Cy Vance doesn’t usually go to watch live comedy, but Monday, Aug. 10, was an exception.
“I’m not a person who goes to comedy clubs all the time, but we knew this was a good opportunity to get laughed at and to laugh at ourselves,” Mr. Vance, who is Robert Morgenthau’s handpicked candidate to succeed him as Manhattan district attorney, explained in a brief telephone interview after a fund-raising event at the Gotham Comedy Club.
He stayed out of the front row, though. “I was smart,” he said. “That first row is where the comics pick on you.”
The event was hosted by comedian Karen Bergeen, a friend of Mr. Vance’s, and the headline performer was Jim Gaffigan, a frequent guest and host on both The Late Show With David Letterman and Late Night With Conan O’Brien.
“There was a sense that this was the beginning of something rather important,” Mr. Gaffigan told the Transom afterward. “There was a different kind of vibe going on this show.”
Mr. Gaffigan, a Midwesterner noted for never cursing in his act, compared his evening at the Gotham to a John Kerry fund-raiser he performed at a few years ago.
“It was an older audience, and people thought I was really taboo,” he said. This time was different. “You got the sense that the people there go out regularly—it was a younger crowd.” But why Cy? Mr. Gaffigan said he’d talked to a parent at his kids’ school, a judge. “She said, ‘Definitely,’ so that was my confirmation.”
