Thursday: Millions for Times Square, The Met, and Aspen; Not the Hamptons

The Prince has left the Aspen

• For starry-eyed, semi-impoverished young New York creative types, a cheap Harlem "dorm" run by a utopian semi-landlord is the obvious housing solution. But does such a happy homeland for "the overeducated and underpaid" really exist? The Times' cover story omits an address, so maybe we'll never know. (The New York Times)
• Times Square Name Game: Will the former Bertelsmann Building--1540 Broadway--be renamed after Equity Office Properties Trust? One hopes not, though Equity, "the nation's largest publicly traded office building owner and manager," has bought up the offices of pointy 1540 B-way for $525 M., a bit more than the price the group paid last year for Sixth Avenue's Verizon Building. The company, says Crain's, "has been on a tear." (Crain's)
• Toasty weather has helped the Hamptons avoid a bad rental season, though ocean-front real estate is still available for August vacationers who have entirely lost touch with reality. And up north in equally horrifying Cape Cod, rental prices are being cut as much as 25 percent. (WSJ/Real Estate Journal)
• The Metropolitan Opera will finally become elegant: Marie Schwartz has given The Met $1 million to fund a contemporary art gallery in its Lincoln Center lobby. The gallery, curated by Vogue's Dodie Kazanjian, will open elegantly on September 22. (Crain's)
• Yet it would take 135 times the amount of Ms. Schwartz's gift to buy the Aspen abode of former Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz (above). The asking price of the 56,000-square-foot shack (bigger than the White House, and maybe as powerful) surpasses Trump's $125m tag for his Palm Beach estate. If the Aspen home is purchased at $135m, the lucky Prince will dwarf Ron Perelman's $70m sales record. (Aspen Times, via CNN/Money)
• - Max Abelson