The 13th annual Friends of the High Line benefit returned to Pier 57 on Tuesday night for an evening dubbed “the Photo Party," raising a sum of $3.2 million for the nonprofit advocacy group. Nine-hundred guests, including Diane von Furstenberg, Chelsea Clinton, and honoree Ethan Hawke, showed up at the semi-abandoned indoor pier located just blocks from the elevated park.
While the event always incorporates some reference to the park’s history or design, this year the evening’s theme centered on photographs of the High Line taken through the years. Bronson van Wyck of Van Wyck & Van Wyck—a member of the Friends of the High Line board of directors—was once again in charge of the event’s decor, which he has handled since 2001. In the dining area, the raw, industrial-looking former bus depot was spruced up with strings of café lights and bunting crafted from photographs of the park attached to clothespins.
“Great photography has always been one of the most powerful ways that we've been able to tell the story of the High Line, even since those days not so long ago when there wasn't even a story to tell and it was all still a dream," van Wyck says. “We had several thousand bistro lights strung over the tables, and thousands of candles.
What is more New York than a candelit dinner party in an abandoned warehouse?” In lieu of the event's usual foliage-heavy centerpieces, more photographs were scattered atop raised Lucite platforms, which were eventually also used to hold family-style dinner platters. Overall, van Wyck used 50,000 photographic prints of the High Line's landscape, public art programs, and other organized activities, as well as the street and performance art which have occurred there spontaneously.
Before heading to dinner around 8 p.m., guests sipped gin tipples and enjoyed hors d’hoeuvres such as artichoke ravioli and razor clam ceviche in the cocktail area, which featured a mirrored bar at the center. The design crew built an expansive structure covered in moss and air plants that was suspended from ceiling trusses and appeared to grow out of the bar and across the vast concrete-walled room. On one side of the room sat a photo booth area that invited guests to pose in front of backdrops covered in images of the High Line. One of the three booths was a video confessional where guests could leave a message for honoree and co-founder Robert Hammond. (This was Hammond’s last benefit as executive director of the organization before he steps down later this year.)
Catering company Bite Food served a three-part family-style menu that began with platters of spring asparagus, roasted baby carrots, balsamic lentils, seared arctic char, and morel bread pudding. The second course included platters of shaved black kale, roasted golden beets, celery root gratin, lamb, lobster, and spring risotto. Finally, guests enjoyed one-bite desserts such as ice cream sandwiches, a gourmet take on Mallomars, pineapple upside downs, black cherry charlottes, rhubarb turnovers, and dark chocolate pecan pies.
