October 20, 2008 Issue
Cover Story
Home Design: Urban Pastoral
An assortment of country idylls right here in the city: chickens, banana trees, migrating butterflies, and a modernist gem built on a rooftop in Little Italy; shopping trips to Africa and Asia end in a garden in Fort Greene; beloved pigeons bring peace—and occasionally disturb it—in gentrifying Williamsburg; a south-facing terrace doubles as a country house, not to mention a grocery store, for a couple in Harlem; Nine of this city’s 600-plus community gardens, from quaint patches of green to sprawling Edens abounding with vegetables; one woman’s penthouse converted into something between a Hollywood bungalow and the set of a Hitchcock thriller. By Wendy Goodman
On the Cover: Chris and Lisa Goode’s penthouse lawn. Photograph by Gregory Goode for New York Magazine.
Features
Sarah Palin’s Heaven
There’s no shortage of love for Sarah Palin in the tight-knit town to which she brought strip malls and fiscal discipline. But the folks of Wasilla don’t understand why their high-school sweetheart would abandon God’s country for the other 49 states.
The Spreadsheet Psychic
Nate Silver was making a happy living as a baseball-stat wizard. But when he realized that elections were a lot like baseball games, he created the Website FiveThirtyEight to analyze the electorate, and rewrote the rules on how to predict the political future.
Intelligencer
No Good Answer for Quinn’s Question
To extend or not to extend, or even to make a decision.
Fourteen-Digit Debt Busts Durst’s Clock
It’s time for a new one.
Credit Crisis Kills Voice-over Work
There are worse things.
MoMA Misses Big Patron
Post-Modern Wall Street.
Albany to Second Ave.: Drop Dead
No train, just pain … Elaine?
Trader Joe’s to Californicate on UWS
Battle stations, Fairway.
It Happened Last Week
It was a week of waiting to see if things could get any worse.
Why Wall Street Will Prevail
Things are bad now, but the world will never out-finance us.
The Revenge Cure for the Economy
How can we trust again?
Life and Death in the Econ E.R.
The financial crisis, as seen by a (necessarily anonymous) source within the Federal Reserve.
The Opportunity Is Where the Fear Is
What’s it like to make your living trading stocks during this calamity?
Columns
Barack’s Cool Pop
His steady, understated, optimistic populism arrived just in time.
Strategist
Warm, Cozy, Mindless
What to have on hand when curling up on the couch is the sum of the night’s activities.
You Bought That Where?
Seven thrift and consignment stores to keep you stylish.
The Look Book
"I can’t leave. I just wouldn’t like living anywhere else."
The Restaurant Review
Allegretti attempts to re-create la grande cuisine, with limited success.
In Season
The loose-leafed escarole makes a terrific winter salad.
Culture
Hubris Inc.
Oliver Stone’s W. is about a man many would sooner forget—which didn’t stop him from making it.
The Pop Music Review
The Pretenders rock like it’s 1984.
The Movie Review
Mike Leigh’s delicious role model for hard times (good timing).
The Art Review
Van Gogh by night is irresistible.
The Hive Mind
How Hilary Berseth makes his buzzworthy sculptures.
The Theater Review
When Frank Langella plays Sir Thomas More, you expect thunder. What you get is drizzle.
A Shooting in Williamsburg
What was that dead body doing on South 2nd Street in Williamsburg earlier this month?
The Approval Matrix: Week of October 20, 2008
Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.
Agenda
New Kid in Tribeca
Downtown offshoot of the 92nd Street Y.
Truffles on the Cheap
Belt-tightening is all well and good, but man cannot live by five-for-a-dollar dumplings alone.
Departments
Comments: Week of October 20, 2008
Readers sound off on the future of Wall Street, Elizabeth Wurtzel, and more.
Artifact: Make Your Own Golden Parachute
Findings from the streets, files, and hard drives of New York.
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