It's the New York Times new-ish headquarters and the American Institute of Architects has declared it the most unattractive in the city, more so than a T.G.I. Friday's and a Trump tower. Really? We're not so sure about that.

What happens when a group of social media freaks—including Ann Curry—get trapped in an elevator? It is electronically recorded and broadcast over the internet at near-dizzying speed. Welcome to the most thoroughly documented elevator entrapment ever.

• Marty Peretz, former owner of the New Republic, is buying back the mag with a group of investors led by former Lazard exec Laurence Grafstein. [Politico]
• The New York Times Co. has successfully raised $225 million by selling off 21 floors of its Eighth Avenue office building. [NYT]
• "Was last week the worst one in CNBC's 20-year history—or the best?" asks the Times today. Thanks in part to Jon Stewart, we're pretty sure it was its worst, but ratings are up so CNBC execs aren't complaining. [NYT]
• Carl Icahn is stepping up his effort to take control of Lionsgate. [Variety]
• McClatchy, which publishes 30 daily newspapers, says it plans to slash 1,600 jobs, or 15% of its work force, as well as cut salaries across the board. [WSJ]
• Mag covers with Barack Obama have performed well, by and large. [NYP]
• Watchmen was No. 1 at the weekend box office, grossing $55.7 million. [EW]
• The Tribeca Film Festival announced its May lineup today. [THR]

• Dark days at the Times: The newspaper's in "advanced discussions" to sell a "substantial portion" of its Renzo Piano-designed headquarters. [NYT]
• Disney is merging its ABC TV network with ABC Studios. [WSJ]
• WNET-Thirteen is cutting budgets and laying off staff. [NYO]
• In Style publisher Lynette Harrison Brubaker is leaving the company. [WWD]
• Katie Couric will go primetime next Wednesday. [NYT]
• The final inauguration ratings are in. [AdAge]
• Is Condé Nast just publishing the same story in its various magazines? [FB]
• The Tribune Co. has sold off the Cubs for $900 million. [Chicago Trib]

How many New York Times reporters does it take to cover a plane crash? 34. No wonder the paper had to mortgage its office building. [Doree]

♦ The Tribune Co. is now hovering dangerously close to bankruptcy. [NYT]
♦ Media companies have let 30,000 people go thus far this year. [AdAge]
♦ Christie Hefner is stepping down as CEO of Playboy. [Bloomberg]
♦ It's now official: David Gregory is the new host of Meet the Press. [NYT]
♦ The New York Times Co. says it plans to borrow $225 million against the value of its new office building to "ease a potential cash flow squeeze." [NYT]
♦ More on the changes to NBC's executive ranks last week. [Variety]
♦ Ad agencies are bracing for a round of deep cost cuts. [NYP]
♦ Wowowow.com, the site featuring writing by the likes of Liz Smith and Lesley Stahl, has raised $1.5 million from Bob Pittman, among others. [NYP]
♦ Four Christmases was No. 1 at the box office this weekend for a second week in a row. [Reuters]

Terrible celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz has been documenting the development of the innocent young New York Times Building, and tomorrow she is going to drape it in a sexy sheet and photograph it. So watch out! She's going to do this in a helicopter, flying well below standard FAA restrictions, and then she'll shoot some wolves. They had to write a letter to the neighbors apologizing in advance for having a famous controversial celebrity photographer hanging around in a helicopter all day while they're trying to work.

Didn't he realize that risking life and limb to scale the New York Times building is, like, so last month? David Malone, 29, a former University of Michigan student who'd dropped out "to study Al Qaeda" and has a website called "Bin Laden's Plan," was apprehended by police early this morning after climbing to the fifth floor, unfurling a banner, then climbing a few more stories. So much for those increased security measures! [NYT]

Local News

It turns out that "ladderlike horizontal rods that form an exterior curtain surrounding the floor-to-ceiling windows"—while a neat architectural feature—present a small problem: someone might use them as a ladder! Or two people might use them as ladders! Our only question: When the Times says, "Reporting was contributed by Charles V. Bagli, Russ Buettner, Sewell Chan, Glenn Collins, David W. Dunlap, Jason Grant, Christine Hauser, Corey Kilgannon, Eric Konigsberg, Jennifer 8. Lee, Trymaine Lee, Patrick McGeehan, Colin Moynihan, William K. Rashbaum and Paul von Zielbauer," do they just mean that all those people have offices with windows? [NYT]

New York seems to have fun new sport: Scaling the new Renzo Piano-designed New York Times headquarters! As you undoubtedly have seen by now, two people hoisted themselves up the glassy new building yesterday. The first, French stuntman Alain "Spider-Man" Robert, unfurled a banner decrying global warming from the building's 11th story before getting arrested as soon as he reached its summit.

The gorgeous new New York Times building is not just a rat-infested danger to pedestrians—it's also freezing cold! Exec editor Bill Keller emailed the troops earlier on this freezing, snowy Tuesday: "We raised this with the building services people Sunday when the temperature dropped, and they are on the case. Basically, cold air is leaking into the podium side of the building through the open loading dock and elevator shafts." UPDATE: We hear... that Page Six and the New York Post library were also freezing cold yesterday, with the temperature eventually measured at 39 degrees. Which is a real problem, considering how many staffers there are cold-blooded reptiles (zing!). Please send in any and all additional tales of newsroom frostbite. [Radar]