We've been hearing little whispers, and then bigger ones, about secret (but not really secret) hotspot restaurant Freeman's—and when we realized we (and you) could actually afford to go there, we thought we'd check it out. Yes, not only did we break our starve-until-we're-skinny-and-perfect diet for the sake of service journalism, but we also stayed reasonably sober enough to scope the place out and stare inappropriately long at patrons. Okay, maybe the sober part is a little white lie, but the rest is totally true.

Poor Ron Perelman and the residents of East 63rd Street. As if the stress of dealing with noisy, popular local cafe Le Bilboquet weren't enough for the cranky billionaire, now he has to fight a nasty legal battle to ensure that the boîte doesn't open a sidewalk cafe. Perelman claims the restaurant's patrons are drinking and smoking outside the establishment until the wee hours; he's even sent a private investigator to observe these threats to his gentle slumber. And, if the story intrigues you further, you can rent A Table And Two Chairs, a fictionalized account of the bistro's early struggles with its neighbors, or keep your fingers crossed for the production of the documentary sequel, which is currently being filmed by the wife of Le Bilboquet's owner. Riveting, indeed.
Boîte's Battle Boils Over [Observer]

If only you knew how I spend my nights: lonely, thrashing about my bed in tears, full of regret over my educational past. You see, I didn't attend Harvard (shocking, right?) and, as such, I can't just waltz into the Harvard Club of New York at any given moment where, according to their website, amiable black men will dive into dumpsters at my bidding. God, I hate being excluded from fun stuff like this.
Dumpster Diving [HCNY]

Meet Mae Lee, the pseudonymous madam who runs a small but thriving escort agency out of her New Jersey apartment. Mae Lee is only 30 but rather gifted, as she's been successfully managing her own business for a solid 10 years. How, you ask, do you end up raking in six-figures, tax-free, through whore-management? Mae Lee took the traditional path from her Connecticut youth:

The Times conducts an insanely in-depth exploration of the seating in popular Broadway theaters. After much measuring, poking, and prodding, they turn to Glen Gillen, an occupational therapy professor at Columbia, for an assessment of the situation:

We thought we'd hammered aSmallWorld, the selective online community of the rich and fabulous, into the ground and were almost ready to move on to the next VIP internet club. That is, until we found out that they don't like Gawker. Wait, why not? We fucking adore aSmallWorld and its well-heeled, eurotrashy patrons more than anything, yet our affections have been misinterpreted as something more malicious than puppy love. We're hurt, honestly—is this because we've got Jews in the company? What follows is the post in which our hearts were broken beyond repair.

We're still totally in love with our aSmallWorld membership, even though we don't know how the fuck we slipped through the cracks. Today we trolled around the message boards, which were rife with boring debates on the merits of Finland versus Iceland, but then we realized that we weren't even looking at aSmallWorld forums—no, we'd been relegated to something called aBigWorld! What the hell? We did some research and came up with a cryptic explanation from the site's info page. Read on to see just how tangled this web of Friendsteresque aristocracy can be.

It's so exclusive, you can't even see it: JFK Airport's Terminal 5 art exhibition has been shut after just opening days ago. The artsy hipster scene was a little too rough and tumble for the landmarked venue, as Port Authority has cited such normally art-tastic actions as smoking, graffiti, and vandalism from the preview party as the reasons behind the closed doors. Sounds like the festivities might've actually been worth the trek out there.
Terminal 5 Exhibition Crashes Friday Night, Burns [City]
[Image via Lightningfield]

At our new favorite online VIP club, aSmallWorld, we've got oodles of highbrow fun: Argentinean polo horses for sale, New Delhi club recommendations, and Thanksgiving in London. You know, the usual. The highlight of today's postings helps incoming eurotrash (a man whose picture, it should be noted, features him wearing safari gear and being served by individuals who he likely refers to as "natives") with tips on how to have a classy-pants 40th birthday celebration at New York's bastions of swank. Name-dropping after the jump.

