The crowd at the Society for Ethical Culture included former New York Times colleagues—Joe Lelyveld, Marcia Chambers, Linda Amster, Paul Goldberger, Mary Breasted, Mike Leahy, Clyde Haberman and Stephanie Lane; pundits like Katrina vanden Heuvel and Eric Alterman; 60's activists like Curtis Gans, and fellow white water adventurers like Carol Bellamy, Ellen Fleysher and Victor and Sarah Kovner.

The festivities began with a slide show (set to songs by the Rock Bottom Remainders) showing the writer-activist at every age, posing with everyone from Bill Clinton to Bill Moyers. The shot of her sporting a Fox News hat got the biggest laugh from the three hundred fans who had gathered to remember her.

Maya Angelou recalled how startled she was when she first met Molly and realized she was six feet tall.

“I knew she was white,” said Ms. Angelou. “I didn’t know she was so much white!” Nevertheless, Molly immediately dubbed the two of them “twins separated at birth.”

Ms. Angelou said there was only one source of frustration: every time she tried to introduce anyone to the magnificent Molly Ivins, she discovered that they were already old friends.

New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin remembered columns that could make you “laugh out loud”: “if a certain Congressman’s IQ dropped any further he’d have to be watered twice a day,” or the one about the Texas gubernatorial candidate who was “so afraid of getting AIDS while visiting San Francisco that when he was in the shower he wore shower caps on her feet.”

Mr. Trillin said her loyalty had “no bounds and no statute of limitations ... Reporters visiting Texas on a political story got from Molly not resentment about intrusion on her turf but a jolly welcome.”

Sitting in the audience, Joe Lelyveld echoed that memory: “She was just so incredibly generous,” said the former executive editor of the Times. “When I was writing a column for the Times magazine, she sent me a letter with the names of fifty people I should meet in Texas.”

Molly was my good friend for more than 30 years. When I moved to Paris a few years ago, Molly happened to be living there for a month. It was right after 9/11, and she insisted on meeting me on the street, outside my new apartment, to help me get five huge suitcases and a bicycle up the stairs. After coffee at a nearby cafe, she issued me one sleeping pill and sent me to bed for six hours. Then I met her on the Ile de la Cité for a magnificent Paris dinner. No one had had a warmer welcome since Americans troops reached the City of Light in 1944.

John Leonard described Ivins’ work as “an amphetamine rush of Rabelais, Mark Twain, Lily Tomlin, Lenny Bruce and Jeremiah - whether she was writing about George Bush, Clarence Thomas, country music or the White Trash Hall of Fame...Politics was the normal respiration of her intelligence. She never stopped being both funny and furious...The most important words she ever wrote were these:

Ivins was a digger and a thinker; she was fearless and selfless, and she was phenomenally focused. There were only three things she cared about: journalism, activism and friendship. And the way she kept the faith made her both a model and a reproach. A model because she lived to afflict the powerful and comfort the powerless; a reproach because she kept on writing and talking and fighting for the causes we had all embraced in the 1960's, long after most us had rechanneled our energies into much more selfish pursuits. “She gave her tired friends the goose to go on after we had abandoned hope,” said Mr. Leonard.

SHE EXCELLED AT THE MOST important test for every pundit: she was right more often about the vital issues of our time than almost any other columnist. This is how she warned against the consequences of a Bush presidency in the introduction to one of her books:

Calvin Trillin recalled Paul Krugman’s a column immediately after Ivins’ death. Mr. Krugman cited these examples of the Texan’s extraordinary prescience:

"So,” Mr. Krugman concluded, “Molly Ivins -- who didn't mingle with the great and famous, didn't have sources high in the administration, and never claimed special expertise on national security or the Middle East -- got almost everything right. Meanwhile, how did those who did have all those credentials do? With very few exceptions, they got everything wrong.”

The most poignant moments were provided by Eden Lipson, a former Times colleague and one of Ivins’ closest friends.

