There will be ruminative documentaries about the lost New York City of the 1970's, through the lenses of the Broadway show A Chorus Line and the old Upper West Side sex club Plato's Retreat. And another film called Lymelife about disgruntled ennui on Long Island (starring the disgruntled Alec Baldwin!) The TImes writes indulgently about the films:

Those voices, and others from a handful of movies at this sprawling, 10-day film festival opening on Thursday, are also likely to rouse some serious nostalgia for a New York that somehow got away.

At least three pictures at this year’s festival take an unusually deep look at the city as it roiled its way through the messy, magnificent, slightly mad 1970s.

In Toronto. The New York of the North. Maybe next year we can see a movie about disaffected, slurry, and strangely interconnected people moping around sun-soaked Los Angeles. At a film festival in Vancouver or something.

on sunday my partner and i were walking down saline beach and who do we see??? that crazy climbing 'social' bitch alex mccord and her gay husband simon... with their kids. they were at the end of the beach, in a sort of wash area where runoff gets trapped in a pool. walked over, and was freaked out because they were butt as naked. kids too. i mean, really. saw simon's junk, and the bare ass and tits of the REAL HOUSEWIFE. they weren't trying to hide their ASSets at all. listen, this is st barts, and naked it ALL OVER, and i love that the french are so free... but it ALWAYS creeps me out when americans go topless here because i know it's not really our custom... but
DAMN, completely nude?? a 'celebrity'??? PS - simon's cock kind of big, just too bad it's attached to such a douche.

Competitive people are assholes, and there are too goddamn many of them here!

Jill and daughter.

Jill and her "gay husband" (Barf.) Correction: There is a gay husband, and he was there, but this is not him. This is her actual hubby.

The ladies who lunch at the second most expensive restaurant.

"Later on I'm going parasailing."

"I'm still heeeere."

Pool partay!

It's about balls.

She's not married and has a job, and yet she's still a housewife.

Ghosts of guests.

"Why wouldn't we do the show again?" Simon recently told New York magazine. "I mean, it's a total success. [Nine years ago] we were sitting around on our fourth or fifth date, at the Blue Water Grill, and Alex was telling me that she wants to be a famous actress and I'm sitting there going, 'Darling, if you were a famous actress, we wouldn't be sitting here on the sidewalk having dinner.' " Haha. Um. Sigh.

Simon, ever the ridiculous idiot, later elaborates:

It made social climbing out to be much more important to us than it is. I've always loved to study people. I mean, for example, Jill's from Long Island, and boy, that shows. You can see these sorts of people from areas outside Sydney and London as well. As for us, well, I use the Dickensian phrase: Who doesn't want to improve their station in life? Everyone does.

...'Darling, if you were a famous actress, we wouldn't be sitting here on the sidewalk having dinner.' "

Alex: "And then I said, 'Oh, yes, we would. It's just that there would be ten people taking our picture.' "

Simon: "And now we have that."

Chaim_Gnadelstein's new line beats the original, "But Where Are The Nine?"

Tuesday night, Page Six spotted LuAnn "Countess" de Lesseps holed up with a hot, younger man at the NBC Upfront party on the roof of the Empire Hotel. A spokesman for the count ess told us: "There's noth ing to it. She was with friends."

Holed up on a roof? It sounds like a sniper rifle should be involved, and perhaps a mow-down of some of the other monstrous women on the show.

[Post]

"Another curious form of cooperation one sees in New York is the unspoken ban on staring at celebrities. When you get into an elevator in an office building and find that you are riding with Paul McCartney—this happened to me—you are not supposed to look at him. You can peek for a second, but then you must avert your eyes.

The idea is that Paul McCartney has to be given his space like anyone else. A limousine can bring him to the building he wants to go to, but it can't take him to the 12th floor. To get there, he has to ride in an elevator with the rest of us, and we shouldn't take advantage of that. This logic is self-flattering. It's nice to think that Paul McCartney needs us to do him a favor..."

"You Got a Problem With That?" [Smithsonian]

[Photo: Christinabean's Flickr]

"Now Bravo producers are looking to capitalize on her kookiness for the next season of 'Real Housewives of New York City.'

"'They're approaching Trisha for the second season,' our source says. 'Nothing has been confirmed yet, but they think she would make a great addition to the show.' Officially, Bravo reps say, 'As for Season 2, we've announced we've been picking it up, but no other decisions have been made so far concerning cast.'" [NYDN]

Commencing during the approximately twelve month period preceding January 24, 2007, corrupt New York City undercover police officers assigned to the Manhattan South Vice Enforcement Division began frequenting Scores West and abusing their authority: i) did not pay otherwise required admission fees; ii) consumed but did not pay for alcoholic beverages; and iii) consumed but did not pay for food.

