"I went through some stuff," said Mr. O'Brien. "And I got very depressed at times. It was like a marriage breaking up suddenly, violently, quickly. And I was just trying to figure out what happened."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFMtQ5UKz-I&feature=related

Today, CBS News released a few tidbits from Mr. O'Brien's interview with Steve Kroft.

At one point, Mr. O'Brien tells Mr. Kroft that (surprise, surprise) he would have handled the whole Tonight Show clusterfuck much differently than Mr. Leno: 

He went and took that show back and I think in a similar situation, if roles had been reversed, I know--I know me, I wouldn't have done that...If I had surrendered The Tonight Show and handed it over to somebody publicly and wished them well-- and then…six months later.  But that's me, you know.  Everyone's got their own, you know, way of doing things.

In his nice New Orleans drawl, Mr. Lewis said that this banker lost Morgan Stanley about $9 billion. “More than any single trader has ever lost in the history of Wall Street. And no one knows his name.”

They do now. Thanks mostly to that interview and Mr. Lewis’ The Big Short, a kind of recession-era sequel to his Wall Street classic Liar’s Poker, Howie Hubler has become an unwitting icon of the financial crisis. Even though he made a shrewd bet against subprime loans, he offset it by gambling hugely on slightly better mortgages that turned out to be extraordinarily worthless. Nevertheless, he left the bank with several million dollars, the book says, retiring to New Jersey with an unlisted telephone number.

A Wall Street villain’s story line, just like a comic-book bad guy’s, has distinct scenes. There’s the early decency, the sour turn, the grand act, the escape and then the disappearance. But what sometimes comes afterward, a quiet return, can be the most dramatic of all.

“I ONLY KNOW HIM as a good person. And I’m sure he’ll come out on top, basically, because of who he is. But it’s hard to analyze his world,” said the banker’s father, a New Jersey real estate broker named Howard Hubler Jr. His son is technically Howard Hubler III. “The other guy was the toughest of the three. He died at 97, and I never got a word in.”

The Wall Street son is tough, too. A former Montclair State College football player, he’s described in The Big Short as “loud and headstrong and bullying,” the type to react to any intellectual criticism of his trades by telling the critic to get the hell out of his face.

But what’s a personality quirk when you’re a top Morgan Stanley bond trader? He was good at what he did, and he was smart. By the end of 2004, he was skeptical of the subprime mortgage business, and craved new ways to bet against it. He found Morgan Stanley customers willing to sell him credit default swaps on pools of subprime mortgage loans, which, though there are many poetic ways of putting this, was like taking out an awesome insurance policy on a house you’ve built in quicksand.

But the economy’s fall took a while to begin, which was a problem for Mr. Hubler—who in April 2006 was put in charge of his own Morgan Stanley hedge fund, called the Global Proprietary Credit Group. To make up for the millions of dollars that it cost to carry his subprime bets until the bad times hit, he sold insurance on slightly better mortgages. He wagered on a disaster he clearly saw coming, and then against a worse disaster he was blind to—agreeing to insure the house next door, prettier but in the same sand. And because insuring something that’s less risky is less lucrative, he had to sell several times the amount of swaps that he himself had bought.

Before the fall, The Big Short reports, Mr. Hubler’s group felt offended when Morgan Stanley’s chief risk officer ordered tests to see what might happen to their bets if defaults caused losses of 10 percent to their subprime pool, which they thought would never happen. The coming drop was four times worse. The New York Times said his wagers cost Morgan Stanley $10 billion. Bank head John Mack called it “embarrassing for me, for our firm.”

“What happened to Howie Hubler?” Steve Kroft asked this month on 60 Minutes.

“He’s allowed to resign from Morgan Stanley and he takes with him millions of dollars in back pay,” Mr. Lewis answers. “Tens of millions of dollars in back pay.”

BUT LIFE GOES ON for fallen Wall Street executives. Lehman’s ex-CFO Erin Callan reportedly spends a lot of time at an East Hampton spinning studio; Bear Stearns’ Jimmy Cayne is said to be playing a lot of bridge; and Merrill Lynch’s Stan O’Neal sits on the board of a massive aluminum maker. Meanwhile, former top mortgage brokers like Jack Soussana have started loan modification companies that charge upfront fees to borrowers in exchange for a promise to get lenders to lower payments. “I’m not a shady person,” he told The Times last year. “We just changed the script and changed the product we were selling.”