“A few years ago I finally realized that it was us, the cosmopolitan New Yorkers in the media capitol, with our literary and political gossip and hermetic chattering who were, in fact, provincial,” said Ms. Lipson. “ Molly was the one who saw America large and clear, who out-reported the mainstream media from Austin, who had a balanced and ultimately optimistic view of the world. Molly’s generosity was legendary, but in addition, she was brave. She went on book tours two and half times while on chemotherapy.”

Ms. Lipson was also diagnosed with cancer last year. Before it went into remission, Ivins came to visit her at the hospital. This is what she told her friend:

“Understanding mortality is entirely personal and won’t know it until you face it. The cancer will probably kill you in the end, but moving ahead, do as much as you can . . . until you can’t.”

“And then it’s okay to let go.”

best line: "I’m proud that she gives herself the authority to be in her own skin. To be who she is."

It seems like the Clinton campaign is lining up the poetvote.

Mr. Weinstein is making the move because he has found a new home on Central Park West. As New York magazine's Intelligencer reported this week, Mr. Weinstein is purchasing a tower apartment at the Beresfordfor $12.75 million. A spokesperson for Mr. Weinstein confirmed the purchase, but declined to comment on the price.

For several decades, until about 12 years ago, the 4,500-square-foot apartment at 131 East 66th Street belonged to the Rothschild family. Mr. Weinstein made his purchase in December 2001 for $5.25 million.

The 10th- and 11th-floor apartment has five bedrooms and five baths, a double-height living room with lavishly detailed tapestry walls, a formal dining room, multiple wood-burning fireplaces and an entire unit on the first floor envisioned specifically for maid's quarters.

The co-op board at 131 East 66th, located at the corner of Lexington Avenue, is generally considered to be among the most exclusive in the city. Several years ago, the board rejected fashion designer Carolyne Roehm. One broker told The Observer in 2001 that Ms. Roehm, who wrote a monthly column in House Beautiful , was too high-profile.

Perhaps that's why Mr. Weinstein made it past the board without any major snags. Unlike his more outspoken brother, Harvey, Bob Weinstein prefers a low profile and goes out of his way to shun publicity. His broker at Stribling and Associates declined to comment on either sale.

MAYA ANGELOU FLIES WEST END COOP

Now that poet laureate Maya Angelou is settling into her new townhouse on West 120th Street, she apparently has no need for the West End Avenue co-op that she's been renting for the last five years or so. So, earlier this month, the owner of Ms. Angelou's two-bedroom rental unit at 473 West End Avenue put the apartment up for sale for $1.25 million.

Ms. Angelou was apparently an honored guest at the building. While most cooperatives don't allow renters to stay on at the building for longer than two years, the co-op board at 473 West End made an exception in her case.

"They allowed her to stay because of her stature," said a source close to the deal. A representative for the building's managing agent, Melohn Properties, said decisions like that are made by the board on a case-by-case basis.

Ms. Angelou's old leased apartment is a 1,700-square-foot unit with three exposures, an eat-in kitchen and formal dining room. Listing broker Maddy Tyree of Douglas Elliman declined to comment. Her new home in Harlem is a much grander affair. During the spring of 2002, Ms. Angelou paid $435,000 for the 19-foot-wide townhouse that was then little more than a hollow shell. She spent most of the next year renovating it, and just finished earlier this summer. Ms. Angelou showcased her work on the cover of the Aug. 7 edition of the New York Times House and Home section. Ms. Angelou also owns another townhouse on East 129th Street that she bought in November of 2001 for $275,000 and which, sources tell The Observer , she now rents out.

THE MAN WHO BOUGHT ELLIMAN FOR $80 M. LISTS FIVE ROOMS AT SHERRY FOR $4.85

UPPER EAST SIDE

Real-estate investor Howard Lorber has put his tower apartment at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on the market for $4.85 million. Mr. Lorber's personal divestment comes on the heels of what was perhaps the largest investment of his professional career. Mr. Lorber is the president and chief operating officer of New Valley Corporation, which owned 50 percent of Prudential Long Island Realty when Prudential purchased Douglas Elliman. The $80 million deal, with Prudential's Dottie Herman at the helm, created the largest residential brokerage company in the New York metropolitan area.

