Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

What do you get when you combine Susan Sarandon, Alan Cumming, Judah Friedlander from 30 Rock, and a scantily-clad female Asian table tennis player? An opening party for one of New York's newest private clubs, obviously. This awesomely random grouping turned out last night for the opening of SPiN New York, a new Ping-Pong social club on 23rd Street and Park Avenue, and in which Sarandon is an investor. The space holds 17 Ping-Pong tables (two are in a private room) and has Olympic-quality cushioned flooring, special "player-friendly" lighting, and of course, a full bar. Does it get any better?More

A bevy of models turned out on Wednesday night to celebrate Australian photographer Russell James' new book at the Stephan Weiss studio. Host Donna Karan and guests like Alan Cumming, Desiree Gruber, Ally Hilfiger, Douglas Hannant, Veronica Webb, and Josh Bernstein mingled with models like Alessandra Ambrosio (left), Angela Lindvall, Erin Wasson, Doutzen Kroes, Brooklyn Decker, Noemie Lenoir, Julie Henderson, Zuzana Gregorova, and Oluchi. [PMc, Wireimage, FWD]More

Happy Birthday | Keith Olbermann turns 50 today. Designer Narciso Rodriguez is celebrating his 48th. Actor Alan Cumming is turning 44. Mikhail Baryshnikov is 61. Hedge fund mogul Dan Och turns 48. Model Lily Donaldson is turning 21. Tom Cruise's first wife, actress Mimi Rogers, turns 53. Actor James Cromwell turns 69. Tricky is 41. The rapper Lil Jon is 38. Bridget Fonda is 45. And Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who so spectacularly mangled Barack Obama's oath of office a week ago, turns 54 today.

♦  Things are going from bad to worse for Damon Dash and Rachel Roy: Three months after a bank foreclosed on their two Tribeca condos, Dash's Chevy Tahoe was seized this week after he failed to make the monthly lease payments. Does this mean he's already lost his Maybach? [NYDN]
♦  Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson were supposedly getting engaged yesterday. Today the relationship is supposedly "heading for choppy waters," because Lindsay wants to "explore her heterosexuality." [The Sun]
♦  How is Lindsay's publicist explaining her client's description of Barack Obama earlier this week as the country's first "colored President"? She says no one knows what LiLo really said, since it was "unintelligible." [MSNBC]
♦  Katie Holmes is supposedly refusing to move back to LA after she's finished on Broadway. Why? Because she doesn't get dragged to as many Scientology events when she's in NYC. [NYDN]More

Dylan Lauren celebrated the re-launch of Dylan's Candy Bar on Monday night with a bash at her Third Avenue store. In addition to siblings Andrew and David and mom Ricky, guests included Woody Allen and Soon-Yi (with their kids), Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and wife Vanessa Trump, Lauren Bush, Dan Abrams, Olivia Palermo, Katie Lee Joel, Rachel Roy, Fabiola Beracasa, Stacey Bendet, Eric Villency, Jamee Gregory, Bettina Zilkha, Amy Sacco, Thom Filicia, Dori Cooperman, Ingrid Sischy, Dave Zinczenko, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Karen Duffy, Kira Plastinina, Jason Biggs, Tyson Beckford, and fraudster Tatiana Boncompagni. [PMc, NYO, Wireimage, GoaG]More

♦  Soon-to-be-single Madonna premiered her directorial debut, Filth and Wisdom, at the Sunshine Theater on Monday night. On the red carpet and/or the after-party at the Thompson LES: Lindsay Lohan (left), Jerry Seinfeld, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, Ann Dexter-Jones, David Blaine, Alan Cumming, America Ferrera, Brooke Shields, Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone, Glenda Bailey, Jessica Alba and Cash Warren, Juliette Lewis, Jason Biggs, Jeremy Piven, Vanessa Williams, Becki Newton, Malin Akerman, Lake Bell, Max Minghella, Padma Lakshmi, Terry Richardson, Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson, Joe Zee, Byrdie Bell, Fabiola Beracasa, Ferebee Bishop Taube, Zani Gugelmann, Katie Lee Joel, Beth Ostrosky, Eleanor Ylvisaker, Kelly Klein, Minnie Mortimer, Maggie Rizer, Chace Crawford, Amanda Cutter Brooks, Ingrid Sischy, Ross Bleckner, Nancy Jarecki, Derek Blasberg, Ed Westwick, Rose Byrne, Taylor Momsen, Debbie Bancroft, Terry Richardson, Bruce Weber, Guy Oseary, and Ali Wise and Jason Pomeranc. [The Daily, PMc, Wireimage, Style.com] More

