New Yorkers have plenty of reasons to cheer the results of last week’s elections. The election of Eliot Spitzer as Governor and the Democratic takeover of Congress promise nothing but good news for the city and the state.

With Mr. Spitzer at the helm in Albany, city residents figure to have a voice they haven’t had during the 12 dreary years of George Pataki. The outgoing Governor could hardly be described as a friend of the city, given the tenacious battle he has fought against equitable school funding and the blithering incompetence he has demonstrated in the non-reconstruction of Ground Zero.

Mr. Pataki, a suburban legislator before becoming Governor, should be remembered as the man who signed a bill (supported, don’t forget, by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver) that abolished the city’s commuter tax. With a stroke of his pen, the Governor eliminated an annual revenue stream of about $450 million. The measure no doubt pleased Mr. Pataki’s suburban constituency, but as Rudolph Giuliani pointed out at the time, it had an awful impact on the city’s finances. The city has had to scramble ever since to make up for the loss. Mr. Spitzer, a Manhattan resident, figures to be a good deal more sympathetic to city issues.

On the national front, New York’s two U.S. Senators are now political powerhouses. And that’s not just because they’re in the majority now. Charles Schumer was one of the Democratic Party’s heroes on Election Day, having led the party’s hugely successful Senate campaign. It was he who recruited candidates like Robert Casey Jr. in Pennsylvania and James Webb in Virginia, despite some opposition from the party’s ideologues. Mr. Schumer helped bring the party to the center, and then brought in tons of money to run aggressive campaigns against entrenched incumbents.

Hillary Clinton’s huge re-election victory ratified her position as a national star and—in case you haven’t heard—a potential Presidential candidate. No Democratic Senator from New York has run for President since Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Mrs. Clinton is now in a position to change that, and that’s good for New York’s political influence.

On the House side, the dean of the state’s Congressional delegation, Charles Rangel, will become chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in January. Not since the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in the early 1990’s has a New York Democrat been in such an enviable position. Mr. Rangel’s new role will allow him to steer federal dollars and projects to New York. As Moynihan often pointed out, New York sends far more dollars to Washington than it gets in return. Now, at last, Mr. Rangel may be able to reverse that flow of funding.

New York was once the epicenter of national politics, the state with the largest Congressional delegation and the home of Presidential candidates like Al Smith, Thomas E. Dewey and the Roosevelts. But over the last 40 years, the state’s clout, like its delegation, has shrunk. The South and the West have dominated the national scene since the 1970’s.

No election will change the nation’s population trends. But this year’s returns figure to restore New York to its rightful place as a seat of power and influence. All too often, elections do little but confirm the status quo. This time, however, the returns produced real change. And that change will, one hopes, benefit New York.

Change Trains at the M.T.A.

It’s no secret that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in trouble. The state agency, which runs the subways and buses, as well as Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road, is strapped for cash—with a projected deficit of $1 billion in 2008—and has failed to act quickly to beef up security in the post 9/11 world.

New York’s incoming Governor, Eliot Spitzer, naturally isn’t happy about this state of affairs, and he has indicated that he would like the M.T.A.’s chairman, Peter Kalikow, to step down and make way for a chairman of Mr. Spitzer’s choosing. Mr. Kalikow, who was reappointed to another six-year term by Governor Pataki in June, has responded that he has no intention of resigning just yet. He says he wants to make sure that federal financing for projects such as the Second Avenue subway is in place before he departs. But if Mr. Kalikow wants to serve the best interests of New Yorkers, now is the time to go.

New York voters gave Eliot Spitzer a mandate for change. A new team is assembling in Albany, filled with energy and fresh ideas. It’s true that Mr. Kalikow managed to transcend the Pataki era gridlock, becoming a determined friend of this city’s commuters, as demonstrated by his able stewardship during last year’s transit strike. But he’s had his chance and performed admirably, and now it’s time for him to pass the torch and allow Mr. Spitzer to put his own man in place and his own stamp on the M.T.A. One contender, rumored to be the Governor-elect’s top choice, is Elliot Sander, a former city transportation commissioner who is director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University.

