For extra credit, the Sammy Tri-State Business Group added an off-site bourbon tasting dinner to our syllabus. Not one to drink alone, bourbon collector and connoisseur Russell Wohl invited the group to his home for dinner and a spiritual tour of Kentucky spirits. The usual business discussions took a back seat to bourbon banter: Fra Wohl expounded upon all the finer points of manufacture, production, packaging, procurement, pricing and trivia. Teetotalers and non-believers were treated to...

NEW YORK CITY, MAY 28 2026 — Held by links of friendship together, the Sammy Tri-State Business Networking Dinner Group just convened our third meeting of the year. Twelve Sammies broke bread and built business bonds at Royal 35 Steakhouse. Pre-game cocktails and cigars started outside on the patio at 5pm on this balmy 79-degree day. We took the party upstairs to our private room at 6:08pm for extended schmoozing before sitting for dinner. Dessert was plated at 8:15 but we lingered til...

Steve Rubell was born in New York City on Dec. 2, 1943. He was raised in a Jewish household in Brooklyn, and he went on to study finance at Syracuse University. There, he met Ian Schrager, a fellow member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. In the mid-1970s, he teamed up with his old friend Schrager and entered the burgeoning disco market. "We just decided, ‘Hey, let’s try and do a nightclub.'” While the club only operated for a few short years in its original form, Studio 54 has had an...