Cityfile has partnered with Dr. Helen Fisher to bring you the latest insight into love and romantic attraction. A renowned biological anthropologist, Dr. Fisher has conducted extensive research in the fields of human sexuality, love and marriage. She serves as Chief Scientific Advisor for the internet dating site Chemistry.com.
• Stephen Daldry, the director of The Hours, The Reader, and the Broadway production of Billy Elliot, The Musical, has picked up a new home: He paid $3.8 million for a five-floor townhouse in Chelsea. Daldry clearly has some work ahead of him. The 4,600-square-foot property located at 347 West 21st Street is currently configured as a three-unit house, according to the listing, and is in need of renovation. But he scored a pretty decent discount in the process. The home had been on the market for $4.775 million. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Actress Kristen Johnston has found a buyer for her duplex at 296 West 10th Street, just one month after she first put it on the market. The two-bedroom apartment with solarium and terrace had been listed for $1.795 million when it went into contract late last month. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Real estate mogul Aby Rosen has raised the price of his townhouse at 3 East 94th Street. Rosen purchased the 11,700-square-foot manse for $8.8 million in 2005 and first listed it for $29.5 million in September 2008. He chopped the price down to $23.75 million in February. Now it's $1 million more expensive. The luxe home is currently listed for $24.75 million. [Cityfile, 3E94th]
It was five years ago yesterday that Jim McGreevey announced he was "a gay American," and said he was resigning as New Jersey's governor. What's he up to now? He's studying divinity and spends free time volunteering at a church in Harlem, and he tells the Star-Ledger that he's made peace with the past. ("I'm grateful for my brokenness. I'm grateful for my humility.") Also, as you probably could have guessed, he had a pretty good idea for how Eliot Spitzer was feeling during his sex scandal last March: "I felt pain for his family, and I prayed for his family, and I knew that he would once again discover productive service as he has. He's an incredibly bright, capable individual and he will continue to serve in different ways." [NJ.com via Gothamist]
• Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps got into a car accident in Baltimore last night, but there were no serious injuries reported. [NYDN]
• The father of Khloe Kardashian's baby is her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Scott Disick. She was hoping to keep the info a secret to get people to tune into her upcoming reality show, but then her sister Kim ruined the surprise. [P6]
• Don't be surprised if you hear Mischa Barton's checked herself into the hospital again. She's been out, oh, two weeks now and the British tabloids are focusing on all the cellulite she has, poor thing. [DM]
• Heidi Pratt says she has "20-30 orgasms per day" with husband Spencer Pratt. Could this be because she experiences what she thinks is an orgasm every time she sees her name appear in tabloid or gossip outlet? Just an idea. [P6]
• Polo Ralph Lauren has been hit with a lawsuit for stamping the word "lifeguard" on clothing without permission. Another company is claiming it trademarked the word years ago. [NYP]
• As expected, Escada filed for bankruptcy protection in a German court today. [Bloomberg]
• Is Bravo renewing The Fashion Show for a second season? That's unclear for the time being. [Cut]
• Tory Burch and Georgina Chapman are making cameos on the next season of Gossip Girl. [WWD]
• Now that visiting a tanning a salon is tantamount to sucking on asbestos or consuming toxic nuclear waste, is "pale the new tan"? [NYT]
• After 37 years in business—and following several lease extensions—La Goulue on Madison Avenue will close its doors on Aug. 26. The owners say they're still hoping to reopen it somewhere else in the neighborhood. [NYT]
• Further evidence that this is a really tough time for media companies: The New York Times has licensed its name to a new wine club. [Reuters, release]
• Simon Hammerstein is hoping to revive The Box with some new talent. Joey Arias will be taking over hosting duties beginning next month. [P6]
• Like the many critics before him, New York's Adam Platt doesn't go easy on Monkey Bar: "A-list connections can't cover for D-grade cooking." [NYM]
Is the recession over? Who knows, really, but Vanity Fair has already taken the liberty of having a bartender whip up a special "Is the recession over?" cocktail. Made of blueberries, vodka and crème de cassis, it's designed to be consumed while addressing that very question with friends. Unfortunately, it also takes a full week to make, which means by the time it's ready, the economy may have recovered and already slipped into another recession. So, you know, maybe it would be better to just stick to a beer or whatever? [VF]
Were you thinking that what the Hamptons really needed right now was another magazine with party pictures and "inside info" on cool things to do? No? Well, too bad. The Observer reports there's a new kid on the block called The Hampton Spy. Edited by a former Hamptons editor and Hamptons Style contributor, it bills itself as "a digital publication and community." Most exciting of all: Countess LuAnn de Lesseps has already attended one its parties in the flesh. And you can't do much better than that, can you? [NYO]
• The value of Michael Jackson's estate may double by the end of the year thanks to the surge in music sales and all those movie/merch deals. [LAT]
• Bad news for Conan: Repeats of David Letterman's show last week still managed to beat new episodes of the Tonight Show in the ratings. [NYT]
• For the first time, Us Weekly's website attracted more monthly visitors than People.com. Us's footage of Michael Jackson's hair on fire helped. [WWD]
• Bill Bratton, the former police commissioner of LA and, before that, New York City, has landed a book deal with Random House's Broadway Books. [AP]
• Does lots of buzz on Twitter send people to movie theaters and boost box office sales? Not so much, at least according to one poll. [NYT]
• Dr. Dre, Interscope chairman Jimmy Iovine, and Hewlett-Packard are teaming up to "save digital music." Good luck with that, guys. [CNET]
It typically takes the star of a reality TV show a couple of months to go from (minor) fame to infamy. But it looks like Sebastian Oppenheim of NYC Prep really is the precocious brat he made himself out to be on the show! Because it's only been two days since the Bravo series ended and he's already dressing up as a Nazi. [NYM/Daily Intel]
These are uncertain times for Condé Nast. McKinsey consultants are now scouring company budgets looking for fat to trim. And staffers are now getting acclimated to a world in which they're expected to subsist on room temperature Poland Spring, not chilled Fiji water or sparkling citrus beverages in round little bottles. It hasn't been a walk in the park for Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse, of course. Over the past year, he's probably seen several billion dollars of his net worth evaporate. And his private foundation—a vehicle he's used over the years to shower hundreds of millions of dollars on art institutions, hospitals, libraries, and his alma mater, Syracuse University—hasn't been immune either.