Across the Hudson River, in an office suite in Rumson, N.J., Mr. Hubler has quietly slipped back into the mortgage business. According to marketing materials, he started a firm with former Morgan Stanley colleagues to advise mortgage lenders whose borrowers are threatening to walk away from homes that are worth less than what’s owed on them.

They’re called the Loan Value Group.

Last month, the company announced a patent-pending program that promises cash rewards to homeowners if they stay and fully pay off their mortgages. “It is no different from me putting $20,000 in a sack on a kitchen table and saying, ‘This is your money,’” Frank Pallotta, the firm’s executive vice president, and a former Morgan Stanley banker, told me this week. “I can’t talk through numbers. But we’ve signed up many. We’re live and we’re rolling.”

Mr. Hubler’s firm also includes his old proprietary trading squad’s executive director. “Default is rational for many borrowers: While they forfeit their home, they rid themselves of a mortgage liability of even greater value,” its Web site says, referring to the millions of American households who owe more on their homes than the homes are worth. One in four residences with a mortgage is currently underwater in this country.

Loan Value Group charges fees to lenders in exchange for organizing a reward that provides incentive for homeowners not to default. Because simply leaving can make financial sense, the company says, the solution is to target a borrower’s pocketbook.

Mr. Hubler would not speak for this article. “He’s pretty much adamant about not talking about this,” a spokesperson said. Neither would Richard Santulli, the company’s newly appointed chairman, who was CEO of the fractional aircraft ownership company NetJets until last August; nor the board member Michael Goodman, the former CEO of J.G. Wentworth, the lump-sum payment firm (“we understand it is hard to wait”!) that filed for bankruptcy last year.

But Mr. Pallotta, the executive vice president, was willing to speak. “People feel as though, you know, Howie was the problem and Wall Street was the problem,” he said. “And you know what? If there was a question of integrity, or trust, or the ability to bring value to a financial situation, we would not be this far.” When the firm’s rewards program was announced last month, Loan Value Group said it was already working with three hedge funds that own mortgages. “If they thought Howie was an S.O.B. or Frank was a BS artist, we wouldn’t have the traction.”

Asked about lenders they’re working with or borrowers who may stay in their underwater homes because of the promise of a reward, he said that customers want to be anonymous. “I haven’t seen tears,” he said, “but I’ve seen people say, ‘I can’t believe I got this.’”

But will struggling homeowners allow themselves to be lured into staying by a company led by former subprime mortgage bond traders? Especially one whose chief executive is being held up as an iconic and imbecilic villain in Mr. Lewis’ interviews with Charlie Rose, Maria Bartiromo, Erik Schatzker and Mr. Kroft? “We have no desire, we never did from the beginning, to sell the Loan Value Group name,” Mr. Pallotta said. “If you win the lottery, do you care if it’s Scratch and Pay or Scratch and Sniff or New Jersey Lotto? The money’s there.”

Besides, he said, “this Michael Lewis thing is very old news.”

mabelson@observer.com

This weekend, President Barack Obama will be making his first appearance on a Sunday morning public affairs program since taking office. But he won’t be doing it on NBC’s top-rated Meet the Press.

Rather, he’ll be appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer

Last week, Mr. Obama gave an extensive one-on-one interview to CBS’s Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes. Thanks to Mr. Obama’s appearance, the Sunday night newsmagazine put up its best numbers of the year so far, attracting 17.04 million total viewers and catapulting the show into fourth place in all of television for the week, according to Nielsen's rankings.

Mr. Obama’s  choice to appear on Face the Nation rather than Meet the Press will no doubt create more anxiety among those inside NBC who are already worried that Meet the Press may be gradually losing its Sunday morning dominance under David Gregory, who took over moderating duties this past December.

Last week, Newsday’s Verne Gay wrote that the president’s decision to bypass Meet the Press for an appearance on NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno  “would seem like a massive diss of new host Gregory."

“Under Gregory, Meet the Press simply doesn't feel like the force it was under his legendary predecessor, Tim Russert, who died last June,” wrote Mr. Gay.

The president's decision to spend Sunday morning across from Mr. Schieffer rather than Mr. Gregory will only serve to sharpen the contrast.

