Boston

The Boston Globe has new details about Broadway Partners' financing troubles stemming from its $1.3 billion shopping spree in 2006, homing in on its highly leveraged purchase of Boston's John Hancock Tower and a related parking lot, which were part of a Beacon Capital Partners portfolio.

According to The Globe:

"Broadway bid aggressively to buy the Hancock Tower near the height of the market and borrowed heavily to make it work. A long-term first mortgage for $640 million is piled on top of short-term mezzanine financing of $472 million, according to a real estate executive with access to the numbers. All in, call that $1.

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We all know one—that friend or relative who split New York City recently for the common cascade of reasons: high home prices, high rents, high living costs, high noise, high stress, or too much getting high or all of the above.

And when these people exit our five boroughs, they really exit: City Comptroller Bill Thompson’s office analyzed the Census Bureau’s recent American Community Survey and found that about two-thirds of the 190,150 people age 25 to 64 who left in 2005 moved not to the green suburbs to get just a daily break from the city grind, but outside of the metro area altogether.

Nearly a quarter of them split for the South, with 14.9 percent settling in Florida and 5 percent in Georgia, especially Atlanta. (And, no, the Florida settlers weren’t all ancient—far from it: over 90 percent were under 65.) Another 4.4 percent went to California. Only about 36 percent settled in New Jersey or elsewhere in New York state.

About 40 percent left big-city life altogether, opting out of the metro region as well as out of those large cities that traditionally compete with New York. L.A.? It claimed 2.6 percent of our people; Boston, even less at 2 percent. Wheezing Philadelphia (motto: Please Let Us Be Your Sixth Borough! We Got Rid of the Rocky Statue!)—claimed 3 percent; San Francisco and Chicago less than 2 percent. Atlanta led all cities with 4.5 percent. The rest of the percentages were dotted all over American exurbia.

In the end, of course, who went where depends on why. New Yorkers with younger children were more likely than childless people to leave the city, according to the comptroller, and those that left and stayed in the metro region—most of them still work in the city, trading the costs of living here for longer commutes.  read more »

Carolyn Ryan, most recently a deputy managing editor at the Boston Globe, is staying within the Times Company family: She's just been named a deputy metro editor for government and politics at the New York Times. Unfortunately, Ms. Ryan's exit happens at a time when about two dozen Globe staffers have accepted buyouts.

Joe Sexton's full (and lengthy!) memo after the jump, which includes thanking Globe editor Marty Baron and mentioning Ms. Ryan's ping-pong prowess.

--Michael Calderone

UPDATE: Adam Reilly at the The Phoenix now has Marty's memo.  read more »

Move over T: Style!

Despite gloomy buyout news from the Boston Globe in recent weeks, there's still enough staffers left to launch a new monthly magazine supplement: Fashion Boston.  read more »

Today's release after the jump.

Today, The Observer reported that Boston Globe columnist Steve Bailey was expected to be on the oversubscribed list of buyout-seekers.

However, according to an interview with the Boston Phoenix, Mr. Bailey is not leaving the paper.

Mr. Bailey has confirmed to The Observer that he did apply for the buyout, but that he is "happily" staying put at the Globe.

--Michael Calderone

Broadway Partners is looking for some money-men to help pay for its $5 billion portfolio buy from Beacon Capital Partners, which includes 237 Park Avenue and 100 Wall Street. The Observer reported the purchase last week.

The leading candidates are the usual suspects. Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, RBS Greenwich Capital and Wachovia are all in contention, reports Paul Fiorilla of the Commercial Mortage Alert.

Mr. Fiorilla also offers an analysis worth reading:

Broadway might seek to flip some of the 15 properties, as it did in the previous deal with Beacon. Broadway's third vehicle comes right on the heels of its second fund, which closed in December with $590 million of equity. Broadway's two-month turnaround may be unprecedented. Gaps between fund-raising campaigns are usually at least six months and often a year or longer.

