I'm ashamed to say initially I was left pretty much unmoved after reading excerpts from David Margolick's newest book. As usual, I was on the look-out for historical or stylistic errors. From that context, preoccupied with when bearded iris bloom and the nuance of high school fashions, past and present,...

I wasn't at all certain that I'd like the new movie that dramatizes "The Help," Kathryn Stockett's 2009 runaway New York Times bestseller.

Sure, the casting was first-rate. Fine black actresses Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Cicely Tyson, LaChanze and Aunjanue Ellis...

What have acclaimed architect Bob Stern and the most stupendous, sexy shoes imaginable, in common? Why, nothing at all, except for the Four Seasons Restaurant. Considering the fabled history of the city's most famous restaurant, at 99 East 52nd Street in the Seagram Building, this is hardly surprising. The atmosphere...

Watching to see what chic people wear is fascinating. One mightn't think it has anything whatsoever to do with styles from the past, but of course, it does.

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During summer, escalating temperatures affect us all. So it's not a matter of being rich or poor that makes one eager to go to the Hamptons. Even enjoying a wide variety of seasonal outdoor activities in the city, we yearn for the attractions of the East End's unsullied shore-front as...

With a nod to Santayana, many feel that history's greatest lesson is the ability it can afford one to travel back in time, to discover one's self, in the past. Regrettably this is not an experience open to all equally.

New York Governor David Patterson perhaps best expressed...

Would a newspaper and website like The Jewish Daily Forward hire a Catholic editor? Would The Advocate engage a straight person as executive director? Is it likely that Esquire Magazine would ever have a woman at the helm?

With hilarious results, Chris Rock, in his poignant film, Good Hair, showed...

How much did regular summer Cherry Grove residents appreciate having the ferry parking lot closed for hours on end and restaurants and the beach over-run by LGBT African Americans? Probably, they enjoyed it no more than locals enjoyed the 'gay invasion' in the 1950s.

Few places are as influential as art museums. Filled with revered treasures, they help to define for us notions of beauty and significance that can transform our lives. Repositories of distinction, it is a given, that what happens at the museum is extraordinary by definition.

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see.

The way you wear your hat, The way you sip your tea, The memory of all that, Oh no, They can't take that...

Sometimes when the temperature climbs to such an extent that it's impossible to beat the heat, the only alternative is to give in and accept reality. On Saturday night that's just what Valerie Jo Bradley and her friend Asake Bomani did. Hosting a joint birthday celebration they offered only indoor...

What matters sordid wealth or brutish might? Bright day, dark night, Gay or straight, black, brown or white, Tall or short, Blond or brunet, Voluptuously-curved or sveltely-slight, Tight-lipped or loquacious? The sun, the moon, the stars, all beckon still, From gold-tipped blue above Love is love and right is...

Each year Queen Elizabeth's summer holiday in Scotland is proceeded by a house party at Windsor Castle in order that she her guest might ride in a procession of open carriages to the races at nearby Ascot. Notwithstanding the wildest, most erratic eccentricity imaginable, the idea of many, in recent...

Yesterday, I saw the season's gay hit move of the summer, Sex in the City II, which has received such bad reviews, but my friends and I quite enjoyed it, notwithstanding a host of predictable stereotypes. Today. I attended a gala memorial service-party given by Charles Leslie for his long-term...

Monday, June 7 was an only in New York moment. I got to see scores of old friends like Mercedes Ellington in easy-looking elegant action. The 2010 28th annual Fred & Adele Astaire Award winners were announced at John Jay College's Gerald W. Lynch Theatre in an electrifying spectacular of...

Some exhibitions and their catalogs, such as Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall--An Artist's Country Estate, are all one could ever wish for. With costume exhibitions perfection is a more elusive achievemen, as the most important one currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute's blockbuster makes...

New restaurants like the discretely-posh, absolutely delicious 5 & Diamond, at 2072 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, 646-684-4662, abound in today's Uptown. But, the Cotton Club of Lena Horne, the Savoy Ballroom, the Lafayette Theatre, Small's Paradise, are all gone.

With 714 rooms, the Hotel Pierre stands 42 elegant stories on a site once occupied by a residence designed by Richard Morris Hunt, that was owned by Robert Livingston Gerry. This position, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 61st Street, allows for unrestricted panoramic views over verdant Central Park....

Just what is the nature of bias or prejudice today? Some are sure to insist that because so many people, apart from youth, don't use the N-word in a defaming way, that racial inequality has all but disappeared. Really? How many African Americans, even now, live on Manhattan's Upper East...

The United States has elected its first black president, and yet our struggle for human dignity and mutual respect is hardly over. In the same election enabling Obama to make history, in California, African Americans voted disproportionately to support a ballot imitative meant to curtail the civil rights of fellow...