Mr. Kroft looked over his shoulder, raised an eyebrow, and accepted the congratulations. He had been worried at the time, he said, that the cave might collapse.

Speaking of collapse, Mr. Kroft had to go. It was time to talk about the state of the media.

On Tuesday morning, Steve Kroft stood on the second floor of the W hotel on Lexington Avenue and poured himself a cup of coffee. A man walked by, recognized the 60 Minutes correspondent, and paused to congratulate him on a recent story from Pakistan. "That was really ballsy going in that cave," said the well-wisher.

Mr. Kroft looked over his shoulder, raised an eyebrow, and accepted the congratulations. He had been worried at the time, he said, that the cave might collapse.

Speaking of collapse, Mr. Kroft had to go. It was time to talk about the state of the media. A few minutes later, he was seated comfortably on a raised platform at the front of the W's Forest Ballroom. To his left on the stage sat ABC's Barbara Walters and, next to her, The New Yorker's Ken Auletta.

They had gathered to take part in a semi-regular series of morning media powwows sponsored by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. The topic du jour: The Art of the Interview.

Mr. Auletta was moderating. What's the dumbest question, he wanted to know, that you ever asked?

Mr. Kroft said that sometimes the dumbest questions get the best answers. The topic of stupid but effective questions made him think of Sam Donaldson, the longtime ABC News correspondent, who had announced his retirement the day before in an article in The Washington Post.

"Sam Donaldson made a career out of that, standing on the rope lines, yelling things at Ronald Reagan," said Mr. Kroft. "Reagan would always answer something back to Sam. I think you've got to take chances sometimes and ask a goofy question... I think you've got be willing as an interviewer to ask the dumb question every now and then."

Mr. Auletta asked Ms. Walters about her infamous "tree question." Ms. Walters sighed. She'd told that story a million times, she said. But, okay, she'd tell it once more.

Ms. Walters said that years earlier she had been interviewing Katharine Hepburn. At one point during the interview, Ms. Hepburn said that she felt like an old tree. Ms. Walters followed up. What kind of tree?

Somewhere along the line "What kind of tree?" had grown into a "Baba Wawa" punch line. But Ms. Walters defended the question. "If somebody said 'I'm like an old tree,' wouldn't you say, what kind of a tree?" she asked Mr. Kroft.

Mr. Kroft nodded and smiled.

"I rest my case," said Ms. Walters.

She turned back and faced Mr. Auletta. "That's your dumbest question," she said to him.

The crowd laughed.

Eventually, like every media panel currently convened no matter what the ostensible subject, the conversation drifted towards the dire fate of the media. In ten years, Mr. Auletta asked the panelists, will even a single evening newscast exist on broadcast television?

Mr. Kroft gave a nod to the importance of cable news and said he was more worried about newspapers. Ms. Walters pondered the question. She said she was unsure about the evening. But the onetime host of the Today show said she had faith in the perpetual appeal of one genre of broadcast news.

The morning news shows, she felt confident, would survive.

More from the press release:

Mr. Kroft has interviewed President-elect Obama before; he also spoke with his inner circle just after the election.

From today's release:

“It’s always been my local,” said Mr. Kroft.

On Sept. 10, owner Lynn Wagenknecht’s longtime celebrity haunt celebrated its 25^th anniversary with a bubbly, sliders-and-fries-stuffed party attended by such notable guests as screenwriter Nora Ephron and actresses Kathleen Turner and Aida Turturro.

Mr. Kroft was among the first to arrive—and last to leave.

“It’s halfway between work and home…I know that I can walk home, stop here, have a drink and meet interesting people,” said Mr. Kroft, citing director Robert Altman and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as being among the more interesting individuals he’s bumped into at the Café Lux bar over the years.

“I’ve learned a lot about how New York works, talking to people in the fashion industry, people on Wall Street….”

One group of people that he doesn’t often encounter at Café Lux: his colleagues at CBS.

“If other CBS people came here,” said Mr. Kroft, laughing, “I wouldn’t come here.”

More than a week after the interview, which abruptly ended when a member of the legal team, attorney Matthew Weissman, objected to one of Mr. Kroft's questions (Mr. Kimes had stopped the taping twice before that), a number of prominent criminal defense attorneys are asking a variation of Mr. Kroft's first query. Namely, why the Kimeses' legal team, led by Mel Sachs, allowed their clients to be questioned by a major network television magazine before their trial.

