You didn't think Steven Spielberg and and Oprah took the Acela to get to Washington, did you? Bloomberg reports that the inauguration should set a private jet record: As many as 600 private planes have touched down in D.C. in recent days, and the runway at Dulles had to be closed temporarily over the weekend to allow 100 of them to park. [Bloomberg, WSJ]
On this historic day as Barack Obama is sworn in as President, so many important issues will be on people's minds, not least of which is: Will our leader be tempted to reach for the Just For Men during his tenure in the White House, as many suspected he had during the campaign? Or will he let nature take its course and further turn his hair grey? While stress is known to hasten grey hair—as in the possibly apocryphal stories of hair turning white from shock overnight—you'll be reassured to hear that the light sprinkling of grey currently sported by the 47-year-old President appears to be genetic, at least according to dermatologist Dr. Antony Gaspari. And it hasn't prevented Obama's cut from being the first politician's in recent history to spur an actual hair trend credited to his uni-named barber, Zariff, who says he's doing a roaring trade in "the Obama."
• The 7,000-square-foot penthouse duplex at 1020 Fifth Avenue that's been on and off the market in recent years and was most recently priced at $46.5 million, has undergone a price cut. The five-bedroom spread, owned by heirs to the Kress retail fortune, is now listed at $39 million. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Wesley Vultaggio, who works at AriZona, the beverage company his father co-founded, has paid $6 million for a apartment at 47 Mercer Street. [Cityfile]
• Umberto Arpaia, the chef/owner of Cellini in Midtown and brother of fellow restaurateur Donatella Arpaia, paid $4.85 million for an 18-foot-wide townhouse at 242 East 68th Street. [Cityfile]
Paris Hilton made out with the CEO of MySpace, everywhere, and maybe made another sex tape. Tom Cruise has wanted to kill since he was a child.
• Fiat will take a 35 percent stake in struggling Chrysler. [WSJ]
• Steve Feinberg's Cerberus Capital Management will cut 10 percent of its staff around the world. [WSJ]
• American Express's Ken Chenault plans to sell the company's stake in Chinese bank Industrial & Commercial Bank of China. [NYP]
• Bank of America may need as much as $80 billion to stay afloat. [BN]
• The hunt is still on for Arthur Nadel, the hedge fund manager from Florida who may have made off with as much as $350 million. [DB, NYP]
• Notwithstanding the bailout, top execs on Wall Street have been some of the biggest donors to the Presidential Inauguration Committee. [NYT]
Barack isn't the only one with a reason to celebrate today. Georgina Bloomberg, the daughter of New York's mayor, turns 26. Real estate developer Kent Swig is 48. Newsweek editor and CNN fixture Fareed Zakaria is turning 45. Famed cardiologist Valentin Fuster is 66. The Office's Rainn Wilson is turning 43. Bill Maher is 53. Director David Lynch is 63. James Denton is turning 46. Lorenzo Lamas is 51. Buzz Aldrin is turning 79. And Melissa Rivers, the daughter of Joan Rivers, is 41 today.
MSNBC's Chris Matthews was forced to wait in line with the commoners. A blogger was mistaken for a prostitute. And everyone seemed to be Twittering or liveblogging. Inauguration eve was boisterous!
• Giuseppe Cipriani hasn't been seen in New York for months, but he says that has nothing to do with the handful of investigations now underway, or because he's banned from the US. He's just "busy" and says he'll return to New York "soon." His son Ignazio has been busy, too. The 20-year-old has been charged with third-degree assault for beating up a limo driver outside 1OAK back in December. [NYP, R&M]
• The latest man to fall into Paris Hilton's clutches: She was was spotted at Sundance making out with MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe. [P6, NYDN]
• Prince William's girlfriend, Kate Middleton, may be planning to move to New York to take a job in fashion, thanks to advice she received from Tom Ford and Anna Wintour. [Daily Express]
• Maureen Dowd threw a big party on Sunday eve to honor of David Geffen. In attendance: Tom Hanks, Jeff Zucker, David Katzenberg, Ron Howard, and George Stephanopoulos, who knocked over a tray of martinis and left the party red-faced. [P6]
While we've been placing the focus squarely on this year's Sundance—what people are saying is one of the best in years, crowds-, weather-, and movie-quality-wise—some attention should be paid to attitude-y next door neighbor, Slamdance.
While it's easy to get swept away in a Sundance snowdrift and forget the outside world, we're told some sort of changing-of the-guard is occurring at the capital—a reclamation, of sorts, of our nation's sexiness.