The piece is a month old, but it's fun in a wonky, finance way. The piece is after the jump.  read more »

- John Koblin

Closure on Cloture   To the Editor:    read more »

Closure on Cloture   To the Editor:    read more »

Noam Chomsky's assistant comments below that there is an illness in the linguist's family and that's why he had to run, to make a plane back to Boston. Also I note that Chomsky gave good weight at an earlier event at Columbia the same day. I'm feeling bad about the meanspiritedness of my original post. Not the substance, but the sniggeringly oedipal tone. Chomsky has my apology for that.

When it mercifully comes to a close 24 months from now, the George W.  read more »

Yet another thing wherein New York dominates Boston, a city in Massachusetts on the Charles River--ownership of office buildings in Boston's financial district.

Fifty-three percent of financial-district buildings are now owned by New York-based landlords, The Wall Street Journal reports. These include One Federal Street, bought by Tishman Speyer last year, and the recent purchase of the State Street Financial Center by Fortis Property Group.

A decade ago, 55 percent of Boston's financial-district buildings were owned by local landlords.

- Tom Acitelli

• City housing groups tweak tactics in changing market.
[NY Times]
• Luxury homes meet the projects in Rockaways.
[NY Times]
• Penthouses still popular with New York buyers.
[NY Times]
• Recrowning cornices on the Upper West Side.
[NY Times]
• Lawsuits may hit lenders of risky mortgages.
[NY Times]
• Losing--and replacing--co-op documents.
[NY Times]
• Newer foreign REITs offer investors opportunities.
[NY Times]
• When can residents attend condo board meetings?
[NY Times]
• A Brooklyn walk-up as conceptual art.
[NY Times]
• New York - Boston it ain't: a relocation story.
[NY Times]
• MTA decides on Fulton transit hub E connection.
[NY Times]
• Top-level staffing changes at MTA.
[Daily News]
• Landmark debate over former AT&T headquarters.
[Daily News]
• Refinancing an option for some ARM users.
[Daily News]
• Police shutter two West Chelsea nightclubs.
[NY Post]
• Battle on over future of Pier 40.
[NY Post]
• Suit: 5th Avenue co-op rejects owner over Parkinson's.
[NY Post]
• 2 Herald Square sells for $500 million.
[NY Post]
• Development dots Park Slope's Fourth Avenue.
[NY Sun]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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According to a Democratic source, there's been a shake-up in the last few days in Hillary Clinton's fund-raising operation: six of Hillary Clinton's fundraising staffers from her New York and Boston offices are no longer employed there, the source said, and her recently hired finance director, Jonathan Mantz, is looking to bring aboard two mid-Atlantic finance directors.

Intentionally or not, the timing of the staff rearrangement kept it neatly below the radar during the sleepy holiday period, which seems to be perfectly consistent with Hillaryland protocol.

But why reorganize an operation that did so well?

One theory is that Mantz is simply looking to bring in his own people and had to make room for them. Another possibility is that whoever left did so voluntarily, perhaps to seek out a fresh challenge now that 2007 is upon us. I'll leave it to you to decide which is the more likely.

Hillary's spokesman Howard Wolfson had no comment.

-- Azi Paybarah

Pity the poor Manhattan housing market in 2006; it missed out on so many adjectives.  read more »

