Photograph outside Bear Stearns' offices on Friday by Mark Lennihan/AP It's the New York banking equivalent of the Enron meltdown: Bear Stearns has agreed to sell itself to JP Morgan Chase at a fire sale price. When Bear Stearns' 14,000 employees left work Friday afternoon, the bank's stock had already plunged almost 50% in value, closing at $30 a share. But today they found out something much, much, much worse: their company has been......

Anthony Marshall has not only been indicted for alleged criminal mishandling of his mother Brooke Astor's estate - he's being called a "STONE COLD HEIR" by the Post for not properly maintaining his mother's grave. Ouch! A public spat with his own son over Astor's care led to an ultimate court settlement where Marshall ceded guardianship of Astor and her estate to JP Morgan Chase and Astor's friend Annette de la Renta. But after Astor......

Dare we say that Brooke Astor is rolling in her grave? Yesterday, it was reported that her son Anthony Marshall and his former lawyer Francis Morrissey would be indicted for criminal activity over the handling of her will. And this morning, Marshall turned himself in at the Manhattan DA's offices, to face charges of fraud, forgery and grand larceny. Or, as DA Robert Morgenthau said, "The indictment charges that Marshall and Morrissey took advantage of......

As the city and state start to get to work on West Side redevelopment, the Mayor said that one entity won't be getting tax breaks if it moves. Mayor Bloomberg was asked if Madison Square Garden would continue to get $10.9 million in tax breaks if it moves West to the Farley Post Office building (that's what a map in the draft Environmental Impact Statement notes). Bloomberg decisively said, "Not if I'm mayor they won't.......

"I feel I’m losing my mind. I wish I knew what was the matter with me. It would be better to die than go on feeling this way." - Anthony Marshall's recollection of what his mother Brooke Astor said in a 2000 letter Is there a smoking letter in the battle over recently deceased philanthropist and New York City social fixture Broke Astor? As her son Anthony Marshall and her court-appointed guardians battle over whether......

The only good thing about the battle over Brooke Astor's estate that is taking place in Westchester Surrogate Court is that Astor herself does not have to be privy to it. Her son Anthony Marshall accused custodians of the estate, Astor's friend Annette de La Renta and JP Morgan Chase, of a "malicious jihad." de la Renta and Chase were appointed to oversee the estate after there were some questions about whether Astor's will......

The Fire Department is investigating whether standpipes failed to bring firefighters water to help fight a seven-alarm fire that broke out on the 17th floor of the Deutsche Bank building on Saturday. The cause of the fire, which spread between the 14th and 26th floors of the lower Manhattan building, is also unclear, though the FDNY suspects it may have been caused by a cigarette or a faulty electrical panel. FDNY officials suspect that......

Maybe there is good reason to try to stay off Forbes' list of 400 wealthiest people. The Manhattan DA's office charged a 24-year-old Russian national with an elaborate identity ring that targeted rich Americans. Igor Klopov recruited people in the U.S., via sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com, to help him and he managed to steal $1.5 million from four people. But Klopov was nabbed during an attempt to take $10.7 million from Anthony Pritzker, of......

Brooke Astor's funeral service will be held tomorrow afternoon at Saint Thomas Church in Manhattan, but legal papers have already been filed contesting the doyenne of NYC philanthropy's will. Family and friends have been arguing about the legitimacy of Mrs. Astor's final will and testament for a while now, after major adjustments were made to the document in 2002 - a time when Astor was allegedly suffering from reduced competency - as well in the......

After months of negotiations, JP Morgan Chase will announce plans to build a 42-story tower at Ground Zero. Government officials had been trying to entice the third-largest bank in the world to move downtown, as a sign the area would flourish once all the construction is complete. Chase wanted incentives and subsidies, much like the $650 million Goldman Sachs incentive deal, in order to be convinced to move downtown, but officials were wary. From......

The demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building next to Ground Zero has been halted after officials are still unable to determine how a several-foot-long section of pipe fell from the deconstruction site and crashed through the roof of a neighborhing firehouse, injuring two firefighters. The incident occurred yesterday morning and investigators are still wondering how a 15-foot section of steam pipe from the irreperably damaged office tower fell through the roof of the firehouse,......

Former president Bill Clinton announced the Clinton Climate Initiative during the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit yesterday. The CCI is an ambitious program to help 15 cities (Bangkok, Berlin, Chicago, Houston, Johannesburg, Karachi, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, Mumbai, New York, Rome, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Tokyo, and Toronto) renovate/retrofit buildings with more energy efficient products. Clinton has managed to get ABN AMRO, Citi, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and UBS to each put up $1......

Jeremy Olshan created this map, the Twin Towers Diaspora, which gives an interesting overview of where former tenants of the World Trade Center have moved after September 11, 2001. Some have stayed in Manhattan, but others have moved to the outer-boroughs and out of the state. You can click on the markers to see the company name and where the company was originally located in the WTC. Tenant Wise has a list (as of......

A man was arrested for stealing $3.6 million - and the money was from a city bank account! Unemployed social worker Tracy Ball used the money to buy jewelry from TV-and-online retailer Jewelry Television; then he'd pawn the jewelry for cash to pay bills - and some other luxury items. When he was arrested at his Brooklyn home, the AP reported that investigator found him with "two huge plasma televisions, $35,000 in cash, and several......

In yet another sign that the state and city government want big business at the redeveloping area near the World Trade Center, the NY Times reports that JPMorgan Chase is "in negotiations...to build a 1.3 million-square foot skyscraper." And not only would thousands of employees move from Midtown (277 Park Ave.; the bank would keep 270 Park), the skyscraper would be at 130 Liberty St. - where the toxic Deutsche Building is being dismantled.Chase wants......

Most people suspeced as much, but when it's coming from the bank that's investigating the issues, it's all the more damning: The NY Times reports that JP Morgan Chase is looking into whether $14 million worth of "cash, property and stocks" was "improperly obtained" by Anthony Marshall from his ailing 104 year old mother, Brooke Astor. After the drama and accusations of Marshall refusing to buy his mother non-skid socks, leaving her nurses to do......

Brooke Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, who has been accused of abusing his guardianship of his mother's millon dollar estate for his gain - while skimping on her medical care - struck back with his own court filings. Marshall denies his care amounted to elder abuse and said he was being victimized by claims. Marshall doesn't want JP Morgan Chase, who along with Astor friend Annette de la Renta was made a temporary guardian of the......

Now that the media has been able to see the papers in the battle over Brooke Astor's care, it turns out that Supreme Court Justice John Stackhouse has made some decisions about the ailing philanthropist's care. When Astor's grandson, Philip Marshall, accused his father, Anthony Marshall, of mishandling Astor's estate - with Anthony spending money on his own dealings, not his 104 year old mother - temporary guardiandship of Astor went to her friend Annette......

"Her bedroom is so cold in the winter that my grandmother is forced to sleep in the TV room in torn nightgowns on a filthy couch that smells, probably from dog urine." When you read something like that, the last thing you'd expect is that it would describe Brooke Astor, the millionaire philanthropist, but, in fact, it's an affidavit from her grandson about her current, terrible conditions. And what's more, Philip Marshall says his father......

- A man helping a friend (who was on crutches) across the street was hit and killed by a car - The six men who are suspected of beating a man to death in Chelsea may be connected to other robberies - Now it can piss off weekenders: Amtrak loses power again - You know how The Sopranos' Vito lost a lot of weight this past season? Well, now there's a disagreement over how......

Sometimes we think that Con Ed is just pretending to be incompetent to keep us on our toes. We mean, did they really manage to lose 15,000 Con Edison employees W-2 forms? In preparation for its taxes the utility was supposed to send two cartridge tapes containing all of its tax information in a package to JP Morgan Chase in Binghamton. But the Post is reporting that by March 10 it became clear there......