Mr. Kalikow came into the M.T.A. as a patronage appointee with no experience in transportation, and he emerged a respected public servant. As such, stepping aside is the right and respectful thing to do.

Ed Bradley

When Ed Bradley died last week in Manhattan at the all-too-early age of 65, New York lost a broadcast legend: a razor-sharp reporter who imbued his broadcasts with integrity, wry humor and uncommon decency.

The first black anchor on CBS—of the Sunday Night News—Ed Bradley was an original. There was nothing prepackaged or homogenized about him. When he joined 60 Minutes in 1981, the show’s heat came from scorching reporters like Morley Safer and Mike Wallace. Bradley injected the cool of jazz—his greatest passion—into the program. Like the best jazz riffs, Bradley’s on-air persona was boldly unpredictable, seemingly dispassionate and yet all heart.

When it came to music, Bradley was no dilettante. When he was just out of college—Cheyney State in Pennsylvania—he worked nights as a disc jockey, hosting a jazz program, while during the day he taught elementary school to pay the bills. WCBS Radio in New York took note and hired him. He made the switch to television as a stringer for CBS in Paris, a brief stop before he relocated to the Saigon bureau. He covered Cambodia and came home with a George Polk Award and a battle wound. His next assignment: the White House, until Don Hewitt wisely signed him up for 60 Minutes. Meanwhile, he funneled his passion for jazz into acclaimed radio programs for National Public Radio and Jazz at Lincoln Center. At the news magazine, he was broadcasting stories up until the last two weeks of his life, when the leukemia he’d kept from his friends for years finally claimed him.

As his colleague Mike Wallace said last week, Ed Bradley was “a kind, gentle, strong man. A first-rate reporter and a first-rate human being …. He was just an absolutely delightful man.”

Tuesday's congressional elections were a major coup for "those who pushed for a fearless, genuinely oppositional Dem posture on national security issues early in the cycle," says Greg Sargent.

Taking credit for Republican Rep. Sue Kelly's loss: Richard French and Stephen Colbert.

Ben finds George Pataki's presidential campaign office.

The son of Albany's longtime mayor is joining a politically connected firm in Albany, a sign of the power shift in that city, says Liz.

Urban Elephants has a message for some of Tuesday's winners:

Early & Often expands on our brief analysis of how well the anti-tax message worked here.

Here is how some court cases affected the elections.

And above is Adam Green with his John Murtha hand puppet.

Belated Update: The mayor's Deputy Press Secretary Jennifer Falk is leaving to become the Executive Director of the Union Square Partnership.

-- Azi Paybarah

In the story, reporter Sharon Waxman quoted an unnamed source claiming that CBS in effect paid Michael Jackson $1 million for the access that led to an interview on Dec. 28 on 60 Minutes with Ed Bradley. The story, which suggested that a sacred separation between the CBS Entertainment division in Los Angeles and CBS News in New York-one of the last remaining bastions in the electronic media-had been breached, sparked a war between the two powerful news kingdoms. In the press, The Times stands by its story, continues to pursue the story and is proud of the story that raised questions of "checkbook journalism" at CBS, and of a kind of cultural acid rain at the network in which lack of integrity falls equally on the news, newsmagazine and entertainment divisions.

Meanwhile, CBS executives accuse The New York Times of shoddy reporting. And in recent days, back channels running between The Times ' West 43rd Street newsroom and CBS's West 57th Street headquarters have carried a heated exchange-including private phone calls between the editors of The Times and CBS News executives-that is only escalating. After days of wrestling in the Michael Jackson tabloid compost pile, the two sides remain defiant. The Times loves its story. And CBS has come no closer to presenting a coherent narrative of how the network got that interview, except to say that there was no payment.

Mr. Erlanger stood by Ms. Waxman, the Times reporter on the Michael Jackson beat. Likewise, CBS News has stuck to its guns, launching its own fusillade of denials and counterattacks at The Times , primarily to defend the good name of Ed Bradley, who, The Times article implied, actually promised Mr. Jackson remuneration for his appearance.