The result was "a fiasco," in the opinion of Les Levine, a private investigator who until earlier this month was the lead investigator for the Kimeses' lawyers and who appeared on the 60 Minutes segment, which was taped on March 10. (Mr. Levine said he was no longer actively participating in the case, although, he added, "I wouldn't say I'm off the team.") "It's just out of control to put clients who are facing the kind of indictments that the Kimeses are facing in that situation. It was something I was against all along." He added that the 60 Minutes piece "wasn't beneficial to the lawyers or the clients."

Ms. Kimes and her son are expected to go on trial later this year for the alleged murder of millionaire Irene Silverman, who disappeared from her Upper East Side town house (where Mr. Kimes had been a tenant) last summer. Ms. Silverman's body has yet to be found, but as Mr. Kroft reported on the segment, among the items that were found in the Kimeses' possession were "Silverman's passport, her keys, a forged deed to her town house, a stun gun, handcuffs, hypodermic syringes, a knock-out drug and a loaded 9-millimeter pistol."

Mr. Kimes told Mr. Kroft that the reason he and his mother were doing the interview pretrial "is because of the unfair portrayal that's been given about us."

Chimed in Ms. Kimes: "The media has so far portrayed us totally like we are not. We're just a mother and son."

Yet, as the Kimeses were trying to show the national television audience that they did not, in real life, look as sinister as the police mug shots of them that have been frequently displayed in the press, Mr. Kroft was bringing up Ms. Kimes' previous arrest record. (In the 1980's, for instance, she was convicted of slavery, for holding domestic workers against their will.)

Three times, the Kimeses' legal battery, who were sitting off camera, put a halt to the questioning. "I mean, you would have to admit you are in one pretty big mess here," Mr. Kroft said to the Kimeses.

"Not by our choice," replied Mr. Kimes.

"How did it happen?" Mr. Kroft said

Suddenly the word "Stop!" was heard from off camera and Mr. Kimes replied, "That's cut ."

Then in voice-over, Mr. Kroft said, "They seem to have gotten into this mess because odd things keep happening to some people who know them, people like Elmer Holmgren." Mr. Kroft went on to explain that after the Kimes family house in Hawaii was destroyed by fire, Holmgren told Federal agents that he had set the fire for the Kimeses. "But before a case could be brought," Mr. Kroft continued in voice-over, "Holmgren told his family he was taking a trip to Central America with Sante Kimes and her husband. He was never heard from again."

The Kimes legal team–including Mr. Sachs, wearing a smile and a bow tie, Mr. Levine, Mr. Weissman and José Muniz–were then shown on camera. "What about Elmer Holmgren?" Mr. Kroft asked.

The Kimeses' lawyers were silent.

"What about Elmer Holmgren?" Mr. Levine said.

"What happened to him?" said Mr. Kroft.

"I have no idea," said Mr. Levine.

The reviews were not good, according to some of the city's most prominent criminal defense lawyers. Gerald Shargel, who has represented John A. Gotti and Charles Hughes–the ousted head of the Board of Education employees' union Local 372–said he thought the appearance "was a publicity stunt that backfired. The idea of doing a 60 Minutes piece like the lawyers were the directors was nothing short of lunacy." Mr. Shargel added that "to have those lawyers sitting there like it was the peanut gallery for The Howdy Doody Show was, in my view, bizarre." (The situation took an even more surreal turn, when in the April 15 edition of the New York Post , Mr. Sachs told columnist Neal Travis that he wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to play Kenneth Kimes because Mr. DiCaprio "has the all-American innocence of my client.")

Jeffrey Lichtman, a former associate of Mr. Shargel's who went out on his own in January (he still shares office space with Mr. Shargel), said the 60 Minutes interview was "one of the few times that I was ashamed to be a defense lawyer. It was so poorly handled and mismanaged. There was no reason to put them on," continued Mr. Lichtman, who has represented bank swindler John Ruffo. "You're having a potential jury pool hear things that they ordinarily would not have heard."

Judd Burstein, who also once represented Mr. Ruffo, called the segment "a classic example of an attorney apparently being more concerned about getting his puss on TV than acting in the best interests of his clients." Mr. Burstein said, "Perhaps if it had been an interview by a Nickelodeon TV child interviewer, he might not have anticipated the tough questions." But given that this was 60 Minutes , Mr. Burstein added, "it was sheer suicide to put his client in that position."

