Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Nello Balan is the owner of Nello, the exceedingly mediocre Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. He's also one of the city's most shameless—and most notorious—publicity hounds. Balan's latest attempt at drumming up attention, however, now appears to be exploding in his face. Last week, a receipt "surfaced" indicating that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich had spent $52,000 on lunch. (The bill was for $47,000, but TMZ, which first reported the story, said the billionaire had tacked on a $5,000 tip.) But a spokesman for Abramovich tells us the bill wasn't his and the mogul may pursue legal action against Balan for suggesting otherwise.More

It's been a busy month for Bethenny Frankel. First she got engaged to her boyfriend Jason Hoppy; then, a couple of weeks ago, she confirmed she's a little more than two months pregnant. With the Real Housewives of New York City currently filming its third season, we thought it would be worthwhile to get some parenting advice for the mom-to-be from one of her costars. So, naturally, we reached out to model-cum-designer Kelly Killoren Bensimon—a mom with two daughters of her own, Sea, 11, and Teddy, nine—to offer parenting tips for Bethenny. Kelly's advice, thoughts on women who breast-feed in public, and why she wears shorter skirts now than ever before is below. Join us, won't you? More

Does riding a mechanical bull sound like a fun time? If you do decide to engage in the activity and you head over to Johnny Utahs, one of the few places in the area that has the gizmo set up for its customers, keep in mind that if you get wasted and then fall off the bucking beast and injure yourself, you probably won't get very far if you file a lawsuit against the restaurant for negligence. More

Ever since McKinsey & Company finished up its three-month review at Condé Nast a few weeks ago, the publishing giant has been busy cutting costs, closing down four magazines and laying off staff at most of its remaining titles. But perhaps instead of hiring the pricey consulting firm, Condé should have traveled to the front lines to talk to one of the guys who sells magazines for a living? To gain some insight into the future of printed media and find out what sells (and what doesn't), we headed over to a newsstand on Third Avenue to chat with a kind gentleman named Naseer. You'll find his thoughts on the layoffs and career advice for unemployed journalists below. More

Michael Bloomberg built his estimated $16 billion fortune thanks to Bloomberg LP, the financial news provider he founded in 1981. Thirty years later, it is now one of the most lucrative media operations on the planet. Banks and large corporations pay $1,250 a month for each Bloomberg terminal that's installed in its office. There are no discounts available and the company never engages in price negotiations. And while Bloomberg faces competition from the likes of Reuters and Dow Jones, neither company has been able to successfully dislodge the grip that Bloomberg has on the financial media marketplace. No wonder. Getting Bloomberg to cancel your monthly subscription is about as easy as getting Columbia House to stop billing your credit card for those "free" DVDs it insists on sending you every month, even after you've called the 1-800 number a dozen times to complain. More

Wall Street CEOs make a fortune, as you're undoubtedly aware. Even the chief executives of banks that have been bailed-out by Washington or have gone bust usually end up doing nicely. But despite the riches and perks these men have accumulated and massive egos they've developed along the way, few of them would do all that well in a beauty contest. Because it's high time that Wall Street take advantage of the miracle of modern science—and because we care, dammit—we took the liberty of contacting Dr. Anthony Youn, a board-certified plastic surgeon who has made appearances on Dr. 90210 and the Rachael Ray Show, to ask him what procedures he'd suggest these titans of finance consider if they want to look their very best. Dr. Youn's answers and cost estimates—and our commentary—is below.More

Amy Sacco's Bungalow 8 is closed and the phone has been disconnected. But she remains insistent that she plans to reopen the onetime hotspot after she completes a round of renovations and gives the venue a new look. So is there any chance Bungalow 8 will reopen and Sacco will once again reign supreme as the "Queen of NYC nightlife"?More

ABC announced last month that Diane Sawyer would depart Good Morning America at the end of the year to replace Charles Gibson as anchor of ABC's World News. Now we hear that the morning show's co-anchor, Chris Cuomo, is leaving the program as well. According to a well-placed source, Cuomo plans to move over to 20/20, taking over for John Stossel who left ABC in September to join Fox News and Fox Business. More

