Degrees of Separation among the Brokers and the Broken

Today's New York Times Metropolitan section features a guide to power brokers, present and future:  The Powers of New York.  One of those profiled is chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, Jonathan Lippman, who presided over the hearing of Blaudziunas v. Egan, "the case of Our Lady of Vilnius."  William Glaberson's profile characterizes Judge Lippman as " ... a schmoozer who has had lunch with Donald Trump and breakfast with Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan."

In the forum following  a 2007 Gothamist post about Our Lady of Vilnius commenter "Upchuck" offered a connection between OLV and lunch date Donald Trump:

 "But Jen, you fail to comment on the fact that parishes are dwindling so that the land could be sold to settle lawsuits against the church.the actual size of the parish in numbers would have been irrelevent. people come and go in waves to church especially in the last 50 years (though it is more on the leaving side).the developer interested in this piece of land by the way, is Trump...along with two other church properties."

There is also an OLV connection to breakfast tablemate, Cardinal Dolan, Cardinal Egan's successor, who is on record as supporting Cardinal Egan's decision to close Our Lady of Vilnius.  I suspect that Mr. Glaberson had hoped to suggest a broad spectrum of schmooze-ees, but in OLV country his f'r instance runs the gamut from X to Z.

Ah, to have been a fly on the wall at these meals!    Naah, I would have been swatted pronto by the maitre'd.