Los Angeles Times

Bill Clinton told the Observer yesterday that the money his foundation has taken from foreign companies does not pose a conflict of interest for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

A story in the Los Angeles Times over the weekend examined the potential problems in Clinton's fund-raising relationship with a Chinese Internet company that has allegedly aided China's crackdown on Tibetan activists by posting "most wanted" pictures of protest organizers on the Yahoo China homepage, which the Cl  read more »

According to today's Los Angeles Times, the late Charlton Heston was more than just the star of Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments, he was "an avid newspaper reader, eager to share his opinions." Heston wrote letters to the editor on everything from Manuel Noriega to the long-forgotten '90s game show Stud. (Whither, Mark DeCarlo?)  read more »

Bob Barker from The Price is Right is writing an autobiography! Center Street, the imprint of Hachette Book Group that specializes in "wholesome entertainment" and books that champion "traditional values," plans to publish it in 2009.  read more »

It’s been a jittery two weeks in Melville.

Over the next week, Newsday reporters and editors are expecting an announcement about job cuts. Even veterans of the Vlad the Impaler year of 1995, in which Times Mirror ordered the elimination of 800 jobs from a payroll of 3,200, contemplate the coming week with dread.

“To be honest with you, it’s really grim here,” said James Bernstein, a business reporter and 30-year-veteran.  read more »

Rub the sleep out of those eyes: it's the morning-after in L.A.!  read more »

Despite signs that a settlement with the W.G.A. might be approaching, all is not well in Strike Land. According to the LA Times, there is an increasing sense of frustration and cynicism among members of the “vast and largely forgotten below-the-line class of skilled entertainment industry labor,” who feel they’ve been hardest hit by the strike, yet most overlooked.  read more »

The New York Times reports that Los Angeles Times editor James O'Shea has been forced out because he would not cooperate with newsroom budget cuts ordered by the paper's publisher, David Hiller. The Times notes that this is the "the fourth time in less than three years that the highest-ranking editor or the publisher has left for that reason."  read more »

The blazing fires continued over the weekend in Los Angeles, and the smoky details surrounding a recent Los Angeles Times story are slow to clear, according to US. Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea texted a reporter from the paper over the weekend, allegedly telling him that his $10.5 million home had “burnt to a crisp.” Since then, however, the musician’s rep has called into KNX Newsradio in order to snuff the rumors. It was Flea’s other Malibu home, which was on the market for $4.8 million, that burned like bacon.

Nearby, the ever-sleepy Matthew McConaughey and his girlfriend, model Camila Alves, were forced to ditch the actor’s $10 million Malibu home on Saturday. Asked by photographers what he was doing buying groceries in Beverly Hills in stead of in his own ‘hood, Mr. McConaughey told them: “The fires, man, the fires.” Not to fret, though, because the star of Fool’s Gold, which opens next February, is back at home, safe and sound, his rep told US.

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Jay-Z, whose new album inspired by American Gangster comes out next Tuesday, gave the Los Angeles Times' Richard Cromelin a personal tour of Brooklyn.

Jay-Z, 37, doesn't return often to this Brooklyn neighborhood, where he grew up as Shawn Corey Carter. Stardom and wealth have taken him away to a Manhattan home and the globe-trotting life of a hip-hop star and major-label record executive.

It's his role as a recording artist that's brought him back on a warm fall day, to rehearse for a taping of the "VH1 Storytellers" show on a soundstage at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. As the car inches through late afternoon traffic, past the courts where he used to play basketball and the corners where he once sold drugs, he finds that his emotions are stirred.

"Yeah, man, it's the place that made me," he says softly.

There's plenty of interesting data to mine in the new L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll which shows Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani opening up wide leads over their respective rivals.

But the one thing that caught my eye above all else is the difference between Giuliani's performance among the religious right and among Republican Catholics. Conventional wisdom dictates that both groups would be offended by Giuliani's support of abortion and gay rights.

