By Benjamin-Émile Le Hay 6/13/12 5:14pm

Booze

Julie Macklowe, Marcel Marongiu and Chiu Ti Jansen. Photo: (C) Patrick McMullan

Celebrating Empowering Women with a Healthy Dash of Rum

When society and PR rainmaker Susan Shin invited The Observer to drinks and dinner “under the stars” at 620 Loft + Garden to celebrate “stellar women,” we were curious. While the drizzly, muggy gloom didn’t allow us any stargazing, a bevy of extravagantly stylish women provided enough sparkle to form their own constellation. Co-hosts Julie Macklowe, Selita Ebanks and Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos had summoned their best gal pal, along with a few blokes, to pay tribute to non-profit Seven Bar Foundation. The organization, which works to empower women in Guatemala with sustainable work opportunities, helping them to be self-sufficient, recently inked a global partnership with premium rum label Zacapa Rum. Read More

By Benjamin-Émile Le Hay and Ben Weitzenkorn 5/31/12 8:15am

Charity Events

7 Photos

Out at sea.

Hitting the High Seas (Well, New York Harbor) with Sailing Heals

In the grand reception room of a storied and opulent New York City nautical club, the Florence, Italy-based watchmaker Officine Panerai kicked off its North American Circuit of the Panerai Classic Yachts Challenge season with an event to honor the non-profit Sailing Heals and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The summer-long racing series, which began on May 23, is the largest international circuit of regate for classic yachts.

Sailing Heals, a philanthropic organization, backed by Panerai, creates special sailing experiences for patients by taking them on sails with professional yachtsmen and women. “At the very crux of it, we offer a day of sailing for cancer patients and their caretakers,” said Mylissa Tsai, a Sailing Heals board member and cancer survivor who is regrettably once again a cancer patient. Read More

By Drew Grant 5/02/12 9:00am

Menace to Society

NYO_makeover_fin

Menace to Society: Junior (League) Miss

I’m not exactly what you’d call a social person. I can count the number of close friends I have on one hand, and that includes close relatives and the person I am currently dating. Which leaves three more spaces, in case anyone wants to be my buddy.

My mother once told me that I avoided joining large playgroups because I had a fear of “disappearing” into them. Apparently I was a very metaphysical child, noticing at an early age that girls who hung out together inevitably developed a sort of hive-mind mentality—dressing the same, talking the same, laughing (at me) the same.

In my recent bid to increase my social standing and ingratiate myself into a group of fancy ladies, I have resolved to hit the charity circuit. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Read More

By Benjamin-Émile Le Hay 5/01/12 2:15pm

Charity Events

4 Photos

2013 NYC Firefighter Calendar

New York Firefighters Take It Off for Charity

Brawny firefighters in quite tight T-shirts gathered on the Upper West Side at the Firehouse Tavern and neighboring restaurant Nonna last Saturday to celebrate the topless pictures of themselves in the 2013 Firefighters of New York Calendar, which benefits the Jacobi Medical Center Burn Unit.

Photographer Battman (real name Alan Batt), who has been doing the calendar for years, said some of the firefighters aren’t always comfortable traipsing around New York City and posing so scantily clad, but some even seem to enjoy it quite a bit: “We had a six-foot ladder in Times Square and one of the guys on top and a million women were screaming.” Read More