Don Hewitt, the executive producer of 60 Minutes , told The Observer that CBS chief Leslie Moonves had called him personally to tell him that The Times ' claims were without merit.

"He said no money changed hands," said Mr. Hewitt. "No money was paid to the Michael Jackson people to appear on 60 Minutes ."

Did Mr. Hewitt believe Mr. Moonves?

"Yes, I believe him," he said. "I have no reason to believe that that isn't the exact truth. I don't believe he would have told me if it wasn't true."

Mr. Hewitt was therefore adamant that the interview was a perfectly legitimate journalistic enterprise, unburdened by secret deals made by the CBS leadership or its entertainment division to drive up ratings.

"All I know is that the interview fell in my lap with no strings attached," he said. "I made no concessions and there were no strings attached, and I'm very pleased with the job Ed Bradley did on this story."

Armed with that conviction, Mr. Hewitt blasted The Times in a letter published in part in USA Today on Tuesday, Jan. 6, assailing Ms. Waxman's use of an unnamed source.

"Because we at 60 Minutes do not allow people with axes to grind to make wild, unsubstantiated accusations," Mr. Hewitt wrote, "we assumed all news organizations worth their salt adhered to the same standards."

Aside from his official statement calling the Times story "categorically false," CBS Entertainment executives involved in the Jackson special have also publicly denied the facts in the article.

Mr. Erlanger said that CBS News president Andrew Heyward and Mr. Bradley had both called representatives of The Times to complain about the story.

"They call a lot," Mr. Erlanger said. "Not just about this story. CBS is a serial caller on stories about CBS."

The two news organizations have one thing in common: Mr. Jackson. Although the entertainer is usually fodder for Hollywood trade publications like Variety or the glossy tabloids and gossip columns like Rush and Molloy and Page Six, it's been The Times that's been driving the story this time around, becoming the first place for all things Jacko and legitimizing the story as cultural reporting to the mainstream press, including 60 Minutes .

But on Dec. 31, Ms. Waxman reported that Mr. Jackson had "struck a deal with CBS to be paid in effect an additional $1 million" for an interview with Mr. Bradley that ran on Dec. 28. The money, she reported, was in addition to $5 million paid by CBS Entertainment for a one-hour special that was originally slated for Nov. 26, but was postponed because of the child-molestation allegations. (The special, Number Ones , eventually aired on Jan. 2.) Ms. Waxman reported that an earlier interview scheduled for February of 2003 was canceled because Mr. Jackson demanded payment that CBS wasn't willing to offer, citing confirmation from an unnamed CBS executive. The story further reported that later in the year, CBS held out on airing and paying Mr. Jackson for the show unless he agreed to sit down for an interview with CBS News.

In addition, using anonymous sources, Mr. Waxman detailed an earlier interview attempt by Ed Bradley and 60 Minutes in February 2003, in which Mr. Jackson refused to cooperate unless he was delivered the money previously agreed upon for the special.

"Michael was in his room," Ms. Waxman quoted a business associate of Mr. Jackson as having said. "Ed Bradley had set up. Basically Michael wanted to see the rest of the money. Bradley kept saying, 'Don't worry, we'll take care of it.'"

The story sent shock waves throughout CBS. Was it true? Had the network's most venerable newsmagazine show paid a tabloid celebrity to appear, as part of a bribe sweetened with a special produced by CBS's entertainment division?

Of course, the two shows were connected in one respect: As CBS spokesman Chris Ender made clear in Ms. Waxman's Times article, CBS News gained its leverage to get the Michael Jackson interview through the entertainment division. The one-hour special had been filmed before charges surfaced on Nov. 20 that Mr. Jackson had allegedly molested a young boy. CBS, Mr. Ender told Ms. Waxman for her article, "informed Mr. Jackson's people we couldn't broadcast the special if he didn't address the charges on a CBS news program."

