On
Monday, May 18, 2009, the New-York
Historical Society honored Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand at its annual Strawberry Festival Luncheon. The
event was attended by 175 guests and raised over $150,000.
Senator Gillibrand is the latest in a line of outstanding women honored
at the Strawberry Festival, including her predecessor in the Senate,
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was the keynote speaker in 2005. Other recent
honorees include Michelle Obama (2007), Betsy Gotbaum, Nancy Newcomb,
Anna Quindlen, Leslie Stahl, Christine Quinn and Wendy Wasserstein.
Tiffany & Co. presented an array of jewelry at the 2009 Strawberry Festival luncheon. Included were jewels inspired by the legendary creations of Louis Comfort Tiffany and other historic designs from the Tiffany & Co. Archives, as well as iconic jewelry by world-renowned Tiffany designers Jean Schlumberger, Elsa Peretti, Paloma Picassso and Frank Gehry.
The annual Strawberry Festival is a spring tradition of the New-York
Historical Society, first celebrated with a picnic in 1856 in Washington
Square Park. Proceeds from the Strawberry Festival support the major
exhibitions and educational programs of the New-York Historical Society. Current
and upcoming N-YHS exhibitions include Abraham Lincoln In His Own Words: An Intimate
View of Our Greatest President; Harlem 1970-2009: Photographs by Camilo José Vergara;
Landmarks of New York; New York Painting Begins: Eighteenth-Century Portraits;
and this fall's Lincoln and New York.