As you might expect, Mr. Lorber has employed the services of the newly created Prudential Douglas Elliman to market his tower apartment.

The Sherry-Netherland, located at 781 Fifth Avenue at the corner of 59th Street, is one of the city's most storied residential buildings. Mr. Lorber's unit sits on the tower's 17th floor, and he just completed a major renovation of the apartment in a traditional style. The five-room co-op has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and offers sweeping views of Central Park. Mr. Lorber was traveling and unavailable for comment. Listing broker Dolly Lenz of Prudential Douglas Elliman declined to comment.

RECENT TRANSACTIONS IN THE REAL ESTATE MARKET

UPPER EAST SIDE

538 East 84th Street

Two-bedroom, two-bathroom co-op and studio.

Asking: $800,000. Selling: $782,500.

Maintenance: $1,609; 67 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: four days.

DOWNTOWN GIRL The single mom who just sold this apartment runs an advertising company, and the majority of her clients ran businesses in the mall underneath the World Trade Center. When the Sept. 11 attack almost completely wiped out her business, rather than flee the city in response, she embraced the neighborhood and is currently renting an apartment in lower Manhattan. The apartment she left behind on the Upper East Side was originally two studios and a one-bedroom. She combined one of the studios and the one-bedroom unit to make a 1,200-square-foot two-bedroom unit. The other studio unit-which she bought along with the other two-was, and still is, occupied by a gentleman in his 80's. He's still working as a journalist at a Long Island news organization, and sales agent Debra Hoffman of the Corcoran Group said she spotted a Pulitzer Prize on the gentleman's desk. It was apparently a group award, of which he was a part. The journo has no intention of moving out any time soon, but that's no problem for the contractor who bought the two-bedroom and studio package. He's a single guy and doesn't mind waiting a long time for a vacancy before he combines the units into a 1,700-square-foot spread. The first-floor apartments open out onto a private 1,200-square-foot garden, and the two-bedroom unit has 11-foot ceilings, a designer cook's kitchen, new custom lighting and custom shelving. The new buyer is currently installing a Koi pond in the backyard, which he will fill with large goldfish. Sharon Held of the Corcoran Group represented the buyer.

GRAMERCY

230 East 18th Street

One-bedroom, one-bathroom co-op.

Asking: $639,000. Selling: $630,000.

Maintenance: $455; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: one week.

THE MAJORS Elyse Pasquale, 27, designs Web pages for an eclectic bunch of rockers like Kate Pierson of the B-52's and David Bowie's bassist, Gail Ann Dorsey. For the last few years, the stylish designer has been living in the funky East Village, on Third Street between Avenues B and C, but she recently decided to go a little more mainstream with her living accommodations. "She wanted a little less indie-rock and little more major-label," said Douglas Wagner, president of Benjamin James Real Estate, which represented Ms. Pasquale. Ms. Pasquale now finds herself the owner of this 1,000-square-foot triplex unit, whose previous owner-for some 30 years-was an empty-nest mother. She had given the first-floor kitchen area a high-end makeover, with custom cabinets and Sub-Zero appliances; the second-floor living room area has custom-made shelves; and the third-floor bedroom has a bathroom with Spanish tiles. Makeba Lloyd of Benjamin James represented Ms. Pasquale on the deal.

GREENWICH VILLAGE

2 Horatio Street

One-bedroom, one-bathroom co-op.

Asking: $545,000. Selling: $525,000.

Maintenance: $1,037; 57 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: three months.

