McDonald's Corporation

In response to our post yesterday about Fox Business Network's three-part interview this week with Joe Skinner, McDonald's Vice Chairman and CEO, CNBC sent us a note suggesting that their upstart rivals are somewhat late to the McDonald's game.

To wit: earlier this year, CNBC produced an original primetime special called Big Mac: Inside the McDonald’s Empire, which premiered on July 25, 2007, and was CNBC's best ever documentary premiere in both total viewers and adults 25-54.  read more »

For the rest of the week Fox Business Network's "Money for Breakfast" will be served up with a side order of McDonald's.

To wit: today through Friday, Fox Business Network's Alexis Glick will be conducting a three part interview with Joe Skinner, McDonald's Vice Chairman and CEO.

The interview, according to the press release, was filmed in one of McDonald’s "flagship" restaurants in Oak Brook, Illinois, and promises to touch upon a range of issues facing McDonald's, including branding, global expansion and the fast-food chain's "entry in the coffee wars."  read more »

The Real Deal's annual Data Book landed with a frightening thud in The Real Estate's mailbox on Wednesday. Among its more tantalizing facts:

While real estate is a crowded field, fewer people were trying to enter the real estate business in 2006. The number of newly licensed agents fell to the lowest level since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The New York Department of State, which oversees licensing of real estate agents, recorded 698 new agents in the five boroughs certified between April 2006 and October 2006. That was the smallest six-month increase since the period between October 2001 and April 2002, when the number grew by 614.

This thinning of the agent ranks gels with a wider, national trend.

Also in the Data Book: McDonalds is the largest retailer in the city, with 284 stores. Yikes!

[Full disclosure: The Real Estate's editor was an associate editor at The Real Deal.]

- Tom Acitelli

The Brooklyn Papers (pdf) has a handy chart listing the various business closings up and down Court Street that have the nabe all up in arms. It seems that some of these closings are just rumors (the Cobble Hill Cinema's demise, it seems, is greatly exaggerated). But some are for real.

After the jump, the rundown.  read more »

Blaue GansTwo Stars

139 Duane Street

(at West Broadway)

212-571-8880  read more »

Dress: Casual

Fast food restaurants, educational and medical facilities not permitted to lease space in the 52-story building include: Taco Bell, McDonald's, Wendy's, juvenile or adult day-care centers, social-services offices, job training centers, and auction houses (except "high-end auction houses specializing in art and historical artifacts").

That's according to The Village Voice's Paul Moses who harshly criticizes The New York Times this week over lease stipulations in the Renzo Piano-designed tower that the Gray Lady will soon call home.

Thankfully, soy latte-addicted reporters can relax, because Starbucks is permitted to set up shop downstairs. Huzzah!

Our personal favorite exclusion is any government office where you can show up "without appointment." It's a well-known fact that the huddled masses never call ahead (or have their names on a list).

Surely, David Brooks is already mining this article for column-worthy cultural signifiers.

His colleagues on the editorial page have already weighed in on the principle: "The Supreme Court's ruling yesterday that the economically troubled city of New London, Conn., can use its power of eminent domain to spur development was a welcome vindication of cities' ability to act in the public interest. It also is a setback to the 'property rights' movement, which is trying to block government from imposing reasonable zoning and environmental regulations. Still, the dissenters provided a useful reminder that eminent domain must not be used for purely private gain."

"The 'property rights' movement!" How charmingly Marxist. Ahem.

In the mean time, The Real Estate is reminded of The Times' three-week series on class in America that began last May.

The introductory piece posed the challenging question: "Why does it appear that class is fading as a force in American life?"

So coy!

"Today, the country has gone a long way toward an appearance of classlessness. Americans of all sorts are awash in luxuries that would have dazzled their grandparents. Social diversity has erased many of the old markers. It has become harder to read people's status in the clothes they wear, the cars they drive, the votes they cast, the god they worship, the color of their skin. The contours of class have blurred; some say they have disappeared."

We say the difference between Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks coffee ain't the coffee.  read more »

- Michael Calderone

It's been almost a year since the release of the Oscar-nominated documentary Super Size Me, but it h  read more »

My 15-year-old daughter got home from camp last night after scoring a 98 on her final exam.  read more »

Employee Robs Mickey D's,Leaves Scene in a McFlurry  read more »

Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear , by Paul Fussell. Houghton Mifflin, 204 pages, $22.  read more »

Senior Moment: Old Man Robs Bank, Then Goes Back For MoreIt makes sense that, as the population keep  read more »

WhenMcDonald'sCorp.announced earlier this month that it would switch cooking oils to reduce the amou  read more »

Wednesday 8th Cannes on Canal? Or voyage to hell ?  read more »

We didn't talk much politics here before Jean-Marie Le Pen's victory.  read more »

Decade of 'Buzz' Forgotten; The Chatterati Get 'Serious' The city is engulfed in emotion.  read more »

There is no sign hanging outside Tappo in the East Village.  read more »

Those Glory DaysNew York baseball is in crisis. Attendance is down.  read more »

Rumors have been orbiting the Internet (and burgers have been frying up at McDonald's!) that Pavemen  read more »

My Father's Gun: One Family, Three Badges, 100 Years in the N.Y.P.D. , by Brian McDonald.  read more »

No Shame in My Game: Working Poor in the Inner City , by Katherine S. Newman. Alfred A.  read more »