High Times @ High Line Summer Benefit (15 Jun 2009)

http://thatgirlattheparty.com/2009/06/16/high-times-high-line-summer-benefit/

High Times @ High Line Summer Benefit

Submitted by That Girl At the Party on Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Stopped by and had a wonderful and hilarious time at the afterparty for the High Line Summer Benefit. The stars were out in force! Saw Carmen Dell’Orefice, who at 78 years old, is the actual first supermodel (sorry Janice D!) on the red carpet. I overheard her announce that she is getting ready to shoot a major ad campaign for Calvin Klein, which is great since she was one of Madoff’s victims and lost a substantial amount of her hard earned model savings! (I thought her story, recounted in both a recent Vanity Fair article, was particularly awful as she was a friend of his for years. She attended birthdays, holidays, etc. with Madoff and his family and he still stole all her money! What a lowlife!)

Also spotted at the party was Gerard Butler who was being a total pratt to the photogs inside purportedly claiming that “there had been pictures all night”. Gimme a break! He is decidedly still B list, if that, and many of the partygoers and the paparazzi had no idea who he was till I told them. Spied Edward Norton but he was deep in conversation, so didn’t get to meet him. Got to chitchat for a minute with current supermodel Liya Kebede, who I recently met at another Belverdere sponsored fete. Also saw Zac Posen, Rachel Roy, Alan Cumming, Zoe Saldana, Lydia Hearst, and the always lovely, Dianne Von Furstenberg. Danny DeVito was purportedly in the house as was Jason Wu. But I, unfortunately, missed the two of them.


At the end of the night, there was a wonderful couple basically playing! Yes, playing like little kids, which was so refreshing! How often do we see adults at play?! I found the reaction to these two cavorting like this to be a real test to how positive and comfortable people were in their skins. Of course, the stars were wonderfully amused while the usual suspects – security and a very tight clipper – created a stink. Having made friends with these two delightful beings, I decided to videotape them when these two invividuals came up to try to end the joy of it all! First up, was an idiot security guard who inexplicably ordered them to stop as if they were children in school. When they ignored him, up came some silly twit from Calvin Klein’s office who demanded that I stop videotaping them, which was just plain silly and sad on her part! I mean really! The party was virtually over and isn’t it the point of a party for the guests to actually have fun?

Well.....if one is out in public all the time and never goes home to get some 'self' time (and I ain't talkin' 3am self time, either), then one would get a bit cranky and put off by being around said public all the time. Wouldn't one?

Just sayin'.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I do know that too much time rubbing elbows with people gets on my nerves after a certain point as well. And it's at those times that I either go home or back to my hotel room (depending on where I am) to unwind and regroup.

People had been snapping pictures of him all afternoon. Then again, he could have gone home after that long day of shooting and gotten some rest. When one goes to events such as these, one should expect cameras to be there.

Again, just sayin'.

You know I like the big lug, but I'm sorry to say he doesn't have much leg to stand on with this one. At least it appears the "inside" photographers respected his wishes.

See, the things with raggies, is that they are never satisfied...sometimes, G's an A lister, sometimes, he's not...weird. More moody than someone on PMS.

I think this blog (and others) just point out what many have said all along. A lot of people don't know who he is. He isn't known in mainstream America without the "he's the 300 guy" explanation etc. All the more reason why I think it's not good that he is getting the pap and PR reputation that he is getting as of late. If he were established, then it wouldn't be as harmful. Since he isn't, I think it could potentially limit the films that he is offered. And I, for one, have never been a fan of just his looks. I'm more interested in the movies that he makes.

I am just waiting for a good movie. I wish he would focus on being an actor instead of a celebrity because his days are numbered when it comes to cashing in on his looks. There are always "the next best thing" crop of young guys waiting around the corner. I guess I'm just getting a little impatient. I expect more. I'm just getting a little bored of the old man in the club routine. I'm waiting for something interesting. Wake me when it happens.....

(I know, I know....bring on the tomatoes. I'm just so bored lately that I can't help myself)

Darn, I like tomatoes, too...