While the media's interest in the case was substantial (John Mohan, director of media services for the New York City Department of Correction, estimated that a half-dozen media outlets conducted pre-interviews with the Kimeses before 60 Minutes was selected), the Kimes legal team isn't exactly in agreement on whose idea it was to put the two on TV. "It's the Kimeses who wanted to go on television to be heard and seen for who they really are," said Mr. Sachs. "They felt that it was necessary for them to be able to speak to the American public since there's been irreparable damage done to them in the media." When asked if, as one of their lawyers, he did anything to discourage them from doing the interview, Mr. Sachs said, "I did not recommend that they go on television before a [trial]. However, it was their strong desire to want to go on."

Mr. Weissman, in a separate phone interview, said, "The lawyers did not want to do this piece. We did this piece at the request of our client."

But Mr. Levine, the investigator, disputed the two lawyers' accounts. "They were very much in favor of the 60 Minutes piece," he said. "I'm not saying they were improperly motivated. They thought this would be beneficial. I just disagreed with them."

The Kimeses' lawyers claimed that the manner in which the 60 Minutes piece was edited created a "misimpression" of the Kimeses and of their legal team. Mr. Sachs said that at least 30 minutes of an interview between the Kimeses and Mr. Kroft was taped. He estimated that only 15 minutes was shown. Mr. Weissman also contended that they gave "very comprehensive and specific answers" to many questions lobbed at them by 60 Minutes , but that those responses ended up on the cutting room floor. "We still request that 60 Minutes release the interview from beginning to end," said Mr. Sachs, who also claimed that the newsmagazine had violated an important ground rule that had been set before the taping. According to Mr. Sachs, the ground rule was that if the Kimeses' lawyers objected to any of Mr. Kroft's questions, "the question would never be played on the air." Asked to comment on that, 60 Minutes spokesman Kevin Tedesco replied, "We believe we treated them as fair as journalistically possible. The agreement they're describing to you is not the kind of agreement we had with them. The agreement we had with them is not to get into areas that concerned evidence in the Irene Silverman murder case. They don't control 60 Minutes ' cameras." In response to Mr. Sachs' qualms about the editing of the segment, Mr. Tedesco said, "We have a limited amount of time and we, like every news organization, must edit. But in that process we were fair to them. Their main points were in the broadcast."

Addressing his critics in the legal profession, Mr. Sachs said, "I think it's important to note that there are lawyers who are making statements without knowing all the circumstances involved." Mr. Sachs also alleged that Mr. Lichtman and Mr. Shargel have ulterior motives because they were interested in representing his clients.

Mr. Shargel said that while his office may have gotten a call from Ms. Kimes, he never followed up. "The fact is, I never spoke to the Kimeses. I never entertained the idea of representing them, let alone tried to represent them," he said. "The comments that I made were the comments of a detached observer."

Mr. Levine told The Transom that Ms. Kimes had reached out to "a dozen or more" other defense attorneys in an effort to bolster her legal team. (Mr. Weissman also concurred that it was Ms. Kimes who had contacted the lawyers and not the other way around.) A source familiar with the Kimes situation said that Mr. Lichtman was approached by the Kimes camp, but decided against representing them, because he concluded that he could not get control of the case. Mr. Lichtman did not deny that he was approached, but he declined to comment on the situation. "Sachs is trying to explain away his incompetence by claiming that everybody is after his media golden goose," said Mr. Lichtman. "It's not true. Incompetence is incompetence."

According to Mr. Sachs and Mr. Weissman, the Kimeses could not be reached for comment by deadline time. Asked how their clients reacted to the TV piece, they gave two different answers. Mr. Sachs said that the Kimeses had seen the segment. "They're satisfied that they did have an opportunity to speak out," said Mr. Sachs, although, he added, "they wanted to have the interview broadcast in its entirety."

Said Mr. Weissman: "They didn't watch it. To be honest, I don't believe it was watched."

Orifice Gets an 'R'

At the April 19 premiere party for his cinematic cyber opus, eXistenZ , filmmaker David Cronenberg stood in the West 52nd Street bar Float and explained "bioports," a piece of hardware prominently featured in his film. Bioports are surgically implanted holes at the base of the spine that allow Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law to plug a cord into their backs and enter a virtual reality game called eXistenZ. Oh, and the bioports look just like anuses.