Bungalow 8's demise has been rumored for a couple of years now—and years since it's been a serious hotspot—but the venue that helped revitalize the western edge of Chelsea (and turned it into a mob scene) is finally finished, a source tells us. Amy Sacco's lounge supposedly closed "for renovations" a couple of weeks ago. But after nearly nine years in business, we've been told that Sacco does not have any plans to reopen the club that served as celeb central in the early to mid-'00s. We contacted Sacco's publicist by phone and email for comment and have yet to hear back. But a call to Bungalow 8 confirms the obvious: The line has been disconnected.More

NBC's legal team has one more headache on its hands. On Tuesday afternoon, the company was served with a lawsuit by the Font Bureau, one of the country's leading typographic design firms and the company responsible for crafting typefaces for the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and the New York Times Co. What would prompt a company that designs fonts to wage a legal assault on the media conglomerate? It seems NBC didn't secure the rights to use a handful of Font Bureau's trademarked typefaces. The same ones, we should add, that have been used as part of NBC's fall marketing campaign to tout shows like The Jay Leno Show, Saturday Night Live and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.More

Remember those reports last week that Marc Jacobs had decided to appear on a gay version of Real Housewives on Logo called Kept? The rumor got off the ground, it seems, when the Daily News noticed an item about the show on Gawker alongside a photo of Jacobs and boyfriend Lorenzo Martone. Despite the fact the piece didn't actually suggest Jacobs was involved in the show in any way, the mere presence of a photo of Jacobs on the same page as a story about a gay reality TV show led the Daily News to publish an item a couple of days later that the designer had "reportedly signed on to participate." Naturally, the story was soon picked up by dozens of gossip outlets as if it were a done deal. Too bad the News didn't bother to call anyone to check (or even reread the story on Gawker). Much to the dismay of many—gay and straight alike—we can confirm that Marc will not be on the show. More

Hedge fund mogul Dan Loeb paid $45 million for one of the city's poshest apartments last year, a 10,000-square-foot penthouse at 15 Central Park West. His move-in, however, didn't go so smoothly, it seems. It's unclear what took place precisely, but the moving company that Loeb and his wife Margaret hired to help them settle in, Auer's Moving & Rigging, filed a lawsuit against the couple in Manhattan Supreme Court earlier this year claiming breach of contract. (Panorama on the Park LLC, which is also listed as a defendant, is the company Loeb set up to acquire the property.) The high-end moving company is demanding that Loeb cough up the $98,689.07 which it says it's owed. Last week, though, an attorney for the Loebs responded to the suit by filing a motion to dismiss. So what went wrong? Was the prickly hedge fund manager's grand piano damaged by a faulty crane? Did a burly mover accidentally step on Biggie, the couple's miniature pinscher? The legal papers don't indicate why Loeb decided to withhold payment—let's hope that Biggie wasn't harmed—but you can review the documents for yourself below. More

Simon van Kempen and wife Alex McCord of the Real Housewives of New York City spent much of Fashion Week attending parties for the free champagne and gift bags. One of his employees, however, clearly wasn't in the mood to party. Last week a maintenance worker at the crummy hotel that van Kempen manages, the Hotel Chandler, slapped the property with a lawsuit for refusing to pay workers for overtime, a violation of New York's labor laws. Does this mean Simon's chances of winning the award for "Hotel Manager of the Year" are now totally dashed? While you ponder that very real possibility, you can look at the full lawsuit after the jump.More

Dick Fuld Surrenders the Ridge | Big news for golf aficionados who also happen to be closely following the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. As Reuters reported last week, ex-Lehman CEO Dick Fuld gave up his membership at the Blind Brook Country Club in Purchase following his fall from grace last year. Our trusted source for all mogul-related golf news now tells us that Blind Brook isn't the only club that no longer has the pleasure of Fuld's company. He's also abandoned his membership at the Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale. Clearly, the situation has gone from bad to much, much worse.

Anna Wintour lives in a lovely townhouse in the Village. But it doesn't come anywhere close to the new home that one her underlings, Vogue contributing editor Lauren Santo Domingo, is moving into with her husband Andrés Santo Domingo. And while the blonde Voguette and the Latin American heir didn't end up snagging the big discount that had been reported in the press, the house they're moving into is quite a sight. More