Cher

The other night, Tony Curtis was in a mid-century movie with some pole lamp behind his head.  read more »

Yesterday, Time's blogger Andrew Sullivan announced that the new editor of Out magazine is a heterosexual. "Seriously, I think it's great that a straight guy is now heading up a gay magazine," he wrote.

While that idea fits nicely with Mr. Sullivan's theories on the continued blurring of straight and gay culture and identity, it doesn't quite deliver, as Out's new editor, Aaron Hicklin, is actually not a heterosexual.

Mr. Hicklin and Mr. Sullivan have never met, although Mr. Sullivan did once write approvingly of a review by Mr. Hicklin in Gear magazine of a Moby album.

"He's going to be very disappointed when he sees my first issue devoted to Judy Garland," Mr. Hicklin said from the Black Book offices. "And the Cher issue!"

Mr. Hicklin is staying at Black Book long enough to close the June/July issue; he will then immediately transfer to Out, without a break.

—Choire Sicha

• Jonathan Miller gets annoyed by Time magazine: Reporting on the housing "bubble" in March is a little late. (Matrix)
• New Traditional Neighborhood Developments, the kind of mixed-used areas that one can find close to the office, are being built in cities and on former industrial sites. (The Wall Street Journal)
• After a divorce, a woman opens up her home to strangers, seven of them. It's an anarchist collective. (The New York Times)
• "Miami has had more rebirths than Cher…" Here comes another. (The New York Times)
• The New York City Housing Authority has no money, and needs to start charging for the little things, like keys. (The New York Times)
• Mario Batali's Del Posto landlords have filed a motion in the state Supreme Court to prohibit the restaurant from operating. (New York Post)
• For all your greasy street food needs. (Pushcart NYC)
• Peacock Alley Restaurant in the Waldorf-Astoria went from pricey entrees to snacks. (New York Post)
• The rock-star Williamsburg architect/designer movement. (Los Angeles Times)
• Why has Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights become "a road to nowhere?" (Brownstoner)
• The Wall Street Journal's top choices for online shopping and ideas in home design. (via Brownstoner)
• The Red Hook Fairway will open at the end of April in a Civil-War era warehouse, which will be topped off by three floors of luxury apartments, naturally. (New York Daily News)
• David Burke to stand in the kitchen of a new restaurant whose selling point is waitresses in mini-sarongs and bikini tops. (Page Six)

- Riva Froymovich

Here at The Real Estate, we like pretty pictures, and pretty apartments. This one practically makes us want to don a powdered wig and giggle like a nursemaid in Amadeus.

Madonna's reaction was a bit more meditative when she came to look at this co-op apartment (in a townhouse!), which has just opened up again at 828 Fifth Avenue, for $9,975,000.

"The story is that when Madonna was considering buying the apartment, she lay down on the floor of the former ballroom," wrote architectural historian John Tauranac, about six years back in the New York Times. "For 15 minutes or so, she simply gazed upon the ceiling." "The style is unabashedly Louis XV and about as close to Versailles as residential New York has to offer," he wrote.

But Madonna opted instead for a personal renovation, trading her nasal Michigan accent for an International Accent and moving to England.  read more »

The mansion--built in 1896 for coal magnate Edward J. Berwind--has housed several celebrity tenants, including fashion designer Adolfo, television producer Norman Lear, and Cher.

The parlour floor apartment is listed with luxury specialist Paula Del Nunzio at Brown Harris Stevens. - Michael Calderone

Cher, Judi, Lily Face Il DuceA quintet of wonderful actresses, a richly evocative story set among th  read more »