Is there really such a thing as 'black society'? Many people certainly used to think so!

Imagine, today we have one African American president and first lady, no African American designers, who are routinely patronize by either, and only ten young African Americans deemed worthy of inclusion on fashionable...

If one is known to be a lover of fine books, one of the best times of the year is quite near. Most friends and loved ones have long ago despaired of finding the ideal gift for someone with tastes as unconventional as mine. And this is wonderful, since for...

Having met some of the same challenging residents she has, examining Deborah Davis' breathless, bright and entertaining new book, Gilded, How Newport Became America's Richest Resort, it's impossible not to be sympathetic. Here as nowhere else in the country, devoid of an ample fortune and an impeccable pedigree, one is...

A great deal has changed at 435 East 52nd Street since the River Club lost its yacht basin in the late 1930's. Or, for that matter, since the Times sensationally reported on May 6, 1939,

"Customs Raid on Ayer Penthouse Brings Seizure of $25,000 in Attire; Clothing and Gems,...

Warning: Spoiler alert!!! Do not read further if you haven't already seen the movie "Precious"!

Few have responded to Lee Daniels' newest offering with indifference. In the New York Times A. O. Scott gushed,

"Push achieves an eloquence that makes it far more than a fictional diary of extreme...

In New York and much of the rest of the country, 100 years ago, whether building a school, a store, a factory, or a power plant, great care was often taken to provide it with the same architectural dignity as a European palace. The confluence then, of the 'City Beautiful...

Except for having no golf course, the River Club at 447 East 52nd Street is as close to a country club as one could find in the middle of New York City. Headquartered on five levels at the base of River House, in addition to more conventional recreation facilities it...

Even now, in the midst of the 'Great Recession', there are at River House, many quietly detailed duplexes and an intact triplex maisonette, commanding superlative views and phenomenal prices. Some apartments, however, are not quite as grand as others and none as improbable as the long subdivided suite at the...

How odd that Harlem's leading inn of the 1850's-1870's, River House, stood above the banks of the East River. What an ironic coincidence that the architect for the 1930's most deluxe tower for the affluent also led the team that planned the Harlem River Houses, some of the nation's first...

Mounting the serpentine stair, emerging into the dimly lit cavernous hall, one was embraced by the ever louder sonorous sounds of Sonatas by Chopin. Billed as Collections, Spring Season 2010, Harlem's Fashion Row, the showing of creative apparel I attended Thursday night was extraordinary! There surely could not have ever...

Anyone who has sat in lazy contentment in the lush and leafy 'secret' garden at the northernmost extent of Central Park, a once desolate location where unsuspecting visitors were routinely robbed, knows that a book about Lynden Breed Miller's vital work is long overdue.

Certainly Bette Midler thinks so. She...

With fashion week at an end, many things go on. One is the exhilarating tumult of social events focused around charitable or commercial causes near and dear to African Americans, and more specifically, to...

No. It's not City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr.'s widely anticipated victory over long shot New York City council member Tony Avella, in the Democratic mayoral Primary that the title alludes to. Unlike the election of Cyrus Vance, Jr., which effectively makes him Robert M. Morgenthau's successor as Manhattan's next...

Meeting living legends who have always fascinated from afar is certainly exhilarating. But probably even more satisfying are those rarer occasions when one realizes that one is encountering a force of nature, one which most of the rest of the word has yet to discover!

Nonetheless New York has a...

Beautiful, prosperous black Americans at their ease in high-summer;
Prince Kunle Omilana and Princess Keisha Omilana