But I agree with you Dallas. I think you mention a few things about G's career that many fans have been feeling, including myself.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06172009/gossip/pagesix/high_line_was_a_long_shot_174668.htm

HIGH LINE WAS A 'LONG SHOT'

June 17, 2009 --

ED Norton wasn't always a believer in the High Line Park. At Monday night's "Friends of the High Line" benefit at Chelsea Piers, he was honored along with Lisa Marie Falcone for his early support of the newly opened park on the elevated railroad trestle on the far West Side. One onlooker told Page Six, "Ed Norton went on a rant about how he used to live on [nearby] Horatio Street and smoke weed, and how he remembered the days when 'trannies and truckers' hung out there." It wasn't so long ago. Norton, who must love lost causes, confessed the only reason he got involved with the fight to save the High Line from demolition was because he didn't believe it would succeed, and "gave it 10-to-one odds at the beginning." He then headed over to the High Line for a party hosted by Calvin Klein and the CFDA with Diane von Furstenberg, Molly Sims, Gerard Butler, Rachel Roy, Bradley Cooper and Lake Bell.

http://www.stylelist.com/blog/2009/06/18/cfda-after-parties-calvin-rodarte-and-more/

CFDA After-Parties - Calvin! Rodarte! And More!

One main event isn't enough for the hard-core fashionistas that attended the CFDA gala on Monday night. Oh no, the festivities raged on at not one, not two, but three separate after-parties until the wee hours of the morning.

First up, and the most coveted invite (aside from the actual CFDA's, of course) was Calvin Klein's celebration on the High Line - the former railroad tracks along NYC's West side that has been made into a public park.

It marked the first time that an event was held at the recently opened space and there were plenty of celebs to help with the christening.

Edward Norton, Lake Bell (in Louis Vuitton), Gerard Butler, Zoe Saldana and of course designers Francisco Costa and Italo Zucchelli were all on hand to take advantage of the super long blue lit bar with hunky servers.

Even though he was among the last to leave, there was little time for play for the award-winning Zucchelli who was due to head to Italy the next morning.

Meanwhile, over in the West Village, the new Jane Hotel was where the Rodarte girls celebrated their win, in a joint fete hosted by Opening Ceremony and Black Frame. Revelers included dancing designers (Thakoon, Phillip Lim, Maria Cornejo), famous daughters (Scout and Talullah Willis - the latter is interning at Harper's Bazaar for two weeks), and editors galore.

The packed house also included Kirsten Dunst who chatted with Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez while the other award-winning design duo (Rodarte's Kate and Laura Mulleavy) fielded congratulations from everyone in the room.

Lastly, at the Gramercy Park Hotel, Anna Sui celebrated her accolade with friends including pulled-from-retirement models including Irina Lazareanu and Michelle Hicks.

Here's another article from Vanity Fair about the High Line Party:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/style/2009/06/high-line-party.html

"Are you going further south?” is not the phrasing most people would choose when coordinating their movements with friends at a party. But when you were hovering above Washington and West 13th Streets one night last week to celebrate the first, nine-block stretch of park to open on the High Line, a defunct elevated rail line in New York City, using compass points sounded like a perfectly logical way to orient your partying or just get your bearings.

There was, after all, a lot to take in: the inventive and delicate park structures; the conceptual landscaping, which mixes weeds with garden plants; the new, two-story-high perspective of familiar buildings; the experience of walking straight through other buildings; and the sheer fact that in New York a grassroots group like Friends of the High Line could become powerful and wealthy enough to push a beautiful public project to completion. Compounding the confusion was the distracting sight of dozens of fashion-world bigwigs, who were arriving steadily from the Council of Fashion Designers of America awards ceremony uptown. (The festivities in the park were hosted by Calvin Klein as an after-party to a Friends of the High Line benefit and were a de facto after-party for the awards ceremony, where Calvin Klein’s Italo Zucchelli won the Menswear Designer of the Year prize.) We needed some guidance.

Luckily, on a bench above Little West 12th Street, a friendly and well-connected architect, Alexander Gorlin, made our acquaintance. He was familiar with the park’s plan (he’d had an entry in the original design competition, in fact) and offered to introduce us to colleagues and notable people he knew when he encountered them along the route. We joined him on a promenade uptown and soon passed architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, of Diller, Scofidio & Renfro, the acclaimed firm that designed the new park with landscape architects James Corner Field Operations. Diller and Scofidio are also married, and they were strolling arm in arm and smiling placidly when they stopped to chat. “It’s wild, the whole thing—that they did it at all,” Diller said.