Mr. Cronenberg was initially coy. "In the close-ups, it certainly looks like a bellybutton," he said. And why are those bioports so close to the butt? "Where do you put it?" he asked. "I think if I were marketing this, I'd say people don't want it in their heads, or in their faces, because it marks you. A discreet place would be on your spine, just above your belt line."

But Mr. Cronenberg owned up to some suggestiveness. After all, in one of the steamier moments, Mr. Law plunges his tongue inside Ms. Leigh's bioport and she squeals. "It's totally sexual. On one hand, it is sort of logical and rational, and on the other hand, it's full of sexual juiciness," Mr. Cronenberg said, warming to his topic. "It doesn't really look just like an asshole. It has other things going on. I wanted it to be a multipurpose orifice."

The Transom asked Mr. Cronenberg if he was afraid that the pseudo sex organs might earn eXistenZ an NC-17–his last film, Crash , was an NC-17 flop. "We got the R," he said. "I think we could have humiliated the M.P.A.A. if they tried to do anything like that. It's metaphorical sex. In the old days, you would cut away to a steam kettle spouting over. I'm doing the same thing."

Like that metaphorical scene in which Ms. Leigh licks her finger and slides it into Mr. Law's bioport? "That was Jennifer's," he said. "That was one thing that wasn't in the script."

–Andrew Goldman

The Transom Also Hears

… Revelers at the Rainforest Foundation Benefit Dinner say the look on comedian-actor Bill Murray's face was pretty memorable when he found out that his son Homer Murray, who's not even 20 according to our calculations, bid $46,000 for a Mercedes SLK hardtop convertible that was being auctioned off for the cause. Pater Murray apparently was away from his table when his boy did all the bidding, and after Dad squeezed back through a cheek-to-jowl crowd at Cipriani 42nd Street that included Sting, Tony Bennett, Charles Aznavour, concert impresario Ron Delsener, restaurateur Drew Nieporent (who's about to open the Berkeley Bar & Grill in the Sony Building) and Nora Ephron, Mr. Nieporent reportedly shouted to Mr. Murray: "I think you just bought a car." (A call to Mr. Murray's agent went unreturned.)

… News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch brusquely shook his head No when we asked him if there was any truth to the rumors that he and his current love interest, Wendy Deng, had gotten engaged. But there were moments when even the poker-faced Australian looked smitten with the elegant shorthaired brunette's presence at the Literacy Partners' annual Evening of Readings (and dinner) at Lincoln Center. At the end of the evening, The Transom watched Mr. Murdoch and Ms. Deng hold hands as they left the event and walked virtually alone across the Lincoln Center plaza toward Broadway. Then, still clutching hands, they started scampering across the plaza, like giddy teenagers. Perhaps because Mr. Murdoch is actually 68 years old (Ms. Deng is in her early 30's), they quickly resumed walking. It was a sight matched only by New York Post associate editor John Podhoretz dancing like our wild Uncle Nick to the Trammps' "Disco Inferno."

SASSA UP $6.1 MILLION, PERELMAN DOWN $2.1 MILLION. DRAT!

The financial windfall that Scott Sassa, president of NBC Television Stations, is having at Ronald Perelman's expense continues. First, Mr. Perelman laid out $10 million for a town house in order to lure Scott Sassa, a former Turner Broadcasting System entertainment executive, from Atlanta to run his Marvel Entertainment Group Inc. Then, after Mr. Perelman lost Marvel to his archnemesis Carl Icahn in June, Mr. Sassa turned around and became president of NBC Television Stations and earlier this year bought the house from Mr. Perelman for only $7.9 million. Now, according to real estate sources, Mr. Sassa has found a buyer willing to pay $14 million for the town house, the price at which he placed the house on the market shortly after buying it.

The house, at 11 East 82nd Street, is 9,000 square feet and was thoroughly renovated by its previous owners, although sources say that it was somewhat unfortunately Atlanta-ized by Mr. Sassa. Mr. Sassa's $6.1 million profit may be chump change for Mr. Perelman, but it doesn't leave him feeling marvelous. Reached at his office, Mr. Sassa had no comment.

