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" Simon Hammerstein, Vaudeville Revivalist New York City is full of Big Names with Big Ideas, so when Simon Hammerstein -- of the great theater clan -- envisioned a vaudeville theater that would rescue nightlife from the tyranny of industrial megaclubs, he was easy to ignore. This kid, this twenty-something scion, had no real business doing any kind of business, having only directed a few off-off-Broadway plays with names like The Passion of George W. Bush. And yet he had this Big Idea, this place that would combine the spectacle of the Moulin Rouge with the eccentricity of Barnum &amp;amp;amp; Bailey and the glamour of Studio 54. He named it the Box, and with a team of nightlife vets providing capital and advice, he opened earlier this year in a refurbished abattoir on the Lower East Side. Exotic performers -- burlesque ballerinas, circus oddities, and opera singers -- take the stage for nightly shows, and the place is packed to the rafters eight days a week. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s like a scene out of Fellini,&amp;quot; Hammerstein says, &amp;quot;and it&amp;#039;ll keep changing.&amp;quot; Two-button wool suit ($1,450) by Etro; superfine-wool vest ($795) by Ermenegildo Zegna Couture; cotton shirt ($175) by Boss Selection; silk tie ($125) by Dunhill.  John Connelly, Art Dealer When John Connelly opened his namesake gallery in New York in 2002, the air in Chelsea and other art-world environs felt toxic. &amp;quot;There was this cold-war mentality, where everybody was everybody&amp;#039;s enemy,&amp;quot; Connelly recalls. So with a few other bright-eyed comers, Connelly cofounded the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) to foster cooperation among the new generation of art professionals. Now with swelling ranks and an annual art fair in Miami that rivals the most established international art fairs in prestige, Connelly and his fellow NADA members, once the scrappy upstarts, are players on the global stage. Jacket ($895), shirt ($285), and tie ($125) by Pal Zileri; pocket square ($60) by Paul Stuart; glasses ($600) by Oliver Goldsmith.  Ian Rowe, MTV&amp;#039;s Issue Man To deride MTV for selling out musicians and taking up with reality TV is to ignore a fact central to its existence: The kids still watch it. And thanks to the efforts of Ian Rowe, who oversees the network&amp;#039;s social-programming unit, thinkMTV, it&amp;#039;s become a major source of news and information. &amp;quot;We use the power of the network to engage young people on issues of greatest concern to their generation,&amp;quot; explains Rowe. And so you have The Diary of Angelina Jolie and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa and The Diary of Jay-Z: Water for Life, which are essentially PBS documentaries wrapped in Us Weekly clothing. You have the channel&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Choose or Lose&amp;quot; election coverage, set to begin anew this fall. You have the &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s Your (Sex) Life&amp;quot; sexual-health campaign. You have Rowe making the best out of a celebrity culture and connecting with kids by any means necessary. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t believe in apathy,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Young people want change, and we give them the tools to make it happen.&amp;quot;  Two-button wool jacket ($2,800) by Valentino; cotton shirt ($416) by Luigi Borrelli; silk tie ($125) by Dunhill; wool trousers ($345) by Ermenegildo Zegna; leather monk-strap shoes ($2,300) by Santoni; yellow-gold Pasha chronograph ($35,100) by Cartier; gold signet ring ($2,400) by David Yurman.  Daniel Katz, Film Producer In 2005, Daniel Katz helped bring a dirty, dirty, dirty joke into movie theaters around the world. As head of acquisitions for ThinkFilm, he purchased The Aristocrats after sensing its sky&amp;#039;s-the-limit potential. He was right, of course, and his instincts concerning popular taste have led to many independent films -- notably Spellbound and Half Nelson -- seeing the light of day. Katz has since joined financial-services giant Guggenheim Partners, where he&amp;#039;s helping fund film producers working both inside and outside the studio system. &amp;quot;A lot of capital today is allocated to filmmakers who&amp;#039;ve been successful over the past twenty-five years,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Our goal is to find who&amp;#039;s going to be successful over the next twenty-five.