cocktails begin at 5 p.m., Del Posto, 85 10th Ave., Manhattan; 914-788-4659, copelandhouse.org. A gallery talk with Nicole Simpson on “The Hudson River Portfolio: A Beginning for the Hudson River School.” Simpson will trace the creation of the portfolio. Boscobel House and Gardens, 1601 Route 9D, Garrison; 845-265-3638, boscobel.org. Simon’s “Lookbook Live” is an interactive trend showcase from the style pros at GQ and Glamour that offers an insider’s scoop on all the hottest looks this season. Enjoy personal styling sessions, grooming and beauty how-tos, social media challenges and giveaways. The Westchester, 125 Westchester Ave., White Plains; 914-421-1333, simon.com/look-book-live.
VNA of Hudson Valley holds a beer-tasting and BBQ, a fundraiser for the organization’s charitable and educational programs in Westchester and Putnam counties. 5:30 p.m., $75, Captain Lawrence Brewing Co., 444 Saw Mill River Road, Elmsford; 914-6667616, events@vnahv.org.
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WHEN & WHERE
The Yorktown Chamber of Commerce hosts its sixth annual “Fall Festival and Street Fair” in downtown Yorktown. Continuous live, local musical talent, shopping, food and more. 11a.m. to 5 p.m., Commerce Street and Veterans Road, Yorktown; 914-2454599, yorktownfestival.com.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14 The “James and Barbara Chin Golf & Tennis Classic” benefits St. Christopher’s School in Dobbs Ferry, which helps teens with emotional, behavioral and learning disabilities. The golf classic begins at 10:30 a.m. at Leewood Golf Club, with the tennis classic at Chestnut Ridge in Mount Kisco from noon to 3 p.m. Cocktail reception, buffet dinner to follow at Leewood Golf Club at 4:30 p.m., 1 Leewood Drive, Eastchester; 914-693-3030, sc1881.com
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16 CLUSTER Community Services presents its eighth annual “Harvest Tasting,” honoring individuals who are making an impact on Yonkers. The event features fine wines, gourmet food and live and silent auctions. Peter Kelly’s X20, 71 Water Grant St., Yonkers; 914963-6440, Yonkersclusterinc.org. “An Evening in Good Taste” benefits The Food Bank for Westchester, showcasing 30 of Westchester’s best chefs who donate their time, talent and delectable treats for the more than 700 guests. 6 to 9 p.m., 1133 Westchester Ave., White Plains; 914-418-5204, foodbankforwestchester.org.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17 The Woman’s Club of White Plains hosts its third annual “Corks and Forks,” an evening of food and spirits at its headquarters. The proceeds from this year’s event will benefit PEACE OUTside Campus, The Lindsey M. Bonistall Foundation and the Woman’s Club Foundation. Wine tasting, martini bar, silent auction, cocktail attire requested. 7 to 11 p.m., The Woman’s Club of White Plains, 305 Ridgeway; 914-948-0958, womansclubofwhiteplains.org.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18 “The Met Opera: Live in HD” Gatsbys Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” with a Jazz Age setting. 12:55 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge; 203-4385795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org. (For other venues, metoperafamily.org) “ARToberfest!” is the newest addition to Pelham Art Center’s continuing free Folk Arts Series. Celebrate the German folks art of Bavarian Tyrolean felt hat making and Scherenschnitte paper cutting. 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., Pelham Art Center, 155 Fifth Ave.; 914738-2525, pelhamartcenter.org.
