by chronicles DEBBIE BANCROFT
Tottering
Summer
Into
Luncheons, charitable causes, screenings and
book parties worth getting dressed up for
Pre-summer solstice in New York is a season bursting with blossoms, benevolence, beauty and, oh yeah, a little sex in the city . . . 2. New York wags
her sophisticated finger at us and says, ‘Go to your
quaint cottages and seaside villages, but don’t
forget where the center of the universe is—and be
sure you come back.’ I don’t even want to leave!
What can you say about an event that isn’t just
sold out but has a waiting list? Such is the case
with the Society of Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center’s Spring Ball, chaired this year by
the formidable Tory Burch, Shelley Carr, Dee
Dee Ricks and new New Yorker Jamie Tisch, all
ably assisted by their dedicated president, Heather
Leeds. Thousands of Bronson van Wyck’s handcrafted, feather butterflies wafted in the Pierre’s
Grand Ballroom over the heads of merry philanthropists like Muffie and Sherrell Aston, Ann and
Mario Grauso, Alexandra Kotur, Sara and
Charlie Ayres, ultimate auctioneer Jamie Niven,
and Lee Sherman and Christopher Meloni,
Claude Wasserstein, Ashley McDermott, Hoda
Kotb and Jane Hanson (scurrying to their table,
hosted by Caryn and Jeff Zucker, their NBC boss.
Scurrying is good), Jay and Tracy Snyder and
many more swell folks just like them. I was lucky
enough to sit at the ‘music’ table with Tory’s beau,
Lyor Cohen, vice chair of Warner Music Group,
and Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 (not Maroon
5—don’t ask, I shouldn’t have.) The only thing
better than watching Grammy award-winning
Mary J. Blige sing her version of “Stairway to
Heaven” is watching it with her colleagues—pure
beneficence. And all this love brought in $1.4
million dollars to help honoree Dr. Charles
Sawyers continue his research for his Oncology
and Pathogenesis Program. Chest swollen with
pride for my charitable brethren, and also for
myself—having made it through the night on
ill-advised 5-inch platform heels—I hitched a ride
with David Patrick Columbia, whom I thought
was my friendly competitor. While exiting my
yellow chariot, I missed his helping hand and
went careening off said platforms into the garbage
bags on the curb. Did I detect a smirk? Might he
have thought, ‘Hah! I’ll go to twice the store
openings that crumpled chronicler will! Victory is
mine!’? And to compound the now-fiery pain and
humiliation, dear David chose that moment to
introduce me to Bunny Williams, who caught the
whole sordid episode. I think it was her garbage
bag I impaled.
I hobbled, in flats, to The 13th Annual Women
& Science Lecture and Luncheon, my favorite
lunch of the year. The Rockefeller University,
home to 23 Nobel Prize winners also houses this
