“It’s good to be home,” LL Cool J told a room full of bloggers on Tuesday night. He was hosting a Father’s Day event along with Bing, the Microsoft-powered search engine that hopes to give Google a run for their money. (The Observer took the Bing Challenge, and shockingly, Bing won).
Dressed in a fitted Read More
David Yurman’s Madison Avenue townhouse, which displayed his newest collection for ogling in honor of the GLAAD Media Awards, is beige. Waiter, models, or waiter-models in black swooped around the glass jewelry displays brandishing tuna tartar on tiny bites of toast, and GLAAD co-chairs welcomed participants as they filed inside, heading straight for the champagne at the far wall. Read More
Last night, Aby Rosen threw another one of his fancy fetes at the mansion he owns, but does not occupy, at 22 East 71st Street. Mr. Rosen bought the former Salander O’Reilly gallery in 2004 for $15.65 million. He spent a not inconsiderable amount of money on renovating it back into a home, though there is still much work to be done, particularly on the upper floors, for the place to feel truly homey.
Still, the central staircase, faced in warm marble, has to be one of the finest in the city, reason enough to put the place back on the market, as Mr. Rosen did in 2008. The blushing price was $75 million, the most anyone dared to ask for a home at the time. And there it has sat ever since. Though the place, now asking a mere $50 million, has been far from quiet. Read More
(HIGH PRICED) SEX AND THE CITY
Gracing the covers of New York City’s finest tabloid newspapers this morning is the story of The Housewife Madam, Anna Gristina, who—when she wasn’t shuttling her kids around to band practice—was allegedly running a millionaires-only Upper East Side high-priced hooker ring. Apparently, she had an accomplice: one Jaynie Baker, a 30-year-old Williamsburg resident who was employed by a matchmaking service (“VIP Life“) out of Union Square, who is now being sought for questioning by the NYPD.
The New York Observer can now conclusively report what Ms. Baker does in her spare time: Hang out at New York Observer parties. Read More
Though the Islamic Wing of the Met (or more specifically, the Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia—say that three times fast) opened in October, there’s no reason for young people not to fête the new galleries five months hence.
The event, dubbed “An Oasis at Read More
The publisher of a 10-year-old Jewish periodical that is no longer in print still has plenty of things to worry about.
“Are the knishes kosher?” one partygoer kvetched to Heeb magazine’s David Kelsey last week, before sinking her teeth into the uninviting clump of potato.
“They’re kosher, but not Glatt kosher,” said Kelsey, as the guest scurried off to nosh.
Mr. Kelsey has been running Heeb for the past two years, as it transitioned to a purely digital product. The magazine’s niche has leaned toward young secular Jews since New York Times scribe Jennifer Bleyer founded it in 2002. One year later, publisher Joshua Neuman refashioned it to encompass an entire lifestyle of ironic urban living. Read More
Tonight is Rosh Hashanah, the holiday that rings in the New Year on the Jewish calendar…which is why we’re surprised that there aren’t more splashy media parties celebrating the event here in New York. While it’s not entirely true that all of the media is owned by five Jewish Bankers (who are all probably distracted Read More
Dana Karwas had two images mind as she set about planning her 30th birthday party. It was to be the first grand celebration of her life. One image was the scene at the end of Fellini’s 8½, when a small brass band does a brief march on an Italian beach. Another was a persistent daydream Read More
