Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Some of the famous faces spotted in Denver for the Democratic National Convention: Susan Sarandon, Sheryl Crow, Richard Schiff, Eva Longoria, Spike Lee, Dana Delany, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, Alan Cumming, Josh Brolin, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Cyndi Lauper, Rufus Wainwright, Melissa Ethridge, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Pete Wentz, Rachel Leigh Cook, Kal Penn, Kanye West, Jennifer Hudson, Fran Drescher, Dave Matthews, Method Man, Sean Penn, Josh Lucas, Wyclef Jean, Giancarlo Esposito, Danny Glover, Margaret Cho, John Legend, Gayle King, Hill Harper, Will Smith, Nas, Al Franken, Val Kilmer, Willie Nelson, Rosario Dawson, Quentin Tarantino, Jessica Alba, Ani DiFranco, James Taylor, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Tucker, Sofia Vergara, Fat Joe, Ana Ortiz, Ashley Judd, Angela Bassett, Cuba Gooding Jr., Stevie Wonder, Charles Barkley, Chris Daughtry, Matthew Modine, Wilmer Valderrama, Chevy Chase, Ed Norton, Ashanti, Sarah Silverman, RZA, Kerry Washington, Herbie Hancock, Carly Simon, Darryl Hannah, Bruce Springsteen, Moby, Oprah, Neil Patrick Harris, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, and Richard Dreyfuss. Are we missing someone? Email us!

Bare Flesh | One way to get some press for your upstart cosmetics company: send a group of naked girls to walk around Herald Square. [Daily Intel]

Cranky Cuozzo | Post dining impresario Steve Cuozzo's list of everything he hates about new restaurants includes (but is not limited to!) consulting chefs, sushi in non-Japanese restaurants, poorly-cooked octopus, overly talkative waiters, overly quiet waiters, and overly expensive burgers. Someone needs a long weekend! [NYP]

• Arianna Huffington says her website is not for sale, but that's probably just because no one is interested in paying $200 million for it. [Gawker]
• Jann Wenner has tapped Will Schenck as the new publisher of Rolling Stone. [Mediaweek]
• The John Edwards scandal provided a nice boost to the National Enquirer. [WWD]
• ABC has five new shows for the fall. [AdAge]
• ESPN has a late-night talk show in the works. [NYP]
• Rising cable news star Rachel Maddow drives a pickup truck and doesn't have a TV in her NYC apartment. [WaPo]

• Top Chef runner-up Marcel Vigneron was arrested in Laguna Beach this past weekend for driving drunk. [OC Register via Eater]
• Ryan Skeen, formerly of Resto, is the new chef at Irving Mill. [Diner's Journal]
• Chef Michael Psilakis explains the ins and outs of Greek cuisine to Josh Ozersky. [Grub Street]
• Diners in Philadelphia are the most generous tippers in the country. [Zagat]
• The case of the mystery man who picks up women at Beatrice Inn and lures them back to his apartment with the promise of coke. [Gawker]
• More on upcoming venue The Eldridge, in proprietor Matt Levine's own words. [Eater] 

Slow News Day at the Post | Fantastic news: Jumping into a public fountain to collect spare change is not, in fact, illegal. Enjoy, kids! [NY Post]

• Even though Whitney Port may have the least fake career on The Hills, her alleged PR job at Diane von Furstenberg won't involve actual working, will it? [The Cut]
  
• Both Whitney's new boss and her ex-boss Kelly Cutrone make the Daily News' list of the 50 most powerful New Yorkers in fashion. No prizes for guessing who is number one, of course. [NYDN]
• We all know the supers are back—Linda Evangelista for Prada, Naomi for YSL, Claudia for Chanel—but why? It's because advertisers think their familiarity will persuade us to part with our money in these uncertain times, apparently. [Guardian]

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Spottings | Anna Wintour, John Lithgow, and Les Moonves and Julie Chen (left) watching a match at the US Open ... Rachael Ray buying fruits and veggies at the Greenmarket ... The four American Idol judges on a red carpet at Chelsea Piers ... Supermodel Miranda Kerr taking a stroll downtown ... Don Cheadle waving outside the David Letterman show ... ... Carmen Electra blowing kisses from her SUV ... Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian acting like idiots at JFK ... Vanessa Minnillo shuttling between talk show appearances in Midtown ... Lindsay Price heading into an event at the Empire Hotel ... and Katie Holmes showing up to watch a performance of August: Osage County.

