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Table of Contents

March 10, 2003 Issue

Cover Story

Far and Away

As a shoe designer for Kenneth Cole, Laura Southwick had made the grueling trek to Dongguan, China, dozens of times. And her trip in January 2002 seemed, at first, fairly routine: long hours overseeing production at the factory, the usual gripes about jet lag and missing her boyfriend and family. Then everything changed. The 33-year-old wasn’t feeling well—she joked with her boyfriend on the phone that she had the Chinese flu. Within two days, she was dead. The autopsy showed viral myocarditis—a heart infection tough to diagnose but treatable with decent medical care. A year later, her family still wonders why following her dream had to come at so high a price.

Features

Is This the Year the Bubble Bursts?

Last year was a nervous ride for the real-estate-obsessed New Yorker. For the first time in a decade, prices stopped their reassuring—or relentless, from the vantage point of first-time buyers—climb. This year looks just as scary—check that, even scarier—as we stare down the possibility that war, terrorism, and the sorry state of the city’s economy could finally burst the bubble that’s carried us into the stratosphere. Here’s the evidence as presented by real-estate experts both bearish and bullish, to help you decide whether to buy, sell, or sit tight.

Welcome to the Neighborhoods

As to where to buy or rent, we offer our definitive guide to prices and new developments in 25 prime neighborhoods. Some showed double-digit declines over the past year; some, still gentrifying, managed to post modest gains. A rundown of the figures as well as forecasts for the immediate future in each.

Departments

Intelligencer

WITH DEBORAH SCHOENEMAN
Jennifer Esposito, Ja Rule, Drew Barrymore, Eric Altman and much more!

Marketplace

Sales & Bargains

Fabulous floor pillows...

Best Bets

From Moroccan slides to rhinestone skirts

Gotham

Winner Takes What?

Now that he's got the nod to rebuild ground zero, Daniel Libeskind must fight for his ideas.

Man's Work

Now that Art Cooper's "resigned," how would you make over GQ?

News of War

War: What is it good for? My career!

Rug Job

Oriental Rugs, ABC Carpet & Home, 888 Broadway, at 19th Street, March 6-23.

Columns

This Media Life

How do you credibly cover a war that’s a rerun (of a psychodrama)?

The Bottom Line

Credit Suisse First Boston may come out of its scandal unscathed. But star banker Frank Quattrone might not be so lucky.

Cityside

Why overaggressive law enforcement can make nightlife more

Naked City

One private investigator tells all

Critics

Movies

Bringing Down the House doesn’t live up to its potential

Books

Mrs. Kimble tries to breathe new life into a perennial, the serial marrier

Art

Modern visionary Matthew Barney creates new worlds at the Guggenheim

Theater

An exhausting Frank McGuinness play eludes interpretation

Dance

A mature couple meets youngsters in Private Lives of Dancers 2003

Classical Music

Vladimir Ashkenazy’s ferocious tour of Stalin-era composing

Television

Daniel Ellsberg gets biopic’d apart

Underground Gourmet

Pizza in Bataliland at Otto

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