By Helaina Hovitz

Despite an injured host’s broken arm—a casualty of skiing in Aspen—the fourth annual Diane von Furstenberg Awards went ahead last Friday, honoring women who have demonstrated leadership, strength, and courage in their respective fields, helping to advance the lives of less fortunate young women and children. The event was held in the United Nations, in a sweepingly large room bathed in pink and purple lights. Of course, von Furstenberg’s arm sling featured a pattern of her own design.

Draping herself across a white leather couch and leaning back on her arm, Diane von Furstenberg took the hand of each reporter and leaned in close with a warmth indicative of lifelong friendship.

“When you start to hear the women speak tonight, you will understand what tonight is about: a chain of love,” she said. “I’m using what little success I have to give (the award recipients) exposure.”

Somebody’s being modest.

Though she didn’t select the winners of the Awards herself—there are committees and the public votes for that—she did have to make a tough choice that day.

“I was supposed to have surgery tomorrow morning at 8 a.m., but I canceled it,” she said. “It was the best decision I ever made. I’m going to drive to the country tomorrow instead of the hospital.”

The event was the perfect end to Newsweek & The Daily Beast’s Women in the World Summit, co-hosted by DVF and Newsweek/Daily Beast editor Tina Brown, whose most recent, headline-making female empowerment effort was introducing her housekeeper to Oprah.

Among the evening’s five award winners was She’s the First founder Tammy Tibbetts, Andeisha Farid, founder of the non-profit Afghan Child Education and Care Organization, Sunitha Krishnan, co-founder of Prajwala, an organization that fights sex trafficking in India, supermodel philanthropist Natalia Vodianova, and Robin Roberts, receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Farid spent her childhood living in refugee camps outside of Afghanistan, Krishnan was gang raped by eight men at the age of fifteen and went on to found Prajwala, an institution that assists trafficked women and girls in finding shelter and helps educate of thousands of children with HIV/AIDS, and Tibbets quit her job after a trip to Liberia inspired her to dedicate her life to educating young women in developing countries through cupcake bake sales.

Brown announced in her speech that when she texted von Furstenberg to find out if she would still make it to the awards despite her injury, Diane texted back “I will match the bravery of the women we’re honoring.’”

One of the brightest lights in the room was supermodel philanthropist Natalia Vodianova, whose father abandoned her mother when she was a toddler. She was nine years old when she started selling fruit on streets of Russia to support her family and endured abuse by her mother’s boyfriends.

“By 15, of course, she had also enrolled in modeling agencies and became one of the super top models,” said von Furstenberg.

Vodianova’s Naked Heart Foundation has built over 100 playgrounds in Russia.

“She plans to build 500 more,” DVF went on,  introducing her as, “my friend, my pseudo daughter, my prodigy.”

“I am going to be very uninspiring, and I have to read, because if I speak from the heart, we’ll be here for two hours,” Vodianova said.

Robin Roberts, who returned to Good Morning America after a five month leave of absence to receive a bone marrow transplant, announced that she had just finished a week of routine maintenance tests, and her doctor said she’s doing great.

“I’m feeling aiiight!” a chipper Roberts exclaimed.

Glowing, dancing, and beaming even when the cameras were off, Roberts was in fine form as she accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Gayle King, who informed the audience about their monthly “Robin Roberts lunches.”

“We talk about the usual, who’s boinking who, what we’re going to do about Afghanistan,” said King. “And at the end, we’d be like, ‘Oh, how are you, Robin?’”

Also among the presenters was Gabrielle Douglas, U.S. Women’s Gymnast and gold medal winner. When asked if she’d done any mentoring or volunteer/charity work, she answered. “I’m still looking into that.”

“But I’m up for it. I love who I am today, helping girls believe in themselves,” she added.

Paloma Faith, whose new album dropped several months ago, performed at the ceremony. Afterward, when asked what makes a woman successful, she answered, “A woman without a boyfriend, which is me right now,” eyes wide, making a shocked face at herself and laughing uproariously.

In terms of her own charity work, the singer said that while she hasn’t done any volunteering or mentoring herself yet, she does lots of charity work by performing at benefits, and is always “mentoring Americans.”

Gloria Steinem, who has recently been criticizing City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s delay of the sick-day vote, recently told the Times that “Making life fairer for all women seems more important than breaking a barrier for one woman.”

“Why is this an important award? Because it comes with money,” Steinem said on Friday. “Not a lot of awards do. And the most important thing about giving money is not to do it up high and pretend you know.”

Created in 2010 by the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation to support women working to transform the lives of other women, five $50,000 grants are given in support of the organization with which they are affiliated.

“Is Diane listening in her efforts to help women?” Steinem was asked.

“I hope so,” she answered, adding that she didn’t like the idea of mentors.

Via Wiki Commons.

I first heard that “Isaac may cause some devastation” over a week ago and it was startling. My son, like most toddlers, is capable of creating a little mayhem, but I was certain he was not planning anything to concern the national media.

Storm predictions indicate his name won’t become synonymous with massive death and destruction—this year. So “Isaac” will almost stay in the rotation of Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane names, and get another crack at weather infamy sometime in 2018, when my son will be 8.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher and editor of The Nation, wrote soon after her namesake hurricane of 2005 that “it has been eerie hearing and reading my name all over the news.”

At the end of the year, Time asked her about any “personal consequences” to being an outspoken liberal commentator, and the only thing she mentioned was the “very personal and mean way” Rush Limbaugh called the deadly event “Hurricane Katrina vanden Heuvel.” The cruel nickname persists to this day in the rightwing blogosphere.