From the Hip Most sellers leave the marketing of their apartments to the professionals. But the last owner of this Horatio Street co-op, an artistic-minded woman, decided to pitch in herself, and her marketing savvy snagged a fellow art connoisseur as a buyer. The seller, a single woman who was until recently a vice president at the former AOL Time Warner, thought the best way to showcase her apartment would be to highlight its backyard garden and its location in the heart of the West Village. Accordingly, at her open house she put out pieces of chocolate from Chocolate Bar, a neighborhood sweets store; she put out local maps to show the apartment's proximity to nearby galleries and points of interest; and she brought in fresh flowers to ring her unit's interior. "People were buying the idea of the apartment," said exclusive agent Sandra Balan of Douglas Elliman. "It was almost like Alice in Wonderland , falling through the door and getting caught up." The winning bid on the apartment went to a woman who works for a downtown art gallery. "She instinctively fell in love with the apartment," said Ms. Balan. "The way the seller had decorated, it was total West Village–hip cool."

A real-estate source involved with the building said Mr. Corzine bought the apartment with the intent to live there. But in February 1999, Mr. Corzine announced that he would run for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey. (He and his wife raised three kids in Summit.) The Park Avenue move was put on hold when he started his Senate bid, but, the source said, Mr. Corzine would have lived there had he lost. He spent $60 million on his successful campaign and took office in January 2000; his apartment went on the market a few weeks later for $21 million. That price was reduced to $19.5 million in April.

On Aug. 3, the Corzines signed a contract to sell the 11-room penthouse, which was held in Ms. Corzine's name, for about $18 million to Alan Meltzer, the 56-year-old chairman and chief executive of Wind-Up Records, a New York-based independent label, and former CD wholesaler and record retailer. His wife Diana, 56, is a vice president at Wind-Up; she discovered Creed.

On Sept. 7, Mr. Meltzer said that he and his wife had spent the summer shopping for a new condo on the Upper East Side. Their deal on Mr. Corzine's apartment was final in late August; they haven't put their current apartment on the market yet.

The11-roomduplex, on the 32nd and 33rd floors of 515 Park, features four bedrooms, five-and-a-half bathrooms, a 600-square-foot living room, a wood-burning fireplace and a terrace. (Common charges are $5,300, and taxes are $7,700.)

Mr. Corzine didn't return calls for comment. But an aide at his Newark, N.J., office said the Senator, whose only home in New York at the moment is "a vacation house" in East Hampton, had no plans to buy another Manhattan apartment.

THE HARLEM PROBLEM: PLENTY OF BUYERS, NOT ENOUGH LAWYERS

Fifty-eight West 120th Street is not a remarkable building, though the 1890's house stands on a pretty block, west of Mount Morris Park and east of Lenox Avenue, that has become popular in the Harlem real-estate boom. None other than Maya Angelou, poet laureate of black America, has laid out a $10,000 deposit toward buying the three-story house. But so far, a bureaucratic tangle over ownership has left the deal in limbo. Unfortunately, the house's situation has become an old story in the new Harlem.

As of 1996, the house was owned by Evelyn Mardenborough, who, neighbors said, was proud of the place and maintained it nicely for decades, raising her children there. But when she passed away that year, she left no will, and the building passed by default into the hands of Ms. Mardenborough's troubled daughter, Melanie Allen.

"It became a full-on crack house," said one neighbor of the property. Newspapers reported an epidemic of drug-related violence on West 120th Street in 1996, and in 1998, Ms. Allen served a six-month sentence for the sale and possession of a controlled substance.

Neighbors wrote letters to city and federal government officials, hoping someone would clear out the building and sell it to someone who could take care of it. Before long, they had their wish: The building was shuttered in 1998.

Now the property is listed in the city register under the ownership of Selwyn Roberts, the proprietor of the Harlem real-estate management company S R Realty Group Inc. "I bought it from the owner of the property, Melanie Allen," said Mr. Roberts, who refused to comment any further. The sale was recorded by the city in May 2000 for $130,000.

Ms. Allen could not be reached for comment. But Letitia Oliver, a friend of Ms. Allen who said she has power of attorney for her, still holds a deed for the property in her friend's name. "She never signed anything," Ms. Oliver said. "We'll fight this."