The Countess was sniffing a lot of cheese and putting the shopkeeper to work her at Cheeses on 62nd (near Lex). Daughter was also in tow, and they both looked exactly as they do on the show. The daughter had that permanently embarassed look that most girls her age with reality show mothers tend to get. Honestly if I hadn't heard her throaty voice she would've just been another UES mom in a barncoat with a be-legginged teenage daughter moping at her side.

The Times Square area and its pockets of vice is a world familiar to me and my early days in the city (two whole years ago.) Says a former Show World girl of the trannie stage, where pre-op shemales would dance:

"They didn't like the 'regular' peepshow girls coming in and staring at them, but one day I was like, 'Fuck it, I'm going in there.' We work with them, you know? I went in there and watched—-ooh, the looks they were giving us... They were actually able to make money like that—you know, save up for their operations. I think they actually made more money like that. After their operation they were never so popular again."

Show World, owned by Richard Basciano (who never gives interviews!) scaled down considerably around 2000, eschewing the live girls—too many expensive vice busts—but maintaining a smaller version of its porn and video store on 8th Avenue near 42nd Street.

In the words of another peepshow girl who worked at Show World in the late nineties:

"Imagine, hustling against 32 girls every night. Somehow I made my money. I guess there was enough to go around... I did drugs, partied... some girls bought houses. At least I can say I had a few years of really good times, though. You didn't need to go out! Everything was right there: drugs, booze, your girlfriends, you'd be up in there acting crazy—all the while making money."

The equally notorious Playpen Theater, a live-girl and porn emporium, closed at the end of July 2007, another victim—or winner, depending on your view—of redevelopment.

This is from the "Bedford Ave" level of TMNT.

And this is from the exciting classic, "Move to Prospect Heights."

Meanwhile Bethenny went to the racetrack for her birthday, where her father's creepy friend Lou gave her a little black negligee. Because, um, I don't know. Ew. It was a truly uncomfortable moment, but one that Bethenny handled with a bit of her usual good character. LuAnn took the fam to the Statue of Liberty, where old grampa de Lesseps (well, actually her husband) yammered on about the family's history and how important they are. There's something so wicked and menacing about LuAnn's face, isn't there? I really think she would kill a man if she felt she had to. And poor Alex... Well, poor Simon, I guess. After some awkward vibrator conversation (also, what's with his extremely loud and grating laugh?), he learned that his step-father passed away back in Australia. This means he was forced to return down under and be apart, for a long long time, from his dear, horsehair beard. Their insane bond is a bit startling.

And that's it my friends! I have to admit that I didn't watch this episode very closely, as I was busy attending to real life matters. Imagine that. But what about this show as a whole? What does it say about us, about New York City, about housewives? Well, actually, not all that much. It tells us that five women somewhere in this farkakte city are willing to let their ambitions and pettiness balloon and lift them, fake parts and all, into the grainy heavens of TV fame. I just don't think they realize that those balloons have already popped and they've plummeted all the way down to the bottom. And that's really the joy of these shows, isn't it? Wasn't it Oscar Wilde who said "we're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"? Except, some of us in the gutter aren't looking at the stars, we're looking at other people in the gutter who think they're in the stars, looking down at the people in the gutter. So. There you go.

Will this be the last of the New York ladies? No! It's coming back. Yay!(?) Also upcoming? The Real Housewives of New Jersey, about five wealthy "McMansion"-living suburbanites who navigate the chilly ennui of leaves falling from the trees every autumn and the first blush of crocuses in the springtime. Or something. Good Lord.

Was being in Playboy part of the new mommy celebration? And what about those other, decidedly more raunchy naked pictures you took with photographer Bob Coulter? You know, the ones that can be found here, here, here, here, and here. Were those post-pregnancy celebrations as well? Just fess up! Naked pictures can make you famous! And you and your homosexual husband really, really want to be famous, don't you? Ugh. This woman continues to reduce her life to a hideous, squirmy, sad embarrassment.
[Take a Report]

Jill: Jill stayed mostly in the background this week, letting Bethenny host a dinner party at her house, looking appalled by Ramona's bad behavior, and trotting over to Greenwich Westport, CT where her sister, Lisa Wexler, was having a little celebration for her radio show. The sister-interviewing-sister moment was sort of nice, even if during the chat, about Jill's courageous struggle for success, the Housewife came across as simply a normal lady who married a rich guy.