And although “Barry” Obama could suffer the same fate next year, conservative leaders are also vulnerable. Chris Christie and Karl Rove escaped making big hurricane news this year, but their names will be back in the hopper with my son in 2018. William Kristol lives with the daunting double whammy of a possible Hurricane William this year and then Bill in 2015.

The United Nations’ all-powerful and historically sexist naming body (female hurricane names were used exclusively until 1979), the World Meteorological Organization, tends to like short names, but nevertheless Paul Ryan. John Boehner, and Mitt Romney are safe from being connected with devastation, at least until a hurricane starting with P, J or M is so catastrophic that the name is retired and replaced.

As for the name Katrina, nameberry.com, a popular site for expectant parents, says simply “the hurricane blew this one out of the realm of possibility.” The name’s popularity dropped precipitously starting in 2006 but surprisingly it wasn’t until last year that it fell out of the top 1,000 of female US names, according to the Social Security Administration

To quote many politicians, it doesn’t have to be this way. Hurricanes and tropical storms do need names since they move rapidly and are often active simultaneously, but there’s no reason to connect them to hundreds of millions of real people.

The World Meteorological gods could opt for things like Greek letters, alpha, beta, etc., but the better choice would be to take fictional villains. Hollywood, comics and other pop culture sources provide an endless supply. Spider-Man alone is a gold mine of names, my favorites being Boomerang, Hammerhead, Jackal and Carnage. Simon is a real name that should be used since Simons already share with the villains of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Underdog (Legree and Bar Sinister). Underdog also gives us Riff Raff.

Bane, Batman’s nemesis, is another good one, although that one should wait for whenever Romney leaves active politics, perhaps as late as 2021. That would get Bill Kristol off the hook.

Josh Rogers is a NYPress.com columnist. Follow him @joshrogersnyc.

This station is one of roughly 53 that are expected to come to Manhattan’s East Side between East 13th and 60th streets. Opponents are concerned that placing the stations, which would hold 74 bikes combined, in the plaza will take away from the character of the spot, a serene resting place in the midst of the city’s bustle. They fear that placing bike share stations there would create congestion and disrupt pedestrians in the plaza.

“It’s a plaza, not for heavy sport. It’s for people to have space to walk,” said Sherill Kazan, president of the Friends of Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. “If we have to run for our lives, who needs it? We’re supposed to try to make peace in other countries. Let’s have some peace here at home.”

Bruce A. Silberblatt, vice president and zoning, land use and transportation chairman of the Turtle Bay Association, also thinks the bikes would interrupt the natural feel of Dag Hammarskjöld.

“We worked very hard in the 1990s to get this thing created. It became an instant gathering space for the whole community,” Silberblatt said. “[This is] the potential destruction of a community centerpiece.”

He believes the Department of Transportation (DOT) hasn’t been clear about the number of bike share docks that will be placed in the plaza. Originally, according to Silberblatt, the DOT said that the largest station would have only 20 docks. But many of the proposed bike stations—including the Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza one—are set to be far larger. Silberblatt would feel more comfortable with the stations, he said, if each held only 10 bikes.

Neither Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza nor anywhere in Turtle Bay is an appropriate place for large stations, as Silberblatt sees it.
“I can’t approve any big stands anywhere in our neighborhood,” Silberblatt said. “We are a primarily residential neighborhood. Our main priority right now is to keep Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza they way it is and not have it overrun by rental bicycles.”
Romeo Mizzaro, a local resident, sees another potential danger with placing the stations in the plaza.

“Do you see all the little kids over here?” he asked, pointing out that local schoolchildren often pass through the plaza. “There are kids in the park all the time—little kids—and it could be dangerous.”

But Ann Seligman, a local resident and member of Community Board 6’s Transportation Committee, doesn’t see the problem and believes that the bike share docks are a good fit for Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. The argument that the bikes would disrupt the plaza’s peaceful setting is not true, according to Seligman.

“I’ve been here about 15 years and I would not say it’s serene,” Seligman said. “It’s very nice, but it’s more bustling than serene.”
She also points out that the stations are portable and can be taken away on days that they may be too much of a nuisance.
“The first few days of the [U.N.] General Assembly, when Obama is in town, things get really hairy, and maybe they could remove them for one week,” Seligman said.

Others agree that the bike share would make Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza a buzzing place, but not necessarily a chaotic one.
“I wouldn’t think it would be a problem,” said Rich Ruderman, a local resident. “It’s a positive thing. It would bring more people around.”
Seligman believes that in this case, it’s important to give the bike share a chance and see how it goes.
“One of the things we can do in the city is try things, and if they don’t work, they don’t have to be there forever,” she said. “As an individual, it’s good to be open to trying new things.”

Dear Mr. Baker:
Thank you for your recent letter to Deputy Mayor Doctoroff regarding the United Nations and Governors Island. We appreciate your taking the time to share your suggestion with us.

The idea of relocating the UN to Governors Island is an interesting one, and one that we have raised with the UN at various time (sic) over the last several years. To date they have indicated they are not at all interested in relocating for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the difficulty associated with gaining consensus for a move of that significance among nearly 200 member nations. As the UN owns its site, aside from offering the suggestion and our assistance there is little we can do to push the issue any further.

Thank you again for your letter. We’ll continue to keep the idea on our radar screen.

Sincerely,
Marc Ricks
Chief of Staff