Stone Slashes; Burkle Buying?

Stone Phillips. Television journalist Stone Phillips has just slashed $1 million off the asking price for his West 72nd Street penthouse, according to the New York Post. The Dateline NBC anchor is now asking $4.45 million for the apartment, listed with the Corcoran Group. And good news: there's an open house this weekend! Also, (we refuse to write "babe-loving") billionaire Ron Burkle has been seen looking for a full-floor pad in Tribeca. But didn't that whole Jared Paul Stern mess take place in a Tribeca apartment that Mr. Burkle renting at the time? Why not try another neighborhood? And is the Forward Building--which The Observer recently profiled--now the "Dakota of the Lower East Side?" The Post emphatically says no! - Michael Calderone