Countess LuAnn: Ohhh LuAnn. I mean Mrs. de Lesseps! The Countess got very upset when Bethenny introduced her to a driver as LuAnn, rather than Mrs. de Lesseps. She was shocked! Just shocked! "It's a respect thing," she idiotically and hypocritically told Bethenny (who was admirably aghast at the whole situation). This is all delightful coming from some trash bag foreign TV hostess who happened to marry some old dude whose family purchased nobility while building the Suez Canal. Before the car incident happened, Bethenny and LuAnn (fuck her "respect") were having cocktails in the Chateau de Lesseps ("it's a house, not an apartment") when LuAnn's sad little son Noelle came down and asked if he could go to dinner with them. Of course not, replied LuAnn. Kids don't go to this restaurant. People would be scandalized. "It's taco night!" she reminded Noelle, referring, I'm sure, to the dinner that housekeeper Rosanna had prepared. He responded glumly: "You're never home for taco night."

Bethenny: Bethenny spent a lot of time this episode looking horrified. Whether it was in reaction to LuAnn's bullshit, Ramona's crazy lady antics, or Alex's raggedy rundown Brooklyn flop house, Bethenny perfected her flabbergasted stare. She is, happily, back together with her boyfriend and puttering along with her cooking career. I genuinely like Bethenny. She actually seems like a real person, with real smarts, who doesn't give a shit about "society." Her catch phrase of the evening, an incredulous yet sincerely curious "Who cares??", ably summed up the entire series.

Ramona: Ramona is a crazy person. When invited to Bethenny's dinner party (at Jill's house) she initially didn't want to go because "it's raining cats and buckets." But then she reversed gears and got all excited for a girls' evening (another kind of "taco night," if you will) and tromped on over to the party. But! Scandal! Alex, of course, invited her gay valet/husband Simon, making it not quite the girls' night that Ramona hoped for. And she let everyone know it, including Simon. "Why is he here??" she bellowed. Then during dinner, following a discussion about what it means to be "classy," she got up and left during the middle of the meal. A few days later, after drunkenly dancing at the Hawaiian Tropics Zone for some sort of Eligible Bachelor event, she apologized to Bethenny and explained that she'd forgotten to tell everyone that she had additional plans that evening. She and Bethenny (who, much to Ramona's delight, called her "tart but sweet, like a Pomegranate-tini") later bonded over more booze and a shared distrust of men. Ramona is pretty broken. That much is clear.

Alex: Alex and Simon, so pathetically and bizarrely honest about their social climbing, had $5,000 opening night tickets to the Met. Alex wore her hideous animal-print dress. The limo got stuck in traffic so they hoofed it on foot, only to arrive to uninterested red carpet photographers and missed "networking" opportunities. Later, the pair looked through the Sunday Styles section to see if Alex got a mention. "It's a big deal," Alex said of such a write-up. And yes, she was there. Well, a photo of her back at least. (And do you know, dear friends, who was on the front page of Sunday Styles that very week? Your dear old friend LolCait. Haha! Suck it, Alex!) Also in the episode, Francois had a birthday party and Bethenny was invited so she could get some experience around children (I guess?) Bethenny was indeed good with the children (mostly because she had no interest in hanging out with the adults) but was shocked at the ramshackle state of the McCord household. Bare floors, half-finished paint jobs, a weird gay Australian man. Just despicable. Alex ignored it and actually proceeded to have a somewhat meaningful conversation with Bethenny about love and children and sadness. Good for them.

What does next week's finale have in store for us? It looks as though Ramona may finally have to answer for her shitty behavior.

9:15am, Friday,April 4- 77th street stop, 6 train. I rush down to the platform and stand next to a petite woman tapping away on her BB. Status Quo for this stop. Train arrives, and we all step in- this petite thing looks up at me,directly into my eyes and lo and behold- RAMONA!! Now, I have lived in NYC for my whole life, and have seen plenty of sightings, but none more exciting than this! She is an enigma to me. At first, there was familiarity but I didn't recognize her. When I did, I certainly did not want her to KNOW I did. Ironically, she stared deep into my eyes almost searching for recognition. You could smell the desperation. We rode together two stops and boy, did i check her out on the sly head to toe. Pointy little boots, tacky orange hued fur coat, bad highlights and mascara boogers! HOMEGIRL is just regular folk- schlepping on the 6 train with all of us- HA!

