The New York Observer (New York, NY) back issues from April 2008:
Finito! Italian American Museum Closes on Little Italy Digs, Will Move 'In a Matter of Weeks'.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ The Italian American Museum will move into its new headquarters on the corner of Grand and Mulberry streets in Little Italy "in a matter of weeks," Museum president Joseph V. Scelsa announced on Tuesday, providing the neighborhood with a venue to "showcase the ...
In This Week's Observer...
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Recently betrothed Andy Roddick, ripped abs and all, buys Gramercy condo for $1.19 million. Brazil's minister of culture (and all-around music legend) Gilberto Gil buys $1.3 million East Village condo. Two Rockefellers involved in different ...
Whatsa Matter With Choo?
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ On Sunday, March 30, in the shoe department on the fifth floor of Bergdorf Goodman, ladies of varying age were sitting with box after box piled before them and male shopping companions collapsed at their sides, wearing the typical lobotomized expressions of men forced ...
Who Should Replace Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation?
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ "I'm going to stay for sure through the inauguration." That's what Bob Schieffer, the host these last 17 years of CBS's Sunday morning, half-hour news program Face the Nation, told TV Guide's Stephen Battaglio at the end of 2007. "Quite frankly, I don't know what I'm ...
Very Sweet Charity.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ New Yorkers love to give money to charity. And if it's a question of making New York City the capital of Western civilization--the center for medical, scientific and artistic innovation around the world--New York City's wealthiest are generally pretty happy to gratify ...
Curtain Up for Kids: Story Pirates Make Li'l Mamets.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ On Saturday, March 29, Sanaa Sondhi's short story "The Story of the Girls That Love to Dance and Love Each Other" was brought to life by 15 New York improv actors on a stage in the basement of the Drama Book Shop on West 40th Street in Manhattan. It was a sold-out ...
The West Side Rail Yards and the Ghost of Robert Moses.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ By almost any measure, Jerry and Rob Speyer's planned development of the West Side rail yards is on a grand scale. Its space (26 acres), price tag (perhaps $12 billion to $13 billion, based on the cost for two similar proposals at the site), and size (13 ...
Ducasse Redux: The Master Regroups at the St. Regis, No Tux Required.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ A waiter placed a shallow white bowl before me. On the bottom, making the corners of a square, lay four pastel-colored florets: yellow, ivory, pink and green. He poured in cauliflower soup and set down a bagel. "The topping on the bagel is 'Dubarry': chopped ...
Advantage, Roddick: Recently Betrothed Tennis Deity Gets Earthly Gramercy Pad for $1.19 M.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Andy Roddick can serve a ball 155 miles per hour, faster than anyone in the history of professional tennis. For that reason, and one or two others (the 25-year-old's forehand is good, he's good-looking), he just got engaged to a 20-year-old bikini model named ...
Lupone and Laurents Make Gypsy Soar.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Whether you're seeing Gypsy for the first (or fourth or fifth) time, you'll want to catch Arthur Laurents' revival starring Patti LuPone at the St. James Theatre. For one thing, Gypsy is among the very best musicals ever written, and we assume that by now the ...
Tony Avella Talks Tough on Developers: 'Some of Them Have Greed as Their Motto'.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Location: In your bid for mayor, as of January, you'd raised $180,000 compared with more than $4 million by one of your potential opponents. Mr. Avella: I consider that a virtue. People use the term 'long shot.' I agree. Absolutely ....
More Fried Cheese, Please!
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ On a weekday morning in Sunnyside, Queens, men and women emerge from brick houses and stolid apartment buildings to stream uphill toward the elevated No. 7 train, accompanied by bird song and with Dunkin Donuts coffee cups in their hands. But if they have a few extra ...
Mag as Hell!
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[Freelance Fizzle! The Decline and Fall of the WriterBY DOREE SHAFRIR "There's not one path anymore," David Hirshey, executive editor of HarperCollins and former longtime deputy editor of Esquire magazine, said the other day. "Thirty years ago, you worked at a ...
