Conserving McKim Mead & White Drawings...Edward Jay Epstein's Hollywood Number Crunching... Polishing Diamonds at the Frick

BUILDING ON PAPER The other night, preservationists in brooches, architectural historians in tweed, and a group of architects dressed in flannel shirts and jeans were gathered in the library of the New-York Historical Society, examining delicate sheets of paper filled with lines and cursive. Unrolled, with leather weights placed at their edges, the drawings revealed the innermost secrets of some of New York's grandest buildings: the stranger's reception room at the University Club, the ornate chandeliers of the New York Municipal Building, the narrow servant's bedrooms at 998 Fifth Avenue. The occasion celebrated a grant that will enable the society to conserve and properly store its more than 1,000 tubes and 175 boxes of McKim Mead & White architectural drawings dated from 1879 to 1930. Aside from their historical relevance -- those young architects in flannel had recently referred to the drawings to renovate one of the firm's buildings -- they are beautiful to look at. And an exhibition is likely once the project is completed. Meanwhile, the society has just opened a show exploring the Grateful Dead Archive, which is attracting more Tie Dyes than tweeds.

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COUNTING STARS Genetics and biotech scientist William Haseltine opened his home near the United Nations to host a book party for Edward Jay Epstein, who has just published "The Hollywood Economist: The Hidden Financial Reality Behind the Movies" (Melville House). The book is what happens when a dogged journalist throws himself at the numbers in the movie industry, from how much people get paid, to how much multiplexes need to gross, to how valuable the silver is in old film prints. Epstein is also current. He recently wrote for Gawker about the future of independent films, Netflix, and MGM. The eclectic crowd included journalists Eric Alterman and Richard Bernstein; downtown performer Jessica Delfino, who plays ukelele and autoharp; writer Sloane Crosley; artist Adriana Young, who lived in a secret apartment in a mall for four years; and artist Mara Haseltine, who is working on underwater sculptures that become habitats for coral and oysters.

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FROM DIAMONDS TO DULWICH Jay Diamond had the right surname to attend the Frick Collection’s Deco Diamond Ball. But his wife, Alexandra Lebenthal, had to come up with her own nod to the theme: a cocktail dress of mirrored glass pieces by Naeem Khan. The financial executive promises even more imaginative bling adventures in her fiction debut, “The Recessionistas,” to be published in August by Grand Central. One of the book’s characters wears some customized jewelry (not custom, mind you) that leads to trouble, she told us. As for trouble at the Frick: it remained outside, in a heavy blanket of snow that brought a plow to a halt right outside the museum's doors, where it had collided with a car. Inside real-life recessionistas marked the museum’s 75^th anniversary sipping Pol Roger champagne and nibbling on American sturgeon caviar; pigs in blankets; Swedish meatballs, and mini Beef Wellingtons. Meanwhile, curator Colin Bailey was counting the days until the Dulwich pictures arrived. More than 630 people attended the event, raising $235,000 for education programs, such as an Art Club for middle school students.