Bethenny, the thirty-and-flirty unmarried one broke up with her boyfriend, and proceeded to drink herself stupider. In a dumpy townhouse across the river, it was Alex "Grace Jones in whiteface" McCord's birthday, so her gay friend/husband Simon planned a little nautical surprise party (sailorsss!). Sad, boozy Bethenny got a pity invite, which I'm sure the so-very-posh Alex and Simon immediately regretted after they saw her chugging tequila and mumbling peculiar tone poems to strangers. Silex (like it?) took her aside to make sure she was OK, but it was really just an excuse to do some insincere and evil-looking "concerned" mugging for the precious, precious cameras. Eventually everyone but Silex was ushered off the boat or thrown into the sea, which left the pair alone to have a weird dinner and suck face grotesquely. (Random fact: someone tried to sell us naked pictures of Ms. McCord. Like, for money. Gross.)

Upholstery mogul Jill didn't do much but have some boring problem with her dawwwgs and give some fairly reasonable advice to Bethenny, who was still hurting and decided to flee to Miami for an $1,000 a night hotel stay and booze fest. She didn't get much cheering up, though. When she was there, an old friend from boarding school told her that her eggs were all dry and stale and shriveling up. Nice. Finally Ramona, the one who really belongs on/in Orange County, took her sullen and bratty 12-year-old daughter Avery and her little friends (what a great/terrible age) to a fancy hair salon called Amour De Hair, so they could get all gussied up for a big school dance. One of Avery's friends (Whatsherfuck McGee, I believe) was so precocious and insane that I actually became a little frightened. "If you got it, work it!" she shrieked to Ramona, who later tried to learn how to dance sexy. From her 12-year-old daughter. Man alive I wish I could show you the whole episode, but alas I cannot. Hopefully clips of Alex and Simon fake-comforting Bethenny and crazy Ramona and the ridiculously weird girls at the hair salon will suffice. "Only in New York, kids. Only in New York." [Long, painful barf.]

From 1950 to 2000, 800,000 homes and apartments were created—while the number of residents only increased by just fewer than 120,000 people. In 1950, only 7% of New Yorkers 25 and older had attended four years or more years of college.

By 2000, the fastest-growing group of jobs in New York City paid less than $25,000 a year. A man calling himself Christopher Rockefeller fleeced Hamptonites out of more than $900,000 over the summer. H&M began its New York invasion. Hillary Clinton "inadvertently" solicited donations from a White House visitors list. 15,000 people rallied for Ralph Nader's presidential campaign. Trump World Tower grew over the U.N.

From August to October, Silicon Alley dot-coms laid off 3000 workers. In November: "Many companies have been forced to devise generous benefits to lure the top candidates to the metropolitan region." Investment banks and insurance companies grab for office space while dot-coms disappear. On November 8th, Hillary Clinton was elected to the Senate. By November 25th, the Williamsburg Domino Sugar plant workers had been on strike for a year and a half.

82 substantiated complaints of abuse by the NYPD got disappeared. Unemployment hit an all-time low of 5.5%.

"Deliverymen who often earn just $2 an hour lugging bags of groceries to apartments up and down Manhattan for the Food Emporium supermarket chain will receive $3 million in back pay under a settlement announced yesterday."

Developers promise to rebuild West Side Rail Yards!

"[W]hat appears to be fashionable for some of the French these days is to pack up one's life in Paris and relocate to the East Village."

December 29: "A federal judge has upheld a Giuliani administration policy that allows police officers to arrest homeless people for sleeping in cardboard boxes in public." Boo.com wins the right in court to sell off their Silicon Alley lease.

From "1992 to 2000 there had been a gain of 35,200 jobs for securities and commodities brokers, whose average salary in 2001 was $147,867."

"The number of New York adults who have a problem speaking English increased by 30 percent between 1990 and 2000, to more than 1.5 million throughout the city."

25-year-old Battery Park City, tasked with building 60,000 units of affordable housing, has only provided a bit more than 1500. The Earth Liberation Front claims they have burned down several houses being built in Long Island on farmland. NewsCorp. lays off hundreds of online staff and closes its internet division offices. New York Times Digital lays off 70 employees. The Giuliani administration is forced to pay out at least $50-million for illegally strip-searching tens of thousands of people in 1996 and 1997.

It is found that the U.S. government had enough evidence to indict Osama bin Laden before the killings of Americans in Somalia in 1993. January 16, 2001: "Manhattan's skyrocketing apartment rental market has turned around and started drifting back toward earth." The U.S. Justice Department declined to file charges against the 4 cops who were acquitted in state court in the shooting of Amadou Diallo. February 7, 2001: "The number of homeless people lodging nightly in the New York City shelter system this winter has risen above 25,000, the most since the late 1980's, city figures show, with the largest increases coming among women and children over the last few years."

