Is It Really Fashion Week’s Fault That Guy Trebay Feels All Guilty?

The Times’ Guy Trebay takes note of preparations for Fashion Week and asks whether anyone is thinking about New Orleans. Answer — barely:

And so, even when much of the nation’s attention is focused on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, there are those this week who will cling to their determination to put across the wonders of the Maidenform Dream Bra. (Tagless, made of two-way stretch foam, it has a sweetheart neckline and is available in sizes 32A to 40DD, just so you know.) They will doggedly push the latest Robb Report findings on the highest end of the luxury market (as divined by Carol Brodie, the publication’s chief luxury officer) at a Chelsea Piers event offering a select group (the only kind, really) a chance to smoke hand-rolled Zino cigars, to try on $1 million worth of jewelry and to ride in a Grand-Craft mahogany runabout and a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

And they will be pleased to explain to passers-by who stop at the Evian Pop-Up Spa on Fifth Avenue at 43rd Street how important indulgences like a hot-stone massage using only rocks soaked in pure imported Evian can be in the aftermath of tragedy.

“Especially in troubled times, when people are suffering, and you are thinking of water,” said Marjan Mehrkhast, an Evian spa consultant, “it’s crucial to think about your health.”

Some Quietly Rejoice

Forgetting for a minute the wider implications to the economy at large if the housing bubble actually bursts, some renters are rejoicing at the prospect of housing prices coming down:

Here’s more grist for the bubble babble: Residential real-estate prices in Manhattan have been plummeting this summer.

The average price of a Manhattan apartment has dropped from $1.332 million in June to $1.145 million by the end of August — more than 14 percent, according to the latest monthly report by the Halstead real-estate company.

Likewise, the median price of the Big Apple’s condos and co-ops has dipped from a high of $831,250 in June to $725,000 in August, a 12 percent drop.

While the summer months have traditionally been a slow time for real estate, this year’s numbers have taken an exceptionally heavy nosedive.

. . .

In June, when the average sale price for a Manhattan apartment hit $1.3 million, it was a 30 percent increase over the previous year. But the August average price of $1.145 million is less than half the yearly upswing — about 14 percent — from $1.001 million in August 2004.

“The positive fundamentals are still there,” Heym said. “But people are starting to get a little nervous. Over the next couple of months we’ll see the flattening of prices, but they’ll still be higher than they were a year ago.”

Brokers are also hearing voices of concern from their clients.

“In the last week, I’ve had several sellers ask if they should lower their price,” said a Sotheby’s broker.

“At this point, I’m telling them not to panic. But it’s getting close to the point where I’m telling them they have to be flexible,” a term that sellers across the country have not had to focus on too seriously.

Towards A New Moses

How bad has it gotten? (And to tell the truth, I’m not exactly sure what “it” is.) It’s so bad that some people are starting to reconsider Robert Moses’ legacy:

He was a nasty son-of-a-bitch, perfectly happy to screw the little guy who stood in the way of his grand projects. Eventually, Moses, who at one point held twelve city and state jobs (but never held elected office and was crushed in how one run for governor), came to believe his own massive hype. The powerbroker was more than willing to displace ordinary people who got in the way of his public works projects. “If the ends don’t justify the means,” he asked, “what does?”

It’s a good question, especially in a city like ours, where little gets built and no one—certainly not the mayor or his Democratic rivals—has offered a city-sized vision.

(Sure, sure, it’s the contrarian New York Press, but still . . .)

Trampled, Trampled!

I feel remiss for not paying enough attention to the race for Manhattan district attorney between 86-year-old longtime DA Robert Morgenthau and 63-year-old “upstart” Leslie Crocker Snyder. Not only do both candidates have connections to Law & Order but according to the Times, the race also involves a healthy dose of small-scale thuggery:

Her latest television ads have tweaked him for refusing invitations from several television channels to debate her. That issue has led to several recent confrontations – including the Tuesday night scuffle.

It occurred after Ms. Snyder and Mr. Morgenthau appeared – separately but sequentially – at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center on West 13th Street. As Mr. Morgenthau left the center and walked slowly east on 13th Street with members of his staff and his police detail, a man in a suit carrying a large Snyder sign on a stick followed the group, asking loudly whether Mr. Morgenthau would debate Ms. Snyder.

What happened next is in dispute, but eventually Eben Bronfman, of Mr. Morgenthau’s staff, confronted the man and ended up pushing him against a fence as Mr. Morgenthau got into a black S.U.V. A Morgenthau volunteer nearby screamed that the Snyder supporter had trampled on her and torn the campaign button from her shirt.

The man with the sign would not give a reporter his name or say whether he was employed by the Snyder campaign, but he was later identified by Ms. Snyder’s camp as Carlos Laracea of White Plains, the campaign’s director of minority outreach. Mr. Laracea said that Mr. Bronfman had choked him. “I never laid a hand on them,” Mr. Laracea said, but “he got physical with me.”

Don’t You Know Who I Am?

Now that they don’t have to worry about black people, restauranteurs are discovering new ways to accommodate everyone’s inflated ego:

For there to be good seats, there must, after all, also be bad seats. These days, however, even the most au courant restaurateurs have a good reason to avoid that toxic combustion of self-important diner and questionable seat: money. Faced with an increasingly competitive marketplace and ever-savvier diners, the owners of many new restaurants have taken pains to maximize the number of appealing seats.

“We just try to seat everybody in the way we feel will make the maximum numbers in the dining room,” said Amy Sacco, the owner of Bette, who has built a groovy reputation as the impresario of places like Bungalow 8.

An optimist might call this quest quixotic; a realist might call it mendacity. Human nature being what it is, you can put three tables in a room and one – the closest to the window or the one where Nicole Kidman sat last week – will become more desirable.

Restaurateurs, then, must figure out how to cultivate the glow of celebrity without alienating the bulk of their paying clientele. This is easier to do at small places (merely getting into Serge Becker’s La Esquina is enough), and the exhaustive focus on food at places like Per Se can effectively sublimate status anxiety.