• Tom Ford is expanding. (Or hoping to, at least.) The designer is reportedly looking to raise $50 million in financing to expand into womenswear. [Reuters]
• Rents along Fifth Avenue have been falling, of course. But the situation appears to be particularly bleak at the empty shopping mall (or "retail collection") at the Plaza Hotel. [Bloomberg, NYP]
• The downside of diffusion: According to a new survey, consumers say luxury products are too accessible these days and have become a commodity. [WWD]

• A group of Greenwich Village residents are waging war against the Jane Hotel Ballroom over noise issues. They've hired a lawyer and filed complaints with the city. Naturally, they're blogging and tweeting the action, too. [NYDN]
• Drinks at the Standard's Boom Boom Room will run you $25 when it opens. Provided, of course, you get inside and have the chance to order one. [BB]
• Related: More on Kurt Gutenbrunner's beer garden at the hotel. [VV, DBTH]
• Dean Poll, who takes over Tavern on the Green on Jan. 1, is in for a rough ride: He's already facing off against the restaurant's very vocal union. [NYT]
• An interview with the very prolific restaurateur Michael "Bao" Huynh. [Zagat]
• How the Manhattan Motorino compares to its Brooklyn predecessor. [GS]
• A group of pizza aficionados claim the best pie in town is located at Salvatore of Soho on Staten Island. In case you feel like taking a ride. [NYDN]

Back in April, two photographers reported that bodyguards hired by Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady to keep the media away from the couple's wedding party in Costa Rica roughed them up and fired shots at them when they attempted to snap pics of the event. Today the duo filed a lawsuit against the couple, and they're now asking for $1 million in damages. But let's back up for a moment. Why did the two photographers even bother to try and take pictures of the party in the first place? Well, Brady, you see, is a really famous quarterback. And Gisele? She's a famous "international fashion model." But just in case that's not enough of a justification for you, bear in mind that they're "beautiful people who attract the paparazzi." So, you know, they probably should have expected something like this would happen. The full suit is below.

• Barack Obama's appearance on David Letterman's show last night helped the Late Night host score his second-highest ratings ever. [NYT, WP]
• Dan Rather scored a couple of victories in his suit against CBS: A motion by the network to dismiss the case was denied by a judge; and Rather's lawyers will be permitted to question Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone. [Reuters]
• Yesterday, activists handing out fake copies of the Post outside its offices were detained by cops. Today, the paper says it was "flattered" by it. [NYP]
• Book deals: Jenny Sanford, the estranged wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, is writing "inspirational memoir" for Random House. And Andrew Young, an aide to former Senator John Edwards, has landed a deal with St. Martin's Press' Thomas Dunne Books to publish his tell-all memoir.
• In an effort to keep more viewers tuned in, ABC plans to reduce—yes, reduce—the number of commercials in the premieres of its new shows. [LAT]
• Fox won the opening night of the fall season, a first for the network. [THR]

The pranksters at Improv Everywhere have struck again: "For our latest mission, we installed a photography studio on a random subway car. We claimed that the MTA had hired us to take photos of every single person who rides the subway and that we'd be producing a yearbook at the end of the year. Most people were happy to pose for us, and the resulting photos show just how diverse New York subway riders can be." Bonus: They show just how gullible New Yorkers can be, too. [Improv Everywhere, previously]

Don't be shocked if you notice what has been an endangered species until recently—the elusive banquette-dancing, champagne-swilling hedge funder—make a comeback in the coming months. Hedge funds "had nearly $20 billion pour into their coffers last month, as investors flocked back amid revived market optimism." Or take the glass-half-full approach and focus on the positive chalk up the news to more evidence the recession is over. [Dealbook, HedgeFund.net]

The people you barely know—your dry cleaner, for example, or the guy you regularly see sweating next to you on the treadmill at the gym—are "consequential strangers," and they're actually important to your mental well-being, say the authors of a new book. According to Melinda Blau, co-author of Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don't Seem to Matter... But Really Do, there's a "relationship continuum" from strangers to besties, and a good chunk of people fall into the middle-ground. Many of those 800 plus friends you've racked up on Facebook? Yep, they're consequential strangers. As are the countless somewhat-familiar people we see on a regular basis, all of whom supposedly "make us feel grounded in the world."

You probably wrote off summer a couple of weeks ago, didn't you? Well, you still have about an hour to go for one final summer dip or host one last summer barbeque. Fall officially begins at 5:18pm Eastern time. [USA Today]

In news that may totally surprise you —or not surprise you at all, depending on how cynical you are—the Huffington Post is reporting that Libyan strongman Moammar Khadafy is planning to pitch his tent this week... on Donald Trump's front lawn. Really.

Gov. David Paterson wasn't in a good mood yesterday. Still on the defensive following the revelation over the weekend that President Obama has been quietly (or not-so-quietly) urging him to abandon his 2010 gubernatorial campaign, the governor had to come face to face with the president when Obama stopped off in Albany yesterday to give a speech. (And had to suffer the embarrassment of having the president turn his back to the cameras, "as if to avoid the taking of images that would show the two men in a warm embrace.") But what a difference a day makes!

Jude Law waiting outside a movie theater ... Naomi Watts in Nolita pushing sons Sacha and Sammy in a stroller ... Yoko Ono having lunch at Da Silvano ... Clive Owen walking by himself ... Peter Dinklage walking his dog with a friend in the West Village ... Chace Crawford on the set of Gossip Girl near Battery Park ... Mary-Kate Olsen leaving a hotel ... Courtney Love walking downtown ... Dave Chappelle sitting on a ledge ... Shia LaBeouf taking off his tie on the set of Wall Street 2 ... Hugh Jackman walking in the West Village with his wife and daughter ... and Lady Gaga strolling around SoHo.