One of the few categories in which Rudy trails Fred Thompson is among religious-right voters, which reflects the deep suspicion of the former mayor evidenced at last weekend's Values Voter summit. (Thompson has 24 percent to Rudy's 23 percent, according to the poll.) But among Catholic voters included in the poll of Republican primary voters, Rudy is trouncing Thompson 35 percent to 10 percent.

Now, it has been amply documented that Rudy is not exactly the standard-bearer of Catholic doctrine, but the poll shows that fact to be largely irrelevant to lay Catholics, even conservative ones. And as it gets closer and closer to primary season, it's increasingly hard to explain away the support by saying that they aren't yet sufficiently familiar with his pro-choice positions.

Chung Seto says she was taken aback by a number of things when she first saw an Oct. 19 story in The Los Angeles Times about donations to Hillary Clinton coming from "dishwashers, waiters and street stall hawkers" living and working in "a grimy Chinatown tenement.”

But most surprising to her was the way she herself was described: “A key figure helping to secure Asian support for Clinton,” the story said, “is a woman named Chung Seto, who came to this country as a child from Canton province and has supported Bill and Hillary Clinton since the 1990s.”

She is, indeed, a woman and a Chinese immigrant. She also happens to be a well-known New York political operative in her early 40’s who has worked as press secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor, executive director for the state Democratic Party and campaign manager for onetime mayoral candidate C. Virginia Fields.  read more »

Tomorrow shareholders in the Tribune Company meet to approve an $8.2 billion deal to sell the company--publishers of The Los Angeles Times, Newsday and The Chicago Tribune--to billionaire real-estate developer Sam Zell.

Or do they? The New York Times this morning examines whether the precipitous slump in the newspaper industry (even since the Zell deal was announced in April) might be enough to kill the deal.  read more »

The National Book Critics Circle has begun a petition to reinstate Teresa Weaver as Book Review editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

After the paper folded its book review entirely, the Circle formed around her when she had to leave the paper.

It's pretty grim stuff, what with the recent cutting back in space at the L.A. Times Book Review (once a stand-alone section, now it has to share space with Opinion), but there's something of a bright side as well.
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It's still unclear what damage will result from today's revelation that Rudy Giuliani had been briefed about some of Bernard Kerik's connections to a suspicious construction company before the former mayor championed his former security guard as secretary of Homeland Security. Giuliani has in large part based his run on the perception that he is a man of impeccable integrity and judgment. The Kerik story seems to undercut that.

But Giuliani has proved extremely resilient. He has so far managed to maintain high poll numbers despite a barrage of stories about his rather liberal stance on social issues and his soap opera personal life, which took another twist last week when it was revealed that his third wide, Judith Nathan, had a previously unknown first marriage, making Rudy her third husband.

But some rivals of Giuliani think that the more potent weapon against him is to point out Rudy's endorsement of liberal Mario Cuomo as proof that he is not the steadfast fiscal conservative he claims to be. To that end, a craftily edited YouTube clip recently appeared, raising questions about Rudy's commitment to cutting taxes. Rudy's defenders were quick to point out the clip's innacuracy. But it nevertheless shows how sensitive they are to that line of attack. --Jason Horowitz

Clive James has a high-maintenance girlfriend: the reader.  read more »

At first glance, the cover of Susan Sontag’s final book—the  almost-complete manusc  read more »

• Marvel at the above top-secret image of future Cooper Square Hotel! When that glittery monolith goes up on Bowery, the East Village will have officially lost its last shred of punkish sleaze. (Now the area is sleazy in the shiny-condo way.) [Curbed]
• Is Bryant Park a pretty place for an ice-skating date, or a festering wound of corporate sin? Critics think rich donors influence who can access NYC park facilities, and that the commercial development of parks has made them into "fiefs where political gatherings are discouraged." [L.A. Times, via ArchNewsNow]
• Metropolis' love affair with Yale man Robert A.M. Stern didn't end with Wednesday's Valentine. The mag interviews him this week, on the occasion of his new book--which is apparently "bigger than the Manhattan Yellow Pages." [Mtrpls]
- Max Abelson
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The LA Times honorably tries to get Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy DefSec, to cop to his grievous errors about Iraq. In an email, Wolfowitz offers the Times his usual garbage-excuse on why he can't talk about it:

I would like nothing better than to be able to get involved in this debate [over Iraq]. I would particularly like to be able to clear the record of some of the garbage about myself personally, but if I start doing that, the people I work for would say, 'You are not doing your job,

The guy's whistling in the wind, hoping against hope that the World Bank will somehow eclipse Iraq in the world's memory of him. It won't. We can chisel the epitaph now: "the Iraqis will welcome us as liberators". Wolfowitz should take a cue from McNamara, and start apologizing now, not thirty years on.

And the LATimes should extend its expiation services to all the other leaders who helped drag us into this disastrous war. How 'bout some journalists?

Oh, what a year for newspapers! They’re dying! They’re keeling. They’re ghosts!  read more »

The Transom keeps up religiously with The Carpet Bagger and Gold Derby this Oscar time of year. And one name that keeps not popping up enough in the pre-Oscar forecasting is this one: Judi Dench. Gold Derby currently has her ranked at number three for Best Actress, and The Transom would like to insist she go ever-higher after this morning's screening of 'Notes on a Scandal.' It has an absurdly, insanely, freakishly good performance by her as a cat-loving, manipulating battleaxe. How good is it? The Transom despises voice-over, and literally half the movie is Denchian v.o.--and it is still awesome.

The Los Angeles Times has lost New York-based reporter Ellen Barry to The New York Times.

Ms. Barry responded to a phone call this morning with an email. "It's true, I am moving to the NYT after the first of the year, to work for Metro," she wrote. "I'm not going to comment beyond that, but thanks for asking."

Ms. Barry was a 2002 Pulitzer feature-writing finalist and ASNE award winner while at the Boston Globe, for a series on the relocation to America of East African young people. She was again a Pulitzer finalist in 2004, this time in the beat reporting category, for that paper for her stories on neglected patients in the Massachusetts mental health system. Formerly, she worked for the Boston Phoenix and the Moscow Times. She first joined The Los Angeles Times in January, 2004, as Atlanta bureau chief.

The Los Angeles Times two managing editors, Douglas Frantz and Leo C. Wolinsky, will stay behind when new editor Jim O'Shea takes over on Monday.

After the jump are two staff memos, sent out a couple hours after Dean Baquet announced to the newsroom--while standing on a desk--that he was leaving.  read more »

Joe Francis, the man behind Girls Gone Wild, has finally responded to the brutal and amazing Los Angeles Times profile of him. (In that story, he was punched by the reporter after he pinned her to a car.) Talking to former Observer intern Neel Shah for Gawker at the VMA's, he said:

"Here's the problem. If I had had sex with that reporter like she wanted to, it'd have all worked out for me. But I chose not to 'cause she's a fat ugly pig. So I made that decision."

Look, what follows is really not appropriate. But it's hard to clear the mind and hit the Friday LIRR without finally saying something.

There is one person in America telling the Tribune-owned Los Angeles Times to be more boring, and his name is Clay Risen. Mr. Risen—who penned an op-ed this week which insanely took the LA Times to task over the crazy LA Times magazine profile of Joe Francis—is a killjoy moralist douchebag.  read more »

Okay, he could be worse. He could be Nicolas Lemann, who pleaded poor and then cut the budget of CJR Daily without ever attempting to put advertising on that site, thereby losing two staffers, and who recently penned a horrid and barely readable piece in the New Yorker saying that online presences needed more reporters and reporting. See? Man, it doesn't get much wronger than that.

In her senior year at St.  read more »

It looks like " Bloomberg 101" summer school classes are in session. In an editorial in today's LA Times Bloomberg and Chicago's Richard M. Daley give a pep talk to their favorite pupil, LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Here is a sample straight out of the syllabus.

The superintendent would be recast as a CEO, with clear authority over the business operations of the district, and would be empowered to cut the bureaucracy and shift those savings to the classroom, where they are needed most. And because the mayor would have a central role in the selection of the superintendent, parents would be able to hold him responsible for the success of the public school system.

