Time Warner Inc.

According to Reuters, Richard Parsons, Time Warner's chairman, is planning to step down in 2009. "This is my last shot at this," Parsons is quoted as saying during a shareholders meeting. "I will be the outgoing chairman after this year, probably."

Get ready for journalists to start another round of the "Richard Parsons, future New York City mayoral candidate" meme.

Flashback: AOL-Time Warner's New Chief, Richard Parsons, Makes His Social Debut, December 23, 2001.

The Times of London reported today that Richard Parsons, the CEO of Time Warner Inc., could step down as early as next week, to be replaced by Time Warner president Jeff Bewkes.

Mr Bewkes has long been since as Mr. Parsons' heir apparent, and is considered more likely to shake up the company by, for instance, selling off the struggling AOL, which recently announced plans to lay off aorund 2000 employees.

Time Warner has denied the report, calling it "a rumor". We've put our own call in to the media conglomerate, and will update if we hear anything.

AOL announced yesterday that the company is moving its corporate headquarters from a suburban campus in Dulles, Va. to 770 Broadway at Astor Place.

AOL spokesperson Anne Bentley said the move reflects a shift in AOL's priorities from its email, IM and internet access business focus to becoming a major player in the advertising industry.

“We’re putting the advertising network at the front and center now,” she said.  read more »

Despite her salacious scandal earlier this year, CNBC’s top anchor, Maria (the “Money Ho  read more »

Supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis thinks he’s figured out how to make himself Mayor in 200  read more »

Despite his illustriously shaggy hair and dirty mouth, sexagenarian Scottish comedian Billy Connolly  read more »

Today, Time Inc. announced the closure of LIFE magazine, the thin Parade-like weekly newspaper supplement. The company will continue the LIFE brand online, and in books.

Full release afer the jump  read more »

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión thinks a lot about the year 2009.    read more »

Journalists Sam Tait, Tony Best and I are going to moderate a televised forum for candidates in the special election to fill the City Council seat in Brooklyn that was recently vacated by Representative Yvette Clarke.

It'll air tonight between 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Time Warner channel 56, and on CableVision channel 69 in Brooklyn.

The candidates in the race are Mathieu Eugene, Jesse Hamilton, Wellington Sharpe, Jennifer James, Moe Razvi, Harry Schiffman, Zenobia McNally, Joel Toney, Karlene Gordon, and Leithland Tulloch.

What should we ask them?

-- Azi Paybarah

• Permits for fresh building plunge in Staten Island.
[NY Times]
• Gaze ahead toward New York real estate in '07.
[NY Post]
• Jay-Z moving out of Time Warner Center?
[NY Post]
• Workers find more human bones at Ground Zero.
[Daily News]
• Fed frets national housing slump.
[Daily News]
• Residents oppose Park Avenue median plan.
[NY Sun]
• Amsterdam Billiard finds new home in Union Square.
[NY Sun]
• 2nd Avenue Deli may reopen farther uptown.
[NY Sun]
• Office rents rise nationally in 2006.
[Journal]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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The eastern Upper East Side is probably the only neighborhood that beats the Flatiron district (thin  read more »

The refusal by Time Warner boss Dick Parsons to rule out a mayoral run this week turned out to have been a brilliant piece of public relations, leading to a spate of respectful media speculation and, today, to this enthusiastic editorial in the New York Post.

"Over the last five years, one media magnate-turned-politician - Michael Bloomberg - has demonstrated that a businessman can do a pretty good job running the city.

"And Parsons would, arguably, be even more qualified to be mayor than Bloomberg was in 2001."

It ends with the standard catch phrase for all political draft movements: "Run, Dick, Run."

But is any of it real?

This morning, in reponse to an interview request to Parson's office, here's what Time Warner corporate communications director Keith Cocozza told me:

"He's not running for mayor."

-- Azi Paybarah

June 6, 2006 1:05 p.m. 6 pounds, 12 ounces St. Vincent’s Hospital    read more »

June 6, 20061:05 p.m.

6 pounds, 12 ounces  read more »

St. Vincent’s Hospital

At the massive gathering of the National Magazine Awards on Tuesday, May 9, at Jazz at Lincoln Cente  read more »

On Feb. 17, Time Inc.  read more »

Hurry over to the Time Warner Center. There are just four condos left, and they are going for $3,300 a square foot—“Which is really cheap compared with the prices at 15 Central Park West,” Related CEO Steve Ross said at a lunch Thrusday sponsored by the New York University Real Estate Institute. Overall, the apartments at Time Warner, which his company built, went for $2,500 a square foot on average, he said.

And then, a few questions later, while discussing land prices, he turns the coin over to the other side. “I’m very concerned about the affordability of New York. Everybody can’t afford $1,200-a-square-foot apartments. If you take the land cost and the construction costs—and it’s not much cheaper in the boroughs—it is very hard to build affordable housing—and I’m not talking affordable according to the fed level, I’m talking about for working people. What’s that going to do for New York City?”

