Last Night’s Top Party: Felons and Bisexuals at the Four Seasons

There were two big, boldfaced parties last night, and they were wildly divergent. In Chelsea, Milk Studios hosted an auction of rock photos to benefit VH1’s Save the Music Foundation while in midtown disgraced ex-Sotheby’s head Alfred Taubman threw a book party at the Four Seasons. The VH1 shindig featured the Kaiser Chiefs, Stoli Blueberi–and–Sprite cocktails (not bad!), and handsomely greasy-haired young people occasionally silently bidding on, though mostly just getting their pictures taken in front of, photographs of CBGB and Kurt Cobain. At Taubman’s, there was wine; cheese puffs; a crowd so collectively aged it made Bill Cunningham, the septuagenarian society photog from the Times, look spry; and the chance to consort with a convicted felon who also happens to be a billionaire. So which one won? It was unclear for a while. But then a victor suddenly emerged. “Given the chance,” we heard someone say at the Four Seasons, “I’m going to leave this party a bisexual.” Point, Taubman. —Jada Yuan