Jeffrey Kalinsky
A Store Is Born

"You can come in here in track pants, wet hair, no hair -- we don't care. This is all about fun." So says Jeffrey Kalinsky, the 37-year-old shoe buyer turned retail visionary behind the meatpacking district's new fashion ground zero: Jeffrey. Fun though the store may be, that caravan of Town Cars snaking its way down from the Upper East Side suggests that a decidedly uncasual crew is pawing the racks of Jil Sander, Helmut Lang, and Gucci. Who can blame them? He might not carry the most items, but Kalinsky has a knack for offering up the best of each collection -- it's like shopping in the perfectly curated closet of a fashionable best friend (with great taste in shoes). Kalinsky's been making use of his discerning eye since he was a youngster in South Carolina. "It started with my mother's friends," he reminisces. "I would always have something to say about their outfits. After a while, they were scared to come over." Fortunately, Kalinsky has learned diplomacy along with his retail savvy; he isn't relying on the novelty of his Lower West Side location and first-class service to keep the pretty young things coming. Kalinsky lured couture director Willie Lima from Bergdorf Goodman this fall and is planning to add heavyweight collections by Dior, Galliano, and Versace.
Suzanne D'Amato

Robert LuPone
bernie Telsey
Witty Pair

"We're overworked, stressed out, and have high blood pressure," boasts Bob LuPone, co-artistic director of MCC Theater. Telsey and LuPone have run this year's most successful Off-Off Broadway theater, and it's just their second job: LuPone is an actor (whose best known roles are Zach, the director in the original A Chorus Line, and All My Children's Zach Grayson). Telsey directs what's probably the most innovative casting agency in New York, one that's responsible for the original Rent. "You only have one life," Telsey points out, "so why not have two careers?" Just as the duo straddles the profit and nonprofit entertainment worlds, so does their tiny theater in its flower-district walk-up. While taking risks with intelligent projects like Wit, a seemingly unmarketable play about a woman dying of cancer, the two have managed to build an institution that's serving as a role model for small nonprofits seeking for-profit sustainability. Since Wit nabbed a Pulitzer Prize and has moved to the roomier Union Square Theatre, the MCC's home theater is currently featuring Pulitzer winner Marsha Norman's Trudy Blue. MCC is hoping to raise the ceiling. "We want to have a bigger sandbox to play in -- maybe 199 seats instead of 99," Telsey says, "and we'd like to develop a new musical." But LuPone won't let him have the last word. "A good musical! With at least four people -- maybe even two instruments -- that has the success of A Chorus Line!"
Logan Hill

Maria Kowroski
Rising En Pointe

Seven years ago, Maria Kowroski, daughter of a hygienist and a tool-and-die worker, left Grand Rapids to become the Sugarplum Fairy. It's the kind of Cinderella story that makes 5-year-olds in pink tights giddy. This year, just shy of her 23rd birthday, Maria became the youngest principal dancer in the New York City Ballet. Backstage at the State Theater, Kowroski and dancer Charles Askergard were talking about auditioning for an upcoming ballet movie. "Peter Martins came over, and he was like, 'What is she complaining about now?' And I was like, 'Oh, my God!' " Maria recalls. "Chuck was joking, 'Oh, she's going to Hollywood to be an actress.' And Peter Martins said, 'Before you go, I just want to say you're promoted.' I was shocked. In the performance that night, I completely blanked out." Blessed with nearly six feet of elasticity and a tangible passion for movement, Maria has put her natural virtuosity to unforgettable use as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, the besotted lead in Susan Stroman's Blossom Got Kissed, and currently as the Sugarplum Fairy in The Nutcracker. But even the realization of such magic girlish dreams hasn't sated her ambition. "There will always be something to aspire to," she says. "It's not just about the steps. It's an art."
Erika Kinetz

Joseph Park
Delivery Man

Once upon a time -- little more than a year ago -- New York was considered one big convenience store: The 24-hour bodegas, the stream of delivery menus, the city-that-doesn't-sleep ethos all spoke to the glut of services at hand. Then came a young entrepreneur who showed us just how burdened we'd been all along. Joseph Park's Kozmo.com began serving up goods and services to New York's apartment doors in less than an hour with no delivery charge. "I like to call it the Polaroid of e-commerce," crows Park, now 28, who quit his job at Goldman Sachs after coming up with the idea in 1996. "Push a button, and you're done -- that's how instant we are. Think of all the errands that people run. We're the solution." It's a solution that's since expanded to Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, and D.C. and received $28 million from investment groups, including New York's Flatiron Partners. "We really view Kozmo as a lifestyle," Park adds. "We eliminate the need to go out."
Robert Kolker

Swizz Beatz
Watch Swizz

Swizz Beatz, who was born Kaseem Dean in the Bronx and given his nickname because of his passion for K-Swiss sneakers, is challenging hip-hop's one-dimensional profile with complex, futuristic, sample-free grooves -- and providing a tonic for the noncreative sonics of Generation Puff. "I refuse to sample," the rail-thin 21-year-old proclaims. "You can never be a leader if you're biting someone else's sound." Swizz's beats are unmistakably his, from the chiming choruses of Eve's "Gotta Man" to the majestic strings and stop-start beats of DMX's "Ruff Ryders' Anthem" and the thundering timpani and skittering synths of Jay-Z's "Money Cash Hoes." "I just ran my hand across the keyboard to make that sound," Swizz says. "And Jay-Z ran with it. Isn't that dope?" Dope indeed, as scores of artists lining up to work with Swizz are finding out. "Rap has boundaries," Swizz says, "I want to create sounds no one has even thought of yet."
Ethan Brown