By Kim Velsey 4/30/12 10:38am

Bad Behavior

Buying an apartment can end in a bloodbath (Polina Sergeeva, flickr)

Please Leave the Gun at Home When Buying a Home: Real Estate Closings Can Be A Real Nightmare

Sure, you might bring a shrewd mindset and a few inflexible demands to an apartment closing, but a revolver?

Some people do, The New York Times reports, in a story on acts of violence, temper tantrums and shouted threats that accompany some closings in the brutal world of New York real estate.

Is it laying out all of one’s savings and then some that drives people over the edge? Not really, the reporter finds. Mostly, it’s the little things. Read More

By Steve Huff 4/26/12 11:29pm

Chapter 11

Betsey Johnson

Betsey Johnson Filing Chapter 11

Almost a week after we learned designer Betsey Johnson would be featured in a new reality show, Betsey And Lulu, comes the announcement that the spritely 69-year-old’s fashion line has filed for bankruptcy. As a result, over 300 Betsey Johnson employees will probably lose their jobs. To top that off, most of Betsey Johnson’s 63 stores will close.

All is not lost, however. Ms. Johnson still has the eponymous show in the works (as far as we know) and according to Forbes, this certainly isn’t the end of the brand name: Read More

By Zachary Woolfe 6/14/11 7:48pm

Opera

TK

Why City Opera May Bite the Dust, and What That Means for New York

Looking back, it should have been clear in October how New York City Opera’s year was going to end.

The company opened its season then with the New York premiere of A Quiet Place, the strange, flawed, fascinating final opera by Leonard Bernstein, one of the city’s favorite sons. The opera is close to the Read More

By Foster Kamer 5/18/11 12:54am

Endings

The End of an Era: Elaine’s Closing After 48 Years

Transom was saddened to receive the news that the Upper East Side institution Elaine’s-the restaurant named for its legendary owner, Elaine Kaufman, who passed away in December at 81-will be closing after 48 years of business after last call on May 26, 2011. Diane Becker, the longtime manager who inherited the restaurant from Kaufman, explained Read More