Debt, Divorce and Death
There are, realtors, say, three reasons why great real estate comes on the market. Death stalks us all — as it has 740 Park this year, where several elderly apartment owners have gone on to less limestoney pastures. But this week, debt and divorce have taken center stage, thanks to hedge hog J. Ezra Merkin‘s […]
The Big Chill at 740 Park
Weeks ago, Gripebox took a look at how some 740 Park residents were faring in the Great Recession. This week another, hedge fund honcho J. Ezra Merkin entered the 9th Circle of Financial Hell when it was revealed that he was one of the big investors — to the tune of $100 million — in […]
Salve, baby!
Two of my fellow alumnae from Vassar College (hence the headline, above, which refers to the school’s traditional greeting), publisher Judith Regan and the media gadfly Michael Wolff, are engaged in a colorful public dispute which, given their, ahem, outgoing personalities, is likely to provide tabloid readers with plenty of entertainment in months to come. […]
Blogging at 39,000 feet
This just to say that flying isn’t fun these days, but I love curbside check-in and in-flight wi-fi and don’t care that I had to pay for both. As long as my bag meets me on the other end, that is.
Wintour Wonderland
All the hoo-ha this week about rumors of Anna Wintour’s allegedly immanent departure from the editor chair at Vogue reminded me of the days in 1987 when I was assigned by the New York Times to track down a rumor that Wintour, then editor of British Vogue, would be coming to America and replacing American […]
Her Body, But How Many Babies?
A mystery deepened at 740 Park this weekend when the prestigious co-op’s First Lady, Alex Kuczynski (above, right, aka amazon book critic Walter Winchell), published a piece about the birth of her first child via a surrogate. Oddly, the story mentioned neither recents reports that she and her fecund hedge fund husband, Charles Stevenson were […]
Real Estate Viagra
I reviewed Jeff Hyland‘s The Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills in yesterday’s New York Post.
Reading at the Movies
There was a screening of Stephen Daldry’s The Reader, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, last night and there was a hushed silence in the theater through the entire film, broken only by the sniffles of people crying towards the end. Though superficially about the Holocaust, The Reader is really about history, memory, dignity and […]
Brooke on the Brain
The Daily Beast remains fixated on the Brooke Astor affair. Barbara Goldsmith chimes in today with a thoughtful take on the subject and why we are so riveted by its revelations of the dysfunctional rich. “Admit it,” she writes, “it wouldn’t be tabloid fodder unless there were a complicitous audience waiting to read all about […]
Lawyers, Guns and Money
In today’s edition, New York Social Diary comments on my contrarian take on the Brooke Astor affair and the new book, Mrs. Astor Regrets. That book portays a case that’s been painted so far in tabloid black and white as something more properly rendered in shades of gray. NYSD’s David Patrick Columbia apparently thinks the […]