• Brooke Astor's former duplex at 778 Park has returned to the market, two weeks after the Corcoran's Leighton Candler took down the listing. Stribling's Kirk Henckels is now offering the sprawling co-op for $29 million, which is $17 million less than it was first offered for when it hit the market last year. [Cityfile, Stribling]
• It looks like the rumor was true: Disgraced Fairfield Greenwich Group executive Charles Murphy has put his townhouse at 7 East 67th Street on the market for $37 million. Sotheby's Serena Boardman has the listing. [Cityfile, Sotheby's]
• Motoatsu Sakurai, Consul General of Japan and the former CEO of Mitsubishi International Corporation, has paid $1.9 million for a 17th floor apartment at 450 East 83rd street. [Cityfile]

• Goldman Sachs co-president Jon Winkelried (left) has cut the price of his waterfront mansion in Nantucket. Originally purchased for $7 million in 1999, Winkelried put the home on the market for $55 million in October 2008. He's now lowered the price to $38.5 million. [WSJ]
• A. Robert Towbin, a managing director at Stephens and the former co-chairman of C.E. Unterberg, Towbin, has sold his 2.5-acre property on West End Road in East Hampton for $26.5 million. That's $11 million less than what it was first listed for back in mid-2007. [WSJ]
• Brooke Astor's former duplex at 778 Park, which has yet to sell despite a substantial price cut—it was first listed at $46 million before the price was reduced to $34 million in October—has been pulled off the market. The listing should resurface with Kirk Henckels as the new broker. [NYO, Curbed]

♦ The car wash/gas station on West 14th Street (left) has been sold for $60 million to make way for a new retail development. [NYP]
♦ The Cooper Square Hotel opens in two weeks. [Curbed]
♦ An interview with Leigh Candler, NYC's new "co-op queen," best known for flipping aparments for Scott Bommer and listing Brooke Astor's former apartment on Park. [NYO]
♦ Some neighborhoods in Brooklyn are now more expensive than neighborhoods in Manhattan, according to StreetEasy. [NYDN]

Brooke Astor died last year at the age of 105. If you looked at the papers with any regularity in the months that proceeded and followed her passing, you're probably familiar with the controversy involving Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, who was accused of neglecting his dying mother, forcing her to change her will, and plundering her estate. New details surrounding Astor's final days are now emerging with the publication of Mrs. Astor Regrets by Meryl Gordon, several passages from which were excerpted in the Post over the weekend.

♦ Brooke Astor's former estate in Westchester has finally hit the market: Holly Hill is now up for sale for $12.9 million. The 10,000-square-foot mansion includes 13 bedrooms, six marble fireplaces, indoor and outdoor pools, and views of the Hudson River. [NYO, Sotheby's]
♦ The Greenwich Village townhouse owned by the non-profit group Pen and Brush has gone on the market for $13.525 million. [NYT, PDE]
♦ Corcoran broker Leighton Candler, who currently has the listings for Brooke Astor's former co-op and Bill and Tina Flaherty's spread at 1040 Fifth Avenue, has placed another pricey property on the market: A full-floor apartment at the Ritz-Carlton on Central Park South can be yours for $35 million. [NYO, Corcoran]

♦ Tom Brady has taken his condo at the Time Warner Center off the market for the second time this year, reportedly because his tenant, a new mom, "refuses to let brokers inside." The 65th-floor unit was most recently listed at $17.75 million. [P6]
♦ The price of Brooke Astor's duplex at 778 Park Avenue was cut down a bit more than originally anticipated a week ago. It now can be yours for $34 million. [NYT, Corcoran]
♦ Prisma Capital founder Girish Reddy paid $8.35 million for a ninth-floor spread at 101 Central Park West, where his new neighbors will include Robert A.M. Stern and financier Peter Briger. [Cityfile]
♦ Social staple Carol McFadden, whose husband George was killed in a plane crash earlier this year, has put her penthouse apartment at the Metropolitan building up for sale. It's on the market for $8.9 million. [NYT, BHS]

Grim news for all those who were hoping that the upper-end of the Manhattan real estate market would prove immune to global financial crisis: Brooke Astor's former duplex at 778 Park Avenue is now on the market for $35 million, down from its previous asking price of $46 million, according to WWD. Corcoran broker Leighton Candler hasn't confirmed the reduction, nor has the official listing been updated to reflect the new price. In the meantime, you can look over a few photos of the newly-discounted spread after the jump. [WWD via NYO]

