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Elise Knutsen

By Elise Knutsen 5/30 3:09pm

Shindigger

Matt Lauer(s)

East is East: The Beginning of the Season and the Hamptons Magazine Party with Matt Lauer

The sweltering pre-summer heat has begun to settle upon our fair city. In the season during which New York’s every nook and cranny teems with sweaty tourists, true city folk gather their kaftans and swim trunks, and head for the hills. The sandy hills of Main Beach, that is.

Fetching our long-hibernating car, we were pleased to find it still filled with the detritus of last summer. A slightly deflated sunhat, a beloved pair of flip-flops, a tube of now suspect sunscreen. We smiled, remembering with sandy fondness of our time Out East. Yes, while the city has its undeniable boons, nothing can quite compare to the Talkhouse late, late on a Saturday night, nor the peculiar shock of seeing endless George Hamilton clones strolling the bucolic streets. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 5/23 1:51pm

Shindigger

Yaz Hernandez

Latin Lovers: El Museo del Barrio’s Annual Gala, at Cipriani 42nd Street

New York is a medley of pedigrees. More than anywhere else in the world, our metropolis is a patchwork of identities, a bricolage of bloodlines and homelands. The city’s sundry constitution was particularly evident last Thursday evening at the annual el Museo del Bario gala where city grandees of varied lineage congregated to celebrate New York’s premiere Latino arts institution.

“I love when people mix and blend. So, I love when my Jewish friends are like, ‘I feel so Puerto Rican right now.’ I like that kind of feeling; that’s very New York,” Reuben Toledo told The Observer, noticing the peculiar cocktail-hour mosaic. “You get to be Irish once in a while and Puerto Rican once in a while.” Read More

By Elise Knutsen 5/23 8:45am

Cover Story

Web_Zuckerberg_Dale_Stephanos

Facebook is People!: Why I Quit Mark Zuckerberg’s Online Collective Data Farm

Last Friday, as his brainchild company went public, Mark Zuckerberg’s face filled the multistory video screen adorning the Times Square Reuters building, his image a grinning, pasty vision of triumph—little brother as Big Brother.

In the 30 seconds after the bell rang at the NASDAQ exchange, more than 80 million shares were traded, and with the IPO (really the night before, when the underwriting banks bought the stock from Facebook), Mr. Zuckerberg made $25 B.

But he wasn’t making any money off me. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 5/08 12:38pm

Shindigger

Marc Jacobs

Night at the Museum: Notes from the Red Carpet at the Met Costume Institute Gala

A severe cross-costal storm system (apparently of Los Angelino origin) bore down upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art this week. The tempest, however, was not unforeseen. Squalls have been detected all week, as Hollywood winds have breathed flash-bulbous air over the city. Finally, at prime cocktail hour Monday, the heavens burst. Instead of rain, legions of celebrities precipitously poured forth. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 5/02 11:31am

Shindigger

BOMB Magazine 31th Anniversary Gala

BOMB’s the Way: The Art and Culture Magazine Throws its Annual Gala

“Everyone is wearing black,” a reveler remarked at the BOMB magazine gala. “There is still a downtown!”

Truly, the band of bon chic bon genre artists, patrons and gallerists assembled at Capitale Monday evening all appeared in shades of sable. Black jackets, black cocktail dresses, black eye-liner and black ties streamed into the room, punctuated by wan, porcelain faces. The group’s chatter  soon reached a dull roar, and guests did their best to shout and drawl simultaneously. “I don’t really think they’re crypto-fascists, do you?” someone asked. We did not catch the subject of her inquiry.

Christened in 1981, BOMB magazine has enjoyed three decades of blessings from artists of both wide and marginal renown, the art world’s papal personae and choir-boys alike. While the full spectrum of BOMB devotees appeared at the gala, the vast majority were noteworthy members of the contemporary art scene. Marina Abramovic, Klaus Biesenbach, Dorothy Lichtenstein and Tim Nye all greeted their coal-clad friends and enjoyed the array of comfort-food canapés. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 3/23 12:48pm

Manhattan Transfers

Not Ken Brottlieb. (Consumerist)

Queens Car Salesman Bargains for $6 M. Laureate Apartment

The Laureate, the Upper West Side homage to prewar pretense, is home to a rag-tag bunch of millionaires. Newly monied characters (whose qualifications may fail to impress Fifth Avenue co-op boards) have been securing their multimillion-dollar pads in the building. The building is now home to cartoonists, developers and horse breeders—what’s next, a used car salesman?

Yes, in fact! Car salesman extraordinaire Ken Brodlieb, the owner of the East Hills Auto Group empire on the Queens-Nassau County border, is the latest Laureate resident. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 3/21 12:49pm

Real Estate

She's suing me for how much?

More Rubles, More Problems: The Ongoing Saga of the $88 M. Rybolovlev Apartment

Elena Rybolovleva has an $88 million bee in her bonnet. Mrs. Rybolovleva has locked horns with her husband, Russian oligarch and fertilizer king Dmitry Rybolovev, in a bitter divorce battle, with his reported $9 billion at the center of the fracas. The international battle royale has spilled into New York, where Mrs. Rybolovleva has accused her husband of purchasing Sandy Weill’s prize $88 million condo at 15 Central Park West in an effort to divert funds in advance of the impending divorce. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 2/28 4:08pm

Manhattan Transfers

Jack Dreyfus

UES Apartment of Mutual Fund King Sells to Cocksure Todd Cohen and His Cosmo Girl

Jack Dreyfus was a man of manifold talents. Credited with single handedly inventing the concept of mutual funds, he ran the Dreyfus Fund and later started one of the first socially responsible investment groups. He was a champion bridge player, and even better at gin rummy. He also owned winning race horses and real estate, managing his greatly diversified portfolio until his death in 2009 at the ripe age of 95. It seems his estate is still working to manage all his holdings: his apartment at 14 East 75th Street has just sold. Read More