The East Village has the highest vacancy rates in Manhattan, according to the brokerage firm Citi-Habitats. Soho and TriBeCa have the lowest. [Bloomberg]

Anderson Cooper was seen "rapidly texting" on his cell phone in the bathroom of the cruisey David Barton Gym in Chelsea. Or at least we think that's what E!'s Ted Casablanca is saying, but we can't be sure since we rarely understand anything Casablanca says. Assuming it's true, though, you can also assume that whatever Cooper was writing couldn't have been any smuttier than anything his mom has written recently. [E!]

The Taxi & Limousine Commission is looking for new ways to "enhance the technology systems" in cabs, and the agency has a long list of ideas they've been batting around at TLC HQ in recent months. Unfortunately, most of them are pretty stupid—and none of them address the very minor technological glitch that leads cabs to spontaneously blow up from time to time—so don't expect commuting around town to improve much in the near future.

This photo of JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon holding up his fists ready to throw down? It's not just for show. If Chase loans you money to, say, buy a Mercedes SUV and you don't pay the bank back, Dimon will use any means necessary to insure you follow through. At least that's what a man named James Ricobene claims, who is now suing JPMorgan Chase for allegedly resorting to dirty tactics to collect the collateral on a car loan. Ricobene says Chase hired a shady collection outfit to harass him and posted a threatening message on his daughter's MySpace page vowing to report the 2007 Mercedes GL450 as stolen and put him in jail for two years if he didn't come up with the goods. We can't imagine Dimon would condone such unethical conduct, if only because he probably doesn't even know what MySpace is. But Ricobene probably shouldn't have been in this position to begin with, especially since he happens to be the president of a company called Cash Flow Consultants Inc. The full suit after the jump!

• Hachette is cutting salaries and asking staff to work overtime. Fun! [Gawker]
• Amazon is blaming an "embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error" for the dropping the sales rankings of thousands of gay and lesbian books. [AFP]
• Bravo has picked up four new shows, including one produced by Sarah Jessica Parker and another by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. [THR, THR]
• NBC's Boston affiliate, WHDH, has backed down from its threat to skip Jay Leno's new 10pm show when it debuts this fall. [B&C]
• Marriott will no longer automatically provide guests with a free copy of USA Today or the Journal. You're gonna have to ask for it from now on. [E&P]

She may not know much about PR, but one thing Olivia Palermo does know a lot about is nail polish, at least according to UK's Look magazine, which has declared her a "new style icon" for being brave enough to stick with the red nail color trend and get "snapped wearing the same nail colour again and again." Who knew Olivia's tiny fingers were capable of having such a profound effect on society? It's the next bit, though, that's really surprising: "With millions in the bank and a list of fashionable friends, you would think she would have a selection of nail varnishes to choose from." We would think she has multiple colors to choose from: That's how Korean nail salons operate, silly! We're not so sure about the whole "millionaire" bit, but presumably her dad will be pleased to hear the news.

We know that everything to do with work is especially stressful right now, and we hate to throw a new dilemma into the mix, but there's a disturbing debate currently taking place: Job insecurity is supposedly causing an epidemic of sucking up to the boss. But is brown-nosing in the office a good idea—or not?

Bernie Madoff didn't just screw over the members of the Palm Beach Country Club. He also managed to ruin more than a few families who belong to the North Shore Country Club on Long Island. A third of its members have had to cancel their $16,000-a-year memberships, the club is now laying off staff, and it may be forced to shut down entirely if it doesn't find an investor. [NYP]

It's never a good sign when a club closes down and no one notices (or cares), nor is it especially encouraging that a venue that once boasted about its long list of celebrity investors is forced to announce the news with a homemade sign taped to the door. It isn't clear why The Plumm closed its doors a few days ago. (Some sort of "legal problem," apparently.) But if it falling off the radar screen a few years ago has led to financial problems, co-owner Noel Ashman might want to take a page from Nikki Beach in Midtown, which seems to have come up with a surefire way to stay alive during the economic downturn: It's now hosting swinger parties for "sexy couples" and single women. Be advised, gentlemen: No leather pants with unbuttoned silk shirts, please.

That $40 million townhouse that Madonna is buying? The Observer dialed up a few brokers to get their thoughts on the deal, and no one had anything good to say, describing the property as "horribly located and atrociously overpriced." "It's one of the worst blocks in creation," said one. (The block is 81st Street between Lexington and Third.) "It might as well be on the moon in terms of a great townhouse location." [NYO, previously]

Gov. David Paterson will announce plans to introduce legislation to legalize same-sex marriage at a press conference on Thursday morning, reports the Times. It's probably not a good idea to go out and buy a fabulous new tux just yet, though. Stiff opposition in Albany is expected and "it could take months—even longer—before the bill makes its way through the appropriate committees and onto the floor of the Senate and the Assembly." [NYT]

Heidi Klum and Seal crossing the street with their kids in Soho ... Gisele Bundchen walking in the West Village ... Drew Barrymore leaving ABC Studios after a taping of Regis and Kelly ... Elisabeth Hasselbeck carrying son Taylor on her hip ... Agyness Deyn walking with a mystery man in Soho ... Zac Efron talking on a cell phone outside his hotel ... Kelly Ripa leaving a press event in the meatpacking district ... Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts carrying their two kids in Soho ... and Beyonce and Jay-Z leaving the Waverly Inn after dinner.

