Naturally, it's a bunch of burly American I-bankers who made the biggest single-asset deal in European history.

Cushman & Wakefield, which also advised the biggest single-building sale ever in U.S. history at 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion, advised Lehman Brothers in this deal.  read more »

• In the ongoing quest to find the city's scariest bar, the NY Press heads to the Navy Yard Cocktail Lounge, where ice-less $3 cocktails and Tupperware Cheez Doodles are a reminder of what Brooklyn was like before Hollywood came. [NYP]
• Who knew Canadian real estate had become so exceedingly ritzy? In Ontario, for example, a "legacy home" on the market for $45 million comes with 14 acres--not to mention a baseball diamond and private pebble beach. [Forbes]
• But the real French speakers have the real real estate prices: The average price per square foot of Paris' apartments is around $2,250*. (In other news: France says "non!" to non-chic megastores.) [Matrix]
*UPDATE: Our math was corrected (we kid you not) in an email from a former Goldman Sachs executive director: "Please note that 1 square meter = 10.76 square feet. Based on the correct conversion ratio, prices per square foot in Paris seem to be in line with New York." Is that true? Can any Francophile mathematicians set us straight?
• Rendering of the Week: Frank Gehry's plan for the future United Arab Emirate Guggenheim is not your mother's Upper East Side museum. Does the photo above look like haute, techy, post-post-modern glory--or a pile of rubble? [Dezeen]
- Max Abelson]]> http://www.observer.com/node/35673#comments Real Estate Brooklyn Ontario Paris Tupperware Brands Corporation Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:56:41 -0500 Observer Staff 35673 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/36632 A relaxed local restaurant, the sort of place you can drop into without a reservation, where you cou  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/node/36632#comments Arts & Culture Daniel Angerer Lori Mason Paris Paul Klee Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:00:00 -0500 Moira Hodgson 36632 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/36541 Miss Potter may have the cinematic punch of a wet vanilla wafer, but the cynics who have dismissed i  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/node/36541#comments Arts & Culture Dustin Hoffman London Paris Peter Rabbit Sun, 14 Jan 2007 19:00:00 -0500 Rex Reed 36541 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/32985 Today, New York Times' staffers received an email from Deputy Managing Editor Jonathan Landman and Standards Editor Craig Whitney, outlining ethical concerns about posting to the new Travel web site.

Righ now, readers--and Times reporters--can comment on London, Paris and Los Angeles.  read more »

After the jump is the full memo with guidelines, such as no anonymous posting in the comments section. Take that "sprezzatura!" ]]> http://www.observer.com/node/32985#comments Media Craig Whitney Los Angeles Paris The New York Times Company Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:38:35 -0500 Observer Staff 32985 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/36381 Who would have thought that a tap-dancing penguin would outpoint James Bond at the box office?  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/node/36381#comments Arts & Culture Alexei Ratmansky Maria Kowroski Paris Savion Glover Sun, 10 Dec 2006 19:00:00 -0500 Robert Gottlieb 36381 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/node/33570 Janet Malcolm is one of my idols, I'd read her shopping lists if someone would print them. Her book The Journalist and the Murderer is a cultural landmark, it changed the relationship of journalists and their sources, giving more power to the sources. So when The New Yorker ran her piece on Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas last week, I couldn't wait to curl up on the couch and go into Malcolm's looking-glass world, this time of occupied Paris, Jewish identity, old age, writerly friendship and abandonment. It's a fine fine piece, I recommend it.

That said, I question the casual use, twice, of the word "goyim," without ital, without quotation marks, to refer to non-Jews. In a piece that shows some sensitivity on the issue of Christians' misunderstanding of Jews (they say we're not forgiving, and that's antisemitic), the use of "goyim" evinces a lack of understanding by Jews of their own situation. The word means "the nation," the gentile world, and has a dash of Boratish wariness and hostility. It is Yiddish, and is not like shlep or chutzpah, that is, an assimilated neutral word. It's a signal to other Jews, Let's talk as landsmen. I think it's arrogant and exclusionary. Jews have large cultural power in America; acting as if we're still some persecuted subgroup is way way beneath us. I gather from one gentile friend that he has friends who feel themselves to be outside the cultural establishment and have appropriated the word "goyim" to refer to themselves, in something of the proud/resentful way that blacks took on the n-word. I know, the cultural valences aren't the same. But it's loaded—why make half your audience feel excluded?

[I note that Wikipedia agrees with me here...]]]> http://www.observer.com/node/33570#comments Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein Janet Malcolm Paris Thu, 16 Nov 2006 04:31:45 -0500 Observer Staff 33570 at http://www.observer.com