NY Daily News
Sept 17, 2003
With Suzanne Rozdeba and Ben Widdicombe
It was a soggy salute to Central Park on Tuesday as the rain came down on its 150th-birthday party. But guests – including Michael and Shakira Caine, Will Ferrell, Robert Duvall, Barry Levinson and Deborah Norville – stayed dry at a reception inside the new AOL Time Warner headquarters.
Developer Steve Ross introduced Mayor Bloomberg and his deputy, Dan Doctoroff. Hizzoner raised a chuckle when he said of his girlfriend, Diana Taylor, “I’d be remiss if I didn’t introduce another person who works for the city. Otherwise, it will be a very long night for me.”
(Small point: Taylor works for the state – as banking superintendent – not the city.)
Guests at 149 simultaneous events that ringed the park included Bette Midler, Katie Couric, Robert De Niro, Isabella Rosellini, Sigourney Weaver, Candice Bergen and Marshall Rose, Tom Brokaw, Wyclef Jean, Caroline Kennedy and Ed Schlossberg, Dominick Dunne, Tom Wolfe, Tommy Tune, Mary Higgins Clark and Merce Cunningham and Laurie and Anne Tisch. (Hostess Laurie kept her guests updated on the Giants game, since her dad, Bob, co-owns the team.)
The evening raised an estimated $1.6 million for the Central Park Conservancy.
