Photograph of the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg by wallyg on Flickr The Brooklyn Brewery is facing a dilemma. The NY Times explains the company has come up against the expensive real estate market:[Brooklyn Brewery President Steve] Hindy and his partners are willing to spend $15 million for a bigger brewery that would employ at least twice as many workers as he has now and would have a beer garden where customers could sample his......

The economic downturn is affecting everyone--including the very rich. The Post has some interesting stats and anecdotes about wealthy couples driven to divorce Divorce lawyers at white-shoe firms claim they have many more cases these days, thanks to out-of-work investment bankers and their expensive lifestyles. Lawyer Joshua Forman, who says divorce filings are up 20%, explained, "They have to cancel the country-club membership, no more expensive summer camps, cancel the three-week trip to Europe. It's......

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 11,000 for the first time in two years. Worries about Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, oil, and more caused the Dow to fall over 200 points so far. One portfolio manager told Bloomberg News, "It's the worst of both worlds. Watching two government-sponsored entities evaporate before our eyes from an equity perspective, and the damage that does to investor confidence on the one hand, and watching the price of......

Photograph of model Carolyn Murphy, Estee Lauder chairman Leonard Lauder, model Hilary Rhoda, hidden, actress Elizabeth Hurley, and Estee Lauder president Thia Breen at the New York Stock Exchange by Henny Ray Abrams/AP Even though spokesmodels for Estee Lauder, including Elizabeth Hurley, prettied up the New York Stock Exchange by ringing today's opening bell, the mood has been dark as "frightened money is jumping all over the place." Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke tried......

With oil prices hitting a new record and GM's stock under $10 (last time it was there was when Ike was president), Wall Street officially went into bear market territory, with the Dow ending the day at 11,215.51. And that's just over 20% below the high of 14, 164.53 last October. An analyst told Bloomberg News, "Investor sentiment is clearly miserable right now."......

Oil prices hit a new high, at close to $143/barrel today (but ended over $140/barrel), and the Dow fell 106 points to close at 11,346.41. The NY Times reported the Dow Jones Industrial Average "flirted with bear market territory" when it fell 120 points--"The bear peeked out of its cave on Friday. And then it retreated." The Dow Jones is close to a bear market, because it's down 20% (the "threshold for a so-called bear......

Photograph of trader Al Young sitting as the bad news keeps coming by /Richard Drew/AP The Dow plummeted 358 points to end at 11,453, after bad news about brokerages and the ever increasing price of oil. Bloomberg News summed it up this way:U.S. stocks tumbled, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst June since the Great Depression, as record oil prices, credit-market writedowns and a slowing economy threatened to extend a yearlong......

Today, it's expected that Citigroup will start firing around 10% of its investment banking group, which has 65,000 employees. It's probably that entire trading desks in New York and other cities will be eliminated. Dealbook explains the bank is moving "aggressively to complete the 2,000 layoffs that it announced last March," and these 2,000 layoffs are "on top of about 4,200 announced in January." The Wall Street Journal offered this fact: "Citigroup, which has more......

Photograph of a lady walking in front of a bulldozer for Second Avenue Subway construction by cwbuecheler on Flickr While Upper East Side residents feel it's been hell without a second subway line, some Second Avenue business owners are feeling the pinch from the MTA's construction of the long-awaited Second Avenue Subway. Yesterday, businesses asked Mayor Bloomberg to give them a hand, by boosting state legislation aimed at aiding them. According to the Daily......

White collar perp walk time: WNBC is reporting that the FBI arrested former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi Jr. and Matthew Tannin this morning. Why? Because they allegedly reassured investors the hedge fund was a-okay "before the funds lost more than $1.5 billion in value." The WSJ's Law Blog breaks it down: On April 22, 2007, Tannin emailed Cioffi, fearing "the market for complex bond securities was 'toast.'" Then "Cioffi and a......

Newsday reports that Cablevision is near a deal with Tribune to buy...Newsday! The Bethpage-based company had bid $650 million, $70 million more than bids from both News Corp. and the Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman. It was widely believed that News Corp. would be able to close the deal. Tirbune and News Corp. seemed to an informal deal, and even after Cablevision's much higher bid, News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch told investors and analysts he......

The four city officials who are assigned a security detail no longer have to pay the expenses on their taxpayer-funded official cars and drivers when they use them for personal excursions, according to a ruling by the Conflicts of Interest Board. The lucky protected ones are Mayor Bloomberg, Comptroller William Thompson, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. In 2006, former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi resigned after admitting he assigned a government......

Photograph of Bear Stearns' headquarters (center) and JP Morgan (right) by Mark Lennihan/AP With JP Morgan now offering $1.2 billion for troubled Bear Stearns, it's expected the deal will close on April 8. JP Morgan needed 50% of Bear Stearns shareholder approval, and the new $10/share price would give them 45% yes votes (5% is expected from bondholders); an analyst told USA Today the revised deal "virtually guarantees a yes vote at $10 per......

When cops raided a suspected drug operation in Washington Heights last week, they found that the alleged dealers had a little business going on the side: a day care service. Police arrested Donald Crespo and Akwasiba Radellant not just for drug possession, but child endangerment because the fire alarms in the apartment were deactivated and pacifiers were dirty. One three-month-old child was in the apartment during the raid and has since been returned to her......

A lawsuit filed Monday against the City Campaign Finance Board seeks to overturn a recently enacted funding law that opponents assert will just make the City Council richer - and whiter. The recently-enacted campaign finance restrictions reduces the contributions from companies who do business with the city by a whopping 92%. Translation: In a mayoral race, the individual limit on giving is now $400, versus $4,950; in City Council races, it's $250, down from $2,950.......