East 80's, between Lexington and Third avenues

Seven-bed, seven-bath, 4,200-square-foot town house.

Asking: $1.995 million. Selling: $1.9 million.

Time on the market: 4.5 months.

GIRTHY TOWN HOUSE SELLS IN TIME TO BE WRITTEN OFF. "Its claim to fame is that it was over 20 feet wide," said broker Anne Snee of this girthy four-story house, which, like a lot of its turn-of-the-century brownstone brethren in this town, at some point found itself divided into two units and given a stoop-ectomy. Not that it doesn't still have some of its dowager charm: The fireplaces work, there's a nice garden and "lovely proportions," she said. The owner donated it to an institution, and the institution handed it off to Ms. Snee to sell. It took a little while to get the sale going, but the broker reports she had a three-way bidding war in the end. Now the place is going back to the good old days as a single-family home. The lower duplex has already been gutted, and the tenants are moving out of the upper two floors so work can begin up there. Broker: Corcoran Group (Anne Snee); Stribling & Associates Ltd. (Alexa Lambert).

140 East 81st Street

Two-bed, 1.5-bath, 1,150-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $449,000. Selling: $460,000.

Maintenance: $984; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: one month.

GROOM SELLS REHEARSAL HOME. He "made a spectacular one-bedroom out of a small two-bedroom," said broker Robin Morrissey of her client, the seller of this sixth-floor apartment on the corner of Lexington Avenue. By installing French doors in one of the bedrooms, he'd opened up the living room, creating a 35-foot-long space big enough to get a whole crowd doing the macarena. But after an extensive renovation over the last couple of years, the seller was moving to Chicago to start a new job and be with his fiancée. The buyer had to pay more than the asking price when all was said and done. Which must have been nerve-racking for the buyer. "Oh, tell me about it," said Ms. Budow. But the seller getting more than he asked for for the apartment must have taken some of the sting off having to leave so soon after renovating. Ms. Morrissey agreed: "He's moved into a very large house in Chicago and getting married. He's doing just fine." Broker: Bellmarc Realty (Fern Budow, Robin Morrissey).

YES, KATIE COURIC DOES SLEEP. On the heels of her husband's death from colon cancer in January, Today show co-host Katie Couric has had to find a new place to live. Earlier this year, the lease on the Upper East Side co-op Ms. Couric and her family had been subletting expired and, based on board rules, she was not allowed to renew. Now, Ms. Couric has signed a contract to buy a 4,000-square-foot, 12-room apartment on Park Avenue near East 92nd Street; sources said Ms. Couric paid about $3.6 million for the apartment. The apartment, which has four bedrooms, three and a half baths, three maid's rooms and a library, is on the second floor and has been on and off the market since 1993; two years ago it was priced at $2.9 million, but most recently it was on the market for $3.6 million. Despite the fact that Ms. Couric admitted to People magazine that she "can barely remember to put on deodorant in the morning," the board is expected to be a fan base she can count on. Brokers familiar with the deal agree "it would be a lot sweller if it were on a higher floor," envisioning a crowd on Park Avenue holding up placards: "I'm from Wisconsin!" "We love you Katie!" "What have you done with Bryant?" Ms. Couric's spokesman didn't return calls.

Upper West Side

124 West 93rd Street

Two-bed, one-bath, 1,100-square-foot prewar condo.

Asking: $325,000. Selling: $345,000.

Charges: $452. Taxes: $214.

Time on the market: two months.

SHERMAN'S MARCH ENDS IN EASY BATTLE. "It was a rainy day in December–one of those really bad ones," said broker Wendy Sherman. She'd sold an apartment to an older gentleman who suggested that she find his son an apartment. And that was who she had to meet that foul winter day. She and the son looked at four apartments, and even though he'd gone out thinking he wanted to live in a brownstone walk-up, he liked this prewar doorman-attended apartment, the last stop on the tour. It's in a hard-to-find prewar condo and has herringbone wood floors and those college-professor Upper West Side built-in bookshelves. The second bedroom is small (the seller was using it for a nursery for her twins), but that didn't bother him since he will use it for a study. (Did we mention that this apartment is on the Upper West Side?) When he put an offer in, he was told that someone else had beaten him by just a few minutes and more than a few dollars. So he upped his bid. "He understood what had to be done," said the broker. These days, "you've got to precondition the buyer about the market," which can be pretty unforgiving. But in this case, "there was just a sense of calm through the whole thing," said the broker, who had been lulled into such a sense of peace by the deal that she and the selling broker almost forgot to turn in an important piece of paperwork. The seller and her twins have returned to Australia, where her family lives. Broker: William B. May Company (Wendy Sherman); Halstead Property Company (Andrew Phillips).