• For the first time ever, the American Institute of Architects has given its firm-of-the-year award to a lady-owned practice. The honors go to Boston's Leers Weinzapfel Associates, which Chris Hitchens and Graydon Carter would probably find unfunny. [Architectural Record]
• Newly unveiled plans show that Atlantic Yards may boast two "150-foot-tall illuminated billboards" at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. Nothing makes 19th-century brownstones look better than "the light from 15-story beer ads." [Brooklyn Papers]
• The bad news is that temperatures are rising one degree every year (though it doesn't feel like it this afternoon). The good news is that the average homeowner (and/or landscape designer) can save the world Al Gore-like by "strengthening canopy cover, using water efficiently and introducing environmentally-friendly plants." [Multi-Housing News]
• Bruce Schaller's red-scale map of Manhattan gridlock is pretty frightening--especially if you're a high-end broker who wants to show a Park Avenue apartment during the congestion-heavy evenings. [Streetsblog]
- Max Abelson
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• Presumably because his rock career hasn't been so wonderful lately, Jon Bon Jovi has put his three-bedroom Park Millennium tower pied-a-terre on the market for $6.95 million. The place can be yours for a whole month for a mere $30,000. [WSJ/The Real Estate Journal]
• Up in Boston, Fenway Park gets all develoment-y. Those silly Bostonians still can't compete with us and our Yanks and Mets and (soon-to-be) Brooklyn Nets. [Architect Magazine]
• Yale man Robert A.M. Stern (below) takes The Wall Street Journal on a bookish tour of New York's architectural survival (the name of his game is "poetry from the pragmatism"). [WSJ, via ArchNewsNow]

• Building a monster condo on the Upper West Side is a bad neighborly move in the first place, and beginning construction at 5:40 a.m. on a Tuesday only adds insult to injury. [Curbed]
- Max Abelson
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Forget the baseball rivalry: The real Boston–New York dispute is over bragging rights to Leona  read more »

Forget the baseball rivalry: The real Boston–New York dispute is over bragging rights to Leonard B  read more »

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion is picking up a new communications person: Mike Murphy, the City Hall stalwart currently on staff with Queens Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr.

In addition to picking up a seasoned communications staffer, Carrion must be enjoying the fact that he's bringing a Boston native to work in The Bronx.

As Vallone notes in an emailing announcing Murphy's departure: "None of us are too sure how long a rabid Red Sox fan will survive up there."

My guess: at least until 2009.

-- Azi Paybarah UPDATE: The new Mike Murphy is my old colleague from the Queens Tribune, Andrew Moesel -- who turns 25 this Friday.

There we were jammed on to Spring Street in the 26th minute, watching the Adidas-sponsored Jumbotron, along with I don't know, 5,000 other soccer fans, when the screen went black. We all waited for it to spark back on. Nothing. A guy with glasses and a headset climbed onto the thing and made an inaudible announcement, versions of which were passed through the crowd: There were too many people in the street, they hadn't counted on this crowd, it was considered a danger, the police had ordered it shut down.

At least that was the word on the street, as we sprinted for cabs to watch the game elsewhere.

And throughout the rest of the game, ESPN offered us shots of City Hall Plaza in Boston, crammed with what looked to be 20,000 fans. I know, everyone loves Bloomberg. But does the city have to be so goddamn efficient all the time?

“We don’t consider ourselves an alumni magazine in the traditional sense,” said Bo  read more »

My entry on the Sopranos yesterday generated some wise comment. Three readers said I am wrong about feds tipping off mobsters. Most persuasively, Mark:

Regarding the agent tipping off Tony; Trust me , it happens. Please reference the famous gangster Whitey Bulger in Boston who was in fact an undercover fink for the feds and was tipped off by an FBI agent regarding his imminent arrest. He fled and never seen again.

And Kit got at the mythic bass-line of the show:

The recurring theme from year to year has been the inexorable cycle in which Tony and the main characters are trapped. Carmella repeats the sins of Tony's mother; Tony repeats the sins of his father. They all live in Samsara, a cyclical hell of their own bad karma and that of their predecessors.

But in the season finale, it appeared that perhaps AJ -- who we'd all pegged as an up-and-coming thug -- has suddenly found himself clear of the whole mess. Rather than using violence to solve a problem, he chooses a more skillful resolution. Rather than trading on his father's connections to buy love, he earns his own way...

If this continues, Tony has actually found a degree of salvation. By stepping up and being the father he never had, forcing AJ to awaken from his stupor, he has broken the wheel to which all the characters are chained.