You may have heard the name Jonathan Leitersdorf in connection with his real estate dealings around town. The Israeli-born investor spent five years trying to sell off Sky Studios, the 11,000-square-foot triplex loft at 704 Broadway with a rooftop pool. The backdrop for several episodes of Sex and the City and the space where Chelsea Clinton had a big birthday party and Jerry Seinfeld married Jessica, the loft was only unloaded in late 2007, when Leitersdorf sold it to supermarket mogul Ron Burkle for $17.5 million. (He first listed the place in 2002 for $27 million.) Unfortunately, his investments at sea haven't been any luckier. His 178-foot yacht was just hijacked by pirates off the coast of Corsica! More

Human Meets Dog | "Anyone who picked up the Village Voice this morning and turned to Lynn Yaeger's cover story on page 14 was met with a stomach-churning surprise that may have ruined their already unpleasant subway commute to work—a vivid, closeup pile of human excrement belonging to the artist Andres Serrano," writes Joe Pompeo in the Observer. Maybe this was just the Voice's way of being ironic, since no one actually reads the paper any more unless they're using it to clean up after their dog? [NYO]

The Dumbing Down | Here's some unfortunate news for parents, their teenage kids, and Joel Klein: "New York high school students planning to go college scored slightly lower in the SAT entrance tests last year than they did the year before." Perhaps it's the tap water? [NYSun]

• Frank Bruni offers up a brief take on Marc Forgione's Forge in this week's Times and delivers a mixed review, ultimately concluding that the restaurant is "inconsistent." [NYT]
• TONY's Randall Lane also takes on Forge this week and also describes it as inconsistent, handing Forgione three out of six stars. [TONY]
  
• Ryan Sutton's take on Convivio: It's "Manhattan's most exciting southern Italian joint." [Bloomberg]
• Danyelle Freeman of the Daily News wasn't a big fan of the "damp" entrees at Parlor Steakhouse, although she did like the the desserts and gives the UES restaurant two out of five stars. [NYDN]
• Alan Richman can't say enough good things about Veritas' new chef, Grégory Pugin. [GQ/Forked]
• Paul Adams of the Sun says Socarrat "feels like a pleasant step off the more-authentic-than-thou merry-go-round of tapas." [NY Sun]

If you happen to be obsessed with Anderson Cooper and/or you're obsessed with the idea that he might somehow be Jewish (he's not), perhaps you'd be interested in this video of the Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar asking the CNN anchor about his "Jewish identity"? Watch as Anderson confesses that when he was a kid, he really wanted to be Jewish and go the Hebrew school, so he could be just like all the other boys at Dalton. (Let's skip the obvious joke there, shall we?) As a very special bonus, you'll get to see Anderson spout the first line of a prayer in Hebrew, proving once and for all that he's probably endured more than his fair share of Saturdays at Temple Emanu-El.More

Pass the Poland Spring | New York City tap water is the best in the state! At least that's what came out of the "Tap Water Taste Test" at the New York State Fair in Syracuse on Saturday. Second prize went to to the town Pulaski, which you've probably never heard of, but is supposedly located in Oswego County, which you've probably never heard of either. The big loser—as if it needs more reasons to feel ashamed—was Albany, which won top honors last year. [Ithaca Journal]

Donna Karan no longer controls the company that bears her name: LVMH purchased the company in 2001 for $643 million, leaving her with an estimated $400 million fortune. She remains the company's creative director, of course, but she also keeps busy with philanthropic work. Last year the Queens-born designer shelled out $2.7 to various causes, including the $1 million to the Spirituality for Kids Foundation, which teaches Kabbalah to kids in schools. (Naturally, Madonna's also a big donor.) A fan of all sorts of new-age fads (she's expressed her fondness for "therapeutic screaming" and past life regressions in the past), Karan also has a soft spot for Tibet. Her Karan Weiss Foundation (which reflects the name of her late husband) contributed $200,000 to The Norbulingka Institute, which is dedicated to preserving Tibetan culture, and $20,000 to the International Tibetan Medical Association. The entire list—including her token $1,000 contribution to Bill Clinton's Global Initiative and the $59,000 she gave to pal Russell Simmons' foundation—after the jump.More