High life
Generous to a fault
Taki
ANew York s everyone who has ever heard of fhe word eleemosynary knows, the earlY month of December in New York is to social mountaineers what August is to mountain climbers — i.e. the perfect time of year to shoot for the top. Making it to the top in New York, of course, isn't as hard as it used to be. Just as oxygen masks have helped mountain climbers overcome altitude debilitation, so have the charity balls come to the aid of the social striver.
By now, everyone who has ever pulled an insider trading deal knows how it works. Once the bank account goes over 100 million smackers, the prospective do- gooder starts to contribute to fashionable charities as if there was no tomorrow. Philanthropy is tax-deductible in the USA, a ,fact not exactly lost on our modern tycoons and takeover artists. What I find ironic, however, is not the advantage these 20th-century buccaneers take of the tax laws, but the kind of charities they choose to support. Charities like the New York City Ballet, the New York Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Looking at the list of people on the committee of the New York City Ballet, for example, I was struck by the names of people who would not know the difference between a pas de deux and a hostile takeover if their lives depended on It. People such as Ron Perelman, Robert Trump, brother of Donald, and others too ghastly to mention in a family magazine. The Public Library and the Museum, needless to say, draw an even bigger cast of villains on their Committees than one can find in the Harvard Club nowadays. Even/ social climber who has greenmailed himself to riches unacceptable even for a Roths- child is among the major contributors, and one egregious fellow — whose brother, alas, I know only too well — has gone as far as to give a whole wing to the Met. (I guess he is in a hurry to become known, as he will soon be joining his friends in that sauna-like place below.) The names are mostly the same ones that Suzy, their mouthpiece and conduit, pub- lishes in her gushing column every working day. Names like Gutfreund, Steinberg (Jacob Rothschild's friend and partner) Rohatyn, Kravis, de la Renta, Reed, Trump, and the by now ubiquitous Anne Getty. Oh yes, and the Taubmans. Let us not forget the Taubmans.
Now as we all know, there is nothing wrong with giving tax-deductible dollars earned the hard way down in Wall Street to the Library and the Museum, but for some strange reason doubts have crept into my mind as to the sincerity of the donors, as well as to their real interest where art is concerned. (Most of them cannot read or write, but can count up to a trillion.) What do these charitable souls get in return for their philanthropy? Well, for one they get mentioned non-stop by Suzy, a lady whose favourite people are so old they are considered middle-aged even in Palm Beach — and there is also Vanity Fair, a magazine that began with literary pretensions, but has ended up chronicling the comings and goings of greenmailers and their ilk. (There is a wonderful line in the last issue when Gayfryd Steinberg, wife of Saul, tells Tina Brown, wife of Harold, that Saul is one of the most fascinating and interesting men she has ever met. I think she also called him good-looking, or attrac- tive, but I'm not sure, I was laughing so hard. Steinberg, incidentally, makes Rob- ert Maxwell look Byronic in comparison.) Needless to say, things get hectic during the last month of the year. As if the charity balls weren't enough there is also an investigation going on while the greatest soprano of all time — they say even greater than Callas — Ivan Boesky, is singing to the Feds. It is enough to drive a lot of philanthropic insider traders to drink — or, even worse, a lesser public profile. As one insider told me recently, 'Even if I get caught, it may come as a blessing in disguise. First I'll sing, then I'll have a reason to resign from all the committees of the charitable institutions. Finally, I'll be able to know what it feels like to sit on a chair I haven't paid 1,000 bucks for.'
Personally, I am enjoying myself as never before in the Big Bagel. Between the do-gooders and the Wall Street scandal, I finally managed to make up my short-list for the greatest social climbers of New York, an extremely difficult task, mind you, when one has to pick five people out of seven million. But I have picked them, and the winner will be announced in the January issue of Spy magazine, which has already been sold out. That is the good news. The bad news is that I suspect a charitable soul has bought up all the copies.
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