Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Graydon Carter Saves the Neighborhood | Midtown is really, really happening these days, have you heard? At least that's what the owners of restaurants that recently opened in—yes, you guessed it—Midtown are saying! And you can give all the credit to Monkey Bar co-owner and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter since he "arguably foresaw and guaranteed the reinvigoration of the longtime social wasteland between 30th and 60th streets." Now he just has to find a way to reinvigorate that other project he spends time working on every so often! [NYO]

• The job cuts at Condé Nast continue. (Apparently laying off everyone at once would have just been too easy.) Yesterday it lowered the boom at Vanity Fair and GQ, although VF editor Graydon Carter managed to shield his eyes from carnage since he'd jetted off on vacation earlier that morning. [NYP, WWD]
• News Corp. appears to be the front-runner to buy the Travel Channel. [NYT]
• NBC has picked up Community, Parks and Recreation, and Mercy for the full season. It's also signed Adam Carolla and Don Cheadle to each do a show.
• Last night's premiere of The Jeff Dunham Show set a new record for Comedy Central, which, if you've seen Dunham, is a sad statement indeed. [Wrap]
• Silliest rumor of the day: Politico reported this morning that friends were urging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to run for president in 2012. But that's not going to happen, of course, so a few hours later Politico posted Ailes' denial.
• The first official portrait of the Obamas was taken by Annie Leibovitz. [VF]
• A few early predictions for Best Picture, if you're interested. [LAT]

• Rumor has it Condé Nast isn't going to shutter several of its money-losing magazines like Details and Teen Vogue, after all. But the budget review that's taken place in recent weeks seems to have "scared fiscal responsibility into some of the highest-rolling titles at the glitzy empire." This means Graydon Carter won't be making it to London or Milan Fashion Week, sadly. [NYP]
• Irving Kristol, the godfather of neo-conservatism, is dead at 89. [AP]
• Oprah has picked the next big best-seller. The latest pick for her book club is a set of short stories by Uwem Akpa called Say You're One of Them. [NYDN]
• After a 72-year run, Guiding Light's final episode aired today. [Reuters]
• CNBC has canceled Dennis Kneale's 8pm show on the network. [NYO]
• The Emmy Awards take place this Sunday. Who's going to win? If you watched last year's telecast, you may already have the answers. [WP]More

• It looks like there's a new frontrunner to take over BusinessWeek. Mayor Bloomberg's media company, Bloomberg LP, has bypassed Bruce Wasserstein as the leading contender to take over the McGraw-Hill-owned mag. [NYP]
• After close to three decades at ABC News, John Stossel is leaving the network to join Fox News and Fox Business Channel. [FNC, TVN]
• Not all magazines are closing down or trimming operations. Cesar Millan and IMG have launched a title for dog owners called Cesar's Way. [WSJ]
• There's been an editorial shakeup at O, The Oprah Magazine. [NYP, WWD]
• Will this season be the last for Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show? [NYDN]
• Graydon Carter appears to have been granted a pass. The Vanity Fair editor reports he hasn't been forced to sit down with the flock of cost-cutting McKinsey consultants now prowling the halls of Condé Nast. [NYO]
• A judge has tossed out a lawsuit by Missy Chase Lapine, the author who claims Jessica Seinfeld ripped off her cookbook last year. [AP]
• According to the Wall Street Journal, "Bonnet books," or Amish love stories, are "a booming new subcategory of the romance genre." Who knew? [WSJ]More

Vanity Fair's "New Establishment" list, an "annual ranking of the top 100 Information Age powers," appears on the web this time around, not in the actual magazine as in previous years. [Update: An abbreviated version appears in the October issue; the full list is online.] And while there are a few surprises to be had—Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who's been reviled in the press in recent weeks, takes the top spot—it once again gives Vanity Fair editor /part-time restaurateur Graydon Carter an opportunity to do what he does so well: insure that his close, personal friends get their moment in the sun!More

• Tonight is the last night for Elettaria on West 8th Street. [Eater, GS]
• La Goulue on Madison Ave. was dismantled and packed up yesterday. [P6]
• David Burke's eponymous restaurant reopened its doors last night. [GS]
• Due to the economy and not-so-spectacular weather, this hasn't turned out to be the best summer for restaurants in the Hamptons. [EH Star via Curbed]
• Charles on West 4th Street begins brunch service this weekend. [GS]
• Graydon Carter is collaborating with someone new at Monkey Bar. His 83-year-old mother's butter tart is now on the dessert menu. [P6]

Crisis at Condé: Food and Beverage Edition | How bad have things gotten at Condé Nast? The bottles of Pellegrino and Orangina are gone, the Fiji water has been replaced with Poland Spring, and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has been spotted in the cafeteria, "eyeing reasonably priced stir fry." Oh, yes, it's that bad. [NYO]

Socialitopoly | "The Manhattan social scene is dead in the summer," which explains why Vanity Fair has introduced its very own board game called Socialitopoly. "Hunker down in your Park Avenue pad, grab your sterling-silver Maybach roadster, Christian Louboutin shoe, or Panama hat," the site advises. Guess this means if you were hoping to play along with a "Little Graydon" piece, you're on your own. [Vanity Fair]

