Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

The Tribeca Film Institute hosted a benefit screening for the Quantum of Solace last night, which was followed by an afterparty at Tavern on the Green. Attendees included Daniel Craig, Becki Newton, Chris Diamantopoulos, Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower, Craig Hatkoff and Jane Rosenthal, Julia Stiles, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Jeffrey Wright, Debra Messing, Andre Balazs, Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict, Hoda Kotb, Jill Stuart, John Sykes, Judy McGrath, Howard Stringer, Rob Wiesenthal, Liya Kebede, Stewart Rahr, Molly Sims, and Serena Altschul. [PMc, Wireimage, GoaG] More

A couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump said the financial crisis would turn out to be totally fantastic (or "huuuge") for his real estate business, and he'd end up doubling his net worth when all was said and done. He was just deflecting the truth, of course: The interview came a couple of days after the Wall Street Journal documented the many troubles at his Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago and suggested he might even lose control of the property if he couldn't buy more time from the bank that had loaned him $640 million. Well, it turns out he couldn't, which is why Trump filed suit today against Deutsche Bank, who provided him the cash to construct the gold-plated monstrosity. Trump argues he was wronged when his lenders denied his request for an extension. Why? Because they're legally obligated to give him more time on account of the financial crisis. That's a clever one! We're totally going to try using that excuse the next time our credit card bill comes in the mail!

It looks like Donald Trump has found a rather morbid way to capitalize on the press surrounding the murders of Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother, and nephew. The publicity-seeking mogul now says he's been "protecting" Hudson by allowing her stay in a suite with her family at his Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago free of charge since October 24th. It might have been a kind gesture on Trump's part if he weren't blabbing about it to People magazine (especially since she's supposedly holed up in his hotel for her own safety), and if his other recent charity case, Ed McMahon, wasn't still waiting for the handout that Trump promised him back in June. But these are precarious economic times and Trump's Chicago property is reportedly near bankruptcy. So should we really be surprised he's stooped to this?

Ivanka Talks Deli Meats, Politics | Ivanka Trump chats with Lloyd Grove over at Portfolio.com about the turbulent real estate market, her silly new lunch venture with ConAgra, and where she sees herself in 20 years. (Answer: The same place as today, just with more experience.) She also tells us who she's voting for: John McCain, just like her dad and unlike her boyfriend, in case you were wondering. [Portfolio]

Two weeks ago the news surfaced that Viacom chief Sumner Redstone and his second wife, Paula Fortunato, were divorcing after five years of marriage. Much was made of Redstone and Fortunato's 39-year age gap and the couple's pre-nup, which will provide Fortunato with a $5 million fortuno for the five years she spent by the not-so-healthy billionaire's side. But she's hardly the only one who has been married to someone who could easily pass for her father or granddad. After the jump, a list of famous New York couples and their equally famous age gaps. More

♦  Madonna and Alex Rodriguez were able to fly out to the Hamptons for a "quick and cozy rendezvous" without anyone knowing, but only because Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld picked the couple up (separately) from the East Hampton airport and let them hang out for several hours at their waterfront manse. [P6, The Sun]
♦  With her husband Rossano Rubicondi filming a reality show in Italy, Ivana Trump has been hanging out with a 23-year-old Belgian model named Marius Rusovici. [P6]
♦  Tina Brown and Cathie Black are enemies, apparently, since they "disagreed on just about everything" and "wouldn't even look at each other," at a conference this week. [R&M]
♦  Is John McCain making an Saturday Night Live appearance this weekend? Does anyone care? [MSNBC]More

Good news if you're an employee of the Trump Organization! Your exceptionally kind-hearted boss, Donald J. Trump, is giving you an hour off from work next Tuesday so you can go and vote. (Just one hour, though, so don't go making excuses about how your polling station is Brooklyn.) He isn't the only one. If you happen to work for one of the 2,372 companies owned by Time Warner, consider this video by Jeff Bewkes as official notice that you're permitted to skip out of the Time Warner building to perform your civic duty. Not registered? Not a US citizen? See you across the street in Central Park!

Steve Schwarzman's 60th birthday party last year may go down as the last, great party before the fall. Days after closing on what was then the biggest leveraged buyout in history, the $39 billion purchase of Equity Office Properties, the billionaire chairman of the Blackstone Group invited 500 people to the Armory on Park Avenue for a party that cost an estimated $3 million. A very long list of notables turned up—Donald Trump, Barbara Walters, Barry Diller, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon—as did many of the people who have now become poster boys for the global financial crisis, like former Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal, ex-Bear Stearns chief Jimmy Cayne. Rod Stewart was paid $1 million to perform for the assembled guests; Patti LaBelle sang "Happy Birthday." And the room was designed to replicate Schwarzman's $40 million co-op at 740 Park Avenue. So does Schwarzman have any regrets now the economy has crumbled and he was depicted as a real-life Gordon Gekko in the relentless press coverage that followed? More

