Out & About
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

What goes best with Beethoven? How about a hamburger? Guests at the New York Philharmonic’s opening-night gala filled up on burgers and grilled shrimp before the concert. And in other ways, too, this traditionally formal evening had a delightfully informal feel. Guests arrived gradually and glowed in the natural light streaming into Avery Fisher Hall on Wednesday night. Foregoing the caviar had a positive effect on the amount raised by the event: $3.1 million, under the direction of gala chairmen J. Christopher Flowers and Mary White, Robert and Colleen Hekemian, and Masamoto and Yoko Yashiro.
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Cocktail hours are chaotic. Everyone is mixed together, and who knows who you’ll rub shoulders with. Dinner is exactly the opposite. Here the hierarchy of guests is blatantly on display. Where people sit reveals the friendships – and rivalries.
At the New Yorkers for Children benefit on Wednesday, 700 people squeezed into Cipriani 42nd Street for a seated dinner and performance by Melissa Etheridge. Their donations totaled $1.3 million for the organization, the private fund-raising arm of the city’s Administration for Children’s Services.
The organization’s VIPs (and bona fide celebrities) were seated in front of the stage. Here we found the event’s chairmen: investor Scott Bommer, who is cochairman of the Robin Hood Foundation’s Leadership Council, and his wife, Donya, a television journalist; real estate financier Jay Sugarman and his wife, Kelly, an interior designer who worked on Ian Schrager’s hotels, and the comedian Jerry Seinfeld and his wife, Jessica, the founder of Baby Buggy, which collects gear for infants and toddlers. The elder statesman of the bunch was Oscar de la Renta, who sat between Anna Wintour and Diane von Furstenberg, with Lenny Kravitz across the table.
Filling in other prime seats were party stalwarts Lauren Davis, Anna Grauso, Muffie Potter Aston, and Vogue staffers William Norwich, Sally Singer, and Alexandra Kotur.
In the center of the bank-turned-banquet hall was the founder and chief executive of the Children’s Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman. The forceful advocate for children certainly deserved this spot of honor. Nearby were the other honorees of the event, the music and fashion impresario Russell Simmons and Howard University senior Glenn Coleman.
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The Young Leadership Council of Gilda’s Club Worldwide had a launch party on Tuesday at Italian Wine Merchants. The council, whose members include Bill Bermont, Matt Garman, Glen Kopp, and Allison Silver, will help raise money to support the Gilda’s Clubs in America and Canada. Named after the “Saturday Night Live” comedian Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989, the clubs offer resources and support to people with cancer and their families.