Gonna Fly Now! Clinton Runs as Rocky In Philly.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ PHILADELPHIA--"We need her," Barbara Vizzini, a 46-year-old equipment operator from Middletown, said before Hillary Clinton took the stage at a rally in Fairless Hills Monday night. "If we don't get her, we're going to end up with John McCain." What about ...
Freelance Fizzle!
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ "There's not one path anymore," David Hirshey, executive editor of HarperCollins and former longtime deputy editor of Esquire magazine, said the other day. "Thirty years ago, you worked at a newspaper, you moved to a magazine, and then you wrote books or screenplays ....
Where Will Magazines Be Ten Years From Now?
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ In the next five years in Graydon Carter's world, you'll walk onto a plane, or a subway, or a soon-to-be-invented mode of transport, and you'll tuck a little electronic book under your arm. Inside that little book, which will be very expensive at first but soon will ...
Here She Is, Miss Manhattan! Comely Co-eds Compete in Archaic Pageant Ritual.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ On Sunday, March 30, about 100 people, some rather done up, were cramming the small performance space at the New Dance Group studios, a few blocks from Port Authority in midtown, for the sold-out Miss Manhattan and Miss Southern New York beauty pageants. ...
Swede Sensation: 21 Club Shudders as Adams, Sevigny Encase Buttocks in Snug Euro-Denim.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ As guests arrived at the 21 Club on the evening of Friday, March 28, for a party celebrating the opening in Soho of Acne Jeans' first American store two days earlier, the Stockholm-based label's creative director, Jonny Johansson, sat cross-legged in a plush red ...
Welcome to China Town: Designers Fling Crockery for Fancy AIDS Fund-Raiser.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ The Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS "Dining by Design" benefit on Monday, March 31, had enough crystal, intricate upholstery, designer china and orchids to make even Martha Stewart a little dizzy. Also: Drag queen Lady Bunny and her massive blond hair, ...
Bad News Bear Bumped by Bev Hills Ump: CNN's Larry King Pitches Fit at Son's Little League Game.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ CNN fixture Larry King's 9-year-old son Chance Armstrong King plays Beverly Hills Little League. King pere is the coach of Chance's team. On Monday, March 10, during a heated game, the suspendered talk show host apparently got into a confrontation with one ...
Feisty Nikki Finke, Esteemed Hollywood Blogger, Sticks Up for Actor, Sues Financial Firm.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ On Friday, March 28, the journalist Nikki Finke, a household name in Hollywood since her blog Deadline Hollywood became a must-read during the Writers Guild of America strike, posted an item about veteran actor Jack Klugman suing NBC Universal over residuals from his ...
Woody Allen Took The Money And Ran.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ By now you've probably heard that Woody Allen is suing American Apparel for damages in excess of $10 million for using his likeness in a billboard. Reuters quotes the lawsuit as stating, "Allen does not engage in the commercial endorsement of products or services in ...
Events for Wednesday, April 2, 2008.(Conference news)
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ 9:30 a.m. Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Convention Center Development Corporation; Offices of the Empire State Development Corporation, 633 Third Ave., 37th Floor Conference Room. 11:30 a.m. Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum urges more access to ...
Congestion Pricing? Not Without Sheldon Silver.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Once again, Michael Bloomberg has defied public opinion polls and noisy skeptics, lined up bipartisan support from the Democratic governor and the Republican State Senate and won over city lawmakers in support of an idea that would have a profound impact in New York ...
2008: The Year Politics Broke!
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ The numbers are in for the cable news networks for the first quarter of 2008. The verdict? Thanks in large part to the nation's ravenous interest in the political season, Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC all enjoyed a strong first quarter, particularly compared with the ...