Bloomberg, who coasted to re-election based partly on the claim of gaining control of the school system, seems to have been in a particularly magnanimous frame of mind when writing the piece, crediting his predecessors for their role in effectuating the takeover.

"In New York, the passage of mayoral control in 2002 was the culmination of the efforts of four consecutive mayors, from both political parties, spanning two decades. In that time, New York's mayors won a number of important interim steps toward accountability that prepared the Legislature -- along with labor unions and interest groups -- to take the final step."

--Jason Horowitz

Finally someone has done the article I wanted to read long ago: What is Harvard's reaction to the Mearsheimer-Walt paper on the Israel lobby (which was half-produced on the shores of the Charles, where co-author Walt was a dean).

The LA Times sent the redoubtable Eve Fairbanks to report, and she came back with stunning news:

Instead of a roiling debate, most professors not only agreed to disagree but agreed to pretend publicly that there was no disagreement at all. At Harvard and other schools, the Mearsheimer-Walt paper proved simply too hot to handle -- and it revealed an academia deeply split yet lamentably afraid to engage itself on one of the hottest political issues of our time. Most professors I reached wouldn't speak on the record about the flap because they didn't want their feelings to become known on campus....

Most fishily, one Kennedy School professor who had previously gone public with his opinions clammed up completely, explaining cryptically to me that even chatting off the record about the paper isn't "the right thing for me to do at this time." Another senior Kennedy School professor admitted that he was baffled by the dearth of discussion of the paper. "We debate everything else here," he said.

This is too bad, and underscores what I wrote the other day about the NYTimes coverage of the paper. Here is one of the most important ideas to come along in years, and people are afraid of it still—the very people who should be doing the hard intellectual labor of exploring Walt-Mearsheimer, and saying what is true and not, and taking their ideas further, as I think they should be taken. That is hard and important work, and it's not happening.

I think the reason is because actually, and in spite of Eliot Cohen and Jerrold Nadler and Alan Dershowitz's denunciations, a lot of people agree with the paper. They may be afraid to say so outright, but the paper has greatly empowered leftwingers, and critics of Israel. Made them feel that their voices count, that they can play a role in the debate. Obviously that interpretation reflects my point of view, opposed to the lobby, but I'd point to Col. Larry Wilkerson's comments at the Middle East Institute. The former chief of staff to Colin Powell said that he had assigned the paper at the two schools at which he teaches, George Washington and the College of William and Mary, and he'd gotten "pushback" at both schools for even bringing the paper up. But he had a sly smile as he said it. The downfall of the neocons that we are all observing now—they appear suddenly to have become outsiders in an Administration that must regret the Iraq adventure—is related to this. Yes, I know: radioactive.

The Times has a fine piece today on Hillary Clinton that mentions that Jonathan Tasini is going to primary her over her dismal Iraq policy.

This touches on the LA Times articleI mentioned a couple days back that says that neoconservatism is not limited to the Bush Administration, that neocons are a significant part of the Democratic Party braintrust. By neoconservatism, I mean here the belief that using force to change regimes in the Arab world is a good thing, and essential to establishing stability in the Mideast. This doctrine is widely held among even Dems who call themselves liberals, from Lieberman to Berman. It's important to identify this strain of thinking because if you have any hope of winning political campaigns based on an antiwar policy, or a liberal internationalist realist policy (the various antimilitarist ideas that are in the air, from Fukuyama to Lieven), you have to attack this thinking and offer an alternative.  read more »

Put simply, more than half the country has come around to the dovish position that the Iraq war was a mistake. Who will address that majority constituency? And how? If the Democratic party is going to do it, it will have to sort out those who favor the use of force to change regimes from those who don't. This is hard political work. Especially if you believe, as I do, that it means stating forcefully: we must have a more evenhanded approach to Israel/Palestine. Howard Dean tried to say that two years ago and then quailed because of the pro-Israel lobby.

