By Kim Velsey 4/10/12 9:35am

Rent Checks

4 Photos

Qaddafi's preferred pied-a-terre

Yours For $30,000 A Month: The UES Townhouse Coveted By Muammar Qaddafi

Dictators tend to be clear about what they like and what they don’t. Besides nukes and Fiats, Col. Muammar Qaddafi very much liked the gilded-age mansion at 5 East 78th Street.

The now-dead Libyan dictator was never able to call the Upper East Side townhouse home after being rebuffed by broker Jason Haber in 2009, but the extravagant space is now back on the market as a $30,000 per month rental.

But don’t let the apartment’s near run-in with a repressive regime dissuade you. It’s no wonder Qaddafi took a a liking to this place! Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/24/11 6:47pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

wheels-fiatlibya-blog480

Why the Fiat 500 Isn’t Perfect for America: It’s the Qaddafi Car!

After taking it for a spin around the city and surmising the Fiat 500 is the new “it” car for New York, The Observer found out it might even be the perfect car for all of America. Why? Because the 500 is the Obama car, as one Fiat specialist in the Manhattan studio put it to us. He called it just about the most patriotic car you could buy. Turns out, that might not be the case, depending on where you factor in human rights with fuel economy and color when buying a new car. Read More

By The Editors 8/24/11 8:07am

Opening Shot

The Earth Has Us Quaking in Our Boots

Is it just us, or do things seem a little shaky lately? And no, we’re not just talking about the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Virginia around 2 p.m. on Tuesday, sending out shock waves that gently rocked New York City and taught us that East Coast disaster response is largely limited to Tweeting ironically and wondering aloud if we should order in lunch. Toss in Hurricane Irene gaining on Florida’s shores, microscopic brain-eating amoebas lurking in our lakes and ponds (the Contagion marketing has really gotten out of hand, Warner Bros.) and Gerard Depardieu’s making headlines for using an aircraft cabin as a urinal, we’re pretty sure Harold Camping is kicking himself right about now. Read More

By Sharon Elizabeth Samuel 3/25/11 5:57pm

Qaddafi Talk

Schumer Cautions Against Expanding Role in Libya

After a press conference on Pell Grants this morning–in which he declared “evil” the Republican proposals to cut them–Senator Charles Schumer reiterated his support for a Libyan campaign that is “limited in scope and in time.”

“We have two goals,” Schumer said. “The first is the humanitarian goal of preventing Muammar Qaddafi from rolling in Read More

By The Editors 3/22/11 11:59pm

Opener

That'll Do, Week, That'll Do

“French warplanes” is a phrase you don’t hear too often, so when we read it on the front page of The New York Times on Sunday, we knew it was time for another friendly invasion, or at least the punishing imposition of another no-fly zone, which given the deployment of the notoriously non-bellicose French pilots, Read More