So much for Donald Trump's plan to swoop down and retake control of his old Atlantic City casino empire, which went bankrupt for a third time a few months ago. Investors who are out $1.25 billion—and who stand to gain nothing from Trump's bid to buy back the company—are calling Trump's plan "a brazen insider deal," have asked a judge to conduct a full investigation, and have submitted their own proposal to take back control of the company. [AP]
It's been a bruising few weeks for Goldman Sachs what with the tough questions about the role the firm played in the mortgage meltdown and subsequent bailout, and any special treatment it may have received from Washington officials like former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. But it looks like the firm's lawyers now have one more headache to deal with: the dude in Thailand who is selling unauthorized (and terribly chintzy) Goldman-branded "keychain watches" on Ebay for $9.95 a pop. "Makes a great gift for someone," reads the ad. It doesn't specify who this "someone" is. But if you're looking to give a friend at the firm a way to count down the minutes until his gigantic bonus shows up in his checking account, you probably should make a move before Goldman's lawyers do. [Ebay]
Gwyneth Paltrow getting into her SUV in the Hamptons ... Calvin Klein walking in the West Village ... Elle Macpherson walking in Tribeca ... Antonio Sabato Jr. leaving his hotel ... Michelle Trachtenberg standing outside her trailer on the set of Gossip Girl, and later posing for photographers with an umbrella ... Jon Hamm leaving ABC Studios ... Eric Bana walking out of the Trump International Hotel with wife Rebecca Gleeson ... Justin Long on the set of Going the Distance ... Rihanna partying at Greenhouse in SoHo... and Ashton Kutcher standing on the set of A Beautiful Life downtown.
There are about 20 books about Bernie Madoff scheduled to be published over the next few months. Let's hope only one gets into what Bernie was like in bed. Cheryl Weinstein, who says she lost her entire life savings to the fraudster, plans to detail an affair she supposedly had with Madoff in her upcoming book, Madoff's Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me. And according to a spokesman for St. Martin's Press, in addition to details of the affair, "the hardcover book will include photographs and some intimate descriptions of Madoff." [Bloomberg]
• Alec Baldwin has put his longtime co-op in the Eldorado on Central Park West on the market for $8.9 million. He's reportedly thinking about trading it in for a four-bedroom apartment at the Dakota, which has been reduced from $24 million to $12.5 million over the past year. [NYP]
• Former GE CEO Jack Welch is in contract to buy a three-bedroom pad at One Beacon Court that's next door to the condo he already owns. The 2,669-square-foot space was most recently listed for $8.995 million. [NYP, BHS]
• New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and his wife, Robin Wells, have paid $1.7 million for former Times reporter Joseph B. Treaster's three-bedroom co-op at 110 Riverside Drive. Meanwhile, the couple is currently in contract to sell their former apartment, a one-bedroom at 304 West 89th Street that was most recently listed for $599,000. [NYO, Corcoran]
Janice Min, who recently stepped down as the editor of Us Weekly, is celebrating her 40th birthday today. Martha Nelson, the woman who oversees People, is turning 57. Weatherman Sam Champion is 48. Sebastian Stan of Gossip Girl is turning 26. Danny Bonaduce is 50. Author and screenwriter Tom Perrotta is turning 48. Agnes Gund, the former president of the Museum of Modern Art, is 71. Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders is turning 76. And ex-Cuban president Fidel Castro turns 83 today.
• Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and their boyfriends, Nate Lowman and Justin Bartha, had super evening out the other night. It involved steak, making out, tickling, and "chain-smoking cigarettes until after 4am." [P6]
• Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez aren't on the friendliest terms these days. Now things have turned frosty between their respective girlfriends, Minka Kelly and Kate Hudson. [P6]
• Heidi Pratt appears in the new issue of Playboy. But you won't find any nude pics of her in the magazine. She says she won't strip down completely until after she has a few "upgrades" performed by her plastic surgeon. [Us]
• Kourtney Kardashian is pregnant. So who's the father? Either she's not saying because she plans to use the news to gin up ratings for her crappy reality show, or becaue she doesn't know herself. One or the other. [E!]
• Cintra Wilson is not impressed with the NYC's very first JCPenney: "Why would this perennially square department store bother to reanimate itself in Manhattan—in the sleekest, scariest fashion city in America—during a hair-raising economic downturn, without taking the opportunity to vigorously rebrand itself?" Making matters worse, she says even the mannequins are obese: "It's like a headless wax museum devoted entirely to the cast of Roseanne." [NYT]
• Contrary to recent rumors, Kanye West is not interning at the Gap. [FWD]
• It looks like Escada is the latest fashion house to go bust. [Bloomberg]
• Anna Wintour will appear on Dave Letterman's show on August 24. (Set your DVR!) In other Anna-related news (and despite recent budget cuts at Condé Nast), the Vogue editrix will be making the trip to London Fashion Week.