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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19 Ossining hosts its first “Chalk It Up! Festival.” Visitors are invited to enjoy a day of music, dance, crafts and food alongside amateur and professional artists painting Ossining’s Main and Spring streets sidewalks with chalk pastel. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., villageofossining.org. Making Strides of Westchester 5-mile run/walk to raise awareness and funds to end breast cancer. 8 a.m., Manhattanville College, 2900 Purchase St., Purchase; 800-227-2345, WestchesterNYStrides@cancer.org.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20 “No Day But October 20:” Broadway’s Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp, who starred in “Rent,” perform to benefit The Guidance Center of Westchester. 7:30 p.m., Emelin Theatre, 153 Library Lane, Mamaroneck; 914-698-0098, emelin.org.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21 Arc of Westchester Foundation hosts a gala to benefit children and adults with autism and other developmental disabilities. Enjoy signature dishes prepared by area chefs and indulge in a wide assortment of fine wine and craft beers. Live and silent auctions. 6 p.m., Westchester Country Club, 99 Biltmore Ave., Rye; 914-495-4536, arcwestchester.org. Nana Danso, award-winning motivational speaker and author of “Real Magic: Breaking Through the Illusion of Success,” presents “Creating Messages That Stick!,” a program on how to communicate with teens. Registration and reception: 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., Tarry Lodge and Market, 18 Mill St., Port Chester; mpiwc.org.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22 Natalie Cole, winner of nine Grammy Awards, performs standards from the American Songbook. 8 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge; 203-4385795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23 THROUGH SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16 Goodspeed Opera House presents the new musical “The Circus in Winter,” a tale of love, lust, betrayal and tragedy under the Big Top with a folk and rock score and lyrics by Ben Clark and a book by Hunter Foster and Beth Turcotte, inspired by the Cathy Day novel. 2 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays, $45, The Norma Terris Theatre, 33 N. Main St., Chester, Conn.; 860-873-8668, goodspeed.org
The 2014 American Red Cross “Red Tie Affair” honors the BNY Mellon, Patrick Durkin and Candice Bergen for their tireless commitment to help those in need. Cocktails, dinner and entertainment. Gotham Hall, 1356 Broadway, New York City; 212-875-2011, redcross.org/ny/new-york/red-ball.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24 The sixth annual “United Way Oktoberfest” features a German-inspired buffet dinner accompanied by various beers and wine, along with a DJ, its signature cork game, Heads or Tails and a silent auction. Casual attire is encouraged. 7 p.m., The Loading Dock, 375 Fairfield Ave., Stamford; 203-869-2221, unitedway-greenwich.com/oktoberfest.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25 The 50th Anniversary of the Kennedy Center “Four Seasons Ball” honors Dorothy B. Larson, lifetime director with The Kennedy Center Board of Directors and Four Seasons Ball chairman from 1966 to1984, with food, music and dancing until midnight. Black tie optional, 7 p.m., Rolling Hills Country Club, 333 Hurlbutt St., Wilton; 203-762-8381, thekennedycenterinc.org.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26 Join the 10th annual 5K Lindsey Run/Walk presented by the PEACE OUTSide Campus, Lindsey M. Bonistall Foundation, which advocates student safety. 8:15 a.m., Purchase College, 735 Anderson Hill Road; 914-248- 4411, lindseyrun.com.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 27 The Hudson Valley Music Club presents its “Mostly Morning Series,” featuring the Decoda Oboe and Strings ensemble performing works by Mozart, Schubert and Britten. 1 p.m., Dobbs Ferry Women’s Club, 54 Clinton Ave.; 914-232-5916, artswestchester. org/profile/hudvalleymus.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31 National Theatre Live’s broadcast of “Frankenstein” returns to cinemas for a limited time, thanks in part to two Sherlocks – PBS’ Benedict Cumberbatch and CBS’ Jonny Lee Miller alternate roles as Victor Frankenstein and his creation. The production was a sellout at London’s National Theatre in 2011 and the broadcast has since become an international sensation. 6 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge; 203438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.
80 East Ridge, Ridgefield, CT • (203) 438-5795
ridgefieldplayhouse.org
Natalie Cole Wed, October 22 @ 8PM
Join us for an “Unforgettable” evening with 9-time Grammy Award Winner Natalie Cole.