Humble thanks to the writers!

Booing Johnny Damon—what a bunch of classless ingrates.

As I remember, Johnny Damon was playing for the Oakland A's when the Red Sox took him, by giving him a ton more money, ripping off a small-market club. He came to Boston and put in three great years. He didn't complain, didn't hotdog, just played hard, and broke the curse. When Damon came to the plate last night, he was all class. Tipping his cap to the Red Sox and to Wakefield. And Fenway booed. The Boston fans are almost as bad as the Yankee fans, booing Rivera last year...

We're a little late this morning because Riva Froymovich, our trusty and talented Real Estate intern, had her last day yesterday, and, well, I hadn't realized how labor-intensive these morning-read entries are.

Anyway, here's what we've been reading on the Web this morning:

• Charlie Bagli's take on the latest Silverstein/Ground Zero developments. (The New York Times)
• Michael Flatley has set a record in the Martha's Vineyard real-estate market, with his $25.17 million purchase in Edgartown. (The Boston Globe, via Luxist)
• The ornate lobby of the redone Williamsburg Savings Bank is going to house a Borders bookstore, according to Lois Weiss. (The New York Post)
• The effect of local gas prices on housing markets. (Matrix)
• New-development porn in Brooklyn and Queens, now available on overworked-architect H. Thomas O'Hara's Web site. (Curbed)

- Tom McGeveran

Johnny Damon has completed his purchase of a condo at One Beacon Court for $400,000 under asking, as reported today in The Observer.

However, Mr. Damon still owned two residences from his playing days in Boston.

His Brookline home--which he most recently lived in--briefly went on the market last month.

Now, he has finally sold his Ritz-Carlton apartment for $2.5 million, according to today's Boston Herald.

The new owner, developer Roy MacDowell III, discussed living nearby Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez, whose penthouse is still on the market.

"I have run into him a few times. I imagine we will bump into each other more often," MacDowell said.

That's if Mr. Ramirez doesn't find a buyer.  read more »

- Michael Calderone

You’ve probably seen this guy, Bill O’Reilly.  read more »

War? Huh?    read more »

In Boston, a fair distance between Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods (known there as Bread & Circus) stores kept the rivalry between the shops to a minimum. But not here.

Sure, it may not be the Sharks and the Jets, but the two rivals--with their polos versus Hawaiian shirts--will battle it out for Union Square's bobo shoppers.

Like Whole Foods in New York, Bread & Circus tended to demand a higher price, and therefore, a wealthier regular crowd. Although Joe’s is not a market that one shops at exclusively, it will enhance the array of choices that 14th Street now has to offer, which also includes the smaller market, Garden of Eden.  read more »

A mix of high(er) priced Whole Foods delicacies and Trader Joe’s unique, bargain meals and wine will probably be the choice of many area residents, and the organic food-loving, L train contingent, too.

- Nicole Brydson Previous: Trader Joe's: The Crew Previous: Trader Joe's: Morning Rush

Last week, Village Voice senior associate editor Nick Sylvester became the latest poster boy for journalistic malfeasance when it was revealed that he had fabricated part of a cover story for The Voice. The paper acted swiftly, suspending Sylvester, printing a letter of apology, and removing the offending story from its website. (A widely linked cached version of the story seems to no longer be available.) Voice managing editor Doug Simmons has professed his affection for Sylvester and his willingness to cut the writer some slack since "The thought of firing him is a painful one for me." (Full disclosure: I worked at the Voice before Sylvester arrived and was fired by Simmons.)

Has Sylvester ruined his career? What follows is a survey of other writers who couldn't resist going for a little something extra. Some of them fabricated, some plagiarized, some composited where they had no business doing so. Nick Sylvester's future is far from written (early retirement? a novel? a career in Hollywood? law school?), but if these writers are any guide, he'll probably be just fine. He's young, white, and Ivy League-educated, so he probably won't wind up selling shoes in Michigan like Janet Cooke. —Matt Haber Update: The Black Table got there a few scandals ago. It can be found here.