And you thought the collapsing economy was only good news for repo men and cardiac surgeons. Not only do Donald and Ivanka Trump not appear too concerned with the global financial crisis, they're both looking forward to profiting from the greatest economic misfortune in American history. Real estate prices have never been cheaper, says Donald, and everyone at the Trump Organization is "excited" because now is a "great time" to be in business, explains Ivanka. Oh, also? The queen of microwavable office lunches says her dad totally predicted this whole thing was going to go down, like, two years ago. What about the mammoth mess at the Trump hotel in Chicago? That didn't come up in the conversation for some strange reason! [YouTube via Jewssip]

Donald Trump has been claiming he's worth $10 billion these days, which is a good thing because he may need a good chunk of it if expects to dig himself out of the mess he now finds himself in. The Wall Street Journal checks in on Trump's 92-story Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago today, and finds that the situation pretty dire. It turns out Trump owes a lot of money to a lot of people, and he's been having difficulty finding people who want to live in his gold and marble palace. The credit crunch, declining housing market and weak retail sales? They're not helping either!More

You might want to think twice before stopping by Alexis Stewart's apartment uninvited: The daughter of domestic diva Martha Stewart has a permit to keep a loaded gun at home, according to the Post. Other notable locals with gun licenses include David Wright and Carlos Delgado of the Mets, Robert De Niro, billionaire supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, and Donald Trump. (Two of Trump's sons, Eric and Donald Jr., also have licenses to keep firearms at home; Ivanka Trump's apartment is gun-free.) But it's Alexis, who recently launched a new TV series on the Fine Living channel, who may have the creepiest explanation for why she feels the need to keep a gun in a lockbox in her TriBeCa apartment: She keeps it in case an emergency forces her to abandon the city and she has to euthanize her elderly dogs. "They could never make it out of Manhattan. I could never leave my dogs to die of thirst in my apartment, so I looked on it as a euthanasia situation. I would never kill my pets unless they were going to die anyway."

Three years ago, Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against New York Times reporter Timothy O'Brien, the author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being Donald. The Donald's biggest objection to O'Brien's 288-page exposé? That O'Brien had suggested he was "only" worth $150-250 million, not the $5 billion that Trump argued was a more accurate estimate of his fortune. Trump filed a $5 billion defamation suit against O'Brien and his publisher, Warner Books, and the case that has been winding its way through the courts for close to three years now. After a modest victory last month—a judge ruled that Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. could be compelled to give a deposition in the case—Trump suffered a defeat today: A New Jersey appeals court judge has ruled that O'Brien does not have to turn over the confidential sources who helped him come up with his "low-ball" estimate. Trump's lawsuit will continue to move ahead. And there's always a chance that Trump will ask for even more in damages: He's now suggesting he's worth $10 billion.

♦  Jennifer Aniston is pregnant with John Mayer's baby. At least that's what the always-reliable Star is now reporting. [Star]
♦  Remember how Donald Trump said he'd help Ed McMahon by buying his home out of foreclosure? Seems like it was just a publicity stunt at McMahon's expense, although Ed's newfound career as a rap artist should pay the bills for now. [P6]
♦  Your daily dose of Madonna-Guy news: Madge says her husband lived "like a king" off her money and she's insisting the kids be with her during the holidays ("Christmas doesn't exist in the Madonna household because of Kabbalah"). For his part, Guy may already have a new girlfriend. [Daily Mail, Mirror, Page Six] More

♦  A behind-the-scenes tour of Corton, courtesy of Drew Nieporent and Paul Liebrandt (left). [The Feedbag]
♦  Danny Meyer, Donald Trump, and Drew Nieporent are just some of the people possibly vying to take over Tavern on the Green when Jennifer LeRoy's lease expires at the end of the year. [P6 Mag via NYO]
♦  Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody and Nathan Connolly are two of the backers behind the Houndstooth Pub in Midtown. [GS]
♦  Nino Selimaj will not be stopped. The ubiquitous restaurateur is opening a new Nino's (imaginatively named Nino's 208) at—wait for it—208 on East 58th Street. [GS]More

♦  Yesterday evening the New York Women's Foundation Fall Gala took place at Gotham Hall: Michael Bloomberg and Diana Taylor, Iman, Joel Klein and Nicole Seligman, Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower, Felicia Taylor, Jamie Niven, Herbert Wachtell, and Jonathan Farkas ate, drank, and watched a performance from the American Ballroom Theater Youth Dance Company. [Wireimage, PMc]

♦  Last night Donna Karan celebrated her 60th with a party at The Box worthy of someone a third her age. Joining the debauchery: her daughter Gabby, Simon Hammerstein, Alan Cumming, George Wayne, Andre Balazs, David Furnish, Nadine Johnson, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Kelly Klein, Jackie Astier, Steven Klein, and many more. [GoaG, PMc]More