Girls... who dress casually! They're called Urbane Tomboys and they're suddenly everywhere! Our own Jezebel Moe is one! She drinks beer and swears! We learned all about this exciting new trend of girls who only wear a little bit of makeup in today's Observer. We hope someday to leave the Upper East Side for the very first time and actually see one of these bizarre boy-girl hybrids in their natural environs. [NYO]
All service in and out of Grand Central station and the whole Metro-North Railroad were disrupted for hours today—because of New York Observer owner Jared Kushner! A vacant building at 124th St. and Park Avenue collapsed just before noon, threatening the stability of a neighboring vacant building. Both properties are owned by Kusher Companies, according to the New York Times. Kushner's spokesman claims the company planned to demolish both buildings tomorrow, conveniently. (HOW awesome would it be if he blew it up for the insurance money!) (Not that we are even insinuating that, obv.) Of course, things fall off of buildings all the time in New York, and sometimes our manhole covers electrocute people, but rarely do buildings owned by budding media magnates actually completely fall over onto commuter trains. And this, as they say, is the least of his current building-related problems.
It's not unheard of for questionnaires to be accompanied by a dollar bill, to encourage recipients at least to open the envelope, and guilt some of them into replying. But the New York Observer is more desperate than that: the weekly newspaper, supposedly for Manhattan's elite, encloses a $5 note in its latest reader survey. (Thanks, Matt, for the pic.) The generous interpretation: the Observer's ad rates depend on proving to advertisers that the curiously pink newspaper's readers are indeed worth $1.7m apiece; and such wealthy readers need commensurately rich inducement to open an envelope. Alternatively, boy-publisher Jared Kushner, who is trying to sustain the Observer's paltry paid circulation of some 50,000, is simply applying the family's experience with bribery. Hey, it works. Kushner won his place at Harvard University after his father pledged $2.5m to the school. ENLARGE»
This story is so awesome: in part because it centers around Hud Morgan, the scarf-wearing and fruitini-drinking libertine who's dating a barely legal daytime TV actress; but mainly because last night's incident between two journalists at the Beatrice Inn is an echo of the noir New York of vicious gossip columnists and drunken fights over starlets. (If we're playing Sweet Smell Of Success, can I be J.J. Hunsecker, please?)
[journo]: funny moment on a conf call just now
[journo]: it's Eliot Spitzer and govs of NJ and OH
[journo]: pluggign hillary to reporters
[journo]: and all the questions are from NY reporters to spitzer, and he sort of grumbles
[journo]: and then azi paybarah from the observer asks yet another
[journo]: question for eliot
[journo]: and spitzer says
[journo]: "you guys are owned by a new jersey real estate guy"
Oh my. You really must watch this video, after the jump, of an addled NYObserver president Robert Sommer explaining to MSNBC host Tucker Carlson why his peachy paper endorsed Barack Obama this week. Our favorite line? "We like to view our readers as some of the smartest, most insensitive-most-Some of the most brightest readers in the country and especially New York." Aww...television is hard.
The New York Observer's George Gurley: such a heartbreaker. Who knew? The louche reporter, a throwback to days when journalists still drank and stayed out late, proposed over the Christmas holidays to his girlfriend Hilly, who features often in his writing. One former girlfriend, Baroness Sheri de Borchgrave, has not given up. "We could be such a perfect couple. I will not give up hope," she says. How romantic, except that it was Page Six to which she bared her heart.
Here's one explanation for Zachary Roth's tearful exit from the New York Observer. The media beat at the elite Manhattan newspaper used to be a stepping stone to journalistic greatness; it brought a reporter into contact with most of the people who dispense media jobs. And young reporters like Warren St John (now of the Times) and Gabriel Snyder (now of W) made the most of it. Now the Observer contends with dozens of blogs like this one. It's harder for editor Peter Kaplan to attract bright young things; and harder for them to impress once they're there.
The New York Observer's beleaguered media editor, Zachary Roth, "has quit," according to Mediabistro. Word on the street since Roth took over the weekly's press coverage in August, was that he might have been ill-prepared for the task. Roth was under so much pressure, in fact, that according to a source he broke down in the newsroom at one point. Roth politely declined to comment when we asked him about the circumstances of his departure, and for all we know, he had the very good sense to realize that managing an understaffed team of young media reporters on a shoestring budget—in addition to being a pain in the ass—is not the best way to make a buck. However, let it be said: there is no crying in a newsroom. Everyone has been there. Everyone. Me, for example! And you!
