The NYC Housing Authority is spending $248 million to renovate two shitty Brooklyn housing projects, while "a developer recently spent...$152 million [building a] condominium tower nearby." Which is probably languishing unsold! Just give everyone a free condo, the end. [NYT.]

• It looks like Richard Gere has finally unloaded his spread at Julian Schnabel's Palazzo Chupi. The 3.500-square-foot space, which Gere bought for $13 million in 2007 and listed for $17.995 million in 2008, has reportedly sold for $12 million to an unidentified buyer. [NYT]
• John Novogratz, a senior managing director at Millenium Partners and the brother of fellow financier Michael Novogratz, has paid $3.44 million for a 4,400-square-foot apartment at 39 Vestry Street. [Cityfile]
• The penthouse duplex at 1020 Fifth has undergone a $5 million price cut. The 7,000-square-foot apartment, which is owned by heirs to the Kress retail fortune and first went on the market for $46.5 million in 2008, was reduced to $39 million in January. It's now listed for $34 million. [NYT, Corcoran]

Stalked: Sonia Sotomayor at Po on Smith Street. Someone spot her at Bar Great Harry!

OK, we get it—Sienna Miller walks her dog. Does that mean you have to take her picture doing it every god damn day? No! And this isn't the only snap we see ad infinitum. Make it stop!

• Actress Kristen Johnston has closed on the sale of her duplex at 296 West 10th Street. The two-bedroom apartment with a solarium and terrace, which Johnston listed for $1.795 million in June and went into contract to sell in August, sold for $1.7 million to costume designers John Orberg and Janet Kuhl. [Cityfile]
• Jamie Drake, the interior designer who counts Mayor Bloomberg as one of his clients, has put his 6,200-square-foot home in East Hampton on the market for $2.9 million. [Newsday, Mercedes/Berk]
• Armon Bar-Tur, a managing director at SafeHarbor Capital Partners, and his wife Rebecca, have found a buyer for their townhouse at 92 Charles Street. The four-bedroom home, which the couple bought for $6 million in 2006 and listed for $14.95 million in October, has gone into contract after less than a month on the market. [Curbed, Corcoran]
• Private eye Bo Dietl has gone into contract to sell his Manhasset home. The five-bedroom home, which the former cop and occasional TV commentator bought for $2.3 million in 2004 and listed for $3.295 million in August, is reportedly selling for "just over $3 million." [Newsday, PDE]

We knew that Olivia Palermo, best known for her role as the Upper East Side Stereotype on MTV's The City, had given up Manhattan to move to Brooklyn, we never thought it would be for DUMBO. Ew.

Do you want to have Zach Galifianakis' babies? If you're the lesbian couple at the open of tonight's HBO series "Bored to Death" well, then you're in luck.

It was once fashionable to hate hipsters. Then they all became yuppies and successfully suppressed our collective rage. Until now.

It's official. The richest man in Russia, Mikhail Prokhorov, has taken control of the New Jersey Nets. The 44-year-old oligarch, who is worth $9.5 billion according to Forbes, signed a $200 million deal today with real estate developer/Nets owner Bruce Ratner that will make him the principal owner of the team, as well as a major investor in the Nets' long-delayed new home in Brooklyn. This makes Prokhorov the first foreign owner of an NBA team who isn't Canadian, and the "the only NBA owner who can dunk," according to Prokhorov. And the tri-state area now has its very own Mark Cuban, clearly. [NYT]

• Joseph Azrack, the former head of Citigroup's real estate investment group and now a partner at Leon Black's Apollo Management, has picked up the townhouse at 24 West 11th Street. The 6,250-square-foot property (left), which first went on the market last September for $17.5 million, had been listed most recently for $14.9 million. (Curbed has photos and a floorplan here.) [NYP]
• Tony Margolis, who retired as CEO of the Tommy Bahama Group in 2008, has dropped the price of his eighth-floor apartment at 1010 Fifth Avenue for the third time since listing it in January 2008 for for $11.995 million. The three-bedroom co-op can now be yours for $9.95 million. [Cityfile, Sotheby's]
• Nancy Rutter, a former reporter for Forbes and the ex-wife of Netscape co-founder Jim Clark, has paid $3.55 million for a penthouse apartment at 230 East 73rd Street. [Cityfile]

[Two participants take a rest before marching in the West Indian-American Day Parade yesterday in Brooklyn. Image via Getty]

[Brooklynites sizzle under the Manhattan Bridge yesterday afternoon. Image via Laverrue's Flickr]

Gawker operative Stephen Kosloff braved the natural habitat of the Grizzly Bear (concert) yesterday to bring you these images and accounts of hipsters in the wild. Don't feed the animals, unless it's Bomb Pops.

Is there anything more symbolic of the American summer than the ice cream man? No! But some people hate the ice cream man. Who? Dang food-Nazi parents, that's who! Especially one whose Brooklyn restaurant serves deep-fried candy bars to children!

Grizzled CNN war correspondent Michael Ware just got done spending seven years in Iraq. Soon he'll go to rugged-est Afghanistan. But for now, he's living in... Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Quick, what's the joke?

"Spike Lee is organizing a block party-style celebration in Brooklyn to mark Michael Jackson's birthday. The filmmaker's bash in Kings County for the late King of Pop will be on Aug. 29, when Jackson would have turned 51." Naturally, Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn's useless borough president, plans to be fully involved with the planned celebration. He will proclaim that Aug. 29 is officially "Michael Jackson Day"—in Brooklyn, at least. [AP]

Amy Sohn's new book sure does have some some hot dish: Sean Penn's bad in bed, Robert Downey Jr. cheats, and Kate Hudson is an evil bitch... in her mind. The celebs don't care, but the New York Post does!

I'm not a huge Oprah fan, but there's something about Jay-Z and Oprah walking around the Marcy Projects right now, chatting about whatever, that's really quite wonderful. In other news, thanks, Oprah, for stealing my dream profile assignment. H8Uagain. [RapRadar]

• John Legend has picked up a new apartment in the East Village. The Grammy-winning singer—who is still looking to unload his former pad on East 3rd Street—has reportedly gone into contract to buy a one-bedroom condo at 52 East 4th Street, where Moby owns an apartment, too. [WSJ]
• SNL's Kristen Wiig has paid $1.5 million for a director Alan Taylor's SoHo apartment. The loft at 476 Broadway had been listed for $1.75 million. [NYO]

The internet's been buzzing over a Brooklyn company's plan to convert discarded dumpsters into swimming pools, and now that they've successfully conned doltish hipsters into swimming inside of dumpsters, the owners want to expand their evil empire into suburbia.