In these dreary times of belt-tightening and austerity, you'd be forgiven for not keeping track of which ridiculously expensive champagne is currently de rigueur among rappers and jet setters. But it is our solemn duty to report that since Jay-Z's famous boycott of Cristal—which was triggered by the company's dismay over the hip hop community's association with the brand and led to a decline in sales—the bubbly that seems to have taken its place, Armand de Brignac, is doing better than ever.

• It looks like Madonna's search for the perfect home in Manhattan is over. She's reportedly gone into contract on a 13-bedroom, four-floor, Georgian-style townhouse at 152 East 81st Street for $40 million. The manse features a 3,000-square-foot garden, wine cellar, nine fireplaces, elevator, 14 bathrooms, and two-car garage, which should come in handy when it comes to avoiding the pack of photographers gathered outside her front door. A floorplan of the home is below. [NYP, Sotheby's]
• Edwin Cohen, the founder of Carlin Ventures, has lowered the price of his three-bedroom apartment at 101 CPW for the third time since first listing it for $15 million last February. It's now priced at $10.75 million. [Cityfile, BHS]
• Comedian Chris Elliott has put his 7,667-square-foot home in Ridgefield, Conn., on the market for $1.689 million. [Real Estalker]

Adrien Brody turns 36 today. Makeup queen Bobbi Brown is 52. Sarah Michelle Gellar is turning 32. Disgraced baseball great Pete Rose is 68. Everybody Loves Raymond's Brad Garrett is turning 49. Abigail Breslin is turning 13. Actress Julie Christie is 68. Anthony Michael Hall of Weird Science and Breakfast Club fame is 41. Shawntae Harris, the rapper better known as Da Brat, turns 35. And country music legend Loretta Lynn celebrates her 74th birthday today.

• You didn't think Eliot Spitzer was planning to stay out of the spotlight forever, did you? Rumor has it the disgraced ex-governor is hoping to get his old job back as attorney general once Andrew Cuomo runs for governor in 2010. [P6]
• Mel Gibson and his wife Robyn have filed for divorce after 28 years of marriage, reportedly because Mel has been involved with a Russian singer named Oksana Kolesnikova. [NYP, OK!]
• Madonna's PR offensive continues: Not only is she hoping to win hearts and minds in Malawi by releasing pics of herself holding baby Mercy in her arms, she also has had her former nanny talking up her parenting skills to any reporter willing to listen. [DM, MSNBC]
• Uh oh! Rumor has it Gwyneth Paltrow is planning to spawn again. [Sun]

"I don't know how to break this to you," Michael Bloomberg told CNN's Wolf Blitzer yesterday, "but people that go out and murder people don't read The Wall Street Journal." Needless to say, that isn't true. Plenty of people who worked in finance (and read the paper daily) have been convicted of murder. But we couldn't think of a better tag line for a future Wall Street Journal ad campaign:

• Stocks dropped at the opening bell this morning following the Commerce Department's report that retail sales fell 1.1 percent last month. [WSJ]
• The SEC is looking into whether Bank of America broke the law by not telling shareholders about Merrill Lynch's plan to pay out billions in bonuses. [FT]
• President Obama is expected to tap Fannie Mae chief Herb Allison to head up the government's $700 billion financial rescue program. [WSJ]
• From Dick Fuld to Tim Geithner, Steve Rattner to former AIG chief Bob Willumstad, the big guns of finance have a friend in Michael Bloomberg. [NYT]
• Lehman Brothers "is sitting on enough uranium cake to make a nuclear bomb as it waits for prices of the commodity to rebound." No, this is not a joke. [BN]

If you haven't done your taxes yet, Andy Spade would like you to know that he has a CPA who will take care of them for free, in the window of his new store, from 12 to 8pm today. If you haven't been playing by the rules, you may not want to have Steve Stojowski work on your taxes in plain view. And judging by the first line in red above, you may not want to have Spade's graphic designer handle any copy editing either.

• The model-centric cover of the May issue of Vogue—timed to coincide with the model-centric Costume Institute Gala, of course—has been revealed. And for the third month in a row, a black woman (Liya Kebede) makes an appearance. [Style.com, The Cut]
• Oscar de la Renta appeared on The View today to try and dig himself out of the giant PR hole that followed his not-so-sweet comments about Michelle Obama in recent weeks. [Jezebel]
• Speaking of the First Lady, she's added a full-time makeup artist to her traveling entourage, just in case you happen to be keeping tabs on the White House payroll. [NYP]