CBS faces more than a publicity problem in the wake of the Jackson interview. Inside the organization the Times article has cast a shadow of doubt about the whole affair.

"Nobody knows what the facts are," said one producer. "I haven't really heard a full accounting in the press on the part of CBS …. I don't believe them yet because I don't think they've fleshed out their explanation."

60 Minutes staffers returning from holiday vacations found a workplace that was a heady mix of confusion, anger and skepticism about the allegations printed in The Times . If they were true, the thinking went, CBS News had lost its independence from the network's entertainment division.

"The hope is that we didn't pay anything because it's a line we've never crossed," said the producer.

In fact not everyone at 60 Minutes is so reluctant to give their side of the story. Michael Radutzky, the producer of the Michael Jackson segment, detailed in an interview what happened at the Jackson estate in February of 2003. He contradicted the claim by an unnamed source in Ms. Waxman's story that Mr. Jackson demanded money from Mr. Bradley in order for the interview to proceed, and that Mr. Bradley tried to assuage the entertainer by promising that the money would be forthcoming.

"Ed Bradley never, ever said anything to anyone suggesting, implying or stating outright that he would take care of Michael Jackson or pay any money for an interview," he said. "Categorically untrue. Did not happen."

"I was there, that's why I know, in the room," he added.

He said Mr. Bradley and the crew arrived at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 8, to set up their equipment, and were met by their contact, Mr. Jackson's lawyer, Mark Geragos, who was and continues to be Mr. Radutzky's central source with the Jackson camp. Mr. Bradley had only one conversation with Mr. Jackson, said Mr. Radutzky, and it was early in the day, before Mr. Jackson would eventually leave them hanging around for 10 hours without an interview.

"Michael Jackson briefly came out and said hello and welcomed us to his house," he said. "He went into a room and spoke very briefly with Ed and Ed told him that he would treat him fairly. And Michael Jackson started talking about a spider bite he had and Ed Bradley said he had had a spider bite, too. That was the extent of the conversation."

Mr. Jackson then bowed and left to go put on makeup, said Mr. Radutzky, and didn't return.

The CBS contingent included CBS Entertainment division executive Jack Sussman, who had drafted the original deal between Mr. Jackson and CBS for the one-hour documentary special. Mr. Sussman and the CBS News staffers waited all day for Mr. Jackson to return. One report said that Mr. Jackson received a phone call from Marlon Brando advising him against the interview, which is why it was eventually called off.

"Nobody ever confirmed that as a fact, but it was among the things being discussed among his people there," said Mr. Radutzky.

While the Times story stated that the 60 Minutes team spent two days waiting for Mr. Jackson to do the interview, a CBS spokesperson said Mr. Bradley left the next day to return to New York, while the producer Mr. Radutzky stayed in Los Angeles for a few more days.

Mr. Radutzky and other producers at 60 Minutes were adamant that their pursuit of the Jackson story was a legitimate journalistic enterprise that took place separately from any entertainment deals that Mr. Jackson may have struck with CBS. He said he'd been trying to obtain a Michael Jackson interview since 2001, when a number of TV producers had been vying for access to create a documentary about Mr. Jackson. Previously, CBS had aired a Nov. 2002 special on Mr. Jackson.

"I've been working on this since before the Bashir interview that he gave," he said, referring to the two-hour documentary, Living with Michael Jackson: A Tonight Special , that Martin Bashir made for ABC. "I was trying to get the interview for 60 Minutes and when I found out that Bashir had done the interview with him, I was surprised. And afterwards, Jackson was very pissed off about the interview and indicated that he wanted to do something with 60 and we went out there to do what we thought was going to be an interview in February."

That interview never happened, but Mr. Radutzky said he spoke with Mr. Jackson's lawyer, Mr. Geragos, "several times" after that to try and re-establish an interview. It was just a few days before Christmas when Mr. Radutzky next received a call from Mr. Geragos-he never heard from any CBS Entertainment executives, he said-that an interview was forthcoming.

It took place on Christmas night.

