• Corrugated cardboard magnate Dennis Mehiel has chopped $5.4 million off the price of his Carhart Mansion duplex (left). The 10,350-square-foot spread, which had been listed for $34.9 million, can now be yours for a much more modest $29.5 million. [NYO, BHS]
• Michael Steinberg, a portfolio manager at Sigma Capital, a hedge fund affiliated with Steve Cohen's SAC Capital, has picked up a new apartment. Steinberg and his wife Elizabeth paid $8 million for a penthouse at 885 Park Avenue. [Cityfile]
• Clara Markowicz, co-founder of Original Media LLC and a co-producer of The Rachel Zoe Project, has paid $3.55 million for a three-bedroom, ninth-floor apartment at 21 Astor Place, the building where real estate scion Jared Kushner recently picked up an apartment, too. [Cityfile]

If it is true, per Carrie Bradshaw and Intern Alexis of De Jure Altarcations, that the Times wedding announcements is "the straight woman's sports pages," then surely the Times Sunday Real Estate section is the sentient man's Mutual Funds Report. Consider, for instance, Suzanne Slesin's "Window Shopping" column today: in a few compact inches, every factor that could possibly go into judging a person's worth is introduced and discussed. Ideological attachments w/r/t architecture? Check. Thoughts on (de)merits of adaptive reuse? Check. Snide praise of decorator-charlatan Philippe Starck? Check. Subtle revelation of writer's own net-worth situation? Ding.