Bridget Read
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author of LITTLE BOSSES EVERYWHERE from @CrownPublishing, a book about pyramid schemes
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Articles by Bridget Read
Where is a celebrity to live in this town?
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Where Is a Celebrity to Live in This Town? Original
It’s never been easier for a famous person to have an L.A. life in New York City. On a recent swampy day in July, a lone tourist was posing for a photo in front of one of the historic townhouses along Columbia Heights, the most picturesque street in Brooklyn’s most picturesque neighborhood. Her presence was the only hint that we were standing just a hundred feet or so away from some of the world’s most famous people—or at least their apartments.
En hacker offentliggjorde hele hans digitale liv. Vi bygger selv vores ydmygelsesarkiv
Hver sms, hver søgning, hver flad joke i en gruppechat ligger og venter i skyen, lige til at blive gravet op og vendt imod dig. Det gik op for Disney-ingeniøren Matthew Van Andel, da en hacker væltede hele hans liv.
What If It All Came Out?
The nightmare began with an annoyance as benign and commonplace as a housefly. "Hi there Matt," the July 11, 2024, email read. "We received a message from you earlier today through our support page related to a changed password on your account ... If you didn't make a support request," the sender asked politely, "please let us know." Matthew Van Andel, 44, who goes by the nickname Dutch, had never heard of "nullbulge.se," the domain name that sent the message.
YOUR DIGITAL LIFE
New York magazine | June 15–28, 2026 We're each attached to years of texts, Slacks, searches, and pictures, an archive of self-incrimination and humiliation that could detonate at any time. THE NIGHTMARE BEGAN with an annoyance as benign and commonplace as a housefly. “Hi there Matt,” the July 11, 2024, email read. “We received a message from you earlier today through our support page related to a changed password on your account ...
What Broke the Beckhams?
“Wife for life,” Nicola posted on Instagram a year after their wedding. Brooklyn and Nicola Peltz Beckham have publicly documented both their relationship and the fallout with Brooklyn’s family on Instagram. Photo: Brooklyn Peltz Beckham/Instagram Traffic was stopped in Palm Beach — an unheard-of inconvenience, according to neighbors. Rolls-Royces, Benzes, and Teslas idled and honked between the hedgerows. Armed security roamed with German shepherds. A golf cart laden with Veuve Clicquot zoomed by.
The Alexander Brothers Are Guilty on All Counts
A federal jury has found disgraced luxury real-estate brokers Oren and Tal Alexander, along with their brother Alon Alexander, guilty on sex-trafficking charges. It was a total sweep for the prosecution: After three days of deliberation, the jury found the brothers guilty of each of the ten counts on which they had been indicted.
Do You Have a Moment to Talk About How Mormons Conquered Pop Culture?
Photo-Illustration: Pedro Nekoi/Source Photographs for Photo-Illustration: Kim Raff/The New York Times/Redux (Ballerina); Rachel Parcell/Instagram (Parcell); Courtesy of Vendors (Wendy’s, Hydrojugs, Crumbl); Getty Images (Remaining). This article was featured in New York’s One Great Story newsletter. Sign up here. Can you handle 22 inches? asks a billboard in Orem, Utah, near exit 269 on Interstate 15.
Kate Whiteman, Alexander Brothers Accuser, Has Died at 45 Original
Kate Whiteman, the woman who accused Oren and Alon Alexander of rape in a lawsuit in March 2024 and initiated a wave of similar allegations from other women, has died, according to the New York Times. Whiteman, an Australia native, was reportedly found dead in Australia late last year. She was 45 years old. The coroner in New South Wales didn’t confirm a cause of death but told the Times that Whiteman’s death was under investigation.
Dispatches From the Culture Wars - September 9, 2025
Dispatches From the Culture Wars — September 9, 2025 Published September 9, 2025 Multilevel Marketing Shapes Our Reality The Rich Democratic Party Gerontocracy Mobile Home Mobilization Tanned, Sugared ‘n Organized Small Group Resistance in Cali Katrina and the Kids Smithsonian Under the Gun: Lie After Lie From POTUS Anti-Palestine Spies on Campus “Active Clubs” Spread White Supremacism Ben Shahn: A Painter Who Connected Multilevel Marketing Shapes Our Reality By Meagan Day and Bridget Read...
