The Epic Battle for Bear Stearns’ Soul, and Other Day-Three StoriesIt’s been two days since Bear Stearns was sold in a fire sale to JPMorgan, and things are still messy and emotional. Whose fault was all of this, and if it’s no one’s fault, whom can we blame? What will happen next? And what will the impact be, not just on Wall Street, but on the little people? Several stories in the papers today shed light on these questions, even as they raised more questions. Below, a handy cheat sheet to keep you current:
in other news
Hillary’s Press Guru Is More Hipster Than Thou
When we saw today’s Observer headline about Clinton traveling press secretary Jay Carson, we couldn’t help but smile. “Hillary’s Hard-Hitting Hipster” was the title of the story, which featured a picture of Carson wearing jeans and a blazer. We well know how the press is quick to stereotype people as hipsters. But once we read the story (burdened by the overwhelming feeling of reverse Schadenfreude we had at young Carson’s meteoric success), we realized, it’s pretty hard to argue with his hipster cred. Quoth the Observer:
• Mr. Carson wore slim jeans, a fitted striped sweater, a trim beard and black high-top Converse All Stars that, according to his close friend Beau Willimon, he spent 30 minutes scuffing in the first after purchasing to achieve a more authentically “punkified” look.
neighborhood watch
Ditmas Park Manse Finds a Fixer to Up ItDitmas Park: Remember that beautiful, dilapidated mansion on the market for $1.75 mil that New York featured a while back? It just sold for $1.55 mil. Happy fix-up, somebody. [Ditmas Park Blog]
East Village: Gentrification haters have two fun protests tonight — one of the imminent Cooper Square Hotel, another of a local shoot for SATC ripoff Lipstick Jungle. [Vanishing New York]
Greenpoint: Chuck, fuck, but definitely not marry. That’s how Miss Heather feels about the daily papers that rip stories off from her posts (like last week’s one about sneakers hanging from phone lines) without crediting her blog. Girl, you gotta change that scatological blog title … yeah, even for the gutter mouth Post! [Newyorkshitty]
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Video: Take a Walk Through 40 Bond
Ian Schrager’s 40 Bond has barely opened, and already someone wants to sell. New York’s S. Jhoanna Robledo takes you inside a $3.6 million apartment at 40 Bond that’s on the market. Prospective buyers, keep in mind that most other owners at 40 Bond have their own plane. However, you will have access to common spaces clad in cedar and the graffiti-inspired façade that is both beloved and loathed. And if you need dinner, you can get room service from the Gramercy Park Hotel. This apartment is actually starting to sound like a steal.
Video: Inside 40 Bond
intel
Hartnett and Co. Go Bowling, Get Rejected by GutterIt’s always exceptionally weird when you see a celebrity doing something almost normal, like bowling, in a normal place, like Williamsburg. But it’s even weirder when you see one getting rejected like a normal person. That’s what happened to Josh Hartnett this Saturday night around 2 a.m. He rolled up to Williamsburg bowling bar Gutter with another guy and two girls (even mix of guys and girls, good!). To his chagrin, one girl was turned away when she told the doorman she had lost her ID (traveling with people who might be underage, bad!). Hartnett briefly entered the bar (maybe to try to smooth-talk the management? Maybe to bowl a quick strike?) only to emerge to tell the woman it was a no-go, but not to worry— he and his friend would drive her home. In bowling parlance, we’d call that a spare. —Daniel Maurer
company town
Air America Host Randi Rhodes Mugged?MEDIA
• Air America talk-show host Randi Rhodes was assaulted on Park Avenue last night while walking her dog? [Gawker]
• Jack Shafer investigates the billionaires behind ProPublica, the newly established New York–based investigative-journalism nonprofit led by former Journal managing editor Paul Steiger. Surprise, they’re big Democratic donors. [Slate]
• Howard Kurtz took the nonstop promotion of his gossipy new book to its logical conclusion, interviewing himself on his own CNN show. [HuffPo]
video look book
Taming the Leopard Print
Ambling through midtown, Amina Akhtar found this week’s Video Look Book subject, Simone Lazer. Her hairstyle is three years old, but the color changes every few weeks. “You color-coordinate it depending on what you’re wearing,” she says. Her animal prints are practical, not wild: “Zebra and leopard pretty much go with everything.”
Simone Lazer [Video Look Book]
party lines
Red Carpet Canceled (Gasp!) at Fabolous CD PartyThe release party last night for Fabolous’s new album, From Nothin’ To Somethin’, wasn’t a complete bust; Fab seemed to be having a good time, eventually, posted atop a corner couch at Runway with a bottle of Level vodka and mugging for pics with the megaproducer Swizz Beats, his buddy. But outside, things went less well. It started early when one invited guest — Teyana, the My Super Sweet Sixteen subject turned Pharrell protégé — walked face-first into the bar’s strict I.D. policy. Even borderline real celebrities like Cassie, the pop singer of “Me & U” fame, weren’t immune: She couldn’t get in, either. Even worse, the I.D. checks left an ever-swelling crowd waiting to get in; people yelled, charges of incompetence were leveled, and club management shut down the red carpet before Fabolous even showed. That meant there were none of the usual red-carpet interviews for reporters, which is why we can’t tell you anything definite about anyone in attendance and are forced instead to invent completely unfounded gossip about the guest of honor. Let’s say that Fab, too, has become a fan of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” and has recently taken up, um, horticulture. “It helps me think,” he might have said, if we had spoken to him, and if it were true. —Amos Barshad
in other news
New Near Bloomie’s: Botox While You Wait!There are bits of news every now and then that make us fall in love with the Upper East Side all over again, and this is one of them. From today’s New York Sun:
A new walk-in “Botox store” near Bloomingdale’s offers patients the promise of youthful-looking faces in the amount of time it takes to grab a sandwich.
