The chronicler of all things 10021, Columbia operates New York Social Diary, a website that features party pictures of socialites, the gay men who accompany them to parties and, occasionally, their husbands.

Columbia moved to New York after flunking out of college. He took up residence in a friend's mother's 16-room apartment at 740 Park, spent several years bouncing from profession to profession (actor, writer, stockbroker) and even gave marriage a try. By 1973, though, he'd fallen in love with a man, and he soon divorced his wife and moved to Westchester, where he opened up a head shop. (He says he had a coke, mescaline, and pot habit at the time.) After cleaning up his act, Columbia decamped to LA because Sherry Lansing, then VP of MGM, said she liked a screenplay he'd written. She didn't buy it, but he wound up spending fourteen years on the West Coast anyway: He ghostwrote Debbie Reynolds' autobiography, worked as an assistant to Shampoo producer Lester Persky, and hung out with Hollywood A-listers. But when his longtime boyfriend left him, a despondent Columbia returned to NYC, moving in with old friend Beth Rudin DeWoody. She introduced him to Quest's Heather Cohane and he got a job at the society rag, leaving in 1997 to become the editor-in-chief of Avenue. He went off on his own and launched NYSD in 2000 with his former assistant Jeffrey Hirsch. Columbia is loved by aging socialites across town, mostly because they can rest assured he'll never say anything nasty about them. He avoids the tawdry stuff—affairs, trips to rehab, illegitimate kids—and focuses on the positive: tastefully appointed homes, gorgeous bouquets of flowers, and divine dresses. [Image via Getty]