Giuliani creates a "Decency Panel" after being outraged by a Renee Cox photograph that depicted a naked black lady Jesus.February 23, 2001: "The World Trade Center, which was derided as a 110-story, 10 million-square-foot example of government excess when it opened in the 1970's, is being handed over to a giant company in the largest real estate deal ever involving a single office complex." The Domino Sugar plant strike ended in a "complete loss" for the strikers.

February 27, 2001:

Perhaps nothing epitomizes what the World Trade Center has become since the bombing more than the visitors desks in its lobbies. That is where 5,000 people wait in line each day to be entered into a computer, photographed and given the plastic ID card that will allow them to enter the elevators. Everyone must be considered a security risk, yet treated with concierge cool."

In the last four years, New York State had not spent more than half of the $1.9 billion allocated for antipoverty programs. May 7, 2001: Twilo shut down. Donna Hanover had her lawyers bar Judith Nathan, Mayor Giuliani's lover, from Gracie Mansion. Mike Bloomberg, a businessman thinking about becoming mayor, buys up nobloomberg.org and ihatebloomberg.com. In May, 2001, New York City began seeing a rise in hotel vacancies and signs of an economic downturn. Restaurants saw a decline in patrons when the Sopranos aired. Then Giuliani had his wife fired as first lady.

On May 30, 2001, a suspect that may have been a serial killer of gay men is taken into custody.

May 31, 2001:

"Before the embassy bombings trial, Osama bin Laden loomed large in the American psyche, a villain of unimaginable evil and sophisticated reach. It was an image fed by destruction done and by American law enforcement eager to drive home the reality of his threat. In some ways, though, it was an image created because so little was known about how he worked.

But the trial, which left many of the details of the bombings uncontested, made clear that while Mr. bin Laden may be a global menace, his group, Al Qaeda, was at times slipshod, torn by inner strife, betrayal, greed and the banalities of life that one might find in any office."

A group would like to landmark the Meatpacking District, where "the streets, paved with nubby Belgian blocks, splay at awkward angles to the waterfront. The sidewalks run with rivulets of greasy blood, and prostitutes pick their way around discarded chunks of fat."

June 8, 2001:

Jack Newfield, the most liberal voice at The New York Post, was fired today along with Stuart Marques and Marc Kalech, two of its three managing editors. Three other people were dismissed, including two of the five editors on the newspaper's city desk, according to The Post's spokesman, Howard J. Rubenstein. The firings come six weeks after the arrival of The Post's new editor, Col Allan.

August 31, 2001: "The booming late 1990's appear to have left the middle class in the New York region and California no better off than it was a decade before, an analysis of Census Bureau data suggests. The poor got a little poorer, the rich got a lot richer and the large group in the middle emerged slightly worse off than when the decade began."

September 4, 2001: A huge slump seen in high-end restaurant business. Two commercial airliners were flown into the two towers of the World Trade Center. New York's secret CIA headquarters were destroyed. September 12, 2001: "Bush Vows to Avenge Attacks." September 14, 2001: "Some of Wall Street's biggest names are signing leases for new office space far from Lower Manhattan." September 15, 2001: "Bush Warns That Coming Conflict Will Not Be Short."

September 20, 2001: "While it was unlikely just two weeks ago that many people outside the five boroughs were terribly interested in glimpsing the soul of Rudolph W. Giuliani, it is now undeniable that the mayor has become an international celebrity."

Tom Brokaw's assistant tests positive for anthrax. The child of an ABC news producer tests positive for anthrax. Governor Pataki evacuates his midtown office after anthrax found. A CBS producer and a postal worker test positive for anthrax. 12 firefighters arrested in Ground Zero fight with police. November 21, 2001: a fifth woman has died of anthrax. Conrad Black and other backers plan launch of new daily paper, the Sun. 10 people murdered in New York in one weekend.

Michael Bloomberg spent $96.20 for each vote received to be elected mayor. Dick Parsons made CEO of AOL Time Warner. Five hundred cops get armed with MP5 submachine guns and Mini-14 assault rifles.

Chartering of private jets goes up 10% after 9/11.

Jim McGreevey becomes governor of New Jersey, issues "an inaugural address notable for its absence of specific program proposals." Crystal meth's invasion of New York begins in earnest. 7000 police turn out to handle maybe a few thousand anti-World Economic forum protestors. Buddhism becomes suddenly unfashionable. New York City has racked up $42 billion dollars in debt.

March 1, 2002: Century 21 reopens.

March 13, 2002:

Despite predictions of a real estate recession in Manhattan after Sept. 11, co-op and condominium sales have rebounded strongly in the last two months, with the number of sales up and prices gradually rising — in some cases even surpassing those of a year ago, when the sales market was still hot.

