Laurie Tisch's Arts Monday: From Lincoln Center to the Whitney, With a Boot In Between

Philanthropist Laurie Tisch with her contractor Randy Polumbo at a Whitney dinner on Monday. Polumbo designed her blinged-out boot. Photo: Amanda Gordon

At the Whitney Museum’s American Art Award dinner on Monday, philanthropist Laurie Tisch, a trustee of the museum and founder of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, granted our request for a report on the Lincoln Center 50th anniversary celebration that took place earlier in the day. We also met the contractor who's working on the Fifth Avenue apartment she purchased this winter (for $29 million), and got a first look at the gala-ready boot he created as an alternative to the plain one she's wearing due to some surgery. And not to worry, we’ll have more later on the Whitney dinner, which honored Bloomberg LP. Here's our interview condensed:

How was the Lincoln Center celebration this morning?
Laurie Tisch: It's embarassing to talk about it here. I thought it was phenomenal. I’m a Lincoln Center trustee, and when I first joined the board of Lincoln Center, I wasn’t sure why I was joining. I love Lincoln Center, I’m a West Sider, but I don’t have an incredible passion for any one of the arts, I like them all. But the more I’m on the board the more I think Lincoln Center is a phenomenal place. So I loved this morning, I loved every minute of it. Lincoln Center really is all things for all people. I underwrote the Illumination Lawn, the green lawn, which will open in a year.

Tell me about your fabulous boot.
Tisch: My contractor, Randy— I’m moving — is also a sculptor, and he said he would design a boot for me. He brought it up tonight and it matches perfectly. This is the first time I’ve seen it.
Randy Polumbo: I made that, my daughter, my sister, one of my architect friends, a whole team worked on it.

Where’d you get the baubles and the ribbons on it?
Polumbo: It’s a combination…
Tisch: Cartier!
Polumbo: Exactly. I’m an artist and own a construction company — 3-D Laboratory — and I build boots for a very select few; actually that’s my only boot. We did a crutch once.

Laurie, you’re not going to be a West Sider for much longer?
Tisch: A couple of years. Well, I’ll always be a West Sider, but I’m moving to other side of the Park.

Any particular reason why you’re leaving?
Tisch: It’s a better apartment for this time in my life. Mine is really a family apartment and this one is really more for entertaining, and it’s a spectacular apartment. It’s a little smaller but better space.