As she sings from her best known hits and songs from her latest album! And don’t miss her duet on stage with her dad! 7pm - Free Wine and Cheese Course courtesy of 109 Wine & Cheese, hors d’oeuvres by Bernard’s and artist reception with Lawrence McGarvey courtesy of Rockwell Art and Framing
BROADWAY & CABARET SERIES
DOYLE COFFIN ARCHITECTuRE SINGER SONGWRITER SERIES
Macy Gray
With Special Guest Carey NoKey
Sat, October 4 @ 8PM
Grammy Award Winning Singer-Songwriter best known for her International hit “I Try”.
Punch Brothers Noam Pikelny & Stuart Duncan Grammy Winning Bluegrass Musician Wed, October 15 @ 8PM
Two of the most exciting musicians in roots music today!
The Best of Rufus Wainwright
With Special Guest Sloan Wainwright
Sun, October 19 @ 8PM
One of modern music’s most innovative talents! A night of hits including “Going to Town,” “Hallelujah” and more!
MOFFLY MEDIA ENTERTAINING CONVERSATIONS SERIES
An Evening with David Sedaris Mon, October 13 @ 7:30PM
International bestselling author David Sedaris reads from stories in progress and journal entries, as well as recent New Yorker pieces – mixed with his commentary on the world. Q&A at the end of the event.
Mo Rocca
Fri, November 14 @ 7:30PM
From CBS Sunday Morning, Comedy Central, The Cooking Channel and more! Mo’s stories and perspectives will have you laughing! Q&A will follow!
CLARK CONSTRUCTION COMEDY SERIES
Whoopi Goldberg
Sat, October 11 @ 8:30PM Don’t miss an evening of stand-up with this comedy legend!
Kathleen Madigan
Sat, October 18 @ 8PM
One of America’s funniest female comedians returns to the Playhouse with an all new show!
ART, WINE & JAZZ SERIES
ROCK SERIES
Willie Nile
With Special Guest Jefferson Grizzard
Thurs, October 16 @ 7:30PM
Every ticket holder gets a free glass of wine or beer! A great night with this singer songwriter and live-wire rocker! With his new release “American Ride!”
Charlie Daniels Band
With Special Guest Jamie McLean Band
Fri, October 24 @ 8PM
With hits “Long Haired Country Boy,” “The South’s Gonna Do It Again,” and of course, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
Adrian Belew Power Trio With Special Guest Saul Zonana
Sunday, October 26 @ 8PM
Guitarist, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. Best known for his work with King Crimson, Talking Head and Frank Zappa!
Creedence Clearwater Revisited
Sat, November 1 @ 8PM
Underwritten by Cucumber & Chamomile
With hits “Bad Moon Rising,” “Down on the Corner,” “Fortunate Song”, “Have You Ever Seen The Rain”, “Proudy Mary” and more!
An Evening with Bruce Hornsby
Sun, November 2 @ 8PM
Underwritten by Steinway Piano Gallery Westport
With hits "The Way It Is," "Mandolin Rain," "Every Little Kiss," and more! Bruce Hornsby's new live double album "Solo Concerts" will be included with the purchase of each ticket!
The Moody Blues Justin Hayward
With Special Guest Mike Dawes
Tues, November 4 @ 8PM
With hits “Nights In White Satin,” “Tuesday Afternoon,” “The Voice,” and “Your Wildest Dreams.
Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson Breakfast in America Tour Sat, November 8 @ 8PM
With a full band! Legendary Singer-Songwriter, formerly of 81 Supertramp. With hits “Give a Little Bit,” “Breakfast in America,” “Dreamer,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and more!
WATCH
HOT LOOKS
One of our favorite fashion designers and cover boy (WAG Sept. 2013) Rolando Santana hosted his Spring Summer 2015 runway show Sept. 7 at his showroom headquarters in the heart of the Fashion District. The collection was inspired by artist Mark Rothko. Photographs by Bob Rozycki.
Rolando Santana
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Four years ago, my friend invited me over to her neighbor’s house to make sauce. I had never done it before and was very intrigued by the entire process. After nine long grueling hours we had sauce – the best I had ever tasted. “I was amazed by the process and
Doug Ruby and Michael Gould at the tomato-pressing machine.
