New York A Birthday Benefit for Haiti By JEN WIECZNER
Stanley Lucas
![[NYKARAN]](https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/HHORktCfAFUDM_31VmhSgNFflapZ3eISwi3xn-6B1zBDwOBsCuDRch9O8uiQ8YS4qWAIDGgxvywV9v2Z2GIaGHm6MQTPIqWfFynTO6pFFEiDHTdCYkrI8QvY1Tn3gQIF1g=s0-d-e1-ft#http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NY-BQ222_NYKARA_G_20120506184626.jpg)
Patrick McMullanAbove, nightlife mogul Michael Capponi celebrated his 40th birthday with a benefit at Capitale for the Haitian city of Jacmel.
Of the many charity events we go to in New York, most of them are not described as a "rager."
Danoushka and Michael Capponi
But friends of Michael Capponi have come to expect nothing less from the Miami nightlife icon and entrepreneur, who for years has thrown extravagant birthday bashes benefiting various charities.
While Mr. Capponi usually hosts his annual celebrations in Miami, where he has promoted some of the biggest nightclubs for decades, for his 40th he brought the party to New York.
His friends, representing various parts of the nightlife industry, gathered at Capitale Friday to celebrate and raise money for the Haiti Empowerment Mission, Mr. Capponi's charity that is helping to transform Jacmel, a city in Haiti that was decimated in the 2010 earthquake, into a thriving tourist town.
Donna Karan and Fern Mallis
"Every year I try to use the birthday for charity," Mr. Capponi said. "I don't think anybody else does that, combines models, government people, ambassadors," he said, gesturing to members of a Haitian dance troupe from Brooklyn who were performing acrobatics around him.
The dancers were a central part of the carnival-themed festivities, marching down the stairs and onto the dance floor in huge colorful masks and flowing costumes. Mr. Capponi discovered the dance company a week-and-a-half earlier by going to Kombit, a Haitian restaurant in Brooklyn, and asking for recommendations.
"It all kind of came together mystically," Mr. Capponi said, adding that he planned the event, which usually takes months to produce, in about two weeks. "I think that the whole social world, the whole nonprofit socialite world, is segregated from the nightlife community," he said. "Tonight was going to combine all of those things." Mr. Capponi, wearing a glass-beaded bracelet and long shell necklace from Haiti and standing among a roomful of friends that included fashion designer Donna Karan, has clearly come along way from the days of his drug addictions in which he "lost everything."
Kyle Kleber and Monica Watkins
A Haitian dancer
After Haiti's earthquake, when no commercial planes were flying there, he traveled with a crew of firefighters to survey the wreckage. Stumbling upon Jacmel, which at the time was little more than a city of tents, Mr. Capponi was inspired to develop the place into the kind of vacation destination he'd found on Caribbean islands including Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, where he surfed when he was younger.
"Michael has a real gift, something he's cultivated over time, to build community," said Dave Kennedy, a friend of Mr. Capponi and a former professional surfer. "I've watched the light in his eyes—I've watched that really shift."
"All it takes is a splash to focus on one area," he said, comparing it to the way trendy restaurants in Brooklyn spawned neighborhoods, and fashion transformed Miami's South Beach.
In order to turn Jacmel into "Haiti's first tourist town," Mr. Capponi's organization is operating a school, which Donna Karan's organization Urban Zen has funded, and training local people for hospitality jobs like bartending and hotel administration.
Mr. Capponi credits his own struggles with giving him the strength and energy to take on such an intense long-term project: "You can't sail the Pacific Ocean before you sail the Caribbean sea first," he said.
Stanley Lucas
The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. Plato