After a short walk northward, near a surprisingly pretty arrangement of sumac and leggy plants, Gorlin recognized Tom Elghanayan, the real-estate developer. Elghanayan had lots of stories about the neighborhood. “In the mid-80s, we bought the Manhattan Refrigerator Building [at Washington and Gansevoort Streets] … and we converted it into a apartment house. Back in those days, this was a serious meatpacking district. It was a horrendous, ugly place, you know, meat guys, they had big sides of meat everywhere.… We used to go to Florent [the restaurant on Gansevoort, now closed] early in the morning ’cause we were doing construction there, and at 7:30 or 6:30 in the morning, there’d be all meat guys, with their white aprons and blood, and hookers. We had meat guys and hookers.… It was just a wild area.

“The Manhattan [Refrigerator Building is] now the West Coast apartments, a hot, cool place to live. In fact, the High Line went through there, from Gansevoort Street down to Bethune Street.… We were able to buy all the blocks in between … and through five or six years negotiating with the federal government and the railroad authority, we actually tore down the High Line.… It went through our building.… That was, really, what caused these people to organize.… Because everyone figured that it was always there and nothing was ever going to happen [to the High Line], until we were able to do it.… We stopped it at Gansevoort and we cut it all the way down to [Bethune].”

Continuing uptown, we entered a covered section of the park that passes through the Chelsea Market building, on 10th Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets. On one side were an illuminated bar, nearly a block long, and an intimidating row of bartenders, clothed in matching Calvin Klein tank tops and jeans and seemingly selected for their matching musculature. Near the middle of the bar, we stopped to say hello to Scottish film actor Gerard Butler, for whom Gorlin is renovating a duplex in Chelsea, and to the designer Nate Berkus. “I have no connection [to the High Line],” Berkus admitted. “But I actually wish I did, because there’s something similar in Chicago, which I think has to happen. I’ve been talking to some friends of mine there.… It’s an old track, that runs through a very cute neighborhood … Bucktown.”

Back in the open air, above 16th Street, we encountered Joshua David, who founded Friends of the High Line with Robert Hammond in 1999. David pointed to one of his favorite views from the park, of two enormous old buildings and a short strip of the Hudson visible in between. “[It’s a] very framed glimpse of the river. And these buildings over here are these amazing, West Side industrial buildings. You can see this spur here. Have you been out on that little platform there? Come out here.” He walked us west a few feet to look at a portion of rail line below that curved across 10th Avenue into one of the large buildings and was filled with weedy plants.

“This is one of the really cool areas of the High Line, where you really see how the trains went into all of the buildings. So this … was called Merchants Refrigerating Warehouse, and you can see how the tracks carried the trains right inside … and they could load and unload their meat and dairy products in an all-refrigerated environment.… The space here that’s Chelsea Market was a Nabisco factory, so they made cookies there, and that [the building on the southwest corner, which now houses Del Posto restaurant] was another Nabisco factory.… I mean all of this—these buildings, this structure, the piers that are out there—it’s all part of a New York that doesn’t exist anymore—the manufacturing-, industrial-, transportation-base West Side.”

David said he’d gone up on the High Line hundreds of times when it had been abandoned. “It’s been sort of a shock to actually have people in the park, because we’ve had it to ourselves for so long.… What we’re looking at here, that’s what it looked like,” he said, gesturing down to the spur. “We chose in this location not to put a path, … to show what it looked like.”

“Here [the park] becomes an archeology, and other parts become more of a contemporary thing,” Gorlin observed. “It’s really a remarkable balance, I’d say.”

Gorlin continued his stroll up the High Line, and we followed. Past a couple kissing on a bench above 17th Street, the park’s upper stretch was oddly deserted, and the lowness of the buildings on either side offered a broad, peaceful view. You could barely hear the dance music thudding a couple of blocks south, at the Chelsea Market underpass.

After a while, we noticed that we’d been joined by Diane von Furstenberg, who was walking deliberately down the path with a young companion. She is a major supporter of the park, and with her husband, Barry Diller, she recently gave a large gift to Friends of the High Line. As she passed by, above 18th Street, we asked her what she thought of the park. She was succinct: “This just shows that dreams come true in New York City.”