Fran Lebowitz Will Not Be Tweeting Today | It's a good thing that author Fran Lebowitz is so tight with editor/restaurateur Graydon Carter that she can walk into Monkey Bar (or the Waverly Inn) without a reservation and get a table a moment's notice. If she had to use the phone—or Monkey Bar's email reservations system—she'd be in serious trouble. WWD asked her if Lebowitz if she spent any time using Twitter or Facebook and this is what she had to say:More

• Graydon Carter turned 60 on Tuesday, and Frank Bruni was kind enough to give him a gift—an unflattering review of his Monkey Bar. Carter: "Frank Bruni's review in The Times was the perfect nightcap to the perfect birthday." [WWD]
• Speaking of Bruni, a long excerpt from his forthcoming memoir, which appears in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, is now online. [NYT]
• Are restaurants like Minetta Tavern the city's new nightclubs? [BB]
• Word has it Cafe Boulud will be undergoing a major renovation and expansion sometime this summer and will be close for about a month or so. [Eater]
• A new cocktail lounge could be coming to Bryant Park next year. [Crain's]
• Philippe Massoud's ilili showcases Lebanese wines for the next month. [NYT]
• Le Cirque's Sirio Maccioni will undergo open heart surgery next week. [P6]

• The Spotted Pig sells an estimated $1.2 million worth of cheeseburgers a year, making it NYC's top-grossing dish. Balthazar's steak frites is No. 2. [GS]
• Frank Bruni doesn't have too many good things to say about the food at Monkey Bar in his one-star review today, not surprisingly. Graydon Carter's "social pulpit," Monkey Bar merely "affirm[s] his ordination as the high priest of a certain fame-focused, power-obsessed sect of Manhattan society." [NYT]
• Related: Illustrator Edward Sorel talks about his Monkey Bar murals. [Zagat]
• Other reviews today: Danyelle Freeman gives three out of five stars to DBGB; Time Out's Jay Cheshes hands over four out of six to Marea; and Alan Richman makes the case that Bruni should make Marea the Times' first four-star Italian restaurant before he steps down next month. [NYDN, TONY, GQ]
• Chodorow is denying that he ever considered reuniting with DiSpirito. [TFB]
• 7-Eleven says it plans to open 44 new stores in NYC this year. Ugh. [NYT]More

Happy Birthday | It's a big day for Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter: He celebrates his 60th birthday today! (Gifts, flowers, and cards can be directed to 4 Times Square, 22nd floor.) Others marking off another year today: hedge fund manager Phil Falcone (and the husband of Lisa Maria) is turning 47. Music impresario Tommy Mottola is 60. Movie mega-producer Scott Rudin is turning 51. Fellow film mogul Joel Silver is 57. Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, is turning 48. Upper East Side plastic surgeon Sherrell Aston is 67. Actor Matthew Fox is turning 43. Tech luminary Esther Dyson is 58. Hudson News chief Jimmy Cohen is 51. Legal powerhouse Barry Ostrager is turning 62. Actor Harry Dean Stanton is 83. Interior designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz turns 53. Artist Lee Friedlander is 75. And actor Vincent "Big Pussy" Pastore celebrates his 63rd birthday today.

Most magazine editors spend their days discussing story ideas with writers and editors, reviewing copy, and deciding what pieces will appear in upcoming issues. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter? He does that, too, but the part-time restaurateur also carves out a chunk of time every day to tend to the "daily process of populating the dining room" at Monkey Bar, a "choreography" he performs in conjunction with an associate editor at the magazine. (So, yes, while Condé Nast is currently laying off staffers, it's also pays one to manage the seating chart for Carter's little side project.) So how does Carter go about performing this pleasureless ("I'm like the guy with the sandbags") and clearly unhealthy task, one that's especially challenging since so many people want a reservation, the restaurant has been reduced to only accepting table requests by email? More

• A look around Ward III in Tribeca, which opens tomorrow night. [GS]
• Lever House on Park Avenue will reopen as "Casa Lever" this fall. [NYP]
• Frank Bruni downgrades JGV's Spice Market in the Times today, giving the spot owned by the "clone-happy" chef one star instead of two. [NYT]
• The New Yorker's Lauren Collins doesn't have anything good to say about the Armani restaurant located inside the designer's Fifth Ave flagship. [NYer]
• Ryan Sutton is of a similar mindset, concluding that Montenapo, "like Armani Ristorante across town, serves mediocre hotel-Italian at absurd prices. [BN]
• Restaurant Girl gives Monkey Bar (otherwise known as "Graydon Carter's uptown dinner party) two stars out of five in the News this week. Over on her own site, she sits down with Keith McNally for a chat. [NYDN, RG]
• Lobster prices haven't been this low in more than 20 years, FYI. [Atlantic]
• Gansevoort Café opens in the former Florent space next month and the dining conglomerate New York City Restaurant Group will have a hand in it. [TFB]

• Graydon Carter's Monkey Bar is no longer accepting reservations by phone. In other Carter news, Carter's Vanity Fair has very nice things to say about Carter's Waverly Inn, which you'll no doubt be surprised to hear. [Eater, VF]
• Celebrity settings: A roundup of restaurants where celebs were spotted eating this week (or at least where gossips said they'd been spotted). [GS]
• Osteria del Circo is closed due to a gas leak. But Sirio Maccioni will be happy to seat you at Le Cirque instead and he'll give you 25% off, too. [Eater]
• JGV clears the record: He did not cook for four presidents past and present last week. Just one ex-president, a mayor, and UN Secretary General. [JGV]
• Teany caught fire today and will probably be closed for several weeks. [Eater]More