Seattle

Some guys just really like their Brooklyn Smoked Dunkel.

A line of roughly 15 men had gathered outside the Blind Tiger in Greenwich Village at 4:01 p.m. on Thursday, when the renowned beer-lover's mecca finally reopened its doors--this time, with actual beer.

"People have been waiting for, like, a year for this," noted the last guy in line, who added that he'd taken the day off from work.

After 10 years at Hudson and 10th streets, the much beloved Tiger was forced to move in late 2005 in order to make way for a new Starbucks.

Perhaps taking a hint from the Seattle caffeine giant, the venue reopened last fall at the corner of Bleecker and Jones--primarily as a coffee bar, however, on account of a little liquor-license brouhaha with neighborhood politico Deb Glick.

As boozehounds waited patiently for the true Tiger's second-coming on Thursday, Eater provided constant updates.

Earlier this month, the bar finally got its license to swill. Ale aficionados turned out pronto.

By 4:15 p.m. on Thursday, the crowd inside easily exceeded 50--predominantly made up of burly-looking dudes, but at least three females were present.

- Chris Shott

I spoke to Ivan Rezki, who still lives in the house where he grew up, in Bayside, Queens.    read more »

SHALINI: I received an email informing me that I was a JUNEBUG WEDDINGS CONTEST WINNER ($500 gift certificate to Tulip, one of my favorite Seattle boutiques). This made up for my car getting towed last week and the $230 ticket/towing fee. It doesn't stop there. Junebug has another great contest on their website this month: Visit www.JunebugWeddings.com on or before Dec.15th and enter to win a luxurious spa package from Frenchy's Day Spa, including Frenchy's favorite manicure, pedicure, facial and one hour massage

It's a rainy day here in Seattle but I have a lot to do today:  read more »

Bocly Bust

To the Editor:  read more »

Guffaw Firm

To the Editor:  read more »

Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger

To the Editor:  read more »

The Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill Courier checks the nabe's barometer after the recent closings of several mom-and-pop stores, which were then turned into a Dunkin' Donuts and other neighborhood-unspecific commercial ventures.

Words of wisdom: “Every dollar you spend at Starbucks goes to Seattle …. ” But with some spaces commanding $16,000 a month in rent, a goodly portion of that dollar is going to the landlord.

-Matthew Grace

Zillow is here.

From what we hear, the pressure-cooker environment in which the launch was being anticipated--and in many cases beaten to the market by prospective competitors--had a lot to do with the sudden launch, initially scheduled loosely for the Spring or thought to be on hold till the Summer.

Look for the whole story in today's editions of the Observer; read their full press release after the jump.

In today's other real estate news:

Johnny Damon settles down, finally. And it's not a Baseball Building, except for Bobby Abreu.

Bob Guccione causes a stir when the hedge fundies that are selling his house list it at $99 million.  read more »

Jana Bullock is up to more of her showhouse zaniness.

- Michael Calderone

Elizabeth Dziadik and Brett Kiefer   Met: June 1999 Engaged: Aug. 28, 2005  read more »

Forbes' Sara Clemence trudges through economic data to weave together this year's list of the 10 Most Overpriced Places in the U.S. Once again, New York gets beat out by Seattle (a city that's famous for World's Fair relics, Kurt Cobains-in-training journaling on the Vashon Island ferry , excellent coffee, and a wacky new library.

Although New York missed the top spot, there are other reasons to celebrate throwing away money in the metropolitan area. Two overpriced places across the Hudson, Bergen-Passaic and Middlesex (whence this reporter hails), also made the Top 10.  read more »

-Michael Calderone

I felt my understanding and empathy for my fellow New Yorkers swell like a big glowing orb of Care B  read more »

I know it seems like a late start, but I was 22 my first time.  read more »

We were hoping to get the Long Island City Councilman's opinion on a subject of pressing interest, but instead we spoke to Lloyd of Delta Airlines: "Whoever owns this phone left it on the plane," he told us, from Seattle.  read more »

The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon, by Donald Hall.  read more »

The folks over at the Center for an Urban Future aren't going to like this, but Joel Kotkin has a new article arguing fairly persuasively that the future is actually suburban. Planners, architects, and environmentalists, he says, should get used to it.

Kotkin offers some data to back up the claim that "the notions of suburban decline or a big-time downtown revival are delusional.

"All the growth predicted recently for the 30 top U.S. downtowns through 2010 turns out to be less than half the suburban growth of greater Seattle during the 1990s," he writes. "Many cities that are seen as harbingers of a dense urban future—San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis—have actually lost population since the millennium, following some gains in the 1990s. "

Kotkin doesn't mention New York, and his piece is another mark of how anomalous the city we're living in now really is, floating on a flood of immigration and a real estate boom that's touching the South Bronx and Bed-Stuy.  read more »

(Jarringly, the Economist just ratified the Brooklyn boom with a piece calling the borough "Manhattan's Left Bank." Here come the limeys!)

A World Without Walls: Freedom, Development, Free Trade and Global Governance , by Mike Moore.  read more »

When we think of the great colorists in the history of Western painting, we tend almost automaticall  read more »

The dive in the financial markets has some members of Investors Without Borders wondering about the  read more »

My wife and I got a ride from the ashram back to Mysore on Dec. 29, and the road was awful.  read more »

For years, the author and columnist Richard Reeves has been writing that the great change in America  read more »

Democratic Presidential hopeful Bill Bradley was one of the last people to see Joe Wood before the 3  read more »

An open letter to Howard Schultz, chief executive of Starbucks:

Dear Mr. Schultz,  read more »

You didn't think I was going to let the occasion pass without a little celebration, did you, just a  read more »