The Accused Mike Barnicle Crime Against Journalism Fabrication; plagiarism Rap Sheet Barnicle, a columnist for The Boston Globe, faced accusations of plagiarism and fabrication for years before a 1995 story about two kids dying of cancer was determined to be a fraud. (See: Repeat Offender, by Tom Mashberg, Salon, August 20, 1998.) Dan Kennedy of The Boston Phoenix unearthed similarities between Barnicle's writing and A.J. Liebling's from 1986. He was also accused of borrowing observations from comedian George Carlin. Plea Sloppiness; Laziness. Sentence Resignation from The Boston Globe in 1998. Afterlife After a brief period, Barnicle returned to writing, first for The New York Daily News and then for The Boston Herald. Hollywood Ending None. The Accused Jayson Blair Crime Against Journalism Fabrication; Plagiarism Rap Sheet Starting in April 2003, several stories written by Blair, a New York Times reporter, were called into question after a reporter for The San Antonio Express-News noticed similarities between a piece by Blair and one of her own. After a Times investigation, it was revealed that Blair had fabricated details and quotes in several stories. (See: Hard News: The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for America, by Seth Mnookin.) Plea Mental health problems; exhaustion; bad diet. Sentence Fired. Afterlife Blair went on to write Buring Down My Masters' House and currently runs Azure Entertainment Corporation. Hollywood Ending In 2003, Mnookin's Newsweek stories about Blair were optioned by Showtime for "a black comedy" to be written and produced by Jon Maas. The Accused Nik Cohn Crime Against Journalism Fabrication Rap Sheet In 1976, Cohn wrote "The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" for New York magazine, a story about outer-borough discos and a working class young man who frequents them. In 1997, Cohn admitted he'd invented much of the story. Plea As a Brit living in America, Cohn claimed he couldn't find his story in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, "So I faked it. I conjured up the story of the figure in the doorway, and named him Vincent... I wrote it all up. And presented it as fact." (See: Writer Admits Faking "Saturday Night Fever" Story, by Marcus Errico, E! Online) Sentence None. Afterlife Cohn was caught up in a drug sting in 1983, but continued to write. His most recent book, Triksta: Life and Death and New Orleans Rap, came out in 2005. Hollywood Ending "The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" was turned into the film Saturday Night Fever in 1977 and went on to gross $237,113,184 worldwide. The Accused Janet Cooke Crime Against Journalism Fabrication Rap Sheet Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for "Jimmy's World," a Washington Post article about an 8-year-old junkie. The article caused a sensation despite the fact that Jimmy did not exist. (See: Janet's World, by Mike Sager, GQ, June 1996.) Plea Pressure Sentence Cooke resigned; The Post returned the Pulitzer. Afterlife Cooke left journalism and became a saleswoman in Michigan. Hollywood Ending Sager sold the film rights for his article to Columbia Tri-Star for $1.6 million. The Accused Michael Finkel Crime Against Journalism Compositing Rap Sheet Finkel, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, created a composite character in his November 18, 2002 story "Is Yousouf Malé A Slave?" Some also questioned the veracity of other stories he'd written for the magazine. (See: The Great Pretender, by Robert Kolker, New York, March 4, 2002.) Plea Overreaching; Literary ambition. Sentence Fired. The Times was forced to run an extensive correction. Afterlife Finkel went on to write True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa, an autobiographical story of his career and a murderer who borrowed his identity. The book was excerpted in Vanity Fair in June 2005. Hollywood Ending Plan B, Brad Pitt's production company, optioned True Story in 2005. The Accused Stephen Glass Crime Against Journalism Fabrication Rap Sheet Starting in 1996, Glass fabricated numerous subjects, situations, and