Octopus salad
SAUCY ENDEAVOR decided that I would do it myself the following year. We went to Arthur Avenue to buy the equipment and three years ago, I started The Sauce Team. We originally started out with seven people and have grown to 14. “I look forward to doing this every
Jeff DeBeech
August. In fact, I do not plan any vacations in August, so I can get the perfect weekend when the tomatoes are at their ripest. “I make about 100 jars and use it all year. As soon as you have the fi rst chill of fall, there is nothing as good as opening a jar of tomatoes
and smelling the fresh aroma of August sauce! “It is a lot of work, but so well worth it. I can never be without my sauce. – Jackie Ruby, “The Cooking Realtor,” Waccabuc. Photographs by Doug Ruby.
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THE SAUCE TEAM: Back, from left: Jeff DeBeech, Michael Gould, Tom Collins, Doug Ruby, Handi Kuenan, Jessica Rogers, Steve Kuenan; front, from left, Jackie Ruby, Suzanne Collins, Lia Grasso and Kristen Ruby
Jackie Ruby and her platter of pasta with freshly made tomato sauce.
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WATCH GOLDEN GIRL Riding the well-named Vindicat W, a fleet, flawless Jessica Springsteen took the top prize in the $200,000 American Gold Cup & Longines World Cup Qualifier CSI4*-W, presented by Old Salem Farm in North Salem and Stadium Jumping Inc. Sept. 14. Laura Kraut turned in an aggressive ride aboard Andretti S for the silver and Katherine Dinan, guiding Nougat Du Vallet, took the bronze. The event, which capped five days of jumping competition, attracted a throng of about 5,000, including Springsteen’s parents, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa, Tom Selleck and NBC anchorman Brian Williams.
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Photographs by Emily Riden and Carrie Wirth of Phelps Media Group 1. Adam Prudent 2. Georgina Bloomberg and son Jasper 3. Kama Godek 4. Jessica Springsteen 5. Darragh Kenney 6. Laura Kraut 7. Brianne Goutal 8. Tom Selleck 9. Pedro Cebulka 10. Shane Sweetnam 3
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HOOF AND WOOF TIME It was a great day for two- and fourlegged creatures as ECAD (Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities) hosted a fundraiser for more than 230 guests at the Greenwich Polo Club, organized by Jo Rosenfeld Major Occasions. ECAD’s second annual Polo Luncheon, catered by Aux Délices, honored Leora and Steve Levy, philanthropists and advocates for U.S. servicemen and women. There was entertainment by the Chris Norton Trio and members of the USO of Metropolitan New York, along with speeches by veterans, including those whose lives have been transformed by ECAD service dogs. Afterward, guests enjoyed a taut match for the Royal Salute Cup between the team sponsored by Royal Salute, maker of Scotch whisky, and one sponsored by Casablanca, the polo gear company, which has a store in Greenwich. The match, played in picture-perfect weather and won by Royal Salute, offered a sparkling climax to the polo season in WAG country.
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1. Nathan Peck, Chris Norton, and Bryan Reeder 2. Donna Burke with Haley 3. James Scheider, Tyler Wipfli, Kimberly Thomas and Erin Long 4 Audrey McNiff and Leora Levy
PROMOTING SCHOLARSHIP
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Bronx resident Tiffany Tavarez is the first recipient of The College of New Rochelle’s Mariano Rivera Scholarship. She was selected for being an outstanding Hispanic woman who has achieved academic excellence while also serving her church and community. 6. Yankee legend Mariano Rivera, Tiffany Tavarez, Judith Huntington and Noam Bramson.
IVORY TOWER The Westchester Community Foundation (WCF) recently partnered with the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville to present the documentary film “Ivory Tower,” which questions the purpose of higher education in an era when the price of college has increased more than any other service in the United States. A lively discussion by academics, parents and students followed the film.
