User:Christopher Dwight Mejia London

CHRISTOPHER LONDON
(Christopher Dwight Mejia London)

Biography Christopher Dwight Mejia London (aka Christopher London) is a New York City based attorney, writer/blogger and photojournalist who was born Christopher Dwight Mejia on November 3, 1962 in Jamaica Hospital, Queens, New York. Christopher was born and raised in New York City. His childhood was spent in Kew Gardens, Corona-Flushing and Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. He attended public schools in both Queens and Brooklyn: P.S. 14, I.S. 61 (where he skipped the 8th grade), John Bowne High School and Sheepshead Bay High School. He played for several years in the Forest Hills Little League and was a member of the Sheepshead Bay High School swimming team. He changed his surname later in life. Christopher is the Founder, Editor & Publisher of ManhattanSociety.com, a 501 (c) (3) conduit; an independent and free press documenting elements the New York City’s post 9/11 social charitable undercurrent.

ManhattanSociety.com

London claims he wanted to document the philanthropic commitment of business, community and political leaders to his hometown following 9/11. He has referred to himself as one of the 99% with a unique first hand perspective of the top 1% in America. London claims to have tasted the good life but also experienced financial misfortune following 9/11 and referred often in his blogs and commentary that "once you walk in another man's shoes, you begin to see the world and its inhabitants a bit differently." In 2003, he was guided back from his plunge into depression/despair and descent into the Journey of the Dark Night of the Soul by his former Pilates instructor, Pamela Pietro (A Master Teacher of Dance at NYU) his brother Gregory, also a photojournalist with ManhattanSociety.com and other citizens who in London's estimation taught him how to play it forward, but it remains one of the most humbling periods of his life.

Heritage, Faith & Family

Christopher was born and raised in New York City. His father Octavio Augustus Caesar Medina Mejia was a naturalized American citizen who emigrated to the United States from Colombia, South America, born to Colombian and Spanish parents. His grandfather was a Spanish entrepreneur who built the family fortune in Armenia, Colombia principally in growing coffee and sales of consumer goods. Christopher's mother, Virginia Bernadette Saunig-Roche, was born in Chelsea section of Manhattan to working class American parents of German, Austrian and Italian descent. Virginia attended St. Colomba's Catholic Parochial school and attended mass regularly at St. Colomba Church. Christopher's mother resided on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for nearly a quarter century, before retiring to Cape Coral, Floridawith her second husband, James P. Roche (who worked in property management for the Trump Organization and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for nearly 3 decades) where she passed in the summer of 2011 at the Hope Hospice. In September of 2011, Christopher eulogized his mother at a service held for her at Church of Our Lady of Peace, a Roman Catholic Church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan which she regularly attended. Christopher's development and perspective were impacted strongly by his mother's Catholic faith. Christopher spent many summers in his youth at Camp Good News, a Christian Camp on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. London explored questions about his own faith, including briefly studying Judaism in college and though he considered converting, London embraced his Catholicism wholeheartedly while remaining open to spiritual teachings of both Judaism and Buddhism.

Education & Profession

Christopher attended public schools in Queens and Brooklyn, receiving his high school diploma ultimately from Sheepshead Bay High School. Christopher received his B.A. in Economics with high honors from Boston University and his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. London who worked for the Trump Organization while in high school, also reportedly received a letter of recommendation from Donald Trump, himself an alumnus of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for his application to the University of Pennsylvania Law School. After graduation from law school, Chris settled on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, living at 189 East 93rd Street and later at 22 East 93rd Street, Unit #5. He was a Bankruptcy Reorganization and Finance Associate with major international law firms Weil Gotshal & Manges and Bingham, Dana & Gould, which today is known as Bingham McCutcheon and Gaston, Snow & Ely Bartlett. He was mentored early in his career by Martin Bienenstock, one of the top Business Reorganization lawyers in America.

Photography & Social Journalism

Christopher’s written work, photography and social commentary have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reuters, Forbes.com, Money Magazine, Cape Cod Today, New York Post, E! Entertainment Television, FOX News, Town & Country Magazine, Panache Privee, Prestige Magazine (Asia), Der Spiegel (Germany), Social Life Magazine, Avenue, Quest, New York Social Diary, Gotham, Hamptons, Palm Beach Society, AskANewYorker and more.

Photojournalist Donna Ferrato has referred to Christopher London's style as follows: "Chris is riding bareback through New York Society like Joan of Arc in flames, armed with a willingness to thoughtfully express viewpoints many do not." But Christopher, in his signatory emails apparently indentifies personally more with this quote from one of his heroes, urban activist Jane Jacobs: ”I do not know who this celebrity called Jane Jacobs is. It’s not me. You either do your work or you’re a celebrity; I’d rather do my work.”

