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Newsweek's Hanover Hub Stages Comeback

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 19:41:45 -0400

Tina Brown's promised Newsweek turnaround has yet to materialize, but its dingy FiDi headquarters is already staging a comeback.

In recent weeks, 7 Hanover Square has scored one of the largest financings so far this year, along with a major sublease by non-profit law firm the New York Legal Assistance Fund. The tenant has taken 36,250 square feet of Guardian Life Insurance's space on the 18th floor of the building for its headquarters, according to...

Doug Schoen: 'A Clear Majority Want Wal-Mart'

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 19:05:45 -0400

If you ask Doug Schoen, today's Quinnpiac poll confirms what he's been saying all along: New York City residents want Wal-Mart.

"A clear majority want Wal-Mart and a very large percentage will shop at Wal-Mart," Schoen told me in an interview this afternoon. "Our polling and Quinnipiac's polling show that."

Schoen's poll from December showed 71 percent of city residents favored opening a Wal-Mat store here. (Also, somewhat surprisingly, the poll said 73 percent of public sector...

Attention, Park Slope! Put Down Those Iodine Pills

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:55:56 -0400

Over the past few days, there has been a run on potassium iodide tablets in Brooklyn. Co-op shelves have been stripped bare as concerns mount over the fate of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan and the impact a meltdown might have on this brownstone borough. Part of the blame for the paucity of pills fell on the Obama administration, which some Park Slope residents believed was stockpiling the potassium iodide in...

Schneiderman Wants 'Full' Safety Check at NY Nuclear Plant

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:19:51 -0400

In the wake of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's most recent report that puts one of the reactors at Indian Point Energy Center at as the highest risk from earthquakes of all U.S. power plants, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wrote to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission calling for more thorough safety checks of the facility. Schneiderman said that a "full, open" investigation into the seismic safety of Indian Point has to take place before they get relicensed...

Roundup: Schneiderman Aims at Indian Point, Critics Target Cuomo's School Numbers

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:25:42 -0400

Park Slope: "Ever since a magnitude 8.9 earthquake destabilized the four-reactor Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant 6,611 miles away, there has been a run on potassium iodide tablets at the co-op." [Matt Chaban]

Audio Montage: Obama, Rep. Yvette Clarke, Yoko Ono. [Jody Avirgan]

2012: Since video about Gifford's shooting, Palin "has been on a downward trajectory," says John Heilemann [Morning Joe].

Obeying Cuomo: Legislators can't fight Cuomo too much, thanks to Paterson's precedent. [Karen DeWitt]

Tracking Cuomo: "Governor...

You Must Remember This: How Lindsay Lohan Gets Her Knicks!

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:16:15 -0400

Plenty happens each day—how to keep up with it all? Time to test your memory!

--How did Tina Fey acquit herself as a tertiary character in a fake Bravo reality show?

--...and how does Mel Gibson do in Jodie Foster's new dip into directing?

--Speaking of which! How did the husky-voiced directress--scandalously!--finagle her way onto the cover of The Hollywood Reporter?

--But surely THR has no greater problems at the moment?

--What's the "coke of the art world"? (It...

Apple Sour on Grand Central

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:12:44 -0400

Apple's plans to bring the world's largest iStore to Grand Central always seemed to defy laws of taste, landmarks preservation and possibly even physics.

Apparently, Apple has reached the same conclusion, because a source close to the M.T.A. has confirmed that the company has backed out of plans to bring computers to commuters in an 16,000-square-foot store on the balconies of Grand Central's main terminal.

Newmark Knight Frank top broker Jeffrey D. Roseman dangled the news...

Meet the Neighbors! Jeffrey Wachtenheim Loves the New Bike Lanes

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:33:15 -0400

Welcome to the latest installment of our ongoing interview series, Meet the Neighbors! Jeffrey Wachtenheim grew up in the city, and that is what gives him his edge as a broker at The Real Estate Group New York. He specializes in downtown real estate, his favorite part of the city he loves.

Where do you live?
I live in a turn-of-the-century townhouse in Greenwich Village.

How is work these days? What is your latest deal?

King Critics Tweak His Hearings, Try to Keep Him 'On the Straight and Narrow'

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:30:28 -0400

Two of Peter King's longtime critics took slightly different tacks on his controversial hearings last week, in a symposium on intelligence and security at N.Y.U. this morning.

Bennie Thompson, the ranking member and former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, was a little more critical than John Brennan, the deputy national security adviser who is trying to maintain a repaired relationship with one of his fiercest critics.

Thompson said he wasn't especially impressed with the...

Parker to be Sentenced on Monday

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:35:07 -0400

Brooklyn State Senator Kevin Parker is slated to be sentenced at the Brooklyn Supreme Court on Monday.

Parker was found guilty of two misdemeanors in December for assaulting a photographer from the New York Post.

He faces up to a year in jail, but if he is sentenced to prison time he is expected to appeal. Because he was found not guilty of a felony charge, Parker will not be forced to give up his seat...