details in pieces he wrote for The New Republic (where he was an associate editor), Harper's, Rolling Stone, George, and Policy Review. When a TNR story he wrote called "Hack Heaven" was called into question by an editor at Forbes Digital Tool, Glass went so far as to create a fake website for a company he made up and had his brother leave voice mails for his editor as one of his subjects. (See Shattered Glass, by Buzz Bissinger, Vanity Fair, September 1998.) Plea Youth. Desire to be liked. Sentence Two year suspension from TNR that became a de-facto firing by then editor Charles Lane. Afterlife Went to law school, wrote a novel based on his experience called The Fabulist in 2003. Hollywood Ending Hayden Christensen starred in Shattered Glass in 2003. The Accused Rodney Rothman Crime Against Journalism Fabrication. Rap Sheet In the November 27, 2000 issue of The New Yorker, Rothman, a former head writer for Late Show with David Letterman, fudged details of his experience infiltrating a dotcom in "My Fake Job." Rothman neglected to mention in the article that the company he walked into and pretended to work for employed his mother and invented details. (See: Magazine apologizes for article with made-up details, AP, December 5, 2000.) Plea The article was intended as a humor piece. Sentence The New Yorker was forced to issue an apology. Afterlife "My Fake Job" was included in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 (edited by Dave Eggers). Rothman went on to produce Undeclared and the short-lived sitcom Committed. He also wrote the well-received memoir Early Bird in 2005. Hollywood Ending UTA shopped "My Fake Job" to studios in 2000. The Accused Ruth Shalit Crime Against Journalism Plagiarism Rap Sheet Shalit, also an associate editor at The New Republic, used several passages of other writers' works in articles about the Justice Department. (See: Plagiarize, Plagiarize, Plagiarize... Only Be Sure to Call It Research, by Trudy Lieberman, CJR, July/August 1995.) The Washington Post also accused her of playing fast and loose with facts in a story she wrote about the paper's affirmative action policies. She also may have borrowed another writer's phrasing for a New York Times Magazine profile of Bob Dole in 1995. (See: Repeat Offender, Mother Jones, January/February 1996.) Plea Computer malfunction, mixing up her "research" with her own writing. Sentence Fired by TNR. Afterlife Shalit left journalism to work in advertising for a time but returned, writing occasionally for Salon, Details, and Elle, where according to her wedding announcement in The New York Times, she is a contributing writer. Hollywood Ending None, but according to LA Observed, she is married to Robertson Barrett, a producer for a company called Reality Pictures in Los Angeles. The Accused Patricia Smith Crime Against Journalism Fabrication Rap Sheet Smith, a columnist for The Boston Globe, invented quotes and subjects in four columns in 1998. (See: Boston Globe columnist resigns, accused of fabrications, CNN, June 19, 1998.) Plea Inability to create humans from whole cloth: "I attributed quotes to people who didn't exist," Smith wrote in her final column. "I could give them names, even occupations, but I couldn't give them what they needed most—a heartbeat." Sentence Resigned. Afterlife Smith continues to write poetry, publishing several books. Hollywood Ending None. The Accused Elizabeth Wurtzel Crime Against Journalism Plagiarism Rap Sheet In 1988, Wurtzel was accused of lifting passages from another writer's work in her work in The Dallas Morning News. (See: Beg, Borrow, Or..., by Dwight Garner, Salon, July 22, 1996.) Plea None. Sentence Fired from The Dallas Morning News. Afterlife After her firing, Wurtzel managed to become the music critic for New York, The New Yorker, and publish the memoir Prozac Nation in 1997. (That book also faced accusations of fabrications). In 2004, Wurtzel was accepted by Yale Law School. Hollywood Ending The film version of Wurtzel's Prozac Nation was made in 2001 but didn't appear in the U.S. until 2005 when it went direct to cable.

