The week was launched with a wonderful celebration of our new Dan’s Papers New York City edition and amNewYork Law.
Thanks to my son’s brilliant idea to create a New York City edition of our successful paper that’s in the Hamptons and in Palm Beach we invited clients and friends and staff to the Greenberg Traub law firm’s, beautiful “celebration room.” It was a gathering of many powerful people that believe in journalism that celebrates them. Our theme is “we’re all about you” and now we have more opportunities to reach different audiences.
It was so good to see old friends and meet new ones. That’s what makes life a great adventure.
Later in the week was an adventure of a different type. Helping people with special needs is part of my life. In fact, Life’s WORC, the organization I founded I often refer to as my fifth child.
I was lucky enough to be invited by my neighbor Jay Scansaroli, who introduced me to the remarkable Jim McCann. He founded an organization called Smile Farms to celebrate and help his brother who has special needs. They had their gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Manhattan, and the packed room was full of wonderful donors who help raise over $800,000 for the cause.
The brilliance of Jim McCann helps adults by giving them meaningful work on the “farms growing flowers, plants and produce.” The beautiful bouquets on every table of the jam-packed ballroom were created in the hot houses where the flowers were grown, cut, and arranged. Jim is the founder of 1-800-Flowers and what a brilliant idea to have people with special needs creating the bouquets.
Adding to the fun of the night was the entertainment that spilled onto the tables with the entertainer, singing right from the top of the dinner table and his colleagues on the stage belting away wonderful songs and then the most fun was the auctioneer who raised thousands and thousands and did it with such fun and grace and was a show unto himself.
At my table was also my next-door neighbor, business leader Jay Scansaroli, and his daughter Lisa Montana working for marketing start-up Futura Collective, Elaine and Norm Brodsky, brilliant businesspeople and mentors who powerfully invest their time and expertise to their North Brooklyn neighborhood.
Then on the weekend, I had the fun of meeting my neighbor Tripp Whetsell, the brilliant author of the candid affectionate biography of Norman Lear, His Life & Times, who lived to be 101 and worked almost to his last days making television history with his groundbreaking TV shows. A remarkable life told lovingly and respectfully by Tripp. He writes in each chapter one compelling story after another about a man who tackled an extraordinary range of topics from race to class to sexuality to politics and religion that changed forever the power of television.
Tripp Whetsell teaches a unique course on Norman Lear at Emerson College, where you can get a degree in comedy. He himself did stand-up comedy and is a writer and performer who is loving teaching at Emerson where Norman Lear was almost a graduate having to leave to go to war. But he had a connection to the school and twice visited the class about himself.
Lear created All in The Family, The Jeffersons, Maude, Sanford and Sons, and Mary Hartman, changing cultural norms in the 1970s, for the first time bringing Black performers to TV in dramas with Sammy Davis Jr. dropping in on All in the Family story.
Lear cracked the glass ceiling with his shows that created enormous audiences, 120 million a week. It is all a lovingly detailed story. Although Norman Lear didn’t cooperate with the book being created, they didn’t interfere and I’m sure Norman is smiling from heaven with the wonderful way his life’s story is told.
I got to hear Tripp speak at the Remsenbourg Academy, an historic building that has emerged as my community center and has many art shows that I didn’t know about. Life is certainly a discovery meeting new people, learning new things and enriching my life. I’m so grateful.
Salt & Loft is open in Westhampton Beach on Friday, Saturday, and Sundays. I had a spectacular dinner with friends and we were blown away by the made in-house desserts. My favorite was a mouthwatering chocolate crepe brulee. Stop in to say “hello” to host and owner Barry Bernstein.
See more photos on QNS.com and DansPapers.com.