"Tired of the government bailing out banks? Get ready for this: officials may soon ask banks to bail out the government. Senior regulators say they are seriously considering a plan to have the nation's healthy banks lend billions of dollars to rescue the insurance fund that protects bank depositors." Emphasis added, naturally. [NYT]

After 19 weeks of testimony (or 20 weeks, according to the Daily News), jurors in the trial of Brooke Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, and lawyer, Francis X. Morrissey Jr. are expected to begin their deliberations later this afternoon. How long will it take to reach a verdict? Not all that long, since the 19 (or 20) weeks of testimony appears to have sorely tested jurors' patience. "I think there will be a lot of internal peer pressure to quickly reach a verdict so that they can all go home," says one law professor. [NYT, NYDN]

• Jewelry designer Lorraine Schwartz has a new home at the Olympic Tower on Fifth Avenue. The woman who's been called "the Queen of Bling" (and been namedropped in a Beyoncé song) paid $4.7 million for a 2,900-square-foot duplex on the building's 39th and 40th floors. [Cityfile]
• Steven Oesterle, a managing director at Giuliani Partners, and his wife Nancy, have sold their three-bedroom apartment at the Park Imperial on West 56th Street for $4.9 million. [Cityfile]
• British architect Lord Norman Foster has closed on the purchase of a second apartment at 912 Fifth Avenue. The eighth-floor pad, which Foster was first reported to be buying back in July, was bought for $6.7 million. [Real Deal]
• Christina Ricci is reportedly looking to unload her home in LA. The three-bedroom house is on the market for $1.549 million. [Real Estalker, Movoto]

If there's any way you can avoid Midtown today, do so. Thanks to roughly 120 heads of state in New York for the opening of the UN General Assembly, this will likely go down as the absolutely worst day of the year as far as gridlock and temperamental cab drivers are concerned. (If it makes you feel any better, President Obama extended his apologies to NYC residents for all the traffic tie-ups on the Late Show with David Letterman last night.)

The Metropolitan Opera's gala opening night performance of Puccini's "Tosca" last night was met with "the loudest and most sustained booing in memory." [NYT, AP]

New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. turns 58 today. NBA commissioner David Stern is turning 67. Art world fixture and chief curator of the Studio Museum Thelma Golden is 44. Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto is turning 51. Bonnie Hunt turns 45. Joan Jett is 51. Singer/writer Nick Cave is 52. Opera singer Andrea Bocelli is turning 51. Hall of fame baseball manager Tommy Lasorda is 82. Retired Rangers star Mike Richter turns 43. And Scott Baio is 48 today.

• Friends worry Jessica Simpson is "at the lowest point of her life" now that she's lost her beloved dog, Daisy. Others say she's coping "better than her friends may realize." Either way, we she's probably feeling much better now that her friends are sharing her innermost feelings with the tabloids. [People]
• The man suspected of breaking into Lindsay Lohan's house wasn't a complete stranger: The two reportedly hung out on the set of her film Labor Pains last year. The girl's not the best judge of character, as you've probably realized by now. [TMZ]
• The drugs that were prescribed to Anna Nicole Smith amounted to "pharmaceutical suicide," according to newly unsealed court documents that were obtained by the LA Times. Most disturbing: The documents also reveal that both of Anna Nicole's doctors "transgressed professional boundaries by having sexual contact with their famous patient." [LAT]
• Michelle Obama gave Barack the silent treatment at points during his campaign for president because she was pissed about all the women throwing themselves at him, according to a new book. There was even a hot young campaign aide who was mysteriously "relocated" after developing a close relationship with the President. [NYDN, P6]
• Did you catch President Obama's appearance on Letterman last night? [MTV]

• London Fashion Week kicked into high gear over the weekend. Given LFW is celebrating its 25th anniversary and a handful of designers who have been absent in recent years have returned, it's shaping up to be London's biggest year yet. Further proof of LFW's resurgence: Vogue editrix Anna Wintour (seen here fumbling with her BlackBerry) is attending the shows following a two-year hiatus. [Telegraph, LAT, NYT, Guardian]
• While many top NY-based fashion editors are turning up to the shows in London, many mags are saving cash by divvying up editors between the shows in London, Milan, and Paris. Or by making them stay at cheaper hotels. [WWD]
• More highlights and reviews from LFW's first few days. [NYT, NYT, Pipeline]

• Roundups of restaurants opening in the next week or so. [TONY, Eater]
• A look at the last-minute work involved in getting The Breslin, Ken Friedman's latest restaurant, ready for its October 8 opening. [NYT]
• Photos inside Abe & Arthur's, which opens to the public next week. [Eater]
• You may soon able to booze it up in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty: The vendor in charge of concessions there has applied for a liquor license. [NYP]
• David Chang's Momofuku Ko is raising prices beginning next week. [Eater]
• Is celebuchef Wolfgang Puck planning a NYC outpost? Possibly. [Gothamist]
• A chat with Richie Notar, the man who runs the show at Nobu. [ObsessedTV]
• What has Frank Bruni been eating since stepping down as restaurant critic of the New York Times? Lots and lots of roast chicken, apparently. [Atlantic]