Matt Lauer

“Tonight is what I call menu night: You get a little taste of what the company does throughout the season,” said socialite and American Ballet Theater board member Blaine Trump during intermission at the company’s opening night and spring gala at the Metropolitan Opera House on Monday, May 19. “To be honest, I always thought I was going to be a ballerina when I grew up,” she added.  read more »

The Daily News has some nuggets from Ed Klein's latest Unauthorized Biography. He continues to stalk powerful women in this portrait of Katie Couric, which hits bookstores a week from today.

The News writes:

The most shocking tale in author Edward Klein's unauthorized biography, "Katie: The Real Story," is that Couric's marriage to Jay Monahan was on the rocks long before he died of cancer in 1998.  read more »

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Here's a link to a segment on this morning's Today Show about Eliot Spitzer and the Brunogate scandal in Albany. (Tech Note: The clips on Internet Explorer, but may not play on Mozilla.)

It's another sign, unfortunately for Spitzer, that this is a storyline with some mass-market appeal.

This is from a story in the latest issue of Haute Living about celebs and their lavish Hamptons homes. These are details on Rudy Giuliani's house in Water Mill.

The mansion has lots of bedrooms and bathrooms, and there are famous neighbors like Matt Lauer and, oh, uhh, Peter Jennings.

- John Koblin

Andrew Cuomo's younger brother, Chris, was just named the new anchor of Good Morning America.  read more »

Cuomo's new boss say he's like Matt Lauer ten years ago.

-- Azi Paybarah

June was a very good month for Ann Coulter.  read more »

June was a very good month for Ann Coulter.  read more »

After a tear-jerking send-off on Wednesday, Katie Couric is ready to move on: to the Hamptons!

The future CBS News anchor just bought a $6.3 million home in East Hampton, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It seems like a nice way to spend the summer, before getting back behind the anchor desk. Measuring over 7,000 square feet, the two-story home includes seven bedrooms, six bathrooms, and a pool.

One of her new neighbors is beleaguered Knicks coach Larry Brown.  read more »

UPDATE:We now have a photo after the jump! - Michael Calderone

On January 5, 2000, the day he officially took up residency in New York, Bill Weld gave this interview to Matt Lauer:

LAUER: What--what's the timing of this? Obviously, in this state there's a law that you have to live here for five years before you could become governor. So that would put you in about a year before the 2006 elections.

Mr. WELD: Right.

LAUER: Is that what's on your mind?

Mr. WELD: Well, what's on my mind is helping my law firm in the New York office. But coincidentally, it would satisfy the five-year residency requirement. Not that I'm a carpetbagger. I was a carpetbagger up in Massachusetts. But I'm a New York native. So I'm...

LAUER: You were born down here.

Mr. WELD: I'm--I'm a native of Smithtown, which is the suburbs. I live in Manhattan and I've always had a place in upstate New York. So I'll be--I'll be indomitable in 2006, Matt.

LAUER: Do you...

Mr. WELD: You heard it here first.

LAUER: Do you want to be governor?

Mr. WELD: Well, I've been a governor. I know how to be...

LAUER: Do you want to be governor of this state?  read more »

Mr. WELD: I think it's the great state and it's the only job that I can think of that would affect me in public life. I wouldn't run against Pataki or Giuliani. They were here first. They're both pals of mine. But 2006 is a long way away. They could both have moved on by then.

If, like us, the only paper you've had a look at over the weekend is the Bangor Daily News, (our favorite vacation paper!) The Real Estate is happy to oblige you here with a round-up of the weekend's real-estate coverage. The Times has already pumped up the South Bronx as the new real estate hot-spot. (Write in if you know any Times editors who live there!) This week they bring unlikely word of a housing boom in ... East New York! We learn about a couple who ignored pleas to leave the neighborhood, and instead watched their house rise in price from $62,000 in 1987 to a current appraisal of $350,000. That's significant, since the Times is fond of reporting that you can't find a decent apartment in this town for under $400,000. The City Section's Coping column (incidentally, we've always wondered: Coping? I'd rather read something called Kvetching) takes up a defense of Murray Hell, as we dubbed the neighborhood in a recent article by Lizzy Ratner (registration required!), and its beer-swilling, heel-clicking post-Ann Arbor Fraternity Row set, under the headline "Dull is Beautiful." We wonder whether the City Section doesn't have lots of reasons to endorse that sentiment.

In the Post, Braden Keil finds recent bachelor Matt Lauer and ad-guy Donny Deutsch both renting at Trump Park Avenue (several floors apart).  read more »

New York Magazine looks at how rising prices have created a most unwelcome trend: too many brokers! Also, more Matt Lauer real-estate gossip. Is there a reconciliation in the works? - Michael Calderone

With this sentence and the next, allow me to greet you, the readers of this column. Hello, readers!  read more »

The  read more »

The very words "Howard Beach" conjure painful images for New Yorkers who remember the racist attack  read more »

With this sentence and the next, allow me to greet you, the readers of this column.  read more »

Good Morning America's recent ratings surge against the long-dominant Today show has framed a good o  read more »