♦  The opening of Elizabeth Peyton's New Museum exhibition on Tuesday was full of her friends and fans like Marc Jacobs (with boyfriend Lorenzo Martone, left), Glenn O'Brien, Amy Astley, Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour, Hope Atherton, Cecily Brown, Rachel Feinstein and John Currin, Alex Katz, Kiki Smith, Gavin Brown, Barbara Gladstone, Debbie Harry, and Thelma Golden. [The Daily, PMc]

♦  Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer teamed up with Vogue on Tuesday night to host the launch of Lacoste Pink at Lacoste on Fifth Avenue and shoppers got a first look at the company's pink-themed collection with 10% of the profits going to Evelyn Lauder's Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Co-hosts Rose Byrne, Marisa Brown, Gigi Mortimer, and Cynthia Lufkin were joined by Gillian Miniter, Nicole Miller, Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict, Philip Bloch, Anisha Lakhani, Zani Gugelmann, Emma Snowdon Jones, Melissa Berkelhammer, and Alexandra Lebenthal. [The Daily, Park Ave Peerage, Wireimage]More

♦  Yesterday evening the New York Women's Foundation Fall Gala took place at Gotham Hall: Michael Bloomberg and Diana Taylor, Iman, Joel Klein and Nicole Seligman, Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower, Felicia Taylor, Jamie Niven, Herbert Wachtell, and Jonathan Farkas ate, drank, and watched a performance from the American Ballroom Theater Youth Dance Company. [Wireimage, PMc]

♦  Last night Donna Karan celebrated her 60th with a party at The Box worthy of someone a third her age. Joining the debauchery: her daughter Gabby, Simon Hammerstein, Alan Cumming, George Wayne, Andre Balazs, David Furnish, Nadine Johnson, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Kelly Klein, Jackie Astier, Steven Klein, and many more. [GoaG, PMc]More

» Zac Posen showed the kind of pretty dresses that made him famous. What has also made him famous, of course, is his dazzling knack for networking, which was in full effect with a starry audience of Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy, Marisa Tomei, Leighton Meester, Venus and Serena Williams, Anna Wintour, André Leon Talley, Bernadette Peters, Diddy, Julian Schnabel, Bette Midler, Juliette Lewis, Kate Mara, Jada Pinkett Smith, Veronica Webb, Joy Bryant, Rachel Zoe, Ingrid Sischy, and Fern Mallis. [WSJ, Wireimage]

» Calvin Klein's 40th anniversary show was predictably A-listy with Eva Mendes, Lauren Hutton, Anna Wintour, Tyra Banks (whispering conspiratorially with Glenda Bailey), and Serena Williams in attendance. Equally newsworthy as Francisco Costa's minimalist, neutral-paletted, space-agey designs, though, was the fact that Rachel Zoe got totally abused by the paps, who told her to "eat a sandwich," and that she's "a terrible role model." Welcome to reality TV stardom, Rachel!  [The Cut, Guardian, WSJ]More

1) At the New York premiere of spy thriller Traitor at the Regal Union Square last night, the film's stars Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Said Taghmaoui, and Mozhan Marno walked the red carpet along with director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Busta Rhymes, Jesse Williams, Estelle, Aubrey O'Day, and Nicole Miller. [NYO/Wireimage]

2) Further downtown mayhem surrounded the opening of the Nike sportswear store at 21 Mercer Street: Giant electronic billboards and a marching band heralded the arrival of Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, and Serena Williams, who were joined by Mark Ronson (who DJed), Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Spike Lee, Katy Perry, Richie Akiva, Q-Tip, Justin Theroux, Alan Cumming, Cory Kennedy, Lily Cole, Alexander Wang, and many others. [Teen Vogue/PMc]More

1) Piaget launched its new Limelight Paris-New York Collection last night with a party at The Loft & Garden at Rockefeller Center, where Leighton Meester and Emmy Rossum (left) mingled with Liv Tyler, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Becki Newton, Mena Suvari, Joe Zee, Lisa Anastos, Lydia Fenet, Allison Aston, Adam Lippes, Roopal Patel, Zoe Kravitz, Philippe Leopold-Metzger, Geoffrey Bradfield, Gillian Miniter, Kate Schelter, Meredith Melling Burke, and Paul Sevigny. [FWD, PMc] 

2) Elie Tahari unveiled his spring 2009 accessories collection with a party last night. Guests included Carson Kressley, Dennis Basso, Meredith Melling Burke, Susan Kellogg, Roopal Patel, Linda Fargo, Simon van Kempen, Alex McCord, Rob Banning, and Basil Corbett, who sipped champagne and previewed Tahari's collection in the courtyard garden. [FWD, PMc]More