&amp;quot; If Katz&amp;#039;s past finds are any indication, this is good news indeed. Suit ($4,195) and tie ($95) by Ralph Lauren Purple Label; shirt ($115) by Charles Tyrwhitt; pocket square ($60) by Robert Talbott; shoes ($545) by Pal Zileri.  David Chang, Chef David Chang is a man of credentials. He graduated from a fancy culinary school. He&amp;#039;s cooked in hoity New York restaurants. He&amp;#039;s won awards. And yet four years ago, he left the world where all those credentials mattered. &amp;quot;I wanted to use what I&amp;#039;d learned in a place that didn&amp;#039;t have the trappings of formal dining,&amp;quot; he says. He opened Momofuku Noodle Bar and then Momofuku Ss\u00E4m Bar in New York, tiny joints that reimagine ramen noodles and other Asian delicacies for the twenty-first century. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s all about the food,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;and fuck everything else.&amp;quot; His customers tend to agree.  Suit ($1,484) and cotton shirt ($139) by Paul Stuart; tie ($145) by Ermenegildo Zegna.  Charlie Walk, Record Breaker &amp;quot;A few years ago, it felt like the end to a lot of people in my business,&amp;quot; says Charlie Walk, president of Epic Records. &amp;quot;But not to me. Never to me.&amp;quot; To be an optimist in the music industry seems like nice work for a masochist, but for Walk, whose artist roster ranges from Franz Ferdinand to Jessica Simpson, the digital revolution has meant opportunity and innovation. &amp;quot;The music business will always be based on hit songs and artists,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;But you have to make different types of deals to make consumers aware of them.&amp;quot; Walk was an early advocate of personalized ring tones for cell phones and user-generated music videos. For better or worse, Walk believes, this is the future: &amp;quot;Music is going to be more profitable than ever, but we&amp;#039;ll just have a different way of doing it.&amp;quot;  Wool suit ($4,830) by Thom Browne; shirt ($150) and pocket square ($60) by Thomas Pink; silk tie ($135) by Paul Smith; watch ($5,700) and cuff links ($365) by Bulgari.  Charles Renfro, Architect As one of three partners in the New York-based architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Charles Renfro often looks at the city around him and wonders. &amp;quot;Developers are just building and building without putting much thought into what they&amp;#039;re building,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Buildings make up our cities, and a lot of them make up our history. There needs to be some thought.&amp;quot; Renfro&amp;#039;s particular talent lies in both designing beautiful new structures and redesigning existing ones. That&amp;#039;s why his firm won the commission to carry out the master plan for New York&amp;#039;s High Line park, with Renfro and company set to transform an abandoned elevated railway into a lush oasis. That&amp;#039;s why they&amp;#039;ve been chosen to rework major portions of Lincoln Center. That&amp;#039;s why, unlike brand-name architects like Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid, Renfro doesn&amp;#039;t have a signature aesthetic and prefers to adapt with each project. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve just always been interested in defying gravity,&amp;quot; he says. Our buildings, cities, and history are the better for it.  Two-button wool suit ($2,505) by Gucci; cotton shirt ($215) by Dunhill; silk tie ($95) by Jack Spade; leather shoes ($550), Polo by Ralph Lauren; stainless-steel Freelancer watch ($1,395) by Raymond Weil.  Daniel Katz wears a wool suit ($2,295) and shirt ($225) by Canali; tie ($98) by Hickey Freeman.  Simon Hammerstein wears a double-breasted cashmere suit ($3,895) by Ermenegildo Zegna; cotton shirt ($145) by Boss Black; cashmere tie ($175) by Breuer; white-gold Tank Americaine chronograph ($26,300) by Cartier. GROOMING BY VANESSA MITCHELL. TAILORING BY CURTIS GARRETT. PROPS BY MEGAN CAPONETTO. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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