The solution? A program that he said the Real Estate Board of New York is discussing with City Hall under which the city would buy or contribute land, union wages would be reduced, and developers would get low-interest financing. With those breaks, he said developers could afford to build something to rent at $30 a square foot—or a measely $1,800 for a modest 600 square foot one-bedroom.

That’s in 2010 dollars, right?  read more »

-Matthew Schuerman

Advertising works! Last time The Real Estate checked in on love birds Rupert and Wendi, they were waiting by the phone, hoping that a wealthy buyer would call for their Soho loft. Elie Tahari apparently has, according to New York magazine. The fashion mogul is reportedly paying $25 million for the 9,300-square-foot apartment. New York magazine reports that Britney Spears now has a new broker, Adam Modlin, and reduced the asking price of her 4th Street condo. However, he’s the same broker who has had the listing since at least March. Originally listed at $5.25 million with Mr. Modlin, the apartment has already been lingering on the market with a $4.995 asking price since last summer. Luke Wilson ditches Trump Tower for the hipper confines of the Village, according to the New York Post. Also, Ronald Perelman, Sherry Lansing, and the ex-wife of Time Warner’s Steven Ross all make moves.

A Daily News investigation looks at how money earmarked after 9/11 was wasted. And some money that was promised never arrived in the first place.  read more »

And myopenbar.com rightfully gets its due in The Times. But where’s site co-founder, Rob Hitt?

-Michael Calderone

For the increasing numbers of believers in the notion of a Clinton-Murdoch alliance, which The Observer suggested a few months ago, today was a big day.

Rupert, famously dismissive of what he calls "gabfests" had agreed to join Time Warner's Richard Parsons and Sony's Howard Stringer on a panel moderated by Bill Clinton at his Clinton Global Initiative.

In anticipation, the Financial Times today recalled Murdoch's alliances with Tony Blair and Ed Koch. Tina Brown, in today's Washington Post, saw the end of an alliance:

"When Murdoch's executives start publishing diaries about working for Rupert in the Dubya years, my guess is you will see an entry, dated sometime in 2005 or 2006, about the shift in mood on the day he first murmurs that the neocons 'have started to look like dying elephants.'"

Meanwhile, Murdoch's London tabloids have fed the speculation that he has soured on Bush by giving buckets of ink to the President's "bathroom break" note.

Murdoch's appearance on the panel, then, was closely watched, though he gave no indication of feeling the scrutiny, slouching in the rightmost white armchair at the Sheraton ballroom, with Clinton to the audience's left.

Clinton seemed to be taking a dig at Rupert when he asked -- in the context of foreign aid, but with echoes of weapons of mass destruction -- what a news organization should do "when you know you have a consistent misperception."

"Rupert, would you like to start?" Clinton asked.

But the real sparring came between Murdoch and Parsons, on the subject of CNN International, which Parsons referred to in calling CNN "the best and best-positioned global news media company in the world."

"I don't watch CNN International, and I doubt that anyone else does," Murdoch replied. The channel, he said, is "unwatchable...and it's so anti-American."

Bill came to Parsons's defense: "I always watch CNN International overseas," he said. "You make me feel like it's like taking a shower with my shoes on here."

So much for the sparring. After the panel, Clinton and Murdoch chatted in a corner, Clinton finally bringing a grin to Murdoch's face. They then could be heard agreeing that agricultural subsidies in rich nations do great harm to the developing world.

Meanwhile, Murdoch fans, including a largely ignored Brad Pitt, waited patiently for a moment with the mogul.  read more »

A reader with an eye on the media-buying world writes that Virginia hasn't bought any broadcast television slots, but is spending $25,000 on Time Warner for today and tomorrow, and supposedly going on Cablevision next week. "All signs point to a campaign living hand-to-mouth."  read more »

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YOUNTVILLE, CALIF.-"I'm terrified of going back to New York," said Thomas Keller, the chef at arguab  read more »

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'Rogue Sales Tax'Sweeps Upper East Side  read more »

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Wednesday 1st ASME attack!  read more »

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Two years after AOL's Steve Case beguiled Time Warner's JerryLevin with a thrilling vision that new-  read more »

High above the westernmost curve of Columbus Circle, a massive computer-generated billboard ripples  read more »

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Two more New York children are dead,allegedly at the hands of their abusive parents.  read more »

Mark Green, the Mayoral candidate, was in the lobby of 55Broad Street on Monday, June 25, working up  read more »

The ostensible purpose of Norman Pearlstine's July 10 staff memo was to announce the appointment of  read more »

For nearly a decade, a somber oil portrait of Time magazine co-founder Henry Luce stood watch in the  read more »

Heat is hot .  read more »

Three Reactions at Eyewitness New s1. Scott Clark, team player  read more »

Bill Bradley and Al Gore had a fierce debate at the Apollo Theater on Feb.  read more »

Aimee Mann, a pop singer-songwriter whose career has been bedeviled by record company troubles, has  read more »

This all-new "Mr. Good Guy" shtick is proving tougher than expected.  read more »

Wednesday, Jan.  read more »

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After a run of roughly 50 years, the age of network television came to an end on Sunday, Jan.  read more »

Employees at Time Inc., the magazine division of Time Warner Inc., found that they'll soon be workin  read more »