'''OFF With Their Hats! - The FLO Luncheon Conflict of 2012 - Fundraiser for largest public space limited to hired private & preferred social press corps'''

By 2012, Christopher London had shot charitable fundraisers for nearly every major charitable and cultural institution in New York City, or at least the New York centric ones by request and invitation of Board Members, Trustees as well as their internal and external public relations representatives. London for a long time had a special love and appreciation for Central Park in New York City, much in the same way he had for Walden Woods in Massachusetts which he would often retreat to during his days as a working professional in the financial district in Boston. London often meditated in the park and went for long runs around the reservoir. He recalls celebrating his passage of the New York bar exam with a long run and he retreated to that same area to meditate after the loss of each one of his parents to heart attack and lung cancer respectively as well as after the break up with an Upper East Side woman who London had hoped to marry. London joked that the Park was his mistress and that she was always there for him both in good times and bad, whether he was flush with cash or broke. He remembered the long walks in the park with his mother who first took him to Central Park to go ice skating and then much later in life celebrated with him after purchasing his first suit and his first pair of Alden Shoes at Brooks Brothers after he obtained his first legal job in New York City.

Alleged concerns about unfavorable press feeding a narrative of excess and elitism, at the 2011 Hat Luncheon, represented in a piece written by Pulitzer Prize editorial writer Heidi Evans, in a New York Daily News piece entitled "Man-hat-tan benefit can't be topped! Bonnets on display Central Park Conservancy's fundraiser", along with some internal politics resulted in a clamp down against selected outside social press, including those perceived to be any sort of risk of providing less than favorable press to the Central Park Conservancy, its honorees and benefactors. Though London's prior coverage of the FLO Luncheon had been largely favorable and hardly controversial, suspicions of London being blackballed by or to the Women's Committee, resulted from his denial of access in April of 2012 to cover the Frederic Law Olmsted Awards Luncheon, otherwise known as the FLO Luncheon or the Hat Luncheon, a signatory fundraiser of the Central Park Conservancy; one he began documenting for ManhattanSociety.com in 2006 by request of the public relations team at the Conservancy. London was frequently commended by polite members of New York society for his coverage and in the days leading up to the 2012 FLO event was asked numerous times if he would be there by a number of individuals, but had to respectfully advise them, no not this year. In his estimation, by this time, the politicization of attendees, hired 'press' and invited press had seemingly become something all too consuming and distasteful, exposing an underbelly of society that was not so polite. London was broken-hearted over the denial, given that his coverage of one of the honorees traced back to early 2005 before her rise to the heights of President of the Women's Committee of the Central Park Conservancy. Initially, he resisted the decision,but he ultimately became quite introspective about the whole affair, coming to the realization that something which on its face has such a light look and feel to it, had developed quite an unseemly elitist political undercurrent in recent years, reminding him this was not the reason he began covering philanthropy in New York City.

Politics

Christopher London grew up in a household dominated often by political discussion. His mother and father were members of the Republican and Democratic parties, Richard Nixon and Kennedy supporters respectively. Christopher has been a registered member of both the Democratic and Republican parties, has volunteered in support of Democratic and Republican candidates, and though passionate in rhetoric, has often come around to make more pragmatic decisions that he believes were in the best interests of his country. Political leaders he has claimed to admire include: President Bill Clinton (whom London volunteered for in 1992 while living in Massachusetts), Governor William Weld, Senator Paul Tsongas, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Ronald Reagan and Governor Tom Kean, Mario Cuomo and Robert F. Kennedy. Meetings with and the opportunity to converse with and photograph Clinton, Cuomo, Kean, Bloomberg and Giuliani and are among his most memorable moments documenting post 9/11 philanthropy in New York City. One of his favorite writers/commentators is Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report.

Volunteerism Chris has volunteered his time and work for Voices of September 11th, Artists & Writers Charity Softball Game, New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH), The Alliance of Guardian Angels, New York Restoration Project, Children for Children/Generation ON, FuelForTruth, IAFC Foundationand others.

Notorious

Christopher London was profiled by Warren St. John of the New York Times in a piece entitled "In an Oversexed Age, More Guys Take a Pill" referring to his outspoken usage of Pfizer's Viagra, for which he was lampooned lightly by Gawker in a post entitled Chris London: Mega Player. London appeared in Viagra Monologues, a documentary by Field Glass Films.

External Links

-Linkedin

-Facebook

-About.me

-London In NY: Christopher London's blog

-ManhattanSociety.com photos