Was Mr. Sussman, the CBS Entertainment division executive, there at the second interview as well?

"I believe he was there for the second one," said Mr. Radutzky, but he maintained that he never had a conversation with Mr. Sussman or any other entertainment official that involved money. "All I know is I never talked about money with the Jackson camp," he said. "I didn't talk to the entertainment people about what they had on the table. All I did was pursue my story as a 60 Minutes producer."

Asked about Mr. Sussman's role in the interview, Mr. Hewitt said Mr. Sussman did not interact with his news crew. "At no time did he open his mouth," he said. "He was there but he never volunteered anything or asked a question or said anything."

The presence of a mysteriously silent CBS Entertainment executive on the set of a news show may seem odd, even confusing. And the news division's spare, official rebuttal of the Times piece does little to settle the question.

"For the record," a CBS press release said, "CBS News does not pay for interviews and did not pay Michael Jackson or anyone connected to him for this interview, directly or indirectly."

But spokespersons for CBS and for Mr. Sussman have yet to answer detailed questions about the deal, or describe how it came to be. And if the special helmed by Mr. Sussman had nothing whatsoever to do with the interview for 60 Minutes , why was Mr. Sussman present on the set for Mr. Bradley's interview?

CBS Entertainment spokesman Mr. Ender told The Observer that Mr. Sussman "was there as a CBS representative who has had a long-standing relationship with Michael Jackson and his representatives. He had no editorial role, input or involvement in the interview process whatsoever."

But what about CBS Entertainment? Could Mr. Sussman have arranged a sweeter deal for the one-hour special in order to secure the 60 Minutes interview? Mr. Sussman has said no, but provided no description of how the booking actually took place. And without a look at the contract between the entertainment division and Mr. Jackson it's hard to say whether some other arrangement between CBS Entertainment and Mr. Jackson's representatives might have "in effect" paid Mr. Jackson to appear on the CBS News program.

That confusion, said The Times ' Mr. Erlanger, was part of the story.

"To me this is one of those stories where news and show business gets confused," he said, "where the lines get blurred and that's what's interesting to me about it."

And, what's more, the sharpness and speed of the paper's reporting effort has spotlighted new priorities at the culture section under Mr. Erlanger. While The Times is no stranger to breaking entertainment news-television reporter Bill Carter broke the negotiations between ABC and David Letterman in 2002-devoting that kind of reporting focus to celebrity scandal is still pretty new; it's generally been saved for the business pages, rationalizing it as business reporting, while the paper's culture pages covered SUNY academics and chronicled internal strife at Lincoln Center.

"This is one that falls between spaces," Mr. Erlanger said. "In general, this is the kind of story I want Arts to cover. It's certainly not a police blotter story per se." Michael Jackson, he said, "is first and foremost an artist. He has a significant reputation and following. He is an important figure to big companies. And there's interest.

"You could say Britney Spears ought to be a business story, but I think the bias of coverage of Michael Jackson ought to be an arts story."

For Mr. Erlanger that has meant it's been a Sharon Waxman story. A longtime Washington Post staffer who did roughly eight years covering the Hollywood beat, Ms. Waxman was tapped as former Hollywood correspondent Rick Lyman's replacement in October 2003 after what was an extended and exhaustive search.

"She's a very welcome hire," Mr. Erlanger said. "As you know, we'd been working to fill that job for quite some time. We were eager to get an aggressive reporter who knew the landscape and had a reputation for being hard but straight."

The first of her stories on Michael Jackson plopped on page A-1 on Dec. 30. In a piece entitled "Dispute in Michael Jackson Camp Over Role of the Nation of Islam," Ms. Waxman asserted that "officials from the Nation of Islam, a separatist African-American Muslim group, have moved in with Michael Jackson and are asserting control over the singer's business affairs," citing sources among the entertainer's friends, employees and business associates. The story was denied by both official representatives of Mr. Jackson and The Final Call , the Nation of Islam's newspaper.

