Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• A long list of media luminaries and politicians, including President Obama and former president Clinton, turned out for this afternoon for a memorial service at Avery Fisher Hall in honor of Walter Cronkite. [WP, NYT, LAT]
• Stephen Farrell, a New York Times reporter taken hostage by militants in Afghanistan, was freed early this morning following a raid by British commandos; his Afghan interpreter, however, was killed. [NYT, E&P]
• The McKinsey consultants who have been reviewing operations at Condé Nast are finishing up their work and will be submitting their findings shortly. So what changes are in store for the magazine conglomerate? No one knows for sure, but further budget cuts and a closure or two are entirely likely. [NYO]
• McGraw-Hill, the parent company of BusinessWeek, reports that 93 different buyers have expressed an interest in acquiring the struggling magazine. [BN] More

• Just when you think members of the Jackson family can't possibly stoop any lower comes confirmation they've agreed to do a reality TV show for A&E. It's going to be "genuine," says the show's producer. Clearly. [THR]
• Because the public has been clamoring for 24/7 access to fake wrestling matches, the WWF is now hoping to start up its own cable network. [NYP]
• More on what went down when Vogue editor Anna Wintour sat down to chat with David Letterman on his show last night. [WWD]
• Sony unveiled its electronic reading gizmo/Kindle competitor today. [NYT]
• The Observer's Jason Horowitz is leaving for the Washington Post. [NYO]
• A homeless woman has scored a four-month internship at Elle. Just wait until Elle "employee" Olivia Palermo gets her hands on her on the next season of The City. Homelessness, we presume, will never have looked so good. [Gawker]More

The Apple Building? | Darcy Stacom, the commercial real estate broker who convinced Mort Zuckerman's Boston Properties to pay $3.5 billion to buy the GM building in 2008, has suggested that Apple cough up a few bucks and pay Zuckerman for the right to rename the tower, so it doesn't sport the name of a bankrupt automaker. Let's hope Steve Jobs sets aside his health issues and moves quickly on this opportunity to plant a glowing white apple at the top of the skyscraper. Considering Zuckerman has already turned the "Citigroup Center" into "601 Lexington Avenue," the GM building may turn into the much blander-sounding "767 Fifth Avenue" if he doesn't. [Reuters]

In a much needed antidote to the jealousy even those of us with minimal tech skills harbor toward people who have made a fortune inventing iPhone applications, many disgruntled developers are venting about how unfair it is that their apps didn't make it into the Apple store. On Wednesday, Apple dropped the "Baby Shaker"—users had to shake their phones to get a digital baby to stop crying; last year's "I Am Rich" app, which served no purpose but still cost $999, was initially accepted by Apple but then pulled shortly thereafter. So what other juvenile pleasures are iPhone users being denied by Apple's inscrutable screening process? More

Happy Birthday | Paula Zahn turns 53 today. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is turning 54. Terry Semel, the man who ran Warner Bros., served as CEO of Yahoo!, and helped bring Courtenay Semel into this world, is 66. Nike co-founder Phil Knight is 71. Sen. Joe Lieberman is turning 67. Clayton, Dubilier & Rice chairman Joseph Rice is turning 77. Actor Billy Zane is 43. Dominic Chianese, better known as "Uncle Junior," is 78. Chad Hugo of The Neptunes and N.E.R.D is 35. Actor Barry Bostwick turns 64. Edward James Olmos is turning 62. And actor Abe Vigoda is celebrating his 88th birthday today.

Hope you weren't too excited about those rumors of an Apple store opening on West 34th Street. It's no longer in the works. Despite the fact that Apple has been paying $5.9 million in rent for the space since 2006, Apple chief Steve Jobs has apparently decided that the location across from the Empire State building is a little too low-class: "One source said he looked at a run-down building across the street and said, 'This is not for Apple.'" [NYP]

♦  Last night's face-off between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden generated the highest ratings for a debate in 16 years. [THR]
♦  SNL has booked Queen Latifah to play debate moderator Gwen Ifill tomorrow night. [People]
♦  What does Palin have to say about Katie Couric? Nothing good. [HuffPo]
♦  CNN incorrectly reported that Apple CEO Steve Jobs suffered a heart attack. [Reuters, SAI]
♦  Fox Business hit a ratings high on Monday—a scant 81,000 viewers. [NYT]
♦  Google may hire an ad agency for the first time. It's had discussions with Wieden + Kennedy and Ari Merkin's Taxi New York. [WSJ]
♦  Jesse L. Martin is in discussions to star in a new NBC drama called The Philanthropist. [THR]
♦  The Economist is stamping its brand on pizza boxes. [NYT]

• A battered Lehman Brothers plans to spin off the majority of its real estate investments into a new company and sell more than half its interest in its investment management division. The bank also predicted a third-quarter loss of $3.9 billion. [WSJ, Dealbook]
• In a morning conference call to announce the changes, Lehman CEO Dick Fuld sounded "both wearied and defiant." [Dealbook]
• HSBC's chief executive says it has no plans to acquire a stake in a U.S.-based investment bank, quashing rumors it would come to Lehman's aid. [Bloomberg]
• The Bill Gross-managed Pimco Total Return fund earned $1.7 billion from the US government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [FT]
  
• George Pataki has joined the board of private-equity firm MidOcean Partners. [NYP]
  
• Bear Stearns will pay $28 million to settle an FTC suit. [Reuters]

Vanity Fair's perplexing list of the "New Establishment," that collection of people who aren't remotely "new" but certainly represent the establishment, is now online! The usual suspects (and Graydon Carter pals) continue to dominate (Barry Diller, Ron Perelman, Steven Spielberg), but there have been a few changes, too. The love affair with private equity moguls and hedge fund titans has clearly subsided: Both Eddie Lampert and Steve Schwarzman have been booted from the list, Henry Kravis went from 51 to 77, and SAC Capital founder Steve Cohen fell from 45th place to next-to-last on the list. And Harvey Weinstein's inability to generate hits at the box office has resulted in a precipitous fall from 41 to 87, which will undoubtedly make for an uncomfortable moment the next time Graydon bumps into Harvey at the Waverly Inn. More

• Earnings are down at Eddie Lampert's Sears. [Bloomberg] 
• Bank of America has agreed to pay $43 million to settle its dispute with the state of Massachusetts over auction-rate securities. [DB]
• One of Steve Schwarzman's funds took a big hit earlier this month, but the Blackstone fund now appears to have bounced back. [NYP]
• B-school applications are on the rise. [DB]
• Lehman Brothers has apologized for stealing research from Sanford Bernstein. [WSJ]
• Toyota has slashed its 2009 sales forecast. [Bloomberg]
• Steve Jobs is not dead notwithstanding the obituary that appeared on the Bloomberg wire last night. [Gawker]

• An Abu Dhabi investment fund says it has agreed to an $8 billion commercial-finance partnership with General Electric. [WSJ]
• Wachovia posted a quarterly loss of $8.66 billion, after write-downs during the second quarter totaled more than $6 billion. [WSJ]
• The department store Mervyn's may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by early next week, unless Steve Feinberg's Cerberus figures a way out. [NYP]
• Apple issued a worse-than-expected fourth quarter forecast amid concerns about the health of CEO Steve Jobs. [NYP]
• Wall Street banks may cut bonuses by about 20 percent this year. Or so says Gov. David Paterson, who estimated that each 10 percent reduction in bonus pay costs the state $350 million in tax revenues. [NYT]