♦ Democratic fundraisers Carl Spielvogel and Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel are reportedly in contract to sell their apartment at 720 Park for $37 million, or $17 million more than they paid for the place just two years ago. [NYO]
♦ Jeffrey Walker, the chairman of CCMP Capital Advisors, has purchased a second-floor unit at 15CPW for $3.6 million. It'll go along with the 14th-floor spread they bought late last year for $21 million. [Cityfile]
♦ Former Lehman president and COO Joe Gregory has sold his two-bedroom apartment at 610 Park for $4.4 million, or $50,000 less than the asking price. Now he just has to find a buyer for his Bridgehampton mansion. [NYO]

• Brooke Astor's Park Avenue apartment (left) has been taken off the market—temporarily. Corcoran broker Leighton Candler has pulled the $46 million listing down for the summer until "small renovations" are complete. [NYO]

Lawyers for Anthony Marshall, the only child of late socialite-of-the-century Brooke Astor, have asked a judge to toss out charges that he stole millions in cash and valuables from his ailing mother, who died last summer at the tender age of 105. The prosecution ignored Astor's "clear pattern of well-informed generosity toward her only child," his lawyers said. Chances the judge dismisses the case? Not so good. [NYT]

Francis X. Morrissey Jr. was the kind of white guy rich white people could trust. He's a lawyer specializing in wills, he's old, he wears loafers. He also, incidentally, swindled New York City's rich and very rich out of millions of dollars, a number of apartments and at least one art collection. Currently, Mr. Morrissey is facing an 18-count indictment along with her nogudnik son Anthony Marhsall for financially exploiting the late Mrs. Astor in the twilight of her life. But the Park Avenue matriarch was just the one lady in a long line of very rich, very dead and very punked clients Morrissey defrauded. He's swindled artists, gallery owners and even Mother Teresa's doctor. In Morrissey's defense, he does claim to be dyslexic. Judging from his massive history of defrauding the dead, he's still a nam dab! But how did he do it? [NB: Oh yeah, and by a fluke in our legal system, he's totally innocent until proven guilty! Please insert "been accused of" between pronouns referring to Morrissey and verbs referring to him.]

From time to time the news cycle offers up an event of such import and complexity that it can only be comprehended through the medium of musical theater. This week resident composer Ben Greenman looks at the past and future of Brooke Astor, long the queen of New York society.

The New York Post is all a-flutter today over how Brooke Astor's daughter-in-law, Charlene Marshall, "burst into laughter" when a Post photographer introduced himself to her yesterday, because of their funny "Bad Heir Day" cover. "We're A Hit With Mrs.," is the story's headline. We're surprised they went that far to promote themselves, since Mrs. Marshall is carrying yesterday's New York Sun in the accompanying photograph. (And on top of that she is carrying what looks like her husband's indictment, which strikes us as a bit callous, considering how hard she's hee-hawing away, but who's really keeping track?)

So, yes, Anthony Marshall, the prodigal son of deceased grand dame Brooke Astor, isn't completely getting away with (allegedly!) swindling his own mother out of millions of dollars. Last night, Marshall and his lawyer Francis X. Morrissey Jr were indicted on criminal charges last night based on a grand jury investigation into their treatment of the beloved philanthropist who died last August at age 105. (We liveblogged her funeral!) The specific charges have yet to be announced, but according to the New York Sun, they probably have to do with the nefarious duo's perfidious and wanton manipulation of a senile millionaire's will—including possibly forging her signature on a 2003 amendment to that will.

• Lindsay Lohan brought her rehab buddy Riley Giles home to Long Island to meet her family over Thanksgiving, but he went out every night without her. [Page Six]
  

Pictured: The program. Says Josh: "None of the press sings or prays. There's a crazy Radar reporter here! Newsweek is late, as always. Holy shit the organ is so loud my EARS ARE BLEEDING. Bloomberg talking, making jokes! Now he is comparing her to Phil Rizzuto. 'She looked good in pinstripes.' Only the Bloomberg News reporter is laughing at his jokes, weirdly. Okay, her son is now speaking. They were both only children! He refers to her as 'mother'—not 'my mother.' He is reading her statement of faith. The lady next to me has not stopped BlackBerrying! It's so loud! Sorry. 'Yes, New York has lost a great woman but I have lost my mother.' Ah."

New York Times photog Bill Cunningham works the pit outside the funeral, which is set to start at 2:30 p.m., up at St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street.

Exactly how big will tomorrow's New York Observer play the death of Brooke Astor? Cover drawing plus page one, double-column obit? Special guest columnists? Obit pull-out section? An entirely black overleaf? Will they actually not publish the issue in memoriam?

Brooke Astor died this afternoon. She was 105. A grand life—one only slightly marred by having idiots in her family. [City Room]

• Finally, we'll find out if "busty" Laura Albert's tits are as fake as her literary alter ego. [Page Six]