Today's LA Times has a good piece by Jacob Heilbrunn about Democratic neocons.

They want, in essence, to return to the beliefs that originally brought the neocons to prominence, the beliefs that motivated old-fashioned Cold War liberals such as Democratic Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson.

Where will all this lead? To an internecine Democratic war, of course. Just as Republicans are being riven by debates between realists and Bush administration idealists, so the Democratic Party is about to witness its own battle.

Just as the old neocons wanted to expel the McGovernites, so the new ones want to rid the party of the Moveon.org types and move it to the right. As [Peter] Beinart puts it, "whatever its failings, the right at least knows that America's enemies need to be fought."

This is nothing new. Neoconservatism has always had adherents in the Democratic party, a lot of the neocons are former Democrats (who never cared for the Republican agenda of fiscal conservatism, anti-immigration and anti-civil rights). The New Republic, where Beinart worked, has been a hive of this thinking for the whole Iraq War. Senior editor Lawrence Kaplan rolled out the red carpet for the Iraq invasion in a book he wrote with Bill Kristol, The War Over Iraq. The issue is whether the Democratic Party base—left-liberals—can fight this battle openly. The only way to do so is to say, We stand for the peace process in Israel/Palestine and against the idea that the Arab world can be reformed by a bloody crusade against its dictators.

Michel Houellebecq—the balding bad boy of French letters—has always written himself into his nov  read more »

Michel Houellebecq—the balding bad boy of French letters—has always written himself into  read more »

In October of 2003, when he was still just an overpaid action hero and a Kennedy-by-marriage, gubern  read more »

I know I'm supposed to like Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. He's a free spirit. He's producing feel-good movies, like Akeelah and the Bee and Good Night, and Good Luck. He has an interesting blog that is sometimes deadon:

99pct of blogs are about what someone has to say. 99 pct of traditional media is about making money. Which is exactly what leads to the resentment between bloggers and traditional media and why blogging on traditional media websites will find it tough to be successful.

For another thing, Cuban is rich, and when I chanced to go to synagogue last week they read from Leviticus in a way that hit me between the eyes: 'Do not ... show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly." (For I tend to favor the poor.)

But Cuban is losing me. Last week he complained about NBA officiating on his blog, then went out on the court to yell at the referees. When Fort Worth columnist Randy Galloway wrote that he is a whiner, Cuban made Galloway out to be an alcoholic and lit on whining as a way of promoting himself for several paragraphs:

When I got to Indiana University, I whined that the classes they wanted me to take were'nt enough of a challenge, so I snuck into the MBA program and took graduate level statistics when I was a freshman. Then I took other MBA level classes as a freshman and sophmore, which gave me the confidence to compete at any level.

Yes, the meritocracy is better than the aristocracy. But at least the aristocrats understood they were privileged. They knew that life wasn't fair economically; they didn't believe they had beaten everyone else to the spot, fair and square. So they had social prohibitions against acting like jerks.

• Brown Harris Stevens pushes a new neighborhood in the New York Post: Greenwood Heights. Uh, isn't that Sunset Park?
• The cops are allowed to openly tape public events, like protests. "Political events are the ideal venue for terrorists, whether it's to kill people, monitor civilians, or even study police tactics." What's the difference from the thousands of hidden cameras they have all over the city? (The Village Voice)
• Now, people get arrested for chalking public space. You hear that? No more hop scotch! (Gothamist)
• The New York Times coins another neighborhood name and Upper West Siders revolt. Oh wait, Yorktowners... (via Curbed)
• Sheepshead Bay was named after a fish! (Forgotten NY)
• The East Side of Midtown is the last frontier of development ... in Midtown. (New York Daily News)
• New Yorkers are now buying their Florida condos in the Northeast suburbs. (The New York Times)
• Nina Lalli reports: "Staten Island—from the Godfather mansions to the Wu Tang Clan shout outs—is New York's randomest borough by a long shot." She learns about horny, riotous students on the NYC public bus system and the subsequent need for a car. Sounds about right. (The Village Voice)
• The National Association of Realtors has ruled that secrets are no fun. Now, realtors can gossip your bidding price to everyone. (Los Angeles Times)
• Can a Park Slope hotel be successful? Maybe if there's a stadium nearby. (New York Daily News)
• Will there be lines for $3 wine too? The wrath of Trader Joe's continues. (Gothamist)

- Riva Froymovich  read more »

I don't have a really good explanation for this, but it's striking that New York City hasn't seen one of the massive immigration demonstrations that have swept Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and other cities.

