Pace University

There have been rumors swirling around today that Verizon Communications would be transferring ownership of 375 Pearl Street to Pace University at the beginning of next year, and that the university would convert a number of floors in the building to dorms.

Well, folks, its not true.

“This a complete hoax,” Chris Cory, Pace's public information director, told The Observer. “I am not sure where this information came from.”  read more »

The president of Pace University, David Caputo, is resigning today, a spokesman for Pace University confirmed. A statement about Caputo's resignation will be sent out shortly, the spokesman said. According to a reader, the school will name Stephen Friedman as the interim president.

The school was among the many caught up in Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's investigation into the student loan scandals, but it's unclear right now whether that had anything to do with Caputo's resignation.

 

The Council on Foreign Relations hosts a symposium on the security of New York City post 9/11 at their headquarters.

Pace University holds a conference titled "Aftershock: Rethinking the Future Since September 11, 2001" at Pace University's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts.

Jonathan Tasini goes on a five borough "cost of war" tour beginning at Manhattan's VA Hospital and visiting a Post Office on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, the Queensbridge Housing Project, Brooklyn College, and Bayley Seton Hospital in Staten Island.

Eliot Spitzer visits the Shinnecock Fishing Village in Hampton Bays and later speaks at a NYC Meet-up at Luna Park in Union Square.

A town hall meeting with the Democratic candidates for the 11th congressional district will take place at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn at 7pm.

—Nicole Brydson

Bruce Ratner presented his plan for the 22-acre Atlantic Yards project to city Planning Commission Chairwoman Amanda Burden and other city commissioners Tuesday, she said, but he did not mention scaling it back.

"He presented it to all the commissioners, some of whom hadn't had a chance to see it before," she said after a Crain's breakfast this morning at Pace University. Burden wouldn't give her own thoughts, although we have noted before what an intense interest she has taken in minute issues such as whether the doors along Atlantic Avenue will swing outward or not. (She's no foe of large-scale development, although she doesn't seem to like superblocks that much.)

As we report in an online article today, sooner or later city officials will have to confront a more serious issue: like when those much-hyped affordable housing units at Atlantic Yards are going to come online. The answer: not very soon.

-Matthew Schuerman UPDATE: An earlier version of this post mistakenly said planning commission members met with Ratner Tuesday. It was city commissioners.

Pace University's three-day "Aftershock" conference ("Rethinking the Future Since Sept. 11") will have closed its curtains by the weekend.

Katie Couric weighs in tonight with an assessment of national security while Ted Koppel will dig in Sunday.

The two photo exhibits downtown will stick around for a while, but if you want to see a set of memorial quilts, you better get there Friday.

It's obvious why presenters would want to start early, but we have to wonder, how long can Americans remain in this commemorative state?

Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" (starring Nicolas Cage, above) premiered three weeks ago on 2,957 screens. It has already closed on 55 of them.  read more »

-Matthew Schuerman

Despite the enthusiastic postering, there wasn't much of a crowd at Pace University for last night's town hall meeting with the five AG candidates, who appeared in front of audiences around the state and were televised live at Pace's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts. Most of the people following the race were probably waiting for the candidates to debate tonight.

Still, the event was supposed to have been all about the audience. They asked. They heard. But did they like?

One undecided voter who sat near me said he heard only one candidate talk about experience that's relevant to the job. "But I'm a Democrat," he said, and left still undecided.

During the forum, Sean Patrick Maloney stood out as the only candidate who responded to his first question with an actual answer, and did not include what felt like a mandatory shout out to the viewers and television stations in other cities.

Mark Green stood out, but in a different way. In keeping with his aggressive new Anti-Cuomo strategy, it was he who offered the closest thing to an attack on another candidate.  read more »

Afterwards, the sidewalks were deserted. No pep rallies. Not many reporters looking for man on the street reactions. The street looked as empty after the town hall as when it started.

-- Azi Paybarah

Did Michael Bloomberg really mean what he said to the Daily News? He's already saying silverstein could stay. Also, there's the matter of those four empty chairs on the LMDC he hasn't filled yet--that is, if he wants more influence there.

Our poll, conducted by Pace University, shows that New Yorkers support Bruce Ratner's plan to bring the Nets to downtown Brooklyn--and the numbers only go up when you ask Brooklyn residents.  read more »

Jon Stewart hired Deborah Berke to fix up the Tribeca apartment he bought earlier this year (1,000 turtles used to live there, after all!), which meant he could finally start showing the $3.995 million West Village apartment he's leaving behind. It finally went to contract. The observation deck re-opened at Rockefeller Center; our reporter gets kicked out, very nicely, but not before talking to real-estate people about how much a 20,000 square-foot penthouse with wraparound terrace would fetch on the market. We think he got a low-ball at $40 million.

Seems like all those sweaty press conferences this summer about breaking ground on the Calatrava transit station, fortifying the Freedom Center and subsidizing Goldman Sachs did little for the way New Yorkers view the Governor. Just 18 percent of city voters want Pataki in charge at Ground Zero, compared to 24 percent in May, according to a Quinnipiac poll cited by Crain’s. Some 65 percent of those surveyed would rather the Mayor take the reins. The Mayor said yesterday that’s exactly what he plans to do.

This turn of sentiment has something, though perhaps not everything, to do with the Governor’s pushing out the International Freedom Center. The Times teamed up with Pace University for an excruciatingly focused poll also released today—of 518 residents living below 14th Street—and found them split on the Governor’s decision.

David Dunlap adds:

“And 1,011 New Yorkers were asked six weeks ago by Blum & Weprin Associates for The New York Times Magazine what they thought should be built at ground zero: something shorter or taller than the World Trade Center. Fifty-four percent replied, ‘Any size building as long as they stop arguing about it.’”  read more »

-Matthew Schuerman

(No links yet for today's paper, so go buy a paper copy!)

But in the paper, I debut an occasional collaboration with the Pace University Poll, and a poll that finds Mike Bloomberg more popular than the Democrats among likely Democratic Primary voters, with a 62% favorable rating to Freddy's 59%.

Another tidbit: Democratic voters tell Pace that the worst possible candidate in a Democratic primary would be a devoutly religious Asian-American lesbian.

And Jess Bruder examines how long Chuck, Mike, and Eliot will stand by their friends in the Independence Party. Eliot says he'll bail if Fulani is proven to be a party leader; but Mike writes another government check to her non-profit.

Eve Kessler writes about Jeanine Pirro as only one who knows Westchester can, and unearths some rather damaging anecdotes we'd never heard before.

Matt Schuerman wonders who the hell will work in the Freedom Tower.  read more »

Tom Scocca examines the Plame leak case, though we're still not sure if it was Karl Rove.

And Woodward's Deep Throat book is reviewed.

Vincent Pastore, The Sopranos ' late Big Pussy Bonpensiero, is excited about the Tribeca Film Festiv  read more »