New York Observer

observer.com — A breakfast meeting at the see-and-be-seen Loews Regency Hotel has always had its hazards. Diners risk Page Six sightings and uncomfortable run-ins with political foes. Losing a coveted window seat spells professional disaster. Now, two more dangers lurk outside.

observer.com — Last Friday, as his brainchild company went public, Mark Zuckerberg's face filled the multistory video screen adorning the Times Square Reuters building, his image a grinning, pasty vision of triumph-little brother as Big Brother.

observer.com — A breakfast meeting at the see-and-be-seen Loews Regency Hotel has always had its hazards. Diners risk Page Six sightings and uncomfortable run-ins with political foes. Losing a coveted window seat spells professional disaster. Now, two more dangers lurk outside.

observer.com — Last Friday, as his brainchild company went public, Mark Zuckerberg's face filled the multistory video screen adorning the Times Square Reuters building, his image a grinning, pasty vision of triumph-little brother as Big Brother.

observer.com — I was breastfed until I was 4 years old. Or 5, maybe. My mother has always been fuzzy on the exact math. I choose to go with 4, because as it is, people tend to look so shocked that I'm afraid their lower jaws might actually fracture were I to add a full year to my tenure suckling on what I reportedly liked to call "nippy."

observer.com — The late Howard Ronson and his family had a dream-a dream of making the mansion at 828 Fifth Avenue whole again, as it was in the glorious days when coal magnates commissioned Fifth Avenue manses and robber barons ruled the land. But sometimes dreams die.

observer.com — As David Axelrod puts it, he got his start in politics when a family friend took him to see John F. Kennedy speak near his home at Stuy Town in Manhattan. "I can't remember what he said that day. I was five years old," Axelrod said.

observer.com — May 19, 2:30pm. Prospect Park, Brooklyn. It was hot and humid, and we smelled like chicken grease. This was to be the day food stepped out of the shadows of the Style section and took its rightful place among movies, fashion, and of course, music. But along the way, something went wrong.

observer.com — In the days before the Facebook hysteria had fully bloomed, we sought comment from investors who planned to buy the stock. Did they know half of Twitter was bashing Facebook as massively overpriced? Were they chasing the next Google? Did they just like Zuck? Yesterday we finally caught up with a Facebook investor.

observer.com — At the end of April, Vice magazine, the Williamsburg house organ, threw a party in the neighborhood. The party was inside 80 Wythe Street, a giant old factory building, a redbrick behemoth that was built in 1901 as a cooperage.

observer.com — Two brothers share a decrepit East London flat. They take in an aged tramp named Davies, who shares the space until the older brother, Aston, evicts him for making noises in his sleep. After being told again and again to leave, Davies still doesn't listen. "If you want me to go ...

observer.com — New York Times drama critics, protect your neck: Bill O'Reilly is now reviewing The Theatre for Fox News, and doing it with such urgency that he must join the network by phone to do so. This week, Bill took the time to review Jesus Christ Superstar, currently playing on Broadway.

observer.com — Stay tuned for Don hanging up a phone! The biggest complaint about the newest season of Mad Men is that it's not interesting to people who haven't seen the entire series.

observer.com — These questions regard last night's episode of HBO's Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from Episode 6 ('The Return') only, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. #2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and example responses.

observer.com — In March, New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky told the City Council's Transportation Commission that a taxi fare increase wasn't on the "immediate horizon." Local news website Gothamist ran with the headline: 'Good News Taxi Riders! No Fare Hikes Planned For This Year.'

observer.com — Wall Street traders sweating Facebook's flaccid opening should have stopped by I Want Media's fifth annual Future of Media panel Friday afternoon. In a television studio above Cooper Square, BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti and other media futurists paid lofty and often metaphorical tribute to the social media site's publishing power.

observer.com — The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to There Will Be Blood, is expected to be released in the fall (per IMDb, on October 12)-and its first trailer depicts Joaquin Phoenix being interrogated, and possibly brainwashed, by an unknown interlocutor. The film also stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams. Follow Daniel D'Addario via RSS.

observer.com — Everyone expected the auction of the T-Rex skeleton to go peacefully. But they were wrong. On the fourth floor of an airy gallery building in Chelsea on Sunday afternoon, a small group of private collectors and natural history enthusiasts gathered to witness the historic auction of a 24-foot-long, museum-quality Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton, which was expected to bring up to $1.5 M.

observer.com — Oleg Kalugin, a man some credit with helping to foil the hard-line coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991-and others, including Vladimir Putin, have dubbed a traitor-did not appear to partake of the catered spread on Wednesday afternoon in the basement meeting room at the Discovery Times Square exhibit space.

observer.com — Cover your ears, MFA rejects, conceptual poets and other miserable literary types. Yesterday, Publishers Marketplace (subscription required) yielded two new blog-to-book deals. Three if we count Hairpin domestic goddess Jolie Kerr's My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag.

observer.com — The New York Post's tender-hearted angel of mercy, Andrea Peyser, is best known for the deeply humanistic perspective with which she handles the sensitive criminal proceedings of our legal system. Less well appreciated is her concern for the good physical hygiene of those society has cast aside.