Performing Arts Center Move May Mean New World Trade Center Tower.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ A plan being considered by the city and state could give rise to a new tower on the World Trade Center site, as officials are pondering a move of the site's planned Performing Arts Center to the top of the Fulton Street Transit Center nearby. The Frank ...
Durst to Ask for $200 a Foot at One Bryant Park as Tenant Tahari Balks.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Douglas Durst's Bank of America Tower is still under construction, but the number of unleased floors in the hotly desired building is growing. How? After initially trying to sublease its space, clothing designer Elie Tahari recently worked out a ...
Councilman: Tishman Speyer Dragnet at Stuy Town Snaring Innocent Tenants.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Looks like the $5.4 billion landlord is having some trouble winning the hearts and minds of some of its residents. Tishman Speyer, which bought the 11,200-apartment Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village for that record amount in late 2006, has been pursuing ...
The Afternoon Wrap: Tuesday.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Amid mounting pressure from her constituency, Harlem Councilwoman Inez Dickinson spoke out against the rezoning of 125th Street at today's hearing. [City Room] Marriott is revamping its courtyard hotel chain to appeal to a younger, "edgier" clientele. One ...
The Dolans: Are They Bluffing on Moynihan Station?
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ So just how earnest is the Dolan family in its pledge to keep Madison Square Garden in its place, and abandon a possible move essential to the current Moynihan Station project? The question will become a crucial one in coming days and weeks, as the ...
Elsewhere: Health Care, Education, Ickes.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Liz says that the congestion pricing votes in the state legislature could be any time between tomorrow and Monday. Harold Ickes has been discussing Jeremiah Wright with superdelegates. Campaigning in Pennsylvania today, Barack Obama didn't ...
'Freaky' Rockefeller Naomi Waletzky (a.k.a. Muffy Nixon) Nabs $9.2 M. Condo in Schrager's 40 Bond.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Ricky Martin has sold nearly 70 million albums, and because of that absurd accomplishment he owns a $6.3 million apartment at 40 Bond Street, the glittery green condo developed by hotelier Ian Schrager. Princeton alum Naomi Waletzky (class of '98), who sings ...
Get Small! Arty Couple Lindemann and Dayan Buy Slender East Side Townhouse for $5.2 M.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ In 2006, monolithic contemporary art collector Adam Lindemann bought Jeff Koons' 3,500-pound Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold) from the dealer Larry Gagosian for a reported $4 million. A year later, cruelly, he sold it back to him for $23.5 million. It's ...
Brazilian Psychedelia Pioneer Gilberto Gil Buys East Village Condo for $1.3 M.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Brazilian Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil, the epically inventive engineer of Brazilian psychedelia, Tropicalia, deserves to live in some volcano with poodle fur wallpaper, a milkshake bathtub, corn syrup carpets and his 60's backup band Os Mutantes perpetually ...
Mob Hits for April 1, 2008: Media Stories That Slipped Through The Cracks.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Postcard From the Edge: The New York Times' Baghdad Bureau blog features a heartfelt essay by Mudhafer al-Husaini, a young Iraqi employee of the paper, entitled My Generation, in which al-Husaini tells of college life immediately following the fall of Baghdad: "Four ...
Atlantic Yards Case Heads to U.S. Supreme Court; More Legal Action Lay Ahead.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Property owners and tenants filed an appeal late yesterday in U.S. Supreme Court for their case contesting the use of eminent domain in the $4 billion-plus Atlantic Yards project, an action that legal experts have said is likely to be the final chapter for the federal ...
A Coney Island Dream Deferred.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Charlie Bendit stood atop Coney Island's ancient Childs Restaurant building, peering out to sea. "Can you imagine being up on the roof and having a wedding overlooking the ocean? What a wonderful experience," he said. "In the summertime, you can have part ...
Hotel Reviewer Barred Entry To Robert De Niro's Greenwich Hotel.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ It seems the control freaks running Robert De Niro's new Greenwich Hotel aren't only cracking down on camera-equipped spectators. On opening day, management also kicked out a reviewer for the hospitality industry site Hotel Chatter, abruptly canceling her ...