People who follow these things say that New York's immigration politics are simply different: More fragnmented, fewer Mexicans, a Hispanic politics dominated by Puerto Ricans, who are citizens.

We'll see if this changes Saturday, when Ruben Diaz, Sr. plans to lead a march across the Brooklyn Bridge. Historically, one analyst points out, the Hispanic church has not engaged in this kind of mass politics; that could be changing too, though.

• Ian Schrager finds François Pinault, one of the richest men in the world, too difficult and turned him down for an apartment at 50 Gramercy Park North. Also, he's cheap: "'Rich people are rich,' Mr. Schrager said, 'because they have this intrinsic respect for money.'" (The New York Times)
• An Upper East Sider, who felt his apartment was simply too big, learns to love Harlem. How ... Mary Tyler Moore? <em>(The New York Times)
• Sprawl has spread beyond the exurbs, to the once faraway airports that find more stationary tenants. (The New York Times)
• West Coast architect Ray Kappe is designing a prefab community of homes near Joshua Tree National Park. But, the houses can be settled anywhere you like. Might one stand beside a Brooklyn brownstone? (Land+Living)
• Lady Liberty is turning a new shade of green. Her torch will now be lit by eco-friendlier windmill power. (New York Post)
• Tomorrow, the CUNY Graduate Center at 365 5th Avenue is hosting a course on designing and building an environmentally friendly home. (American Institute of Architects)
• Hearst, makers of Seventeen, Esquire and Cosmopolitan, will occupy "New York's most environmentally friendly skyscraper." (Hearst)
• Work at the cruise ship passenger terminal in Red Hook, which will receive the Queen Mary 2 in April. (New Yorkology)
• On St. Patrick's Day, McSorley's doors open at 8am. (The Village Voice)
• Italian architect Renzo Piano, known for Centre Georges Pompidou, will redesign the Harvard University Art Museums (HUAM), which will move to the new campus across the Charles River in Allston. (The Harvard Crimson)
• "Motorised blinds that fan out like a peacock’s tail" keep the newest glasshouse at Kew Botanic Gardens cool. (The Times)
• Ettore Sottsass, Italian architect and designer, will unveil his first major United States museum show. "If you have ever mixed multiple patterns in a single room, painted one wall a daring color, purchased a teapot with a little bird that whistles when the water's hot," it is because of him. (Los Angeles Times)
• City Tunnel No. 3 began construction in the Bronx in 1970 and is scheduled for completion in 2020, when about one billion gallons of water a day will run through it. BLDG BLOG goes into detail--with pictures!
• Forbes gathers the best and worst zip codes in which to buy a home.
• Anthrax and mecury found in Greenwich Village apartment buildings. (The Villager)
• Fighting for every square foot on West 12th Street. (The Villager)
• J. K. Rowling will pay $500,000 for a cozy summer in the Hamptons. (New York)
• The Stamford Review, an urban planning/architecture journal, published its spring issue:

  "At current rates of growth, the city’s population will reach capacity within seven to ten years. Some selective upzoning might allow the city’s resident population to approach nine million, but this is the approximate limit without radical redevelopment at much higher densities. If New Yorkers wish to preserve their existing residential neighborhoods, then immigration and economic growth must be accommodated by improved regional transportation and housing development."(Gothamist)

