It's easy to get caught up in the moment and forget about those who are hurting the most this holiday season: old, rich white men, who have suffered the slings of the 99% despite being responsible for all that is good in the world. Thankfully Bloomberg News was able to track down these noble creatures to find out what they think about the legions of Americans who believe in greater income equality. "Who gives a crap about some imbecile?" 82-year-old billionaire and co-founder of Home Depot, Bernard Marcus says. "Are you kidding me?" more ›

As Libyans struggle to unite in anticipation of next month's elections, new details are emerging about the days leading up to the death of Libyan dictator Moammer Gadhafi, and the exact circumstance of how he died. While there have been several different accounts of how Gadhafi was killed after he was captured by rebels this week, a witness told the London Times that rebels shot Gadhafi with his own favorite golden gun in the midst of the chaos. more ›

New York City is great, but it's even better when you have unlimited funds... we hear. Just ask the 18 celebrities on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list that live in the city—together they earned over $872 million dollars in the past year. more ›

Michael Bloomberg may have a few more years as the mayor of New York, but his reign as the richest New Yorker (according to Forbes) is over: The new Big Apple fat cat is David Koch, the oilman and Tea Party backer, who you may be more familiar with after this New Yorker profile (besides oil refineries, "Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products"). more ›

In a year when charitable giving dropped among the nation's wealthiest people, Mayor Bloomberg handed out $254 million in donations—making him not only richest man in New York City but also the country's fourth biggest giver. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Bloomberg—who is worth an estimated $17.5 billion—donated money to 1,358 different nonprofits and dedicated $125 million to help six charities devise a plan to help reduce traffic accidents in developing countries. more ›

Good news all around today! The unemployed will probably get another five months to choose a barrel-and-suspenders combo that doesn't make their butts look big, and a new study shows that Wall Street holiday bonuses are set to return to pre-recession levels. So everybody's happy, and there's no need for any pitchfork riots or bricks through Park Avenue windows. Go Yankees! more ›

Remember how Donald Trump was suing a NY Times business editor Timothy O'Brien and the publishers of his book, TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, for $5 billion, because The Donald felt it misstated his wealth by billions (Smith's estimate: $150-250 million)? Well, as a hearing is scheduled to take place today, the Wall Street Journal pored over a 2007 deposition that Trump made about his wealth. He said, "My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feeling," and when asked if he's "familiar with the concept of net present value?," Trump replies, "The concept of net present value to me would be the value of the land currently after debt...Well, to me, the word 'net' is an interesting word. It's really — the word 'value' is the important word." Ever the cheerleader, the real estate developer explains, "Would you like me to say, oh, gee, the building is not doing well, blah, blah, blah, come by, the building -- nobody talks that way. Who would ever talk that way?" [via Daily Intel] more ›

After Rep. Anthony Weiner revealed his hesitance about running for mayor this fall, reporters asked Mayor Bloomberg if his wealth was intimidating to other potential candidates. The mayor, the 17th richest man in the world, is reportedly spending $80 million (or 0.5% of his wealth) on his campaign. Politicker NY, which has video of the extended answer, reports that Bloomberg said, "There’s no evidence to me that there are fewer candidates running... We don’t preclude you from running because you got a better education than I did or are better looking or more photogenic.” Related: The NY Times' Clyde Haberman explains Bloomberg's "we love rich people" remark by way of the Mayor's budget data that "show... people earning $500,000 or more a year make up 1 percent of New York taxpayers but account for nearly 50 percent of the income taxes that the city collects." more ›

Yesterday Forbes magazine, in their annual ranking of the rich, declared New York City is no longer the billionaire capital of the world. Where have all the dollar signs gone? To Moscow, of course, who beat us out by 3 billionaires (they have 74 to our 71). more ›

New York magazine has an extraordinary cover story on the life of Brooke Astor, months after the "doyenne" of the city's social scene passed away. It is a sordid tale of jealousy, greed, enmity, conflicting agendas, and familial conflict worthy of the most outlandish soap opera. Her son Tony is now under i investigation by a grand jury and control of her estate has passed to Astor's friend Annette de la Renta. The litany of... more ›

Coming up next Monday is a benefit event celebrating East New York Farms, an organization that seeks to remedy the dearth of good nutritional choices in the Brooklyn neighborhood by growing and distributing its own food, along the way inviting a wealth of community participation. “Our first season was one gardener out on the sidewalk with a table,” says Sarita Daftary, Project Director of East New York Farms! (the exclamation mark goes with the... more ›