The confusion spreads to the city. According to Department of Finance spokesman Jim Moses, "We can't tell you who owns the property." Mr. Moses referred callers to the city's Department of Investigation, where spokesman Patrick Clark said the city department investigates "allegations of wrongdoing involving city agencies."

However, after "running this question up the flagpole," Mr. Clark said he could not comment on the building or confirm that it was the subject of any investigation. "We don't comment on pending investigations, even to say that there is one," he explained. According to Mr. Clark, the Department of Investigation looks into complaints about city officials and oversees inspectors in the Department of Buildings, who have the power to draw up deeds on property for owners who can prove their identity and are listed in the city register as the owner of record.

The issue had not been raised until Ms. Angelou first saw 58 West 120th Street with Mr. Roberts and Terry Lane, the president of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, who is widely credited with bringing former President Bill Clinton to the neighborhood. Ms. Angelou "fell in love with the place," according to one broker who was at the building at the time. As recently as two weeks ago, another broker trying to get Ms. Angelou to consider another property was rebuffed. She "won't give up on it," the broker said. (Ms. Angelou did not return calls to her office at Wake Forest University, where she is the Reynolds Professor of American Studies.)

There is no indication, however, of when 58 West 120th Street will be eligible to be sold to anyone–a problem which, according to Harlem real-estate brokers and lawyers, has become a frequent headache in the Harlem real-estate market.

Lawyer Christina Lee, who has lived in Harlem for more than 20 years, specializes in intellectual-property law, but has made real-estate law a big part of her practice because people in the neighborhood have needed her help so often. She said that only recently is the extent of the paperwork problems with Harlem properties becoming clear, since they're changing hands at such an accelerated rate. "Because the stock has been in the same hands for a long time, it may be 40 or 50 or 60 years since a title report has been brought out," she said.

The most frequent problem has to do with wills: As the generation that bought houses in Harlem in the 1930's passes away, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews are taking de facto control of properties that have never actually been willed or deeded to them. According to broker Willie Kathryn Suggs, who owns an eponymous brokerage in Harlem, establishing the ownership of a building before the sale is a frequent challenge in the area. "We don't have the same kinds of clean deals up here that you may have downtown," said Ms. Suggs. "The average seller is living in the house 30 years, and half the time you think you have something solid and you don't."

In one case, Ms. Suggs was going through a single-family townhouse with a seller when she noticed three gas meters in the basement. Later, her suspicions were confirmed: The house had been converted into a multi-unit dwelling and then back into a single-family home, all without the benefit of legal counsel. "The certificate of occupancy didn't match the building," Ms. Suggs said, which would add another negative–loads of paperwork–to the buyer's burden.

In another case, she was on her way to selling a Harlem townhouse when she discovered the owner was dead. The son's family had taken over the place, but there had never been a will. "That house wasn't going anywhere," Ms. Suggs said.

Buyers, brokers said, can incur thousands of dollars in legal fees to get these matters cleared up, on top of whatever renovation costs may be necessary. And in Harlem these days, huge renovations are the norm.

Still, Harlem real estate is hot, and more and more property is being rehabilitated and put on the market, thanks in large part to city and federal programs over the last few years that have provided incentives for local developers to fix up delinquent properties. The city has been divesting itself of properties acquired from tax-delinquent owners in Harlem by selling them through a series of programs. Under one, spearheaded by the Giuliani administration in late 1999, the city reduced the number of delinquent properties it owned in Harlem from 615 to 45. In the 1970's, 65 percent of all Harlem property was owned by the city. That number has now been reduced to less than 10 percent.

Ms. Suggs and Vie Wilson, a vice president at the Corcoran Group who started selling Harlem real estate 15 years ago, say programs like these have provided them with lots of business. And the rampant publicity the neighborhood has received since Bill Clinton moved into his offices on 125th Street has only added to the commotion.

"It was happening before Bill Clinton even thought about being up there," said Ms. Wilson. "It's been building up for the last couple of years, and it's continuing to do so because still, overall, it's the only location in Manhattan which is still virtually affordable."