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Photographs by Jacob Burns Film Center. 7. Judy Exton and Catherine Marsh 8. Venetta Amory and Theresa Kilman 9. Thomas J. Schwarz and Jon C. Strauss 8
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WATCH WINE AND DINE FEST The Southern Westchester Food & Wine Festival (SoWe) held its launch party at Mercedes-Benz of White Plains recently. Attendees enjoyed a wine-tasting and food-pairing seminar. The evening included delicious bites from Alex Ghee, executive chef of RiverMarket Bar and Kitchen in Tarrytown, and executive chef Jay Lippin of Crabtree’s Kittle House in Chappaqua (last year’s winner of “Best Entree” at the Festival).
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Photographs by Corey Baumer. 1. Rich, Stacey and Casey Baumer 2. Jay Lippin 3.Glenn Vogt, third from left, and three chefs from Crabtree’s Kittle House and RiverMarket 4. Lara Sullivan, Daniella DiMartino and Christina Rae 5. Courtney Woods and Leslie Sturman 6.Getoar Balidemaj, Brian Mullane and Susan Kostrzewa 7. Ellen Adnopoz, Margie Ostrower, David Raizen, Kathy Pascale and Emily Raizen
MIXING IT UP
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Nonprofit Westchester (NPW) hosted a Summer Networking Mixer at Lola’s Mexican Kitchen in White Plains, where more than 50 members of the county’s nonprofit community connected with colleagues and government officials. 8. Tracy Kay, Brenda Wilkin, Katie Pfeifer and John Higgins 9. Jennifer Flowers, Maurice Segall and Susan Edwards 10. Joe Kenner, Joanna Straub and Kevin J. Plunkett 11. Walter Recher and Richard Nightingale 12. Janet Langsam and Catherine Marsh
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THE CHILDREN’S HOUR 13
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The Westchester Children’s Association (WCA) hosted a barbecue on the grounds of the CV Rich Mansion in White Plains to recognize all the partners it has had since the organization’s founding in 1914. Since then, WCA has educated youngsters, advocated for them and mobilized support for policies and programs to improve children’s lives. 13. Allison Lake, Pat White and Susan Wayne 14. Frank WIlliams and Saul Yanoksky 15. Terry Kirchner 16. Isabel Villar 17. Cora Greenberg, Kevin Plunkett and Kathy Halas
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LIGHT THE NIGHT KICKOFF
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The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Connecticut/Westchester/Hudson Valley Chapter recently held its “Light the Night Walk” kickoff at Manhattanville College, which honored local cancer patients. The walk takes place Nov. 1 at Playland in Rye.
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Photographs by Deborah J Karson. 1. Dennis Chillemi, Liza Munson, Chris Meyers, Barbara Gallagher and Liz Nunan 2. David Gruber and Dennis Chillemi 3. Christina Rae, Daniella DiMartino and Lara Sullivan 4. Mary and David Kmetz Jr. 5. Alex Cohen and Antonella Leone 6. Lisa and Richard Dutra 7. Savanna DiFatta
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GOING GREEN Heineken USA recently hosted a Westchester Green Business Challenge event at its headquarters in White Plains. The challenges encourage companies throughout Westchester County to improve their office performance by becoming more environmentally minded.
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Photographs by James Koch photography. 9. Carol Ryan and Michael Shilale 10. Matthew Messer and Scott Fernqvist 11. George Oros, Thomas Roach and Pepe Velasquez 12. Dani Glaser and Nadine Hunt-Robinson 13. Lianne Visser 14. Colleen Griffiths
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WHAT’S BEEN YOUR SMARTEST MOVE?* WIT WONDERS:
Susan Ausman
Barbara Biba
Donna Burke
Nicole Egan
Mark Fioretta
Sabrina Forsythe
Jeff Joseph
Chris Norton
Patricia Polk
Tucker Pope
Patricia Robert
James Scheider
“REALIZING RESPECT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN MONEY. I’D RATHER BE WITH A POOR MAN WHO RESPECTS ME THAN A RICH ONE WHO DOESN’T.”