Up above you have Park Slope #17 and Carroll Gardens #13, respectively. Jennifer Loeber is bringing nude photography close to home with her series that show different Brooklynites in the flesh, in their apartments. They could even be your neighbors! And her inspiration? It came from a flasher on the subway, of course: "The idea to shoot nude portraits came about as I rode the NYC subway and pretended not to notice, across the aisle, a man fumbling to remove his clothes and expose himself to me. He looked distinctly uncomfortable yet wholly determined in his goal. His great drive to reveal himself to the commuting populace was made more palpable by the fact that he hadn't quite worked out the logistics." An unlikely muse, indeed. We recently asked Loeber some more questions about her ongoing project... more ›

John Catsimatidis is hoping to follow in Mayor Bloomberg's footsteps by becoming a Democrat who follows the path of least resistance into Gracie Mansion. The owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain has millions of dollars to burn and would like to become the Mayor of New York City. Even for a lifelong Democrat like Catsimatidis, the easiest road to City Hall is to bypass the scrum of party politics and simply get oneself elected as a Republican in a heavily Democratic city. Green apparently beats both red and blue in the media center of the world, and it's possible for enough cash to overcome many obstacles. more ›

Two men were arraigned for trying to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from billionaire Mayor Bloomberg. Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau outlined the two schemes: more ›

Presidential hopefuls can scurry around the country, choking down rubber chicken dinners and hustling for campaign cash, but Mayor Bloomberg knows that it's best to just sit back and let one's money work for you. He's certainly busy working for his $1-a-year salary, and even pays for his own travel when on jaunts to places like London where he's addressing another world capital. Still, our Mayor managed to more than double his wealth from last year. Forbes magazine says that Bloomberg's net worth rose from $5.5 billion to $11.5 billion, launching him from the seedy straits of single-digit billionaires into the elevated realm of the country's top-25 richest Americans. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual trauma at Pennsylvania and Flatlands Aves. in Brooklyn, a church robbery on West 31st St. in Manhattan, and a found DOA on Furman St. at the piers in Brooklyn.
• State officials are now thinking that the best way to reincarnate the glory days of the old Penn Station is not to build two office towers on top of the Farley Post Office building.
• They've arrested the man who allegedly beat and robbed 101-year-old Rose Morat, but cops are now searching for another man who did the same to a 79-year-old grandmother in the elevator of her apartment building in Queens.
• Since the rack rate of the average hotel room in NYC is now about $350 a night, perhaps it was inevitable that we would see the proliferation of illegal hotels.
• The Atlantic City Sands Casino will be imploded Vegas-style next month, with accompanying fireworks by Grucci and a laser light show.
• Staring down a projected $3.6 billion budget deficit, Gov. Spitzer is pledging to not increase state spending by more than 5.3% or so next year.
• Mayors Bloomberg and Giuliani are both out of New York, remotely tugging over the mantle of 9/11 as their political legacy. Perhaps our next mayor will oversee the construction of something at the site of the World Trade Center.
• The number of New Yorkers on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans rose from 45 to 64, as that group's wealth jumped 370% from last year, to $224 billion. The city still has almost two million people living below the poverty line, however, so don't let the Forbes thing go to your head.

Almost all of the 17-year-olds' stories make for interesting reading. more ›

The New York Times describes a trend towards families with multiple children and a lot of money opting out of moving to large houses in the suburbs like Westchester. Instead, they are buying multiple adjacent residences in Manhattan highrises and shaping their own 4,000 to 8,500 square foot homes in the city. The Times dubs them Mansions in the Sky. The floorplan above is the "after" portion from the Times graphic of a man who combined five apartments and a studio into one very large four-bedroom home. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg may be staunchly denying that he's running for president next year, but given the love New Yorkers seem to have for him, you can't blame him for high hopes. The latest Quinnipiac Poll says Bloomberg's approval rating is at 70%. This is down from his possible all-time approval ratings high of 75% at the start of the year, but it's still very high (back in 2003, his approval rating was around 33%). more ›

Yesterday, the three men charged with first-degree murder of police officer Russel Timoshenko all pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn court. However, Dexter Bostick, Robert Ellis, and Lee Woods, who were also charged with a number of other crimes related to the July 9 traffic stop shooting, did not ask for bail. The Post and Daily News had the varying statements the men gave investigators:

Woods, 29, told detectives "I ain't going to jail for something I didn't do. I didn't shoot no cops, I was only driving. Fat boy [Bostic] was in the passenger seat and that faggot Roger [Ellis] was behind me." more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: person under a bus at Park Ave. South and East 24th St., a shooting on Church Ave. in Brooklyn, and shots fired on East 169th St. and Tinton Ave. in the Bronx.
• As part of its 20th anniversary weekend, WFAN 660-AM will be airing four hours of old Imus shows, which used to be the morning anchor of the station.
• Queens and Brooklyn residents team up to protest eminent domain at City Hall - at stake, Willets Point and the Atlantic Yards.
• The New York highway system was ranked 48th worst out of the 50 states. Only New Jersey and Alaska were deemed worse in the survey.
• Huh: Circle Line lost its contract to run ferries to the Statue of Liberty; instead, the service that runs ferries between San Francisco and ALCATRAZ will be taking over.
• The News of the Weird reports that the growing wealth of a certain class of New Yorkers and Brits has resulted in a critical shortage of professional butlers; no word on whether there's a shortage of personal umbrella handlers.
• ArtsJournal.com is reporting that the historical validity of the 6th Century BCE Etruscan chariot at The Metropolitan Museum is being questioned.
• ABC News is issuing alerts of storm warnings this evening all over the tri-state area.

Mrs. Astor's will includes directions about who gets certain personal possessions (e.g., friend David Rockefeller gets the stone Buddha head statue in the library of her apartment, another friend Annette de la Renta gets the four dog paintings from the staircase at Astor's Westchester mansion.) Most of Mrs. Astor's wealth is being given to NYC institutions she has supported throughout her life, like the Metropolitan Museum and the New York Public Library. A large sum is also being tranferred to her son, Anthony Marshall. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg made the most recent cover of Time Magazine with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as part of an article titled "Who Needs Washington?" It describes how both men have taken the lead on certain issues like the environment and education that the federal government is unwilling or unable to tackle. Time describes both Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg as self-made men who rose from middle class backgrounds to extreme wealth and socially liberal Republicanism. more ›

(directed by John Landis) more ›

The New York Times has an interesting story today on Sion Misrahi and the Lower East Side he helped transform. If you've walked down Rivington St. a few times, you've probably noticed the Misrahi Realty storefront business. Its owner is Sion Misrahi, who sold pants for his father in the neighborhood when he was fourteen. When it began to gentrify, he worked to classify the old bargain-shopping district as a landmark area. Then he decided to start marketing real estate in the neighborhood to nightlife businesses. The Times separates the changes into four parts: "shmattes to hipsters to bulldozers to tourists." more ›

The owners of a controlling interest in Dow Jones & Company, Inc. may be considering a move to sell the company to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. When the news that Rupert Murdoch was interested in acquiring The Wall Street Journal and adding all of Dow Jones to his News Corp. media empire, we wrote about the potential reluctance of the majority owners of the acquisition––the Bancroft family––and their longheld view that family ownership of a newspaper insulated it from profit-related concerns and guaranteed editorial independence. We also noted that $5 billion is a lot of money and the New York Times columnist David Carr predicted that Rupert Murdoch's past successes in wooing reluctant sellers, coupled with the disparate and disinterested ownership, would result in Murdoch's eventual triumph. more ›

New York singer/songwriter Jesse Harris might be known for his songs performed by others, in 2003 he won the Grammy for Norah Jones’s “Don’t Know Why," and he's also written songs for Willie Nelson, Bright Eyes, Feist, M Ward, and many others. Tonight, however, he'll be belting out his own tunes at the Living Room. Come check him out, and get to know him a little bit first... more ›

THEATER: Listen up: The World Financial Center’s unique Word of Mouth Festival is going on through Saturday only. Taking inspiration from the festival’s location, The Women’s Project is presenting a series of short plays by women playwrights called Girls Just Wanna Have Fund$. They’re all site-specific works about the relationships between women and wealth (or lack thereof); audiences are escorted through various spots around the World Financial Center to watch each performance. (There's an article today's Times Metro section.) Another intriguing production is Bird Eye Blue Print, which occurs in an abandoned office suite on the first floor of One World Financial Center. “In these rooms, a mysterious woman known only as ‘the blue dress lady’ has made her home. Join her as she tours you through her realm of disappearing birds, empty phone jacks, false doorways and lost sisters. Is it an office suite? Or an elaborate optical illusion?” (Playwright Jeffrey M. Jones highly recommends the play; he also stresses that while they are limiting the advance reservations for Bird Eye Blue Print, nobody who showed up without a reservation was turned away on the night he attended.) - John Del Signore more ›