And Maya Angelou isn't the only big name shopping in the neighborhood. Ms. Wilson and others said they have been showing houses to Cece Peniston, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Don Williams, DMX and Roberta Flack, all of whom have recently bought or are looking for a house in Harlem.

CHELSEA

DEALER'S PRIZE ANTIQUE: 6,000 SQUARE FEET FOR 'A COUPLE' MILLION Twenty years ago, Niall Smith, an Irish antiques dealer with ash hair and white eyebrows, moved into a 2,000-square-foot loft at 150 West 26th Street. About a month ago, the building went condo, and Mr. Smith was able to buy his apartment–plus the two other apartments on his floor–for "a couple million," giving him a total of 6,000 square feet.

Mr. Smith's new apartment, in a building that had once been a sweatshop, still had holes in the concrete floor where sewing machines had been bolted down. Although he let the space remain industrial-looking–there are no moldings on the walls, the concrete floors have not been covered with wood and the sprinkler system is still visible on the ceiling–he filled the space with Biedermeier furniture, circa 1815 to 1835, one of his areas of expertise. "It is a very primitive space done in high style, with very high-style furniture and objects," he said. "A Biedermeier loft completely taken over by books."

Mr. Smith, who owns a store on Bleecker Street called–what else?–Niall Smith, is a big advocate of decorating with books. "It is the only way to put a personal stamp on an apartment," he said. In fact, when Mr. Smith joins his current apartment with a second one, he'll add a space to store his books. "I need the room to accommodate my library," he said. Work has already begun on that renovation.

Mr. Smith said he'll rent out the third apartment fully furnished. "I will probably do one room Biedermeier, one room Irish, one room English and one contemporary." It will have two bedrooms, a large living space and, of course, a library.

UPPER EAST SIDE

1020 Park Avenue

Four-bed, four-bath, 3,000-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $3.9 million. Selling: $3.85 million.

Charges: $3,870; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: eight weeks.

LADY LEAVES HER TARA TO A STARTER FAMILY The seller of this giant apartment had created a duplex out of two high-floor apartments in this postwar building on Park Avenue at 85th Street nine years ago. The results, according to broker Linda Homler-Ferber of Douglas Elliman, were impressive. "She kept updating it," said Ms. Homler-Ferber. "And she had kept it in great condition." On the first level, the foyer leads to a corner living room with a wood-burning fireplace and many windows, and then a formal dining room with its own terrace. Also on that floor are an eat-in kitchen, a library, two bathrooms and a maid's quarters. Upstairs are four bedrooms, two more bathrooms and a den with a wood-burning fireplace, a wet bar and an entrance onto another wraparound terrace. "Everybody who looked at this apartment told me you felt like you were in a house," Ms. Homler-Ferber said. And with four exposures on two high floors, "it is as bright as a New York apartment can be." A young couple, planning to have children and eager to settle down in one place that would be a lasting home, won the apartment over multiple bidders. This co-op likes families. Said Ms. Homler-Ferber: "Some co-ops these days want to interview the kids, you know." This one doesn't, though apparently it's anxious for the new owners to have some.

MIDTOWN

10 Park Avenue

One-bed, one-bath, 850-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $499,000. Selling: $460,000.

Charges: $795; 45 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: one day.

THE PEPSI CHALLENGE A young Pepsi executive came to an open house at this building near 34th Street in June, but the apartment didn't have a big enough living area. Luckily, listing brokers Garret Turnbull and Brian Rice of the Corcoran Group had just run into a guy in the lobby who'd suggested they show his apartment to anyone looking for something a little different. The guy owns a studio in the building as well as this one-bedroom apartment with a sunken living room, which he'd decided not to bother renovating. It turned out the Pepsi lady was up for the renovation. "She loved the step-down living room, and even though the other apartment was in excellent condition, she really enjoyed this one," said Mr. Turnbull. The sale was negotiated within a week.