Observer Staff
It’s Barackfest in New York!
As election night neared, New York’s power elite—but also its creative class, its political class, its partying class, lurched to find the center of gravity for election night.
The premonition that New York’s obvious choice, Barack Obama, was likely to win was not the smallest consideration here.
Fall Books: A Literary Leafpile
The Mural at the Waverly Inn: A Portrait of Greenwich Village Bohemians Text By Dorothy Gallager Pantheon, $15.95
“The thing about a mural in a restaurant,” swooping-haired Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter writes in the introduction to The Mural at the Waverly Inn, “is that, in a way, it tells the Read More
The New F.O.B.’s
In mid-October, about three weeks to go before election night, Barack Obama found himself in the classy old Metropolitan Club on 66th Street with a group of his top New York fund-raisers.
He told them there was “extraordinary expertise” in the room. “Who knows?” he said. “There might be some of you who Read More
Hey, Hey We’re the Manqués!
First of all, if you want to know, it’s manqué and it’s pronounced “mahnnn-kay”!
And it means not exactly that you’re a flop, but “short of or frustrated in the fulfillment of one’s aspirations or talents.” Which means chalk up one for most of the human population. It’s particularly true, or at least Read More
NBC: ‘We’ve Got the Class, Here Comes the Mass’
This afternoon, NBC goes before advertisers and the press to try to sell its 2007-2008 season to advertisers and the press. So this morning the network sent out the details of the season for previewing by the masses.
"We've got the class and next season we're ready to add some mass," said NBC Entertainment Read More
The Complete 1997 New York Observer 500
This Year’s Position, Last Year’s Position, Name, Total Mentions
1 1 President Bill Clinton 358 2 2 Madonna, singer 308 3 10 Diana, Princess of Wales 259 4 5 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani 234 5 4 O.J. Simpson, retired football player 195 6 16 Donald Trump, real-estate developer 182 7 7 First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton Read More
The Complete 1997 New York Observer 500
This Year’s Position, Last Year’s Position, Name, Total Mentions 1 1 President Bill Clinton 358 2 2 Madonna, singer 308 3 10 Diana, Princess of Wales 259 4 5 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani 234 5 4 O.J. Simpson, retired football player 195 6 16 Donald Trump, real-estate developer 182 7 7 First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton Read More
Mike’s Shining Moment, Mark’s Darkest Day
When Mike Bloomberg looks back at the astonishing amount of money he spent on his improbable Mayoral campaign, he can take some encouragement from knowing that the ads he bought were damn good. So good, in fact, that they made Mr. Bloomberg, a political novice, into a legitimate contender. The man Mr. Bloomberg tapped to Read More
Dancing the Bush Bop
Overenthusiastic cabbies honking as they cruise up Park Avenue. Nervous glances ricochet around the new Oscar de la Renta store on Madison and 66th. New Yorkers may have been window-shopping, climbing out of crowded subway cars, popping out to Au Bon Pain for a cappuccino as usual, but they were all distracted on this day. Read More
Guccione Gurgles: Penthouse Empire Is Finally Spent
Over the past 15 years, Robert Guccione's once-lucrative porn
empire has fizzled and is no longer the cash machine it once was. As chairman and chief executive of General Media International Inc., which publishes Penthouse, Mr. Guccione could havesoldthe magazinefor perhaps half a billion dollars less thantwo decades ago. But instead he held on, diversified into Read MoreGuccione Gurgles: Penthouse Empire is Finally Spent
Over the past 15 years, Robert Guccione's once-lucrative porn
empire has fizzled and is no longer the cash machine it once was. As chairman and chief executive of General Media International Inc., which publishes Penthouse, Mr. Guccione could havesoldthe magazinefor perhaps half a billion dollars less thantwo decades ago. But instead he held on, diversified into Read MoreHow’d It Happen? It’s Rudy-mentary! As Weeks Wore On, Mark’s Smugness, Perceived Inaction Gnawed at His Numbers; Meanwhile, Bloo
When Mike Bloomberg looks back at the astonishing amount of money he spent on his improbable Mayoral campaign, he can take some encouragement from knowing that the ads he bought were damn good. So good, in fact, that they made Mr. Bloomberg, a political novice, into a legitimate contender.
The man Mr. Bloomberg tapped to Read MoreDisaster Spawns Many Tales
On the afternoon of Sept. 14, 29-year-old actress Tanya Gingerich stood inside the entrance of a Tribeca newsstand on Hudson Street. A block away, the Tribeca Film Center stood empty, and the usually bustling Bubby's had become a desolate way station for hundreds of cases of Dole Fruit Cups, Little Debbie Cakes and Baby Wipes Read More
Innocence Lost
At approximately 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 11, at the intersection of West and Greenwich streets, a line of vehicles was forming: fire trucks, ambulances, dump trucks, tow trucks, city buses. Outside this convoy of city vehicles, city officials, police officers and volunteers paced. Frustrations were high. They had watched the very symbols of the city's Read More
