The Author Is Dead!

Either somebody’s cribbing from somebody — or some thing, as in a press release — or this Newsday article is part of an inescapable Foucault-like discourse about class war that is so ingrained in our psyche we can’t help but crib from one another:

Tuition at some of New York City’s elite high schools has surpassed $30,000, marking a new, but not-that-shocking milestone in the ever-rising cost of private education in the city.

The milestone is part of a trend that has seen tuition skyrocket to the point that it is now cheaper for students to get an Ivy League education than it is to attend many of New York’s top schools.

This fall, Riverdale Country School in the Bronx will charge $31,200 for grades six through 12. Manhattan’s Trinity School will soon charge $30,170 for seniors, private school observers say.

And plenty of other schools are just a hair under the $30,000 threshold. The Horace Mann School in the Bronx, for instance, will charge about $29,000 for the 2006-07 school year.

By comparison, tuition at Harvard for 2005-2006 cost $28,752; at Yale University it was $31,460.

If that sounds familiar, it should be — we noticed the same thing in the Sun a few weeks back:

Tuition and fees at some New York City private high schools will cost more than $30,000 for the school year beginning in September 2006, breaking a new barrier in sticker shock for parents.

New York already boasts the highest private school tuitions in the country, but prices at some schools will now surpass even the cost of sending a child to Harvard. Many parents have been notified about the tuition increases over the past few weeks.

Riverdale Country School, located on a leafy oasis in the Bronx, will charge $31,200 for tuition, lunch, and books for grades six through 12. Bus service from Manhattan costs an additional couple of thousand dollars. At the Trinity School on the Upper West Side, tuition for seniors will reach $30,170, which includes a $400 “graduation fee.”

. . .

At $30,000 a year for kindergarten through 12th grade, parents are looking to spend about $400,000 before their children even get to college.

Undergraduate tuition at Harvard this year is $28,752, plus room and board.

I don’t ever name drop except when I do.

On The Other Hand, A Dog Doesn’t Require A Graduation Fee

New York City private school tuition surpasses Harvard:

Tuition and fees at some New York City private high schools will cost more than $30,000 for the school year beginning in September 2006, breaking a new barrier in sticker shock for parents.

New York already boasts the highest private school tuitions in the country, but prices at some schools will now surpass even the cost of sending a child to Harvard. Many parents have been notified about the tuition increases over the past few weeks.

Riverdale Country School, located on a leafy oasis in the Bronx, will charge $31,200 for tuition, lunch, and books for grades six through 12. Bus service from Manhattan costs an additional couple of thousand dollars. At the Trinity School on the Upper West Side, tuition for seniors will reach $30,170, which includes a $400 “graduation fee.”

. . .

At $30,000 a year for kindergarten through 12th grade, parents are looking to spend about $400,000 before their children even get to college.

Undergraduate tuition at Harvard this year is $28,752, plus room and board.

“We’re so out of whack that we think that it’s okay to pay more for Riverdale than for Harvard — people around the country are laughing at us,” the founder of the Manhattan Private School Advisors, Amanda Uhry, said.

Ms. Uhry, who charges parents $6,000 to help get their children into private school, said the $30,000-a-year price tag won’t cause most of her clients even to blink.

“The reason they charge as much as they do is the same reason I charge as much as I do — because I can,” she said. [Emph. added because it’s obvious]

Sorry about what I said before, I didn’t mean to judge.

For Goodness’ Sake, Have A Human Child Already (And If That’s Not Possible, Adopt!)

Dog owners are scary. Really, really scary:

A few weeks ago, the owners of the Chocolate Room, home of the $40-a-pound raspberry-peppercorn ganache, paid a visit to the bakery that had just opened across the street from the trattoria that sells pizza flaked with actual gold leaf. They complimented, with a tinge of envy, the Blodgett ovens behind the bakery counter.

Not much to envy, the bakers replied. “They said, ‘Don’t buy these ovens because they’re convection ovens and our cupcakes come out windblown,'” said Naomi Josepher, one of the chocolatiers.

Ms. Josepher was perplexed. “I said, ‘Your cupcakes look a lot better than ours. And anyway you guys are serving dogs and we’re serving people.'”

Well, yeah. And?

It is true. The bakery, Buttercup’s Paw-tisserie, claims to be the first doggie bakery in the whole city that makes its treats on-premises. Take that, SoHo.

And P.S.: The cupcakes, known in this case as pupcakes, are not in the least windblown. They are in fact perfect miniatures, with a perfect white yogurt-icing paw print embossed upon a silken crust of carob.

They are also utterly delicious. To humans. As well they should be, considering the all-natural human-grade ingredients.

“The stuff we use here is healthier than what we eat,” Betty Wong said from behind the counter, as her business partner and brother-in-law, Scott Wong, prepared a tray of wheat-free liver-and-herb biscotti for the oven.

Paw-tisserie also offers coconut-coated carob-crunch truffles ($1.50), liver-cheese brownies (75 cents), salmon crackers with seaweed and anchovy paste ($6.95 for “a barker’s dozen”) and pupcakes ($1.50).

That’s America!

Meanwhile, back in the real world of hard-to-get tables at actual restaurants, entrepreneurs sold Valentine’s Day reservations on eBay:

A few entrepreneurs grabbed up impossible-to-get seatings at some of the nation’s top restaurants for Feb. 14, then sat back and watched the bids trickle in.

“I figured lazy guys willing to spend money on their girlfriends were a perfect target group,” said Jonathan Heines, 26, of Manhattan. “If a guy is going to spend over $200 on dinner and gifts, what’s an extra $10 to $30 to get the reservation you really want?”

Heines said he set up a spreadsheet the week of Jan. 14 and snagged about 20 Valentine’s Day reservations across New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

He then listed the rare commodities on craigslist.org with a link to his eBay account.

His reservation for Spice Market, which cost him zilch to make and 80 cents to list, garnered the highest price: $18.50.

“It was great,” said the buyer of the 10 p.m. Spice Market table. “I’ve greased concierges for more than that on less competitive nights.”

Heines made about $120 selling eight of his 20 reservations.

There’s Only Now! There’s Only Here! Give In To Love Or Live In Fear!

No, no, dude, seriously — the best thing about New York is that no one can really afford it, leaving a higher percentage of people’s incomes filtering up into the hands of the filthy, filthy rich:

Rents here have climbed so rapidly that nearly 30 percent of apartment dwellers now spend half or more of their paychecks on housing and utilities, a new survey showed yesterday.

The in-depth Housing and Vacancy Survey, which is conducted every three years, found that rent and energy bills ate up 50 percent or more of the income of 28.8 percent of renters — up from 25.5 percent in 2002.

. . .

Median rents soared from $706 to $850 despite a surge in the number of new apartments and an uptick in the vacancy rate from 2.94 to 3.09 percent.

As might be expected, apartments under $500 could be found almost nowhere. The vacancy rate in that category was 1.38 percent. At the top end — rents of $2,500 or more — the rate was 9.14 percent.