"It was an accurate story," Mr. Erlanger said. "It also fleshed out and made clear in a concrete fashion what had been rumored but unsubstantiated."

For her part, Ms. Waxman said that her later article, on Mr. Jackson's arrangement to appear on 60 Minutes , was accurate and used multiple sources. She said that subsequent reporting had only affirmed up her faith.

"I feel very solid on that story," she said. "All the reporting I've done since the story's been published has reinforced my reporting originally. I haven't come across any information in my reporting that's led me to believe the story's incorrect apart from the official denials."

Though Ms. Waxman spoke to executives from CBS, including Mr. Sussman, she did not receive any comment from 60 Minutes itself.

"I asked to speak to Ed Bradley," Ms. Waxman said. "I was told Ed Bradley was on vacation, and even if he was not on vacation he would not be available to be interviewed. I asked to speak to Ed Bradley's producer. I was told that he was on vacation and even if he was not he would not be available for an interview. I asked to speak to Don Hewitt. I asked to speak to anyone from 60 Minutes . I was told no one would be available for the story."

And The New York Times is not ready to stop reporting the story. "I'd like to further explore the themes I've identified," said Mr. Erlanger. "I certainly want more information: a copy of the contract. It's a very rich theme in today's United States if that doesn't sound too awful. In companies with a variety of interests it's sometimes hard to separate interests and responsibilities. Even if you think you've done a good job of separating, it's not always clear to people you want to interview, or promote or sell records for. It's a complicated topic that every big media company, including this one, has to deal with."

Four years after buying a two-acre spread north of Montauk Highway in East Hampton for $950,000, Mr. Bradley recently paid $1.35 million for the 2.77-acre place next-door.

"The property next to his became available, and he just snatched it up," said Kevin Tedesco, manager of CBS News communications, about Mr. Bradley's purchase of 8 St. Regis Court, on a tiny street that leads directly down to the Sag Harbor Bay and near land that used to belong to a summer camp.

While it doubles Mr. Bradley's privacy buffer, the acquisition is also good news for neighbors, who say Mr. Bradley brings some credibility to this northwest part of East Hampton. The locals include Donna Karan, Alec Baldwin and Sean (P. Diddy) Combs, who paid $2.7 million for a house nearby on Hedges Banks Drive, also in 1998.

Bidding-Bing, Bidding-Boom

Though North Caldwell, N.J., may be the fictional home of Tony Soprano, the show is largely filmed at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City. James Gandolfini, a.k.a. Tony Soprano, lives in a Tribeca loft. And Jersey-raised Sopranos creator David Chase, sources say, is now sniffing around a fancy Upper East Side condo.

Though an HBO spokesman for Mr. Chase would not comment, real-estate sources say that the Sopranos producer, creator and creative director has toured a three-bedroom rental apartment at 610 Park Avenue, on the market for $19,500 a month, three times this winter.

The fancy condo building, formerly the Mayfair Hotel, is a 15-story brown-brick building erected in 1925. It was converted to 40 condos in 2000 and houses the four-star restaurant Daniel in its former lobby. The chef-restaurateur Daniel Boulud keeps an apartment in the building, as does singer Luther Vandross.

Only since his show got picked up has Mr. Chase become a New Yorker. Born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., he's spent most of his life in the Garden State. The only child of an engineer turned hardware-store owner and a telephone-directory proofreader, he moved to Clifton, N.J., at the age of 5 and then to North Caldwell, the setting for his show. He majored in English at N.Y.U. but then got his master's in film at Stanford University and moved to Los Angeles in 1971, where he lived for the next 30 years writing for television.

Reports say his current address is in Gramercy Park, but sources say that may not be the case for very long.

HELL'S KITCHEN

457 West 43rd Street One-bed, one-and-a-half-bath, 1,100-square-foot co-op. Asking: $515,000. Selling: $480,000. Charges: $930; 51 percent tax-deductible. Time on the market: three weeks. WEST VILLAGE REFUGEES FIND SHELTER When the owners of a West 13th Street townhouse decided to sell the place, a couple subletting the ground-floor apartment were about to be put out on the street. "It was just a sublet, so they were allowed to do that," said Corcoran Group broker Lisa Camillieri of the owners. The almost homeless couple found another townhouse on West 43rd Street near Tenth Avenue with a ground-floor apartment for sale-this one a duplex with a garden out back. It was just like home, minus the landlord and the irresistibly sky-high resale value.