Open houses are full to bursting, and the agents say they are awash with bids and bidding wars. Even the town house and luxury markets, hit hard by weak Wall Street bonuses at the end of 2001 and a general fear to commit, are starting to move, agents say.

Alfred Taubman, the head of Sotheby's, gets a sentence of a year and a day for price-fixing with Christie's.

April 29, 2002: "Starbucks shops have sprouted all over Manhattan, with 124 at last count and four more on the way." Is Times Square clean? "Packs of streetwalkers" still descend after dark! The grounds of the Statue of Liberty are equipped with face recognition software to recognize terrorists. Woody Allen sues producer; city mildly turns on him. Dee Dee O.D.s.

20-year-old Britney Spears opens a Manhattan restaurant called Nyla. Mayor Bloomberg raises taxes on cigarettes for a total cost of $7 a pack.

July 11, 2001: Rudy Giuliani's marriage finally ends, with a $6.8 million payment to Donna Hanover—plus legal fees and $22,000 a month in child support and an apartment.

A family talking loudly in Malayalam and pointing out the window of an airplane at notable landmarks caused two fighter jets to be dispatched to accompany the plane into La Guardia. The Russian Tea Room closed.

The Citigroup Center begins making secret fortifications. 167 apartments are turned over to squatters. Lizzie Grubman pleaded guilty to charges stemming from having run down 16 people at a Hamptons nightclub. The test run of the AirTrain to JFK airport derails, killing one. Giuliani publishes his Miramax book "Leadership," says that New York City was "well-prepared" for 9/11.

October 7, 2002: "Several thousand people filled the East Meadow on Sunday afternoon to protest a United States invasion of Iraq." Jam Master Jay shot.

Joel Klein, the new School Chancellor, begins to lay off 550 workers to save schools $200 million. The City Council raises property taxes 18%. Jim McGreevey apologizes for billing a $70,000 week-long trip to Ireland to New Jersey—including his $16,000 cellphone bill.

Radiation patients set off detectors on subways and at tunnels. December 13, 2002: "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday offered his vision of the future of Lower Manhattan: a collection of neighborhoods stitched together by large parks and broad pedestrian walkways, with a direct mass transit link to Kennedy Airport via a new tunnel under the East River."

New York State passes, after 31 years of lobbying, a gay rights bill. Smoking is banned in bars and restaurants. Unemployment in New York City is 8%; the national average is 6%.

December 30, 2002:

Less than a quarter of the federal government's financial aid promise to New York City and the region has been realized.

A California group that pays drug addicts to get sterilized sets up shop in Brooklyn. The Greenwich Village Balducci's closes. Mayor Bloomberg plans to save the city by issuing another 1.7 million parking tickets a year. February 18, 2003: Blizzard!

New York City is in a recession.

Daniel Libeskind's design chosen for Ground Zero: it features an "open pit."

Income disparity in adjoining neighborhoods has become more pronounced, as rich people buy in poor neighborhoods:

Now the city has dozens of census tracts — clusters of just a few thousand people — in which the average household income in the top fifth of the income spectrum is at least 24 times the average in the bottom fifth, according to an analysis of census data done for The New York Times. In 15 of those tracts, the average at the top is at least 40 times that at the bottom.

May 13, 2003: The New York City Rent Guidelines Board allows rent increases of 8.5% on two-year leases and 5.5% for one-year leases for the city's one million rent-stabilized apartments. (The city has around three million housing units; two million of them are rentals; 350,000 are rent-controlled. The remaining 650,000 are subject to no guidelines.) More than 100,000 apartments have been removed from rent limitations between 1994 and 2002.

May, 2003: Mayor Bloomberg presides over the wedding of Rudy Giuliani to Judith Nathan before Henry Kissinger and Donald Trump.Housing court cases up 6% over last year. Sales tax goes from 8.25% to 8.625%. The two top-ranking editors of the New York Times step down over one reporter's fabrications and "management style."

Albany passes a bill that will allow market rents in New York City for as many as 300,000 formerly regulated apartments in the decade to come. 38,000 people live in homeless shelters in New York City—16,500 children—with a new surge coming.

The Board of Ed building is sold, to become luxury apartments.

The average sale price of a Manhattan apartment is $864,860; the median price is $575,000.

September 8, 2003:

More than a third of the emergency grant money intended to help small businesses in Lower Manhattan survive after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack went to investment firms, financial traders and lawyers.

In the third quarter of 2003, the average sale price for a Manhattan apartment had climbed to $919,959. The Concorde took its last flight.