The Rise of ‘Undetectable’ Deep-Plane Face-Lifts
CARTIER Ring, at cartier.com. Photo: Ben Hassett for The Cut It started with the lines around her eyes. “Last year, my husband said to me, ‘You’re blind,’” Chloe Hall, 44, tells me over niçoise salads on Madison Avenue one afternoon in July. “At Warby Parker, I put reading glasses on and suddenly saw my eyes. I had never seen how many little wrinkles I had. It was like, Houston, we have a problem.” Then it was her neck.
Multilevel Marketing Scams Are Capitalism in Microcosm
Interview by Meagan Day In multilevel marketing companies (MLMs), the only relationships permitted are hierarchical ones. Participants can talk to their recruiters, who profit from their work, and to their own recruits, whom they profit from in turn. But they’re forbidden to talk to others in their same position in the chain of command, an infraction known as “cross-lining.” Why?
Come Sale Away
“A SALESMAN HAS TO SEE PEOPLE AS THEY ARE,” says the protagonist of Helen DeWitt’s 2011 novel, Lightning Rods,a satire about a failed door-to-door salesman who invents a business model that winds up reordering the modern workplace.
New library books
These works on business are newly available through the Allen County Public Library. “Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company” by Patrick McGee A deep dive into how Apple helped build China’s dominance in electronics assembly and manufacturing, only to find itself trapped in a relationship with an authoritarian state making ever-increasing demands.
Everyone In New York Is a Moving Influencer Now Original
Last year, when the influencer Harry Hill was planning for his move to Greenwich Village, he reached out to Roadway Moving to collaborate. “Hey, I’d love to partner with you to make content around my move,” he told the company. With Hill’s 83,000 Instagram and 34,000 TikTok followers, Roadway was happy to oblige. His entire move, including packing services, were free.
The Road to DOGE Was Paved With Pyramid Schemes
Economy / May 14, 2025 The Road to DOGE Was Paved With Pyramid Schemes The second Trump administration has been compared to the Mafia, feudal empires, and the petro-states of the Persian Gulf—but an even more relevant analogy may be Nutrilite. Ad Policy Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn on March 9, 2025, in Washington, DC.
How One Woman Lost $75,000 Working for MLM Company Mary Kay
Illustration: María Jesús Contreras When Monique looks back on the night she decided to join Mary Kay, she remembers being hungry. She was thirty-six in 2013, fresh out of the United States Air Force after sixteen years, and living in Tallahassee, Florida, where she knew almost no one. She was sleeping fifteen hours a day in her small, hot apartment, subsisting off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, spending more money on food for her ninety-pound bulldog than on herself.
Timothée Chalamet’s Mom Takes Us Apartment Hunting Original
Showing Apartment 17A at 1600 Broadway. It’s a rainy, gray March afternoon, not the optimal time to see a midtown apartment 17 floors above the Times Square M&M’s store. “It normally gets great light,” Nicole Flender says to the potential buyers, an Italian couple looking for a Manhattan pied-à-terre. They peer out the unit’s windows, a giant neon Krispy Kreme sign shining through the fog.
Apartment Hunting With Timothée Chalamet’s Mother
Now CNN — Like many American manufacturers, Tesla is caught in a bind thanks to President Donald Trump’s trade war. Unlike most of those other companies, though, Tesla has an added wrinkle – its CEO, Elon Musk, sometimes called the First Buddy for the close relationship he’s cultivated with the president. …
A Small English Village Is Furious at Kelsey Grammer Original
Portishead is furious with Kelsey Grammer. No, not that Portishead — the English village of Portishead, a little town in the idyllic countryside of Somerset, where Grammer purchased a 200-year-old cottage in 2023. The Frasier star has just been given permission to knock the cottage down, and the villagers are incensed.