SOHO

101 Thompson Street Studio, one-bath, 400-square-foot co-op. Asking: $215,000. Selling: $226,000. Charges: $500; 50 percent tax-deductible. Time on the market: two weeks.

THE 400-SQUARE-FOOT WAR For sale: an apartment on Thompson Street, between Spring and Prince streets, $500 maintenance. What's the catch? Four hundred square feet in a fifth-floor walk-up. Ouch ! "It looks much bigger," according to Christine Nugent of Insignia Douglas Elliman. That's what they all say. The sellers, a graphic designer and an architect, had made the place livable after 10 years there. Seeing a way out of the madness in June, they put the place on the market with Ms. Nugent and started looking for a one-bedroom apartment in Tribeca. The tiny studio quickly became the center of a turf war between the owners of the one-bedroom apartment on one side of it and the owners of the two-bedroom apartment on the other. Those living in the smaller space won!

TRIBECA

41 Warren Street Two-bed, two-bath, 2,050-square-foot condo. Asking: $1.750 million. Selling: $1.525 million. Charges: $900.66. Taxes: $889.78 Time on the market: five months.

THE NEXT WAVE DOWNTOWN After a year and a half of construction-including reinforcing the whole building from the sub-basement up-seven new lofts at 41 Warren Street came on the market just before Sept. 11, only to be closed after the terrorist attack until November. At that point, said Mary Ellen Cashman of Stribling & Associates, who represented the building in this deal, the developers dropped the price of this unit-with a Viking stove, a terrace off the kitchen and a fireplace-by $200,000, to $1.75 million. An artist and a businessman bought it in early March for an additional $225,000 discount. And that doesn't factor in the additional perks they're now eligible for as new Tribecans.

On Jan. 30, 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley ticked off $950,000 for a 1.75-acre tract in the woodlands of Northwest Harbor-that's "north of the highway" and away from the beach, for those concerned with such issues. He bought the empty lot from Jonathan Canno, the former chairman of Equitable Bag Company (a 79-year-old shopping bag corporation) who is better known out on the East End for being on the board of the Hamptons International Film Festival and a founding board member of the American Foundation for AIDS Research than as the man behind the Bloomingdale's Medium Brown Bag.

Mr. Canno bought the land in 1987 for $315,000. According to Hamptons real estate watchers, he'd intended to build a house on the property, which has about 250 feet of water frontage. Instead, he bought and restored an 1867 house south of the highway and let his grassy lot sit fallow. And now, thanks to Mr. Bradley, it's harvest time.

The land is in an area known as the Settlement at Northwest Harbor, which is little traveled by the Peggy Siegal set. In fact, the closest celebrity is probably Donna Karan, who's also camped out in the woods north of the highway, but Mr. Bradley and Ms. Karan are far from being neighbors.

"It was previously undesirable," said one local of the area. "It's not what people think of when they think the Hamptons: the rolling potato fields … But that's all been ruined, anyway."

Mr. Bradley and his earring were probably after the privacy up there, even if he's now a Hamptons owner, like his co-workers Steve Kroft and Don Hewitt. Through a spokesman, Mr. Bradley had no comment.

215 East 72nd Street

Three-bed, three-bath, 2,700-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $1.395 million. Selling: $1.35 million.

Maintenance: $2,425.07; 30 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: one day.

