Down on Wall Street, the word of the hour is “deleveraging.” In the financial markets, deleveraging is a brutal and unpleasant thing, where lots of innocents get badly hurt.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have become plain old-fashioned bank holding companies. Lehman declared bankruptcy. The bull (Merrill) and the Bear (Stearns) have both been incorporated ignominiously into vastly larger megabanks.

Six years into his stewardship of Charlotte-based Bank of America, Ken Lewis, who was widely credited with turning the bank over from being a regional player into a powerful, diversified bank, admitted to $527 million in losses on debt products.  read more »

Brookfield Properties seems to be moving along with a renewal with Merrill Lynch at the World Financial Center, which, at least as of last month was likely to mean a five-year lease. On a conference call with investors today, a Brookfield executive said the company was in “active and productive discussions with Merrill,” though didn’t expand beyond that.  read more »

The co-president and chief operating officer of the globe’s most boring firm happens to live in Little Italy’s hippest building.  read more »

A quick Politicker once-over of past Santorum donors turned up lots of usual suspects -- think Rupert Murdoch, who has given $4200, and Henry Kissinger, who plunked down $500 -- as well as some genuine surprises, like die-hard Democratic fund-raiser John Catsimatidis. The list also includes baby neo-con Mark Gerson, failed would-be senator Rick Lazio, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow, controversial businessman Kenneth Langone, and a piggy bank's worth of Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns-ers (we're sure Mr. Santorum's plum position on the banking committee had nothing to do with that). Most impressive, however, was Mr. Santorum's ability to recruit a real, live Frank Sinatra and Robert E. Lee!

More names after the jump:  read more »

In other words, Silverstein thought he could get by on his insurance proceeds, paying the rent, erecting much of both the Freedom Tower and Tower Two, and beginning design work on subsequent structures, for another three years. And at the time the application was submitted—days before the old design was scrapped—Silverstein was operating on a different timeline, under which the first tower would go up at the end of 2009, about a year before current projections.

Silverstein's finances are sort of a black box. Mayor Bloomberg claims to have penetrated it and sees bankruptcy looming. But on the basis of this application, Silverstein appears financially strong enough to wait until he gets the deal he wants.