October 29: New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey is so unpopular that fellow Democrats running for office won't appear with him—or even mention him.

Jay-Z and Mike Bloomberg turn out to support the unveiling of Bruce Ratner's Nets arena for downtown Brooklyn.

December 19, 2003: The 1776-foot World Trade Center tower might be "the world's tallest building upon completion in 2008 or 2009"!

"Dr. Howard Grossman, one of the city's best-known AIDS specialists, said more than half the men who test positive in his private practice blamed methamphetamine." The Time Warner Center opened. Larry Silverstein took to the courts to decide the question: are two planes crashing into two buildings one incident or two? (The difference is $7 billion.)

February 16, 2004:

The 57,000 Satmar Hasidic Jews living in Williamsburg are alarmed that their neighborhood is being invaded by artists who will drive up rent costs.

After they stopped spraying the city with pesticides, birth weight suddenly went up! Taxicabs have their first fare increase in 8 years—26%.

April 15, 2004: Average Manhattan apartment prices are 32% higher than a year ago; average price,$1,001,000. Bloomberg, once the most-disliked mayor, makes major gains in approval ratings. An independent federal commission announces that 9/11 rescue work was "undermined by poor planning, inadequate equipment, faulty communication and generations-old interagency rivalries." Giuliani testified that "some terrible mistakes were made." New York City proposes a ban on photography and film on the subways.

May 24, 2004:

"The Police Department," said the commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, "practically alone, is defending New York's people, its corporate assets and its infrastructure from another terrorist attack."

Rubenstein Associates celebrated their 50 years in public relations:

He also talked to us about his great uncle, BEN MARDEN, who he said ran with MEYER LANSKY.

"They were beyond the mob,'' David Blaine said admiringly. "They were the brains behind it.''

But didn't they do some unsavory things?

"They were doing what Rubenstein is doing now, but illegally,'' Mr. Blaine said. "Rubenstein controls everything legally.''

Ooops. We'd better trot over to Mr. Rubenstein's mouthpiece, for a rebuttal.

"Ach,'' Howard Rubenstein said slowly, a little put off. Then he laughed. "O.K.,'' he said. "I don't know what he means, but O.K. At least I'm treading on the right side of the street.''

"[K]araoke is suddenly enjoying a second wave of popularity." New Jersey real estate developer and Jim McGreevey supporter Charles Kushner was charged with "obstructing a federal investigation into his business dealings and political contributions by hiring prostitutes to try to seduce two men he believed were cooperating with federal prosecutors in the case. One of the prostitutes succeeded in the seduction plan and the result was a videotape, which federal investigators said Mr. Kushner and his co-conspirators secretly made, then mailed to the man's wife—Mr. Kushner's sister Esther."

Bloomberg denies Central Park to 250,000 people planning on protesting the Republican convention. "[B]reak dancing, known on the street as b-boying, is enjoying a full-blown revival."

Jim Mcgreevey announced that he would resign as New Jersey governor, and that he is gay. July 2004: Martha Stewart sentenced to five months in prison. A Williamsburg hipster fell in love and rented out his loft. August 30, 2004: "A roaring two-mile river of demonstrators surged through the canyons of Manhattan yesterday in the city's largest political protest in decades, a raucous but peaceful spectacle that pilloried George W. Bush and demanded regime change in Washington." Home Depot opened on 23rd Street. The Bush administration proposes to put the Section 8 rent cap for 110,000 New York City families at $1,286 a month.

35 of the 51 centers that help high school dropouts prepare for the GED are shuttered. "There is scarcely a New York neighborhood that is not on an upswing."

"More than one-third of the 226 criminal cases of bias or hatred filed this year have involved the swastika."

"There are no official gauges of the sex industry, but if the Manhattan Yellow Pages is any guide, it is thriving, with more than 30 pages under the heading 'escorts.'" The $858-million MoMA reopens.

Rupert Murdoch sets records by purchasing a $44-million penthouse, the most expensive private residence in New York. More than 25,000 housing units had been built in New York City in 2004. A wheaten terrier was given a "bark mitvah."

December 24, 2004:

In the three years since Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Mr. Giuliani, the city has spent close to $2 million to settle lawsuits brought by residents and city workers who accused the Giuliani administration of retaliating against them for exercising free speech or other constitutional rights.

33% of residential sales over the year were for prices over $500,000. In 2000, just 10% of sales were that high.

New York's recession could be declared over; unemployment was at its lowest since 2000, tourism was beginning to rise again—but it wasn't because of Wall Street, though big '04 bonuses were good for the city's tax income. Of the 60,000 jobs lost in finance from early 2001 through mid-2003, only 500 have been recovered.