WE'LL TAKE THE APARTMENT … AND OUR DAUGHTER WANTS TO BID ON YOUR SON

"It's been in a lot of magazines," said interior designer Mary Meeham (left, with her son, actor William McNamara) of this apartment, which she lived in for 17 years and decorated three times. "It's been in Architectural Digest twice … Redbook for a Christmas issue … some Japanese magazine that I can't even remember the name of. And the living room was in Harper's Bazaar , but the article was really about me." Her designs for Jimmy Buffett's porch-bedecked, dog-and-kid-friendly new Sag Harbor house, screenwriter William Goldman's apartment in the Carlyle Towers and a former home of Jay McInerney have also been written up. But it wasn't just the apartment's professional taste-maker burnish that impressed buyers. "When people saw her son's picture on the wall, they'd say, 'Is this her son?'" said Ms. Meeham's broker, Patricia Burnham. Broker Michele Kleier, who brought the winning bidder in that first day, said her "eligible daughter" has had a crush on Mr. McNamara since she'd seen him opposite Jodie Foster in Stealing Home . She told Ms. Burnham, "I'll sell this apartment if you'll introduce him to my daughter." ("It really did motivate me to sell the apartment," Ms. Kleier said.) And she did. Then Ms. Meeham didn't much want to leave the place, but she realized how much other people wanted her to go. "I had someone in the building who was willing to pay $100,000 to break up the deal," Ms. Meeham said. "He'd gotten $1.6 [million] for his, and he wanted mine because it was bigger." But she didn't undo the original deal. Nor did she kick in her son. Broker: Patricia S. Burnham Inc. (Patricia Burnham); Gumley Haft Kleier Inc. (Michele Kleier).

1 East 62nd Street

One-bed, one-bath, 900-square-foot prewar condo.

Asking: $590,000. Selling: $590,000.

Charges: $980. Taxes: $460.

Time on the market: three months.

HEMINGWAY'S WAR ROOM

"Hemingway lived there," said broker Art Irwin of this 1890 mansion-carved-into-apartments. "Maybe in this apartment, or maybe in the one above it.… It's where he wrote 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro.'" The house was built for railroad magnate Samuel Spencer. He was a Confederate soldier and a friend of J.P. Morgan; he died in 1906. His widow donated the house to Columbia University, which cut it into apartments in 1930 and then sold them off as condos in 1986. (There's still a picture of her in the lobby. "She looks a bit like Evita Peron," reports Mr. Irwin.) The apartment that was just sold is in the rear of the building, affording a view of the neighbor's slate roofs and a courtyard owned by a nearby foundation. There's a fireplace and 14-foot ceilings, but it's not a grandiose space (the apartments in the house's old public rooms in the front are fancier). "It's open, quiet and reasonably sunny," said Mr. Irwin. The place was something of a wallflower for a few months, but in the end there was a bidding war. You heard the broker: Papa slept here. Broker: Halstead Property Company (Art Irwin).

1 West 72nd Street (Dakota)

One-bed, one-bath, 1,150-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $750,000. Selling: $725,000.

Maintenance: $2,695; 49 percent tax-deductible

Time on the market: four years.

LUCKILY, THE PRESIDENT'S ALREADY BEEN BY ASKING FOR MONEY

For all you students of the Dakota, this apartment sits in the upper-left-hand corner of the building when you look at it from Central Park. Inside, because it's on the top residential floor, "you can see some of the curves of the roof line" in addition to the park, the broker explained. It is still the most popularly celebrated apartment building in the city. (Even if Graydon Carter has abandoned ship for Bank Street, Yoko Ono's still there, and don't forget Maury Povich and Connie Chung, Lauren Bacall and The Observer 's own Rex Reed.) "Boris Karloff used to live there," said broker Kevin Rusty of this apartment. Since the Dakota is divided into four quadrants, there's only one other apartment on the floor. And the building is busy bringing the flues up to current building codes, at which point this apartment will have a wood-burning fireplace again. The sellers put the apartment on the market four years ago, but were in no hurry. The price has fluctuated as they have wavered on whether to sell or not. Architectural and pop-cultural significance notwithstanding, the sellers got serious when they found a lot more space: They've moved to a five-story town house on the Upper East Side. Broker: Bellmarc Realty (Kevin Rusty); Ashforth Warburg Associates.