A confluence of major events made for a slightly hectic week, as players from three ordinarily nonintersecting domains crowded the city’s stage. More than 150 heads of state and government converged on New York for the U.N.’s 60th anniversary, gridlocking traffic, filling up countless presidential and royal suites in hotels, and—in the case of Silvio Berlusconi and pals—dining out on pizza, tuna roe, and tripe Florentine. George W. Bush, newly humbled by the Katrina fiasco, sounded an unwonted conciliatory note in a speech before the world body. The president also put his arm around Kofi Annan, not a particular friend of the Bush administration. (No word on whether he terrified the secretary-general by whispering into his ear, “You’re doin’ a heckuva job, Kofi.”) Meanwhile, across town in the Sheraton, Bill Clinton put on his own international forum, summoning kings, presidents, CEOs, and, of course, his own wife to grapple with issues like world poverty. But global matters, however weighty, could not eclipse local politics. Despite a tepid turnout, the Democratic primary concluded in nail-biting fashion—until Anthony Weiner conceded the next morning to Freddy Ferrer to avoid a divisive runoff. This (shrewd) act of magnanimity enraged the Post, which editorialized WEINER WEASELS. Although Ferrer, with weak support outside his Hispanic base, seems poised to be crushed by Mayor Bloomberg, he might derive some hope from the fact that the most common surname on New York’s voter-registration rolls is now “Rodriguez.” Finally, Fashion Week was not without its drama. At the Rolling Stones concert (attended by Linda Evangelista and Kate Moss), Mick Jagger wore a feathered Prada coat lined with lavender silk, tossing it across the stage during “Sympathy for the Devil.” But the most talked-about event was the collapse of a massive lighting rig at Diane Von Furstenberg’s show, which sent several bloodied fashionistas to the emergency room and supposedly destroyed someone’s Prada sweater. “Hurricane Diane,” Simon Doonan called it. It seemed destined to become one of the most storied moments in the history of fashion, rivaling the time Coco Chanel sighed.

Related:

• Archive: “It Happened Last Week”
• Articles by Jim Holt