Good news about the man who was found in respiratory distress while suspended from the ceiling at a Midtown S&M club on Friday. The 60-something retired math professor from Montreal woke up yesterday, but he didn't remember the incident. His wife didn't realize what had happened (she was still in Montreal) and told the Post reporter, who relayed the story, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe this." Wow, to hear about your husband's near-death experience......

The Waldorf Astoria loves to brag about how every president since Herbert Hoover has been a guest at their hotel, but they rarely disclose what delicacies our rulers savor while there. But starting this month, guests at the Waldorf Towers and diners in the hotel’s Bull & Bear steakhouse can have a taste of presidential luxury that, until now, only taxpayer money could buy. For $330 each, guests in the towers can have a four......

2007 photograph of Yahoo billboard in front of a ticker mentioning Microsoft news by Mark Lennihan/AP Giving business analysts something to talk about besides the economy, Microsoft has made an unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo!. The offer is at $31/share, which is 62% more than Yahoo's closing price. Microsoft hopes to create efficiencies by teaming up to compete with Google. However, Pioneer Investments fund manager Thomas Radinger told Bloomberg News, "Microsoft is under......

from her to you, by lisa.lisa at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 173rd St. in Manhattan, a robbery/assault on 13th St. in Brooklyn, and an aircraft emergency at JFK airport in Queens. Barnard at Columbia has a new incoming president, snagged from Harvard Business School. Don't miss the Super Bowl sitting in your local precinct's drunk tank. Get your Super Brawling out of the way early the next time someone......

Kimora Lee Simmons is often on official business...shopping! The NY Post caught her out and about with a possibly illegal parking permit recently. Their "eagle-eyed lensman" saw Simmons and boyfriend Djimon Hounsou "shopping at the swanky department store Barneys late last week while her driver dutifully stood guard outside Simmons' Cadillac Escalade, which had a New York Correction Department placard on its dashboard." The placard stated: "This Vehicle Is On Official Business"; must have been......

New York City's Department of Finance is projecting that real estate values in the city will remain nearly flat this fiscal (ending September) year. More precisely, it expects only a 1.4% increase in property values, versus an 18% climb this past year. It will be the slowest increment of growth since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, during a real estate boom that enabled budget surpluses, tax cuts, and astounding growth in city spending. The......

It's not exactly the cultural or architectural equivalent of the culture-shift that pitted modernism against traditionalism or historicism, but there's a war going on in New York's streets, and it's multirack paper boxes vs. single boxes. On one side are the expensive, well maintained, conservative multiracks that have been introduced into several different Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) around Manhattan. On the other side are the gatherings of cheap-loooking, graffiti- and sticker-covered, molded plastic or metal......

We almost thought that the NY Post website was offering a game of "Which one of these things is not like the other?" But it turns out that celebrities Christina Aguilera, Nicole Richie, Courtney Thorne-Smith and David Alan Grier all had babies. The four babies - two boys (from Aguilera and Thorne-Smith) and two girls (Richie's and Grier's) - were born at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai, the hospital where Britney Spears was recently hospitalized and......

New Year's resolutions probably started out as some sort of gym propaganda to up membership. Every new year, fitness centers worldwide bulk up their ad campaigns, promote "deals" and promise a better body in just months. With so many options, how does one choose a suitable establishment in which to "get physical"? The Post points to Consumer Reports' new list of gym ratings...and it's slim pickins! Bally Total Fitness scored the lowest with a......

At 93, Ted Kheel could be resting on his laurels as a well-known labor lawyer and negotiator (the NY Times called him the "the most influential peacemaker in New York City in the last half-century"). Instead, he has been crusading, as his Nurture Nature Foundation explains, to address the "fundamental conflict between development and the environment." He has suggested that the subways should become free and will be releasing results from a study to prove......

Stores were packed with post-Christmas shoppers, as retailers marked down their products in hopes of boosting holidays sales. So far, holiday period sales are up 3.6%, which is the "lower end" of expectations according to MasterCard Advisors. The question is, will marking down a part of $1,380 shoes to $150 or $1,500 Gucci purses to $750 at Saks Fifth Avenue help? Well, given that people were waiting for doors to open and "not walking......

Moving can take a real toll on the environment. Think of all the cardboard boxes, the truck(s), the frequent opening of doors to climate-controlled rooms and the products and solutions you use to clean the whole place down for the next tenants because you're an awesome person bucking for canonization. Step one on reducing your impact -- the easiest step -- is recycling. And it's not too hard to find earth-friendly cleaning products. But......

B&H Photo-Video, the huge photo and video store on 9th Avenue and 34th Street, will pay $4.3 million to settle an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint. The EEOC contended that B&H paid Hispanic employees in its warehouses less than other workers, many of whom are religious Jews; this is in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Other allegations included that B&H "failed to promote" and "provide health benefits" to Hispanic......

A look at some of this week's noteworthy television: The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: In the Blink of an Eye (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13; Tuesday, 9:00 p.m., WLIW 21) A paparazzi with ties to the Bosnian conflict is found murdered in the 6th series finale. Fox Business Network (Monday, 5:00 a.m., Fox Business Network) Fox’s new business channel debuts. Check your cable listings for channel, but it apparently will be on channel 43 for Time......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: Hostages(!) on Geranium and Kissena Blvds. in Queens, a pedestrian struck at Stillwell and Mermaid Aves. in Brooklyn, and a bank robbery on Columbus Ave. and 72nd St. in Manhattan. Knicks coach Isiah Thomas says that the stress of lawsuits are no distraction. He can keep doing what he's doing regardless of legal problems. A boat full of gadget-minded men. There was a stop-off at Liberty Island; and slide......