Chelsea

250 West 27th Street

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

Asking: $279,000. Selling: $275,000.

Maintenance: $681; 64 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: one week.

THE APARTMENT TITANIC BOUGHT. After years of living in a rental in Hell's Kitchen, this music video director hit it big working with Celine Dion (he'd also worked with Harry Connick Jr. and Barbra Streisand) and decided that it was time to buy himself a titanic loft. He knew what he wanted: "I showed him only a few things," reported his broker, Linda Gertler. The one he booked himself in is located between Seventh and Eighth avenues; the big, concrete Fashion Institute of Technology fortress occupies most of the block. Thanks to the school security patrol, the street's safe, and even if there's not much of a view from the third floor, you can look down and watch all those cutting-edge kids walk by. The loft has hardwood floors and 10-foot ceilings, and the living room and dining area is about 40 feet long. What really sold the VH1 hit man on the loft: the office the seller had built on a kind of podium in the middle of the living room, with a little staircase leading up to it (he showed it to his posse to get their approval first). Unfortunately, the lease ran aground on his other apartment before the co-op board met, so he slept on a friend's couch for a couple of weeks. He was brought before the board on Grammy Awards night–he had his ponytail tied neatly back and was in a tux. "He charmed them," reported the broker. The building has concrete between the floors, but the buyer has a big stereo. "He had to promise that he wouldn't be blasting it at 3 A.M.," reported Ms. Gertler. Corcoran Group (Linda Gertler).

East Village

115 Fourth Avenue (Petersfield)

Two-bed, two-bath, 1,200-square-foot prewar condo.

Asking: $599,000. Selling: $585,000

Charges: $720. Taxes: $383.

Time on the market: two months.

EVIDENCE THAT SOMEONE SOUTH OF UNION SQUARE HAS USED HIS OVEN. Don't be deceived by the Petersfield's full-time doorman. It's a converted loft building in the East Village. Of course, Fourth Avenue is only a few blocks long and certainly lacks the Rent -style zaniness of the rest of the neighborhood. This apartment is a quite elegant loft and had been totally renovated four or five years ago by a previous owner. "It has one of the most beautiful kitchens and baths I'd ever seen," said broker Susan Moss, who sold the apartment to friends several years ago and now has sold it for them. "It is exquisite," she said of the low-floor apartment. The master bath has a steam shower and was tiled in African slate; the kitchen features slate countertops and a wine refrigerator. "My friends bought it initially because the husband was a gourmet cook," she said. But after a few years of living on the truncated avenue, navigating among the New York University masses and being only a short walk from the Union Square Greenmarket, they decided to move uptown to a more conventional co-op. Broker: Corcoran (Susan Moss, Leonard Steinberg).

Southampton

STEVE KROFT AND JENNET CONANT TO BUY PAIR OF WELL-INVESTIGATED HOUSES. Sixty Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft and his wife, Vanity Fair contributing editor (and Rudy Giuliani adultery-investigator) Jennet Conant, have signed a contract to buy his-and-hers Tuscan-villa-style houses off Noyack Road in Southampton for around $2 million, according to sources familiar with the deal. Those sources say that the compound, which sits on five acres in one of the less emphatically fashionable sections of the Hamptons, had been examined by Mr. Kroft's earringed colleague Ed Bradley, who passed on it to buy a lot in the Hamptons fabulousness-expansion zone of Northwest Harbor, home to Sean (Puffy) Combs and Donna Karan. Christie Brinkley is also said to have come out and looked at it with her husband Peter Cook, but nixed it for karmic reasons: Her ex-husband Billy Joel had rented it one summer. But it's good real estate karma all around for Mr. Kroft and Ms. Conant, who bought their house in North Haven for more than $450,000 and then unloaded it for $1.5 million before going Tuscan. Sources say the two houses–a main house and guest house–were on the market for about $2 million and face a nice, sandy beach on Noyack Bay. Through a spokesman, Mr. Kroft had no comment.