Emulating Roosevelt

The physical resemblance between dogs and their owners is often noted, with good humor. At a gala for the New York Harbor Conservancy on Tuesday evening, I and a few others noted a similar phenomenon: the resemblance many of the 170 guests bore to the man being celebrated on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth: President Theodore Roosevelt.

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Theodore Roosevelt IV & Jacqueline Dryfoos

The resemblance was to be expected of his blood descendant, Theodore Roosevelt IV (who wore a happy expression even though he and his son, who was married last weekend, are Lehman men). It was also not surprising to see that Roosevelt's Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, Edmund Morris, who delivered the keynote, looks like his subject (more so, at least, than his other famous book subject, President Reagan). The general superintendent of the Gateway National Recreation Area, Barry Sullivan, who has Teddy eyebrows and a mustache, said he feels a connection to Roosevelt because he worked at the national park in North Dakota that includes the ranch Roosevelt lived on after his mother and first wife died in a fire.

The connections to Roosevelt were also philosophical and civic, and shared by men and women at the event: Roosevelt loved nature and believed Americans should have a great system of National Parks. The president of the conservancy, Marie Salerno, its chairwoman, Marian Heiskell, and many others in that room are working in the same spirit.

Which brings me to the least trivial fact about the event: It raised $285,000 for programs designed to enrich visitor experience at the 22 National Parks and Historic Sites in New York City.