October 6: Strategies for Building a Balanced Wine Collection The experts at the Italian Wine Merchants can show you how to build up your wine collection beyond those bottles that were left over from your last party. During the course of the afternoon, you'll taste eight Italian wines including vintage Barolo, Brunello, Super-Tuscans, and more while sampling assorted antipasti. $125 per person. Reservations required and can be made online or by calling 212-473-2323 x106. 1:00......

Recently, it was announced that architect James Ingo Freed died last week. Who? He was a partner at Pei, Cobb, Freed and Partners - the firm started by I.M. Pei; you can read his bio here. While many obituaries called out the fact that he designed the Holocaust Museum in D.C. (here's a link to the museum), Freed designed a lot of recognizable city buildings: The Kips Bay Plaza housing, University Plaza Towers on......