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Thanking Christo & Jeanne-Claude
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From
the Left: Christo, Jeanne-Claude and Ted Kheel
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Ted Kheel's Christmas Party Celebrates The Gates,
Project for Central Park
Ted Kheel's annual Christmas Party this year was a tribute to
Christo and Jeanne-Claude and what a grand tribute it was. Over
400 guests attended the party at the main dining room of the
Sky Club on top of the Met Life building (the old Pan Am building).
It was a great opportunity for the guests, which included elected
officials, civic and corporate leaders and prominent cultural
figures, to mingle with each other. "My wife and I have given
this party for more than 25 years but we've never had such a
large turnout and such an enthusiastic gathering," says Kheel.
Kheel thanked the artists Christo and Jeanne Claude for their
two gifts to New York: the $20 million 16-day Gates installation
in Central Park, which the artists will pay entirely from the
sale of original works of art by Christo, and the exclusive,
world-wide, royalty-free license they donated to Nurture New
York's Nature (NNYN). He recalled that the two visited him in
1979 asking him to represent them in their efforts to get a
permit from the City of New York. "I told them then that I might
be the wrong person to help. The Mayor hates me," said Kheel.
But it was his willingness to champion difficult causes and
concern for the city and its environment that attracted them,
said Christo. It took nearly 25 years to get the project approved
- the Bloomberg Administration approved the project in 2003
- but it was fully worth it, the artists said.
With the signing, the project took on an international flavor.
The artists hired companies in Germany to manufacture the fabric
and ship it to sew companies to create 7500 fabric panels and
almost 46 miles of hems. In the U.S. seven manufacturers began
working on various elements of the installation to deliver to
a 25,000-foot assembly plant outside of Manhattan. The installation
begins on January 3, 2005. The project, "weather permitting,"
said Jeanne-Claude, will open
February 12.
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