Earlier this week, at its May 14 meeting, the Three Parks Independent Democrats, a club on the Upper West Side, endorsed Nora Anderson for Surrogate's Court judge, according to Anderson campaign manager Michael Oliva.

It's the latest political club endorsement in the race for the "obscure but powerful" open seat.  read more »

There was some expectation that Sheldon Silver would attend the Stonewall Democratic Club annual fund-raiser on West 26th Street last night, since he already had a ticket, but the Assembly speaker didn't make it.

He did, however, send spokesman Dan Weiller, who is openly gay.  read more »

Leighton Meester goes on Conan O'Brian and totally doesn't act like Blair. [Daily Intel]

The newest pseudo-intern at the Vogue mothership is New York Ranger, Sean Avery, who like most Conde interns might travel to the European couture shows with Anna. [WWD]  read more »

There’s a school of thought that the most revealing presidential primary this week was not in West Virginia but in Nebraska, where a non-binding vote was held in conjunction with the state’s regularly scheduled primary.

Barack Obama won it very narrowly over Hillary Clinton, 49 to 47 percent. That closeness is noteworthy because Obama routed Clinton in the state’s February 9 caucuses by a 68-32 percent spread.  read more »

It is a peculiar irony of this largely disappointing Mets season that one of the loudest sustained cheers any player at Shea received this year was on Sunday, May 11 for left-handed reliever Scott Schoeneweis, quite possibly 2007’s least popular Met.

Schoeneweis kept a sense of humor about the fan reaction. He claims never to hear plaudits, only criticism. Therefore, on Sunday, he heard only an absence of boos.  read more »

North Williamsburg does not have any major grocery chains. What it does have, in increasing abundance, is health food stores and small, family-run markets that blend Whole Foods with your neighborhood deli. We’ll call them yuppie bodegas.

There are four such shops on Bedford Avenue between North 7th and North 9th streets with another on the way, and they have much more in common then the organic, vegan fare and Ramen Noodles stocked on the shelves.

They are each owned by Palestinians, mainly from the town of al-Beireh in the West Bank region of Ramallah. Some of Williamsburg’s Palestinian grocers were strangers before they each opened shops on the same two-block stretch of Bedford Avenue. Others are related.  read more »

The City Council announced they will not be funding any initiative in fiscal year '09 that is not already slated to get funded under this year’s city budget.

In a public statement, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said, “As we enter more uncertain economic times, we need to set fiscal priorities in the budget,” and added, “Putting a moratorium on new initiatives will allow us to cut back on city spending and to focus on restoring funds to essential services that New Yorker’s already depend on everyday.”  read more »

Governor Paterson is moving closer to picking a chief for his main economic development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, a body that has sat without a clear leader since its downstate chairman under Governor Spitzer, Pat Foye, announced his resignation two months ago. The agency oversees many of the state’s large, high-profile development projects including Moynihan Station, Atlantic Yards and the Javits Center.

A committee of mostly business leaders and led by Sandy Weill is due to recommend a new chairman to Mr. Paterson in one to two weeks, at which point the governor will have the final say, according to multiple people familiar with discussions.  read more »

One of the remaining bidders for the West Side rail yards, a team of the Durst Organizaiton and Vornado Realty Trust, said it is expecting that S.I. Newhouse’s Condé Nast will remain part of its bid as an anchor tenant.

“We expect that Condé would be our partner,” said Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz.

However, Condé, which began a new search for space after Tishman Speyer was named the winner over the Durst/Vornado team in March, did not make clear its plans, as a company spokeswoman, Maury Perl, declined comment.  read more »