For the Super Rich, the Boom Years Have Just Begun.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Wow. The Manhattan luxury market scaled fresh heights in the first quarter of 2008, with the average luxury apartment price blasting to a record of over $7.66 million and the median price reaching nearly $5 million, another record. At the top of the market, no matter ...
Why, Winona?
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ SEX AND DEATH 101 Running time 100 minutes Written and Directed by Daniel Waters Starring Winona Ryder and Simon Baker Daniel Waters' Sex and Death 101, from his own screenplay, reunites the screenwriter of Michael ...
Norah Jones Is Sweet as Pie in My Blueberry Nights.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS Running Time 90 minutes Written by Wong Kar Wai and Lawrence Block Directed by Wong Kar Wai Starring Natalie Portman, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry ...
McCain Camp Gets on Message About '100 Years'.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ The McCain campaign has finally figured out that the Arizona senator's remarks on Iraq in New Hampshire in January--that it would be "fine" with him if America is there for "100 years"--need to be dealt with. The campaign just put out a release entitled, ...
What Makes Annie Shoot?
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ "I look back at it now," Annie Leibovitz said at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1991, "I realize that one of the things I loved toward the end at Rolling Stone were the conceptual covers." She had left for Vanity Fair in 1983, in part to follow an art ...
World's Youngest Relic: Master of the New Old Journalism.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ The summer of 1988, David Samuels was between his junior and senior years at Harvard and decided he wanted to cover the Republican convention in New Orleans. His journalism experience had been limited to writing parodies of news items for the Harvard ...
Who's Who in Charity: New York's Most Powerful Philanthropic Boards.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Arts and Culture Museum of Modern Art Fund-Raising Power: $133,523,000 Big Names on the Board: David Rockefeller, Ron Lauder, Marie-Josee Kravis, Sid Bass, Philip S. Niarchos, Harvey S. Shipley Miller, Richard D. Parsons, Joan Tisch, ...
The Baroque Beauty of Deception: Little White Lies, Elaborately Embroidered.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Last week I wore a pair of six-inch Lanvin sling-back stilettos while hosting a fashion show in Dallas. They looked great with my new Band of Outsiders jacket. I told the assembled crowd of socialites that it was the only way I could see over the lectern, which was ...
Sara Vilkomerson's Guide to This Week's Movies: Stones Shine a Light, Clooney Hits the Mud.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Every time we think the weekend box office can't surprise us, something comes along to make us say ... really? Last weekend, the surprise prize went to 21, the blackjack movie we know, logically, we can't truly judge without seeing, but yet we still feel like we kind ...
Long Island Rock City!
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Robert Prichard hopes to illuminate Long Island City with some emphatic Times Square-style signage. "I'd like it to be visible from the 59th Street Bridge," he said. "First, it flashes 'Queens,' then 'Bridge,' then 'Theater,' and then 'Queensbridge ...
Congestion Pricing Opponents Re-Group, Release Letters.(Letter to the editor)
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ A day after the City Council voted in favor of congestion pricing, and before the state legislature has a chance to, critics of the plan are making the argument that it is a financial burden on community services and charities. Today, State Senator Ruben ...
Today in 125th Street Rezoning News: 'Jim Crowism,' 'Harlem's Death Certificate,' 'White Supremacy,' Subsection 3 of Section 200.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Charles Barron, a City Council representative from what he called "the People's Republic of Brooklyn," stood on the steps of City Hall this morning before a scheduled hearing on 125th Street rezoning and denounced it as an "abusive use of eminent domain." ...
Amis in the 21st Century.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ THE SECOND PLANE: SEPTEMBER 11: TERROR AND BOREDOM By Martin Amis Alfred A. Knopf, 211 pages, $24 Martin Amis' The Second Plane is a collection of essays, short fiction and book reviews arranged in order of composition. It thus ...