It takes ten minutes, apparently, and doesn’t require an appointment. We’d smile at this news, but for some reason, our facial muscles seem not to be moving.
‘Botox Store’ Hopes To Eliminate Lines — and Waiting [NYS]
neighborhood watch
Chasing Developers Out of WilliamsburgGreenpoint: Shooting Rescue Me here deprives residents of their one day of worry-free parking. [11222]
Harlem: Lost Chihuahua Bugzy is back on the streets, but not before undergoing a mandatory manhood removal. [Harlem Fur]
High Bridge: Even as the city restores Saturday hours to many libraries, a Bronx branch will close for two years. [Highbridge Horizon via West Bronx Blog]
Kensington: Why did no one listen back in 2002 when apartments here cost half as much and didn’t need a gut reno? [Kensington]
Red Hook: Porthole Cruise Magazine selects Red Hook as the country’s best new homeport, whatever that means, exactly. [NYP]
Williamsburg: Concerned residents kill a proposal for a 24-story tower between Bedford and Berry. [OnNYTurf]
intel
J-Vanka: More Than Friends?
Stop the presses! Here’s the most exciting press release we’ve seen in months, and our excitement has nothing to do with the Michael Shvo development being flacked:
Request For Coverage *INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE*
ICONIC DESIGNER PHILIPPE STARCK AND REAL-ESTATE MARKETING WUNDERKIND MICHAEL SHVO INVITE YOU TO AN EXCLUSIVE PARTY
TO CELEBRATE THE OPENING OF “GRAMERCY STARCK”
WHO: Philippe Starck, Michael Shvo, Jessica Stam (Cover of Vogue this Month-Dating DJ AM), Fabiola Beracasa, Lydia Hearst, Celerie Kimble, Rachel Roy, Jared Kushner (New York Observer “IT” Publisher-Dating Ivanka Trump), Susie Castillo (MTV VJ), Sam Talbot (Top Chef) Greg K, Love Leigh, Geo (The Misshapes), Leven Rambin (All My Children) and a host of other New York VIPs will attend the exclusive event.
The Kush is officially listed as “dating Ivanka Trump”? (The bold was ours, for the record.) Is this final, real confirmation? Has J-Vanka has gone public — in someone else’s press release? We called Stephen Rubenstein — Kushner’s mouthpiece — to check. “They’re still just friends,” he assured us. We’ll take his word for it. But maybe they’re, you know, special friends?
Earlier: Daily Intel’s coverage of J-Vanka.
intel
As Bloomberg Appoints New Transportation Chief, It’s Full Speed Ahead on Congestion PricingMayor Bloomberg announced this afternoon that environmentalists’ preferred candidate, Janette Sadik-Khan, will be the new commissioner of the Transportation Department. Sadik-Kahn’s appointment had been rumored since last week, and her selection puts muscle behind the transit element of Bloomberg’s PlaNYC green goals, like instituting congestion pricing in Manhattan. Indeed, the city has submitted a “conditional application” for federal funds to help pay for the congestion-pricing experiment in advance of a Monday deadline, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff said at the same press conference, though the state must also join the application and hasn’t yet done so. Bloomberg was working the angles. “The geography of New York lends itself to something like this,” he said. “It will make deliveries quicker for trucking companies, and it’s a godsend for them … This will clean up our air and improve our economy, and the fact that money is available for technology that has been refined in other cities is a lucky thing, so I’m terribly optimistic.” If only the road to Washington didn’t go through Albany, we’d be optimistic too. —Alec Appelbaum
neighborhood watch
When Demolished Buildings AttackDumbo: Neighborhood maps distributed by Two Trees Management show 77 retail outlets, up from a paltry 23 in 2002. [Brooklyn Eagle via Dumbo NYC]
Long Island City: The New York Blood Center’s got swank new digs here, but at least one local would prefer a real hospital. [Queens Chronicle]
Park Slope: The Department of Transportation is considering a new traffic safety plan for 9th Street, but residents and cyclists are clashing over it. [Streetsblog]
Prospect Heights: After the Atlantic Yards demolition caused debris to rain down on Pacific Street, local politicians want construction to halt. [The Brooklyn Paper]
Tribeca: Miffed residents want to know why plans for a massive sanitation garage were moved from the West Thirties to their area, within a stone’s throw of new luxury housing. [The Villager]
West Village: Folks are massing against megadeveloper Related’s bid to turn sleepy Pier 40 into an entertainment complex they jeeringly call “Vegas on the Hudson.” [NYS]
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Tribeca: Go for the Movies, Stay for the LoftsLet the cinéastes take over the Tribeca Film Festival. It means less crowded open houses for you this weekend. Not that there won’t be enough competition: Tribeca, after all, is one of Manhattan’s best-loved and most expensive neighborhoods. The quiet remove, great restaurants, stellar public schools, surprisingly family-friendly vibe, and charming local shops are all good reasons to move here. But what attracts buyers most is the housing stock row upon row of warehouses refashioned into condos and co-ops filled with high-ceilinged lofts. (There’s new construction, too.) No wonder Tribeca’s the neighborhood of choice for the glitterati (James Gandolfini, Meryl Streep, and, of course, its biggest booster, Robert De Niro, call it home). There’s plenty of room for plebes, too, though the good life doesn’t come cheap. After the jump, a list of properties to view this weekend. S. Jhoanna Robledo