West Villagers Really Don’t Want This Private Padel Club Original
Every action has a reaction, and every niche rich-person racket-sport club in New York prompts neighborhood backlash. In the past few years, anti-pickleball vigilantes have waged war in Brooklyn Heights, on the Upper East Side, and in the West Village. Now, West Villagers are taking yet another stand, this time against the impending arrival of a new private club at 120 Leroy Street: a would-be spa-slash-restaurant-slash-bar-slash–padel court.
Of Course There Will Be a Bravo Hotel Original
A recession may be on the horizon, and the stock market is tanking, but reality star Lisa Vanderpump’s hospitality empire is apparently booming. Vanderpump, the Bravo matriarch, announced on Wednesday that next year she’ll be opening the Vanderpump Hotel in Las Vegas, renovating and rebranding a boutique hotel off the strip called the Cromwell in her pink-bedazzled-fedora-wearing image.
Everything We Know About the Case Against the Alexander Brothers Original
Oren, Alon, and Tal Alexander were powerful, successful brothers who seemed to be on top of the world before June 2024. Oren and Tal were two of the country’s top luxury real-estate brokers. Their brother Alon was an executive at their family’s security firm. All three were handsome fixtures on the party scenes in Manhattan and Miami. Then the news broke that they had been accused by two women of rape and sexual assault. Another lawsuit followed. And the floodgates opened.
Spencer Pratt, After the Los Angeles Fires
Photo: Courtesy of the subject On a beach in Santa Barbara, the former reality-TV star Spencer Pratt is sipping a skinny margarita and recounting how he and his wife, fellow reality veteran Heidi Montag, lost everything. His son Gunner’s art, Montag’s collection of Hermès espresso cups. His own collection of crystals. His hummingbird sanctuary. His chargers. His gym equipment. The giant Martin Schoeller portraits of Pratt and Montag that once hung in their living room.
Rent Gouging Has Made the L.A. Housing Market ‘Like Mad Max’
Realtors Gita Vasseghi and Melea Avrach started hearing from clients looking for temporary housing as early as January 7, the day the Los Angeles fires began. Based on the East Side of the city, they quickly began helping friends, friends of friends, and desperate cold callers displaced from the massive Eaton fire in Altadena. But just as soon as they mobilized, something else started happening: Prices started going up.
Does the World Need Another Real-Estate Reality Show?
encounter Eleonora Srugo, friend to Mayor Adams and star of Netflix’s new Selling the City, thinks so. Noho is rainy and gray, but Eleonora Srugo’s tan is a deep ocher. We’re standing in the entrance to 40 Bleecker, a brick-and-glass luxury building, waiting to visit one of her clients in his multimillion-dollar condo.
They Missed Their Cruise Ship. That Was Only The Beginning.
Nine stranded passengers made a mad dash across Africa to meet back up with their boat. This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. They were going to be late — that much became clear as clouds gathered over São Tomé, a verdant island 190 miles off the coast of West Africa.
Tal, Alon, and Oren Alexander Have Been Arrested in Miami
Oren, Tal, and Alon Alexander have been taken into FBI custody in Miami. The three brothers were arrested early Wednesday morning, according to sources close to the investigation. Agents were seen outside Oren’s Miami home, but authorities have yet to release any specifics about the charges. In March, two women, Kate Whiteman and Rebecca Mandel, accused Oren and Alon of rape in lawsuits filed in New York; in June, Angelica Parker filed a lawsuit accusing all three brothers of rape.
Why Is 194 Columbia Heights Avenue Abandoned?
Columbia Heights is likely one of the most famous streets in Brooklyn Heights — once home to Walt Whitman and Norman Mailer, now Matt Damon, Jennifer Connelly, and Michelle Williams. The Civil War–era rowhouses on the avenue look out over the promenade, with views extending from the East River all the way to the Statue of Liberty. Each is nicer than the next, with period-specific details, immaculate built-in bookcases, and perfectly lit art visible from the street. Then you get to 194.