Minimum wage rose to $6 an hour; Manhattan apartment sale average stabilized around $1 million for the last nine months. Food became 5.5% more expensive.

George Pataki's new budget proposal would cut $1 billion in health spending, which means "reducing benefits" for 340,000 working poor; George Bush's new budget proposal would slash daycare, literacy programs, elderly services, housing.

For no known reason, Department of Health officials invent the idea of super-HIV.

HIP, which provides insurance to 1.1 million New York City metro area people, begins a transition from non-profit to for-profit. Unemployment drops to 5.1%—but strong gains are in the unstable retail workforce. The financial district becomes residential. The city has a $3.6 billion surplus; Bloomberg's approval ratings have doubled since 2001, and he personally gives $20 million to non-profits, his largest donation yet.

Bruce Ratner announces he plans to ring his new Nets stadium in Brooklyn with 17 buildings, "creating a dense urban skyline reminiscent of Houston or Dallas."The design of the World Trade Center's "Freedom Tower" is tossed out and started from scratch.

"In the fiscal year ended July 1, New York City took in $2.2 billion in real estate transfer taxes, generated in large part from the sale of existing real estate but also from new homes. By comparison, in the 2000 fiscal year, the city took in a $875 million."

Snakeheads found in Queens! August 10, 2005:

Foreign citizens who change planes at airports in the United States can legally be seized, detained without charges, deprived of access to a lawyer or the courts, and even denied basic necessities like food, lawyers for the government said in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.

The city sells off its last remaining 248 vacant lots to developers.

September 4, 2005:

The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now make 52 times what the lowest fifth make - $365,826 compared with $7,047 - which is roughly comparable to the income disparity in Namibia.... In 1980, the top fifth of earners made 21 times what the bottom fifth made in Manhattan, which ranked 17th among the nation's counties in income disparity.

By 1990, Manhattan ranked second behind Kalawao County, Hawaii, a former leper colony.... The rich in Manhattan made 32 times the average of the poor then, or $174,486 versus $5,435.

The maples syrup smell came and went. The low-income housing and office jobs disappeared from the Forest City Ratner plan for Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards. 240 Park and Essex House were bought by the royal family of Dubai for more than $1.1 billion. In the first six months of 2005, permits were given for 15,870 housing units; "A large proportion of the newest units are being marketed as 'luxury' apartments."

MTA workers go on strike—the workers balked at a pension proposal that would have saved the MTA less than $20 million over three years. The NYPD has been secretly infiltrating anti-war demonstrations.

"A former cabdriver who struck it rich in Russian oil and went on to invest in Manhattan real estate has signed a contract to buy a Fifth Avenue mansion for $40 million." Bloomberg has ditched his Boston accent.

More than half of the tax cuts and rebates in Governor Pataki's proposed budget were geared to benefit New Yorkers who earn more than $100,000, about 10% of the population. "In Manhattan, real wages—earnings adjusted for inflation—rose 5.4 percent between the first quarters of 2002 and 2005... but in the rest of the city, those wages fell at least 2.9 percent." The last heavy-machinery dealer departed from downtown. "Officials no longer put any stock in a 2008 completion date for the 'Freedom Tower' of the World Trade Center."

Larry Silverstein gets out of the way so rebuilding can perhaps begin at Ground Zero. New York State property takes have grown 60% in the last ten years. 3/4s of all households in Manhattan are renters; the apartment vacancy rate was 3.8% in 2002, 1.5% in 2005, and .075 percent in March of 2006. June 16, 2006:

The number of New York City apartments considered affordable to hundreds of thousands of moderate-income households... plunged by 17 percent between 2002 and 2005.... [T]he median rent for unsubsidized apartments jumped to $900 from $750 — a 20 percent increase in three years — the median household income in the city shrank to $40,000 from $42,700.

The 110-building, 11,200 unit, 25,000-resident Stuytown/Peter Cooper complex went on the market and sold in October, in the largest American real estate deal to date; 3/4s of its apartments had been rent-regulated. The concrete and metal barriers that went up all over New York a few years back mostly get dismantled, as they are useless or worse. Several thousand people line up for candy store jobs that pay $10.75 an hour. Half a million people are stopped and searched on the street over the year, half of them black.

"The 280,000 workers in the finance industry collect more than half of all the wages paid in Manhattan..... For all of the 1.8 million jobs in Manhattan, the average weekly salary in the first quarter of this year was slightly more than $2,500."

Buoyed almost entirely by real estate transfer taxes, the city is projected to have a $3.9 billion surplus. Bloomberg's homelessness plan fails, wi