Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Happy Birthday | CNBC's one-time "money honey," Maria Bartiromo, turns 42 today. Moby is turning 44. Marie-Josée Kravis, the wife of billionaire Henry Kravis, is 60. The rapper Ludacris is 32. Brokerage founder Muriel Siebert is 77. Hedge funder David Tepper is turning 52. Political operative Bill Cunningham is 59. Singer Harry Connick Jr. turns 42. Director Brian De Palma is turning 68. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas is 38. Actress Taraji P. Henson turns 39. And hockey player Mike Comrie, who may be better known for being Hilary Duff's boyfriend, is turning 29. Weekend birthdays after the jump.More

• The New York Blade, one of the two big gay and lesbian newspapers in New York City, has suspended publication and laid off most of its staff. [NYT]
• How many books can you possibly read about Bernie Madoff? Who knows, but there at least four books about him scheduled to hit stores this fall. [Crains]
• David Rohde, the New York Times reporter who was kidnapped in Afghanistan with his translator in November and released a couple of weeks ago, returned to the Times newsroom to a standing ovation yesterday. [NYT]
• James Frey's young adult novel has been sold to HarperCollins. [NYT]
• Wonkette editor Ken Layne has sold a book to HarperCollins, too. [NYO]
• The battle between CNBC's Dennis Kneale and bloggers goes on. [Dealbreaker]

• Last week Bette Midler was handing out dating tips to Jennifer Aniston. This week she's rolling with 50 Cent. Not only have the two become "unlikely best friends," but Bette says 50 has "really made my life worth living," and has been by her side "through thick and thin." She'd even like to sing backup on one of his new songs, too. Also? She's totally lost it, clearly. [NYDN]
• Speaking of Aniston, she's supposedly taking a little break right now due to "exhaustion." [Sun]
• The woman accused of having an affair with Bruce Springsteen says her ex made the whole thing up so he'd get "big money" from the singer to stay quiet. [People] 
• Hilary Rhoda is reportedly dating Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez. [P6]
• Amy Winehouse was reportedly hospitalized for the third time in as many months on Tuesday, although she's since been released. [Mirror]More

• Madonna's adoption appeal was "adjourned indefinitely" by the chief justice of Malawi's Supreme Court yesterday. Fair enough. After all, would you let a woman dressed like this adopt your child? [Reuters]
• Gisele Bundchen was seen leaving an OB/GYN's office yesterday with Tom Brady, which may mean she's pregnant, or may mean nothing at all. [P6]
• Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard tied the knot in front of 40 guests in Italy on Saturday. [Us]
• Bebe Neuwirth is married, too. She married Destino vineyard founder Chris Calkins in a Buddhist/Christian ceremony at The Players Club on Gramercy Park. [P6]
• Rihanna has cancelled her comeback concert in the United Arab Emirates. The reason? "Poor timing," she says. [Sun]More

• Matt Lauer's "deer incident" won't keep him down for long. He's reportedly in "good spirits" after undergoing surgery yesterday to repair a separated shoulder and will be back to work in a few days. [Star]
• How did Bruce Willis meet his new wife, Emma Heming? He picked her out during a casting call, just like any normal person. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan is sick of "people telling lies" about her since she's "really a good person" who just wants to put in a honest day's work. Got that? Good. [People, Us]
• Barbara Walters is planning to quit ABC in the near future so she can "spend more time with her boyfriend, Dr. Robert Butler." Or at least that's what "industry insiders" are telling the Enquirer. [NE]
• The cutbacks at Condé Nast continue: Editors like David Remnick and Ruth Reichl have been forced to take the subway! [NYP]More

Richard Prince's appropriation art has long been popular with big-name collectors, but there's at least one person seeing red over Prince's most recent works, which went on display at Larry Gagosian's gallery last month and are featured in a new book by Rizzoli. Photographer Patrick Cariou filed a lawsuit against Prince, Gagosian, and Rizzoli last week for using a number of his photographs in Prince's "Canal Zone" exhibition without his consent, pics that Cariou alleges first appeared in his 2000 book, Yes Rasta. Prince, of course, has spent decades using other images in his works. What's different this time around? Cariou says that in the past Prince has typically relied on "anonymous commercial imagery." This time, though, he took advantage of Cariou's hard work since the photos in question were derived from the "ten years he spent in the secluded mountains of Jamaica, gaining access to, living and working with, and earning the trust of the Rastafarians who are the subjects of Yes Rasta." There's one party, though, who we imagine is very happy to have avoided any further legal trouble: disgraced author James Frey, who penned the text in Prince's book, but isn't named in the lawsuit. You can review the full suit for yourself below.More