– Susan Ausman,
mother extraordinaire, Dover Plains, N.Y., resident
“MY SMARTEST MOVE WAS LETTING MY SON GO TO THE COLLEGE HE WANTED (FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY) AND SWITCHING THE LOCATION OF MY STORE IN PALM BEACH TO BOCA RATON. IT’S A MORE YEAR-ROUND, YOUNGER CLIENTELE.”
– Barbara Biba,
owner of Biba Boutiques, Wellington, Fla., resident
“GETTING A SERVICE DOG, HALEY, WITH ECAD (EDUCATED CANINES ASSISTING WITH DISABILITIES). BEING IN A WHEELCHAIR, I SEE HOW SHE MAKES ME MORE INDEPENDENT.”
– Donna Burke,
Bellmore, N.Y., resident
“MY SMARTEST MOVE WAS ENROLLING IN A PR CLASS AT IONA COLLEGE AFTER ATTENDING AN ALUMNI PRESENTATION SHOWCASING THEIR AWESOME PR JOBS. THIS HAS LED TO AN AMAZING JOURNEY FOR THE PAST EIGHT YEARS.”
– Nicole Egan,
public relations coordinator, Neiman Marcus Westchester, Mahopac resident
“WHEN I MARRIED MY WIFE, BETH. WHEN I PROPOSED TO HER – THAT WAS THE SMARTEST THING I’VE EVER DONE. IT’S BEEN 23 YEARS NOW, A LONG TIME. SHE’D PROBABLY GIVE YOU A DIFFERENT ANSWER.”
– Mark Fioretta,
executive account manager, NCR, New Hartford resident
“ALLOWING MY DAUGHTER TO ATTEND THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, WHERE SHE’S BLOSSOMED. AND I GET TO VISIT HER AND GO TO PALM BEACH.”
– Sabrina Forsythe,
president, Pray Achievement Center and Pray Automotive Museum, Greenwich resident
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“GOT TO BE MARRYING MY WIFE, PAT JONES. IT’S 39 YEARS NOW. I’D HOPE SHE SAY THE SAME THING.”
- Jeff Joseph,
chairman of the board, ECAD, Tarrytown resident
“THE MOVE TO NEW YORK CITY. IT OPENED UP A WHOLE WORLD.”
– Chris Norton,
Chris Norton Trio, Brooklyn resident
“BEING POSITIVE AND GETTING UP IN THE MORNING HELPS.”
– Patricia Polk,
owner/designer, Patricia’s Presents, New Milford resident
“I DECIDED TO TAKE MY SENIOR FALL SEMESTER OF COLLEGE IN LONDON (AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON). I DID IT ON MY OWN. I WENT TO A SMALL SCHOOL AND I WANTED A DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE. I MATURED IN LONDON AND BECAME MORE INDEPENDENT.”
“MY SMARTEST MOVE WAS STAYING AT THE HYATT (REGENCY GREENWICH) THE NIGHT BEFORE THE ECAD EVENT AT THE GREENWICH POLO CLUB. THIS WAY I DIDN’T HAVE TO GET ON A 6 A.M. METRO-NORTH TRAIN.”
– Patricia Robert,
public relations, Educated Canines Assisting With Disabilities (ECAD), New York City resident
“MY SMARTEST MOVE — AND IT’S BEEN GOING ON FIVE YEARS NOW WAS A LITERAL ONE TO NEW YORK CITY. IT ENABLED ME TO JOIN THE USO SHOW TROUPE AND GIVE BACK TO OUR TROOPS AND VETERANS, THE MOST APPRECIATIVE AUDIENCE IN THE WORLD, WHILE ALSO HELPING ORGANIZATIONS LIKE ECAD.”
– James Scheider,
USO of Metropolitan New York, New York City resident
– Tucker Pope,
sales associate, Casablanca, Simsbury resident
*Asked at the American Gold Cup at Old Salem Farm in North Salem, the ECAD event at the Greenwich Polo Club and Neiman Marcus Westchester.