Don't you think the internet is a little, well, democratic? I mean, almost anyone can access it from nearly anywhere and connect with anybody. Quelle horreur. Finally, however, someone has decided to give this messy web what it needs: a dash of fabulous wealth and insane exclusivity. Peasants, meet aSmallWorld: a private, online networking community akin to Friendster. To maintain jet-set levels of discrimination, FIVE members must approve your existence before you're "in." It's like a giant sorority, but with locations in New York, London, Paris, Gstaad, and Monaco. Discerning, yet global. I love it!

It must be nice to be super Sikh Vikram Chatwal. When you're not throwing money around town and chasing the Hilton sisters, you're slacking off on your dreamNY hotel project. HotelChatter reports that while dreamNY will be slick with the taste of photographer Dave LaChappelle and outfitted in iPod docks and plasma televisions, it's not enough to make Daddy Chatwal happy. When Vikram claimed he wants to be the first Sikh billionaire, his father commented, "The problem right now is, he's only spending 30 percent of his time towards business." The other 70 percent of Vikram's time, for the record, is spent repeatedly tattooing the letter "G," for model Gisele Bundchen, on his arm.
Vikram Chatwal: "I Have A Dream" [HotelChatter]

Hey, remember the when the Whitney Museum was all hot and controversial? In case you don't, the museum was defaced by scandal when board member Robert Hurst was scoped out by the Times for evading taxes on art purchases. We hear, however, that the paper's Tim O'Brien is back to digging away at the museum's finances and direction under new director Adam Weinberg. We're thinking that there's more to come on Robert Hurst, seeing as he's held on to his position despite embarassing everyone around him. After the jump, an anonymous reader reports on the artsy-fartsy fracas and possible motives for the continued scrutiny.

On a groggy Monday morning, nothing makes us more hot than an "expose" on pill-popping teenagers. The consensus is in, 17 year-olds on the Upper West Side are the new downtown twenty-somethings. They've discovered the secrets of life: Xanax counteracts cocaine and Adderall will get you through that big project you've been avoiding. So precious and precocious.

Breaking! Must get impregnated this weekend! That way we can all hatch some babies just in time for the opening of Citibabes, the hottest new club in Manhattan:

The IHOP (or International House of Pancakes, for the 6 of you who aren't from some shameful suburb like the rest of us) in Harlem is hugely popular, and the New York Times is there to tell us all about it. Look beyond the anthropological study of African-American Sunday fashion ("There were pink cardigans and patent leather Mary Janes," or, "A bow-tied fellow with some diamond cuff links..."), and you'll find that the Times has quite the knowledge of soul food:

Soho's latest hotspot, the Lure Fishbar, has somewhat opened its doors to the public. And by "public," we mean the Calvin Klein after-party and whatnot. Someday, even you might be able to secure a table! The restaurant is the latest trendy effort from John McDonald (Lever House, MercBar) and while we haven't yet meandered over, Verbose Coma raises the sort of issues we truly care about:

As the Hamptons escapades of summer fast become distant memories, the Black Table reminds us why we should never forget the best of Eastern Long Island — your bodily functions are always treated like royalty. A Black Table reader reviews a port-a-potty fit for the richest asses of Sag Harbor:

Ah, nostalgia. Do you remember Soho House? No? It's this private club in, um, Soho — no, wait, the Meatpacking District, v. tricky — that was on Sex and the City a few years ago and features "exclusive" guests who pretend to enjoy overpriced fruit. The Gays and eurotrash who embrace this inferno of bygone trend were out in full force yesterday, as a reader reports:

It's back-to-school season, which means only one thing for the depressed students of NYU: time to jump off a building and kill yourself. Sigh. Yesterday, 23 year-old Joanne Leavy was found dead on Mercer street, making this the sixth student to plummet to their death in the past year and the second Tisch student to die in the past week. Um, is the Village that bad? Are the drugs in Washington Square not numbing enough? Why not just DROP OUT? No word on the reasoning behind Leavy's tragic decision, but we can only assume this was the official "Welcome Mary-Kate and Ashley" suicide.
NYU Student Is Killed In Fall At Tisch School [NYT]
[Image via NYU Admissions]

We're absolutely loving this example of a union's take on designer and hotelier Philippe Starck. Wouldn't the piece fit wonderfully with his lily-white decor and minimalist designs?
Union Rat At Wall And Broad St. [AKC's MoBlog]