AIMEE: "I'm at Banana Republic and there are no wrap dresses! Repeat: no wrap dresses!" From my cell phone, I'm leaving a message for my sister/maid of honor/personal stylist Karen issuing the red alert as my lunch-hour shopping excursion takes a sudden ugly turn. I'm sure she'll be happy to have that message waiting for her when her plane touches down in DC.

In a fit of practicality earlier this morning, I told myself to start dealing with those pressing problems that just aren't going to go away, the first being: I have absolutely nothing to wear to my bridal tea party on Saturday. Things are getting very busy very fast and there's only so much time left for emergency shopping. My sister's already on her way home to gear up for my hectic extended weekend of bridal girly-girl activities, and in these next few days I'll be like a celeb prepping for the Oscars. I've got my first gown fitting, the tea party, my DC bachelorette bash, and all the excitement of coordinating bridesmaids flying in from this city and that.

My sis, who knows I need my hand held when I shop, did some long-distance scouting for me, checking out her local Banana Republic in Boston and referring me to the cute little wrap numbers: "I know you love those even though you don't actually have any - and there might be a reason for that, by the way - but give them a try." But I couldn't have anticipated this: They are totally gone. Damn the new spring inventory full of flouncy skirts in materials that won't do for February!

I rummage through the sale rack and - a glimmer of hope! - I find a lone dress in the wrong size. The saleswoman makes a walkie-talkie transmission to the mother ship, or wherever they house the millions of clothes in every size and color you always hope they have. "WahWahWah WahWah" blares back through the walkie-talkie.  read more »

The saleswoman translates: "That's the only one."

The state Democrats are circulating an article from the Boston Phoenix that includes this tidbit:

"Nobody in this office advised Mr. Weld's attorney that he is not a target," says Marisa Ford, chief of the criminal division for the US Attorney's office, in Louisville. "Anybody that was in a management position at the company is considered a subject."

AIMEE: My phone rings as I'm on the way to the subway for work, running late of course, always, always running late. "Not to stress you out...," my bridesmaid Jennie launches in on the other end. I know it's bad if she's using that sort of ominous construction. She's planning a wedding too. We've been pals since second grade and we're getting married a month apart, what are the odds? So she understands the importance of not freaking out the bride. She's doing her best hostage negotiator/ talk-the-crazy-person-down-from-the-ledge impersonation. "Not to stress you out...but I haven't gotten my dress yet and I thought I'd better tell you. When did you say some of the other girls got theirs?"  read more »

The newspapers who haven't published those controversial Danish cartoons typically cite appropriateness and editorial judgement. Only a few, notably the Boston Phoenix, have added the obvious: Fear of violent retaliation is a consideration -- and not, as John Podhoretz notes, an illegitmate one, as long as you're honest about it.

New York Press, unpolished, ramshackle place that it is, proved a pretty transparent labrotory for how this happens. The publisher's statment was the usual boilerplate: "We came to the same conclusion as many other responsible newspapers and media outlets that have chosen to not run the Danish cartoons. We felt the images were not critical for the editorial content to have merit, would not hinder our readers from making an informed opinion and only served to further fan the flame of a volatile situation."

But, says former editor-in-chief Harry Siegel, that's not what he was told.

"The owner of the paper [David Unger] was talking to me about his fear that things would get blown up," he said today. "This was expressed to us directly: 'I'm not putting lives in danger. We're not getting things blown up.'"

Harry (full disclosure: he's a former colleague, and current neighbor) said he's been shocked at how this story has unrolled in the American media.

"I honestly thought on Friday that 70% of the newspapers in America would run the cartoons by Monday," he said.

"There's this whole attitude that we can't upset the armed barbarian children who will react to cartoons this way," he said, arguing that it's an insult to moderate Muslims. "New Yorkers of all people should know about rent-a-mobs."

Here at the Observer we're a little obsessed with Dubai lately. So we were pretty thrilled to come across this item from embittered architecture blogger The Gutter today.

