Features

The California Stem-Cell Gold Rush

New York’s Big Medicine faces a serious new threat: the passage of Proposition 71 in California, which allows doctors there to pursue human embryonic stem-cell research free of political meddling�and provides billions in public money to fund it. Many of the city’s doctors and researchers are looking westward. And if we don’t act quickly, New York could be facing a crippling biotech brain drain in a field we ought to own.

The Rise of the Microneighborhood

With almost every corner of the city colonized during the gentrification boom of the nineties, aspiring trend-makers are hard-pressed to anoint the next �It� neighborhood. The solution? Enclaves of cool as small as one block.

Strategist

Best Bets

Italian dinnerware breaks out of a design rut, plus chocolate truffles and a high-tech alarm clock

Negotiations

Sarah Bernard on returning gifts in theory and practice

The Look Book

A �throwback to Gordon Gekko� and his fur-loving companion

Market Research

A review of tea kettles

A Great Room

A Long Island City apartment

Mating

Dating for the disabled

Real Estate

East End Avenue looks more like Park and Fifth every day

Travel

Play like a sultan in Dubai

Craze

Japan’s coolest clothing line comes to Soho

Shop news

Store openings this week

Ask a Shop Clerk

Richard Fabrizio of J. Mendel

The Best Seller

The Empire Tub (in ivory), $7,500

Sales & Bargains:
This week's hottest sales & bargains

The Day After

Greet the New Year with a peaceful brunch and a hangover tonic or two.

Comfort, Food

For comfortable, spill-free snacking, La-Z-Boys can’t be beat. But these sceney places accommodate guests with honest-to-goodness beds. (Just be careful where you set your drink.)

Intelligencer

Intelligencer Gossip

Libeskind’s new project and more.

It Happened Last Week

Having somehow endured another Christmas, New York entered the cheerful but slightly crapulous run-up to New Year’s Eve determined not to let the hard mask of amusement slip.

What’s the Frequency, Richard?

The agent who’s repped Dan, Diane, and Paula weighs in on the state of TV news.

For the Birds

Even without Mary Tyler Moore, the city can still be a welcoming place for street-smart fliers.

Ford Explorer

Tom Ford on Tom Ford

Jack Newfield: Four Train Gone

The Brooklyn-born columnist got where he was going by shoe leather and subway. And in his too-short career, every day was judgment day.

The Competition

A design-a-bridge competition, judged by Richard Meier

Columnists

The Bottom Line

Halliburton will rise, Wal-Mart will fall, and the airlines will all go bankrupt: a 2005 economic forecast

The Culture Pages

Bicoastal Disorder

Even when the comedian David Cross catches a break, he still can’t catch a break.

Movie Review

Penn and Travolta go artsy, but their movies disappoint

Zombie Brains in Brooklyn!

Filming zombies in Bed-Stuy

New York Screen: Director Nicole Kassell

An interview with Woodsman director Nicole Kassell.

Theater Review

Neil LaBute’s latest is sharply written and well-produced

A Number Reviewed

The new golden rule for playwrights is: the less comprehensible, the better.

The Rivals Reviewed

Richard Brinsley Sheridan was 24 when he wrote The Rivals (1775), a �safe play for young people�a Restoration comedy without sex,� as Graham Greene said.

Leading Man: Harvey Fierstein

Harvey Fierstein gets fired up.

Book Review

A Franzen knockoff shows how badly we need a good social novel

New York Word: Dave King

Brooklyn author Dave King’s long journey to getting published.

Art Review

A selective but evocative East Village retrospective

Triptych

Bill Paxton on buying the work of Jennifer and Kevin McCoy.

Departments

Letters to the Editor