- Riva Froymovich

• Jonathan Miller gets annoyed by Time magazine: Reporting on the housing "bubble" in March is a little late. (Matrix)
• New Traditional Neighborhood Developments, the kind of mixed-used areas that one can find close to the office, are being built in cities and on former industrial sites. (The Wall Street Journal)
• After a divorce, a woman opens up her home to strangers, seven of them. It's an anarchist collective. (The New York Times)
• "Miami has had more rebirths than Cher…" Here comes another. (The New York Times)
• The New York City Housing Authority has no money, and needs to start charging for the little things, like keys. (The New York Times)
• Mario Batali's Del Posto landlords have filed a motion in the state Supreme Court to prohibit the restaurant from operating. (New York Post)
• For all your greasy street food needs. (Pushcart NYC)
• Peacock Alley Restaurant in the Waldorf-Astoria went from pricey entrees to snacks. (New York Post)
• The rock-star Williamsburg architect/designer movement. (Los Angeles Times)
• Why has Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights become "a road to nowhere?" (Brownstoner)
• The Wall Street Journal's top choices for online shopping and ideas in home design. (via Brownstoner)
• The Red Hook Fairway will open at the end of April in a Civil-War era warehouse, which will be topped off by three floors of luxury apartments, naturally. (New York Daily News)
• David Burke to stand in the kitchen of a new restaurant whose selling point is waitresses in mini-sarongs and bikini tops. (Page Six)

- Riva Froymovich

• More news on transforming the Battery Maritime Building, gateway to Governors Island, into an upscale green market. (The New York Times)
• On the dark NYC streets, counting the homeless by neighborhood. (The Village Voice)
• Would the Los Angeles Times' solutions for homelessness work in New York?
• The Village Voice gets to the crux of the issue: "The city needs new housing, just as it needs water. But it doesn't need a flood of dangerous construction or rising rents to displace its own residents. The protections against these hazards are as suspect as the Gulf of Mexico levees."
• None of Sir Benjamin's relatives want to take care of his $13 million estate; so, he's looking for an heir. Stipulations: heterosexual and sober. (The New York Times)
• Soon, white people will be the minority in the city and the suburbs. (Gotham Gazette)
• Six developments throughout the city that are nonprofit corporations with Section 8 contracts established by local churches, but the reigning parishes aren't paying attention. The churches in charge of the buildings seem to have relinquished all accountability for their upkeep. (City Limits)
• Advocates are pushing for the McCain/Kennedy bill, which allows for the permanent residency of undocumented workers. But, are some local politicians playing favorites among the immigrant groups? (City Limits)
• Forgotten NY reports that this city has the least number of official bike routes than any other. And Fresh Meadows in Queens, the westernmost suburb, is prepared for your car.
• It's true. You can meet your future spouse in a bar, even McSorley's. (The Villager)
• Silvercup Studios is setting the pace for transforming the parking garage into a mixed-use complex. (Metropolis)
• On Monday, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Fifth Avenue fascade was laid bare after a four-year restoration that cost $12.2 million. (New Yorkology)

- Riva Froymovich

“It’s almost like watching a ballgame played without the ball,” Janet Maslin said.  read more »

“It’s almost like watching a ballgame played without the ball,” Janet Maslin said.  read more »

The Los Angeles' Times Hot Property column reported yesterday that Liza Minnelli has finally sold her father Vicente's Beverly Hills estate for "about $3.5 million."

When her father died in 1986 he left the Hollywood Regency style house on one acre near the Beverly Hills Hotel to Liza, but on the condition that his widow, Lee, could remain living in the house until she died.

But in 2000, Liza put the house on the market at $3.5 million anyway.

In 2002, Lee sued Liza, claiming elder abuse and breach of contract, then dropped the lawsuit.

The estate went into escrow for four years. But now it seems something's been worked out. Lee still lives there, but the new owners plan to move in and re-do the place.  read more »

The column didn't identify the buyers or the asking price.

- Tom McGeveran

We’re reminded, on the first page of Deborah Eisenberg’s new short-story collection, Twi  read more »

We’re reminded, on the first page of Deborah Eisenberg’s new short-story collection, Twilight of  read more »

Making a case for stricter gun laws, the L.A. Times' edit-heads are urging Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to take a page from Bloomberg's inagural promise.  read more »