Apparently Dubai is such a cipher, that when architects are doing renderings of new towers to be built there, it behoves them to drop in the skyline of another city behind the proposed tower, instead of placing it in Dubai, actually. Here's one, to the right, which was apparently really made by architects to model the foregrounded tower; the image was reproduced in Architectural Record (sans crazy-looking red notations).  read more »

Which makes us wonder as we always do whether Dubai actually exists, or whether it's just an alternate reality that sucks lawyers and bankers in through a wormhole. We're not alone. The Gutter's correspondent writes:

Quoting the Arch.Record (Feb. 2006) article: "Reality in Dubai can prove more bizarre than photographs of it." Apparently sometimes buildings that don't even exist in Dubai can show up. Maybe Boston is actually Dubai and nobody's bothered to tell us. Or maybe, just maybe, in an effort to drive up sales, the Pru powers-that-be created some kind of weird tesseract thingy around the Prudential Center that makes it exist outside our space-time, allowing it to appear in both cities simultaneously, but neither city realizes it and somehow DOSarchitects was able to show us the truth; what reality actually looks like.

- Tom McGeveran

The Observer received many letters responding to Tish Durkin’s article, “Breast Is Best?  read more »

...all look the same. From Boston, at least. You know they're going to love it over at the News and the Post that the Weld campaign has identified his sorta-endorsement from the News as an "NY Post editorial."

If you are interested in the difference between the two, check out the Observer's Media Mob, where Tom Scocca has been picking winners in the papers' "Wood Wars." Currently it's News 15, Post 14.  read more »

UPDATE: Now that's rapid response; the News editorial board contacted Team Weld at 3:41 to report the goof, and it was fixed as of 3:49. And yes, somebody (not me!) was keeping track.

To the Editor:In my few years in publishing, I’ve observed that it may be more agreeable—and muc  read more »

To the Editor:    read more »

“Yesterday, I had drinks with a New York Times fact-checker,” said David Bradley, the mu  read more »

“Yesterday, I had drinks with a New York Times fact-checker,” said David Bradley, the mu  read more »

“Yesterday, I had drinks with a New York Times fact-checker,” said David Bradley, the multimilli  read more »

“Yesterday, I had drinks with a New York Times fact-checker,” said David Bradley, the multimilli  read more »

The nice thing about building green in Battery Park City is that the Governor comes to cut your ribbon.

Not that you'd need the publicity.

When Pataki stopped by Tribeca Green early yesterday, "New York's Most Environmental Rental" had already leased 80 percent of its 274 units (starting at $2,500 for a 600-square-foot "junior one-bedroom"), and half were already occupied, according to brokers for the developer, The Related Companies.

Whether the filtered air, photovoltaic panels (capable of generating 5 percent of the building's energy), cogeneration and recycled storm water is responsible for the quick selling remains to be seen. But all this green gobbledygook, which is supposed to reduce energy consumption by 30 percent and earn the Robert A.M. Stern-designed edifice a gold LEED rating, ultimately is figuring into the rent. Construction costs were 18 percent higher than they would be otherwise, according to Related President Jeff Blau.

That's much higher than the typical green premium of 1 to 5 percent, by the way, but it hasn't stopped Related from embarking on green buildings in Chicago and Boston, which, unlike the Battery Park City Authority, don't require environmentally friendly measures.  read more »

- Matthew Schuerman

1776, by David McCullough. Simon and Schuster, 386 pages, $32.  read more »

The New York Post's Vince Morris, weirdly the reporter who seemed to get more face-time with Hillary than any other, is going to work as the new spokesman for D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams.

Our favorite encounter with Vince, who looks unmistakably like a Red-state member of Congress, came at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, where a prominent national Democrat walked up to Vince, apparently mistook him for a Congressman, and started telling him the kinds of stories you don't tell reporters.  read more »

With Vince gone, perhaps Hillary will have a chance to spend more time with Deb Orin.

The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, by Corinne May Botz.  read more »

How can you change the entire meaning of a play by adding one word?  read more »