The Return of Trump-II
Rozina Ali “Why would you place your faith in somebody who instituted a so-called Muslim Ban?” President Barack Obama asked at a campaign rally in Wisconsin earlier this month. In the weeks running up to the elections, that question was repeatedly posed to Muslim and Arab American leaders who had publicly stated they would not endorse Kamala Harris for president.
The Return of Trump—II | Rozina Ali, Christopher Benfey, Quinn Slobodian, Walter M. Shaub Jr., Bridget Read, Jon Allsop
Rozina Ali • Christopher Benfey • Quinn Slobodian • Walter M. Shaub Jr. • Bridget Read • Jon Allsop “Why would you place your faith in somebody who instituted a so-called Muslim Ban?” President Barack Obama asked at a campaign rally in Wisconsin earlier this month. In the weeks running up to the elections, that question was repeatedly posed to Muslim and Arab American leaders who had publicly stated they would not endorse Kamala Harris for president.
Amazon’s $20 Couch Will Somehow Make Couch-Buying Worse Original
I happen to be in the midst of a monthslong couch-buying process, consisting of hours and hours of scrolling and sitting on various couches, and one trip to the furniture outlets in Industry City. Still, no couch. The first and primary source of delay is indecision. A couch is a big purchase! I happen to like writing while lying on one, perching my laptop on my stomach as a kind of human shelf, and so my livelihood is dependent on it.
CEO Howard Lorber Suddenly Steps Down From Douglas Elliman
power Howard Lorber (right) with former Elliman broker Tal Alexander, who was accused of rape and sexual assault by more than a dozen women along with his brothers, Tal and Alon. Howard Lorber, the CEO of brokerage Douglas Elliman, has stepped down, according to a statement from the company on Tuesday. Lorber has been at the top of Elliman for more than 20 years, overseeing its transition from regional outfit to national luxury behemoth, but his exit was swift, sudden, and without much ceremony.
Rudy Giuliani Must Give Penthouse to GA Election Workers Original
On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered Rudy Giuliani to turn over almost all his worldly possessions as damages in the $148 million defamation lawsuit he lost at the end of 2023. Within seven days, everything on the list must go to a court-appointed receiver, then eventually to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother-daughter set of Georgia election workers whom Giuliani falsely accused of tampering with ballots in the 2020 presidential race.
The Drama Over Exclusive Ho-Hum Beach on Fire Island Original
This week, an idyllic beach on Fire Island was the site of a populist coup: Long an exclusive area for residents of the affluent nearby village of Bellport, Ho-Hum Beach was suddenly opened to everyone on Tuesday after a rival town supervisor began ferrying people over by water taxi.
Everything We Know About the Federal Lawsuit Against RealPage
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Everything We Know About the Federal Lawsuit Against RealPage Original
On Friday, August 23, the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against software company RealPage, which provides a rental-price-setting service to landlords. It’s not the first lawsuit against the company (states like Arizona and some cities have filed similar cases), and earlier reports, such as a ProPublica investigation from 2022, laid out how landlords and property managers used RealPage’s software, YieldStar, to drive up rents.
A Housing Expert on Kamala Harris’s New Economic Proposals Original
New Yorkers may not be swing-state voters, but we certainly perk up when we hear anyone promise to make real estate more affordable. Last week, Vice-President Kamala Harris laid out a set of economic proposals designed to capture our attention on exactly this topic; it included measures for first-time homebuyers and renters struggling with hikes, and the builders who might theoretically construct the housing that they can afford.
Everyone Knew About the A-Team
How did the Alexander brothers become real-estate elites while allegedly raping or assaulting more than a dozen women? The three Alexander brothers were arrested on December 11, 2024, and charged with assaulting dozens of women. This article was published on August 12, 2024. This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. A half-naked woman was lying on the table, and guests were invited to drip hot wax onto her body.
Enough With the Celebrity Stoop Sale
On Tuesday afternoon, a line snaked down Prince Street and along Mercer, where Jenna Lyons, former J. Crew president and current star of The Real Housewives of New York, was hawking some of her old clothes and shoes. People shvitzed in the hot sun, telling each other “beauty is pain” to power through for discounted Dries Van Noten.
