The Name ‘Kanye West’ Means Nothing to Vivienne WestwoodShe thinks he may be famous in America or something. Plus, Ruth Madoff was spotted faxing documents at a deli and Sharon Stone and Andre Balasz were seen canoodling. In the gossip roundup.
The Republican Debate Made Mildly Interesting!Last night’s Republican debate at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton was about as feisty as knitting lessons at the community center. It was as if the candidates, who mostly avoided attacks, were tired from the heat. Many observers handed Romney the victory for his smooth answers on the economy; McCain also did well. But Giuliani and Huckabee, while they didn’t do poorly, didn’t do much to break out of their second-tier positions in Florida. For those who missed it, we sifted the platitudes for the stuff that really matters.
company town
Did ‘The New Yorker’ Rip One of Its Cartoons Off ‘The Far Side’?MEDIA
• OMG, plagiarism in The New Yorker’s cartoon issue? [Gelf]
• Washington Post chief Don Graham has 300 Facebook friends. Poke away! [Washingtonian]
• Fox 9’s license is up for renewal, and a bunch of incensed New Jerseyans are fighting the station for failing to live up to its Jersey-side obligations. After all, the channel is based out of Secaucus but bills itself as “My9 New York.” [NYT]
company town
Bloomberg’s Baby Problems: They Just Keep Popping OutFINANCE
• Another woman joined the federal discrimination lawsuit against Bloomberg LP. After her first child in 2005, her pay fell and her colleagues turned into sharks. One supervisor even asked, “What is this, your third baby?” [NYT]
• More of the same on the Street: Bank of America wrote down $3 billion, Bear Stearns $1.2 billion, and British bank HSBC took the cake with $3.4 billion, largely due to U.S. mortgage weaknesses. Meanwhile, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein laughed in everyone’s face, predicting no more write-downs (not that they lost much in the first place) at the Teflon bank. [NYP, NYT, NYT, DealBreaker]
• Is the credit crunch just like Enron all over again? So says Bethany McLean, the reporter who first broke Ken Lay’s fraud wide open. [Fortune]
company town
Stephen Colbert Doesn’t Make the BallotMEDIA
• Hollywood and television writers have decided to strike and will announce a walk-out deadline by noon today. Late night will be most immediately effected — guess we’ll find out just how funny Jon Stewart and David Letterman really are. [NYT]
• The South Carolina Democratic executive committee rejected self-proclaimed “favorite son” Stephen Colbert’s attempt to get on the ballot. Colbert now has to accumulate 10,000 signatures to make the ballot as an independent or pay the Republicans $35,000. Tough decision. [HuffPo]
• Don Imus signed a deal with Citadel to return to radio, broadcasting on WABC in New York and syndicated nationally on ABC Radio. The I-Man had to settle for $5 million a year, half of what he made with CBS. [WSJ]
in the magazine
Imus in the Seventies“There are those who would claim that Imus occasionally lapses into good taste,” Mike McGrady writes in New York. “If true, this may well be a result of several lengthy discussions he has had with the station manager and the program director, his ‘Mr. Vicious’ and ‘Mr. Numb.’ The upshot of those discussions is that he will never, never, not ever do any more jokes about Chappaquiddick or, for that matter, anyone else involved in a personal tragedy.” McGrady’s profile is from the April 3, 1972, issue. The I-Man was 31 years old, freshly arrived at New York’s WNBC, and he was a new and jarring force in radio. He was also, it seems, very much the same guy he is now. Which New York radio personalities did Imus admire?, McGrady asked. “David Steinberg —he’s very funny for a Jewish person.” We’ve dug the profile from the archives; you can read it as a PDF.
Radio Therapy: Shock Treatment in the Morning [NYM, PDF]
in other news
Boston Cartoon Attack Was, Well, a GlitchSo those two hair-obsessed guys arrested in Boston for planting the Aqua Teen Hunger Force non-bombs that terrified New England? A bit of creative Googling reveals that both men — Sean Stevens, 28, and Peter Berdovsky, 27, who goes by “Zebbler” — are affiliated with a “live performing video force” called — and this is the sort of fun part — Glitch. Well, yes. We suspect that Turner Broadcasting, parent of Aqua Teen’s home, the Cartoon Network, sees this as quite the glitch. Which perhaps explains the whole thing: It’s all part of Time Warner, and Time Warner is trying to be more synergistic, and didn’t Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore just say her company needs to fail more? This, folks, is failure done right.
Two Men Charged After Boston Security Scare [Reuters]
neighborhood watch
Don’t Mess With Bill Moyers’s ViewRed Hook: The shady demolition of the Revere Sugar Factory is making the neighbors furious. [Gowanus Lounge]
Brooklyn Heights: Want a Mexican restaurant? It’s yours for only $389,000. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Chinatown: Some major street changes are in place, including a buffered bike lane on Grand Street, making it safer to eat sticky pork buns while cycling. [Streetsblog]
Clinton Hill: Looks like the topiary-stealing first reported two weeks ago by Brooklyn Record continues. Who’s the sticky-fingered horticulturalist? [Clinton Hill Blog]
South Slope: Developer Gregory Rigas has been quietly been buying up — and not so quietly demolishing — mucho property on Fourth Avenue between Prospect Avenue and 16th Street. [Brownstoner]
Upper West Side: Bill Moyers leads a pack of angry rich people against the New-York Historical Society’s plan for a high-rise condo off Central Park West and 76th Street. [Curbed]
cultural capital
The High Line, Suddenly Not as High?
Not that it’s any big surprise at this point — after secret sets of books, and floated-and-then-retracted fare hikes, and all that — but the MTA might be up to something a little shady again. While everyone’s busy being excited about the redevelopment of the High Line, it turns out the MTA has been whispering to developers looking at its West Side yards — where Bloomberg wanted to build a Jets stadium, and which contain 31 percent of the elevated rail tracks — that a purchaser might be able to dismantle at least part of the Line. (You know, so building could start faster.) Last night, Friends of the High Line rallied its base in a meeting at Chelsea Market to protest this news and presented the case that maintaining the High Line on the MTA property would actually make it more attractive to developers, and thus more lucrative to the MTA. To that end, Friends of the High Line — with partial funding from developers with projects elsewhere along the structure — offered this sketch, from the Chelsea firm SHoP Architects, of what a redeveloped MTA yard would look like with the High Line still intact up there. Pretty, ain’t it? —Alec Appelbaum
neighborhood watch
Mail, Dates Tough to Get in Brooklyn• East Village: Landlord sues tenants for not letting loud, dust-covered construction workers tromp through his apartment and build an overpriced penthouse. [amNY]
• Fort Greene: We must all sacrifice imported dates in this time of war. [Brooklyn Record]
• Hunts Point: Why go to Rikers when you can go to your neighborhood jail? [NYDN]
• Ozone Park: Plan to make Aqueduct Racetrack even more depressing is deterred by the delay of video slot machines. [amNY]
• Prospect Heights: The substitute mail carrier won’t even ring once. [Brooklynian via Daily Heights]
• Upper East Side: A New York City public high school gets its act together, so it must be time to relocate. [Gotham Gazette]
• Upper East Side: Woody Allen doesn’t have any problems with performances spaces; he’d just prefer that they not be in his neighborhood. [NYS]