On a bitterly cold night, warmly welcomed by my wonderful friend Wendy Goodman, I immediately felt at home, especially after grabbing a waiting glass of champagne. As the Winter Show’s Design Council Honorary Chair, worldwide, Goodman counts as a design community powerhouse. Since 2007, she’s served as the design editor at New York Magazine. In said role, she has featured two different apartments where I’ve lived and include one in her book, “May I Come In?”
These reunions with Goodman and other friends made over 42 years, attending the opening night and the young collectors party a week later, are a highlight of my year. In the process — from being so expectant at 28, to about to turn 70 — and amazed by all my good fortune to still be here, I’ve been greatly enriched.
What is the Winter Show? It was started two years before my birth to support East Side House Settlement. Back then this charitable institution, started in 1891, helped empower German and other immigrant families living in the relatively downtrodden community of Yorkville. But conditions changed. Today, young executives pay $9,000 a month to live in some of Yorkville’s walk-up tenement flats, renovated with granite counters and stainless steel stoves. Now, since 1963, it’s a Bronx-based nonprofit, advancing educational and career opportunities for more than 14,000 residents across the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. Mightily due to the Winter Show, under the guidance of Executive Director Daniel Diaz, East Side House has expanded annual funding tenfold, from $3 million to $30 million.
Smooth saxophonist Abraham Burton. Credit: (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
East Side House scholarship recipients acting as opening night hosts. Credit: (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Retired judge Eugene Oliver, East Side House board member, with Sharlene Oliver, executive director of Castle Hill YMCA. Credit: (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Talented Harlem painter Larry Bentley and his husband, Daniel Bianchi. Credit: (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Treasured friend and Winter Show Vice Chair Michael Diaz-Griffith. Credit: (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Journalist Marilyn Kirschner of LOOKONLINE, and Tinu Naija, editor of Shoeholics Magazine. Credit: (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Renee Smith and attorney Joy Vida Jones. Credit: (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Three East Side House scholarship recipient-volunteers. Credit: (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
With Nia Whitmal. Credit: (Michael Henry Adams photos) 
Healthcare Administrator Shakira Greene. Credit: (Michael Henry Adams photos)
New York’s longest-running arts, antiques, and design fair; hosting over 70 of the most renowned international galleries and art dealers, showcasing important or exquisite modern and historic artifacts spanning the last 5,000 years, is incomparable. Not long after I started attending, I began to write about what was then called the Winter Antique Show’s opening festivities for the Huffington Post. Now covering these events for the AmNews, looking back, what’s astonishing, is how consistently marvelous both the objects offered for sale and the brio of the stylish people who come out to buy them have remained.
The angel who so splendidly produced the Winter Show, making sure there was always a place for me at this launching of New York’s social season, was until her recent retirement, Harlem’s Eula Johnson. This year opening night paid tribute to Caroline Kennedy. I remember photographing her here when she was contemplating a senate run. A longtime Winter Show supporter, she first frequented opening nights with her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Over the years I’ve also seen Martha Stewart and her daughter Alexis looking at pearls and Peter Brant with his parents as well. And this all pinpoints the exhibition’s wise stratagem of identifying and hooking tomorrow’s customer-donors today.
Disappointments? I’ve had few here. Two times, once with Diahann Carroll and later with Star Jones, I aimed my camera to discover there was no power left. But I’ve also attended with friends like Alma Rangel, filmmakers Patrik-Ian Polk and Chester Argenal Gordon, and photographer par excellence Marvin P. Smith, so I have no regrets.
Is there any other occasion in town where one enjoys such a fun time virtuously aiding a good cause? Some come close, but ….
At both of their gala events there’s always plenty that’s good to eat and drink, but best of all, there are always lots of people one knows; or ‘because they are so striking, elegant’ or good looking, so many people one would like to know better. And, come what may, no matter who they are, they always wear the most dashing, daring, darling, sophisticated and chic clothes, shoes and adornment possible. Everyone’s determined to look smashing and seldom fail. BRAVO THE WINTER SHOW!
It’s wonderful to hear the Winter Show provided such a warm experience during the coldest week! I appreciate how you tie that positive feeling back to the vital, long-running racial justice journalism you provide. How do you find that connection between community events and sustaining your essential mission motivates new readers to support you?