It's never been tougher for young New Yorkers trying to break into the media business: No one is hiring, of course, and to make matters worse, you now not only have to compete with children of the rich and prominent for unpaid internships, but with actual grown-up celebrities attempting to grab a bit of cheap publicity. More

♦  After listing his 2,900-square-foot condo at 505 Greenwich Street for $5 million in October and then lowering the price by $500,000 just weeks later, James Frey has chopped the price again. The four-bedroom pad is now listed for $3.995 million. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
♦  Sun Capital Partners managing director Gary Talarico and his wife, attorney Linda Filardi, paid $10 million for a six-bedroom duplex at 875 Park Avenue. [Real Deal]
♦  Grammy-winning producer Ric Wake's Cove Neck mansion, which was on the market for $6.5 million for the past year, was reclaimed by Bancorp Bank last week after it failed to attract any buyers at a public auction. [Newsday]

♦  James Frey has cut $500,000 off the price of his condo at 505 Greenwich Street, less than a month after first listing the place. The four-bedroom spread, which Frey bought as two separate units and later combined, is now on the market for $4.5 million. [Curbed, Corcoran]
♦  Farid Naib, founder of the finance software company FNX Limited, paid $2.29 million for a seventh-floor loft at 288 West Street. [Cityfile]
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» Zac Posen showed the kind of pretty dresses that made him famous. What has also made him famous, of course, is his dazzling knack for networking, which was in full effect with a starry audience of Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy, Marisa Tomei, Leighton Meester, Venus and Serena Williams, Anna Wintour, André Leon Talley, Bernadette Peters, Diddy, Julian Schnabel, Bette Midler, Juliette Lewis, Kate Mara, Jada Pinkett Smith, Veronica Webb, Joy Bryant, Rachel Zoe, Ingrid Sischy, and Fern Mallis. [WSJ, Wireimage]

» Calvin Klein's 40th anniversary show was predictably A-listy with Eva Mendes, Lauren Hutton, Anna Wintour, Tyra Banks (whispering conspiratorially with Glenda Bailey), and Serena Williams in attendance. Equally newsworthy as Francisco Costa's minimalist, neutral-paletted, space-agey designs, though, was the fact that Rachel Zoe got totally abused by the paps, who told her to "eat a sandwich," and that she's "a terrible role model." Welcome to reality TV stardom, Rachel!  [The Cut, Guardian, WSJ]More

Happy Birthday | Author James Frey turns 39 today. Another author who has dealt with a bit of controversy is celebrating, too: Jessica Seinfeld, the wife of Jerry Seinfeld, is 37. Restaurateur Stephen Hanson is turning 59. Sculptor Robert Gober is 54. Photographer Nan Goldin is 55. Emmy Rossum is turning 22. Actor Benjamin McKenzie is 30. Book designer Chip Kidd is turning 44. Blogger and former magazine dude Jeff Jarvis is 54. Literary agent David McCormick is 47. Ben Folds is 42. And two American Idol winners are celebrating: Jennifer Hudson is 27 and Ruben Studdard is 30. On Saturday, former Yankees outfielder Bernie Williams will turn 40, Stella McCartney will turn 37, Ben Savage will be 28, and Fiona Apple will celebrate her 31st. On Sunday: Sex and the City producer Michael Patrick King will be 54, Nas will celebrate his 35th, model Carmen Kass will be 30, and former financial titan (and Mike Bloomberg's former boss) John Gutfreund will be 79.

Fake Memoirist Unrepentant, Highly Repetitive | "During the Oprah stuff I called [Bret Easton Ellis] and said, 'Dude, what the f*** do I do?" Sometimes, a quote contains an overabundance of clues to who the speaker is. Addressing the listener as dude? Cursing? Namedropping a literary hero? Invoking Oprah? Who the fuck else could it be, dude? [Times UK]

Redemption? | Things are looking up for publisher Nan Talese: A couple of weeks after James Frey shifted more of the blame for the Million Little Pieces brouhaha onto her namesake imprint, Leon Neyfakh reports that authors including Philip Roth and Jonathan Safran Foer may be joining her list, following their previous editor Janet Silver's new role as Talese's editor-at-large. [Observer]