The Observer declared occasionally nutty but totally must-read WGA strike chronicler and studio nemesis Deadline Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke their "media mensch of the year." ALSO they found an ultra-rare kinda recent photo of her! Finke, who used to be the Observer's West Coast editor, is unapologetically on the side of the striking writers, though she has well-placed sources on both sides of the fight. Also this strike will never ever end, so we get to read a million passionate words from her about the bullshit-spewing hordes of soulless corporate ninnies at the AMPTP every day until the end of time, currently scheduled for January '09. [NYO]
Scaffolding collapse at 915 Broadway and 21st Street! Or actually near-collapse! Firemen on a crane, dismantling! Block closed down! New York Observer reporters forced to take freight elevator in back of building! Take-home message: Don't take a cab down Broadway south of 23rd Street, not that you should anyway, because that is a TERRIBLE route no matter where you're going because of the way Broadway dumps out into Union Square, obviously, but it is totes particularly bad right now! UPDATE: OOH, PICTURE!
Semi-fabulist Scott Beauchamp's wife, Elspeth Reeve, who was so fired a couple of months back by The New Republic , is quite the talker! She doesn't hold much back in an interview today with the Observer in which she discusses fact-checking her husband's dispatches from Iraq, both before and after they were married. Is it really possibly that, despite having gone to journalism schook, Reeve still doesn't quite understand how this whole 'reporting' thing works? FYI, it's something along the lines of 'when the pencil/digital recorder moves, your words are being captured for posterity!'
Popular television program Gossip Girl is, according to Wikipedia, "an American television teen drama" that "revolves around the lives of socialite young adults growing up on New York's Upper East Side who attend elite academic institutions while dealing with sex, drugs, and other teenage issues." Also, according to the New York Observer, it's ruining New York forever.
Since Monday, NYC women have been assaulted by a clusterfuck of articles pointing out our possible body inadequacies—more than usual, actually! In fact, it's utterly confusing for us gals to figure out which flaw to hate the most. Has femiladyism taken a step backward, or is this just what inevitably happens right before the December glut of top ten lists hits next week?
For some inscrutable Hitchensian reason, Observer party boy Spencer Morgan tried on a pair of Spanx, the cinching plastic panties so supposedly trendy they've been deemed worthy of this week's cover. His verdict? "In a nutshell—no pun intended—Spanx on a dude are no good." Also, "A fart in a pair of Spanx has no where to go. The gaseous beast is forced to put up a great trashing fight to escape, so much so that one can't help but take note of its struggles." How does Oprah tolerate this? [NYO]
Five months prior to Riverhead's release of a "heh!"-funny essay collection whose publication surely has nothing to do with her connections, the Observer has seen fit to lengthily profile Vintage publicist Sloane Crosley. She's non-threateningly pretty, often listens to people when they speak to her, claims to have an unusually ample ass for a Caucasoid, and is thus "the most popular publicist in New York." Joan Didion finds her "sweet"; Elizabeth Spiers likes her; Lockhart Steele likes her. You probably like her too. She's pretty much been spending the last few years building a web of alliances that prevents anyone from criticizing her in a public forum! Crafty. But, as reporter and former Weekend Gawkerer Leon Neyfakh discreetly intimates between em dashes, there's a private anguish behind all that public likability.
Karaoke chanteuse and former publisher Judith Regan turned down a $6.5 million settlement from her former employer HarperCollins, we learned a few too many words into today's Observer cover storyHer lawyer says she found that number "unacceptable," but is Judy really motivated by a desire for more wrongful-termination money? Based on the nutty scope of her suit (bringing down Rudy Giuliani! etc) and its timing, this article posits, it seems like she's more concerned with grabbing the spotlight than the cash. Also, this is confusing: in Judith's article about herself in Harper's Bazaar, she claims that she wants her "life to get smaller now, not bigger." So why is she now doing the most attention-getting stuff possible? Hey, is Judith Regan, like, crazy or something?
Kirkus editors Chuck Shelton and Elaine Szewczyk (who apparently decided she didn't want her name used in this context after the Daily Intel item went up) both copped a feel of the National Book Award Loser for Nonfiction's junk last night. Chris was showing off the results a his recent Vanity Fair article, for which he'd waxed his "back, sack, and crack." The verdicts? "You cannot believe how smooth it is" and "As smooth as summer cherries."