Use Your Allusions, Volume 1.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ On March 28, Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama quipped that the primary race felt like "a good movie that lasted about a half an hour too long." True enough, but what movie? Prompted by Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells, whose film-obsessed ...
A Cure for St. Vincent's.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ New York is a city that embodies two great urban virtues: a rich architectural history and a commitment to using the latest technologies to improve the lives of its citizens. It is inevitable that occasionally those virtues will come into conflict. The battle brewing ...
Will Shelly Silver Do the Right Thing?
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ If arm-twisting were an Olympic event, Mayor Michael Bloomberg surely would be bound for Beijing this summer. The mayor managed to persuade a reluctant City Council to go along with his controversial plan to charge motorists an $8 fee for the right to drive in ...
Pennsylvania Cubist.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Squirreled away in the Whitney's mezzanine galleries, far from the Biennial's hubbub, is an exhibition of paintings, drawings and watercolors by the American modernist Charles Demuth (1883-1935). "Chimneys and Towers: Charles Demuth's Late Paintings of Lancaster" is ...
Did HarperCollins Make Sibling Rivals? Enter Steve Ross.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Last summer, HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman gathered her executive staff in a conference room on the 11th floor of the book publisher's office and introduced a smiley, excitable fellow who had just been hired to make some big changes at the company. As ambitious as ...
St. Vincent's Hospital Redevelopment: Won't Someone Think of the Waverly Inn?
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter showed up almost three hours in to this morning's Landmarks Preservation Committee meeting on the proposed St. Vincent's Hospital rebuilding. "I'm against it!" he said. The proposed towers would very nearly cast a shadow ...
Socialite Slapdown: Round I Sees Olivia Palermo Triumphant.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ When Park Avenue Peerage posted an item about the Young Fellows of the Frick Collection gala yesterday, the site's commenters went a little nuts. One commenter said, "Byrdie Bell rocks, nobody even comes close! "I have known Serena [Merriman] my ...
Libel Protection Act: 'This law will give New York's journalists, authors and press the protection and tools they need'.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ A press release from the offices of New York State Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) offers some hope to New York journalists committed to "fearlessly expos[ing] the truth about terrorism and its ...
McSame on Social Security.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ The most puzzling aspect of John McCain's political persona is his habitual attraction to George W. Bush's bad ideas. Their shared enthusiasm for invading Iraq and then escalating the war is why "McSame" will soon become the new shorthand for the Arizona Republican, ...
Clinton Promises Three Million Jobs, Defends Herself on Nafta.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ In a speech to union members in Philadelphia today, Hillary Clinton said that she would create three million jobs over the next decade as part of her plan to rebuild much of the country's eroded infrastructure. "We're trying to run today's economy on ...
Wednesday, April 9th.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Remember WMD? What a non-blast from the past! Back then Hillary "Bombs Away!" Clinton insisted sneaky ole Saddam was hiding something and we needed to invade--he hadn't been "vetted"! Tonight former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, ...
Tuesday, April 8th.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Weiner with relish! Chick-lit lass Jennifer Weiner reads from Certain Girls, a sequel to Good in Bed. Bonus dirty excerpt! "Her job now was self-maintenance, and she worked at it harder than I'd worked at any paid employment I'd ever had. ... The personal trainer, the ...
Monday, April 7th.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ Every scruffy lit lad under 30 storms the Tribeca Barnes & Noble to take a crack at Sloane Crosley, comely princess of book publicity, as she acts all goofy--and, reads from her essay collection, I Was Told There'd Be Cake. In other news of dames and damsels, Glamour ...
Layoffs at CBS News and WCBS.
Apr 01, 2008 ... <![CDATA[ This morning, the New York Daily News reported that WCBS Channel 2 has laid off two senior correspondents-investigative reporter Scott Weinberger and Andrew Kirtzman, a former political reporter for New York 1--amid a broader round of cutbacks. "Weinberger ...