It Happened Last Week

Striking Back

By Mark Adams
Published Mar 30, 2008

As posters for Spike TV’s broadcast of the Star Wars movies covered bus shelters last week, Hillary Clinton’s embattled presidential campaign used the force. Staying on target despite having her tale about landing in Bosnia under sniper attack disproved, the candidate forged a rebel alliance with conservative dark lord Richard Mellon Scaife and dragged the name of Barack Obama’s angry spiritual Yoda, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, back into the headlines. Meanwhile, Clinton donors (including stalwarts Steven Rattner and Alan Patricof) took aim at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, implying that they’d cut off donations to a Democratic fund-raising committee if she continued to insist that superdelegates follow the will of the people. Mayor Bloomberg passed the mike to Obama at a Cooper Union speech. State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver finally addressed the $8 question by agreeing to put a congestion-pricing bill up for a vote. The Troopergate investigation stalled, even as proof of Eliot Spitzer’s involvement emerged; the ex-gov was also rumored to have been a client of the second madam to get busted in three weeks. Confession-crazed Governor Paterson admitted having used pot and coke. Justice Department lawyers denied death benefits to two auxiliary NYPD cops gunned down in the Village. A Los Angeles Times report linking Sean Combs to Tupac Shakur’s mysterious 1994 shooting was quickly debunked. Prodigal son Anthony Marshall put Brooke Astor’s 778 Park Avenue apartment on the market for $46 million. Tishman Speyer won the Hudson Yards battle with a billion-dollar bid. James Dolan all but shooed Isiah Thomas out of town as rumors spread he’d agreed to hire Bronx native Donnie Walsh as the new Knicks president. JPMorgan Chase quintupled its lowball offer for Bear Stearns, to $10 a share. Other indicators were less auspicious: The murder rate inched up; building starts plummeted 40 percent; and in just two years, the Big Apple’s population somehow managed to pack on 10 million extra pounds.