Real Housewife Sonja Morgan Auctions Her Townhouse
encounter Chatting with the Real Housewife as she packs up her Upper East Side townhouse for auction. Sonja Morgan on the ground floor of 162 East 63rd Street. Sonja Morgan on the ground floor of 162 East 63rd Street. Sonja Morgan on the ground floor of 162 East 63rd Street.
New York’s Panic-Room Builders Are Busier Than Ever
Bill Rigdon can build you a closet that locks from the inside and has electrified door handles.He can install a device in your walls that will shoot colored pepper spray to temporarily blind intruders and stain their clothes for easy identification should they try to run. He can fortify your walk-in pantry with ballistics-grade composite to withstand nuclear fallout. He will also remind you that you will need a place to pee while riding out the end times.
Eva Alt, Dancer Turned Hudson Advisory Agent, Sells Downtown Original
Alt sitting in her newest listing at 118 West 12th Street. The parlor of 118 West 12th Street has three ornate, golden floor-to-ceiling mirrors, each 12 feet high. The dark mahogany floors are immaculate, and the white couch and bone-colored carpet are sophisticated without being stuffy.
Is It Squatter Season in New York? Original
A woman in Flushing was arrested in February for changing the locks on a vacant house she owned after she found two men camping out inside. “It’s not fair that I, as the homeowner, have to be going through this,” Adele Andaloro said of the standoff. The same week, another Queens family, this time in Douglaston, said a squatter living in their newly purchased $2 million Dutch Colonial was both refusing to move out and claiming that he was actually the rightful tenant.
The Squatters of Beverly Hills Original
After a fugitive doctor abandoned his mansion, an enterprising group of party throwers slid in the front door. Morgan Gargiulo in the backyard of 1316 Beverly Grove Place in February. Morgan Gargiulo in the backyard of 1316 Beverly Grove Place in February. Morgan Gargiulo in the backyard of 1316 Beverly Grove Place in February. This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.
The Eco-Yogi Slumlords of 1214 Dean Street, Brooklyn
Gennaro Brooks-Church at 1214 Dean Street as nearly 100 activists protest his attempt to evict his tenants. Photo: Ben Verde In August 2020, New York Magazine published this story about a pair of landlords who evicted their tenants as COVID-19 raged. Gennaro Brooks-Church and Loretta Gendville were forced to turn over the property to the city in 2022 to convert it into affordable housing. The site came back on the market in February 2024 as part of the city’s housing lottery.
Eco-Yogi Slumlord House Selling in New York Housing Lottery
The house at 1214 Dean Street in Crown Heights is about to get a second life, the City reports. The home, once the site of a notorious public eviction in the early months of the pandemic, is back on the market for $678,000 as part of the city’s housing lottery. Landlords Gennaro Brooks-Church and Loretta Gendville were sued twice in 2020 after forcing their tenants to leave their apartments that July, as COVID-19 raged.
United Federation of Teachers Sues Over Congestion Pricing
Teachers are a cohort used to finding their well-being invoked by other people with their own agendas (see also: “the children”). Still, “people were shaking their heads in the teachers’ lounge” on the afternoon of January 4, says Mike Dowd, a social studies teacher and wrestling coach in Midwood.
Travis Scott Barclays Center Show Made Buildings Quake
street fights At home on Dean Street around 11 on Monday night, Alison Hildebrand noticed the ornaments on her Christmas tree had started to swing. The building started to rumble; her dog started to bark. From her apartment more than 30 floors up, it felt like an earthquake. Except oddly rhythmic. The seismic event turned out to be Travis Scott.
NYC Tenants Desperate to Rent Their Apartments for Holidays
Microsublet season is upon us, the time of year when Instagram lights up with friends, acquaintances, and mutuals sharing photos of their apartments at their very cleanest with requests like, “My v calming, chill studio in the East Village is available. Message me for deets!” or “Our cozy 2br in Crown Heights is still avail at the end of the month! Dates flex!” There’s nothing wrong here exactly. It’s perfectly reasonable to ask for money in exchange for a stay in an erratically heated studio.
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