• Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, the son of New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., is joining the paper next week as a Metro reporter. [NYO]
• Following a huge fourth quarter loss, Playboy says it's now up for sale. [Folio]
• It's rumored that Viacom is laying off staff today. [Gawker]
• Newsweek staffers are unhappy about recent changes at the mag. [NYP]
• Sean Delonas is in hot water for his cartoon in the Post today. [E&P]
• Mort Zuckerman says he can fix the Daily News by printing it in color. [MM]
• Vanity Fair is shutting down its German edition. [WWD]

Were you concerned that the financial crisis might have put a damper on Steve Schwarzman's birthday party? (He turned 62 last Saturday; we suggested you send him some stone crabs.) It turns out the billionaire's party this year was considerably less lavish than the event he hosted in 2007 when he spent upwards of $3 million to throw a bash at the Armory, invited everyone in town, and hired Rod Stewart to perform. Yesterday, Steve treated Blackstone employees to cake in the boardroom, although you'll be pleased to hear that the mogul's tendency to show off has not been diminished. Recessionwire has the scoop: "Yesterday, we’re told, Blackstone Group employees were invited to a giant boardroom for a brief roast (no, not a toast) and some cake. But it wasn't all humble pie. Huge flat-screens in the rooms displayed the birthday invitation—a map showing the many miles Schwarzman had traveled in the last year, complete with cute little pictures of private planes." [Recessionwire]

Nicky Hilton outside Joe's Pizza in the West Village last night. [Splash News]

Tracy Morgan's "faulty fish tank" set off a fire yesterday inside his apartment at 160 Riverside Boulevard. Thankfully, no one was hurt in the incident. But could we kindly ask that some city official send the frequently drunk comedian a bill? According to fire officials,"25 units and 78 firefighters responded to the blaze, which was declared under control at 9:01 am." [NYP]

The voicemail message on socialite Bettina Zilkha's cell phone. Related: Plum Sykes, Shoshanna Gruss, Lucy Sykes and Euan Rellie, Dylan Lauren, Tinsley Mortimer. Have someone you'd like us to call? Feel free to email us and let us know.

A 17-year-old student at Dalton plunged to his death from an 11th floor window this morning. "Police are investigating the death, but sources said the student may have committed suicide." Update: The Daily News reports that the police "believe the student snuck into an empty dance studio on the school's 11th floor, opened the top part of the window and jumped." [NYP, related]

Jon Winkelried, the co-COO of Goldman Sachs and one of the highest paid men on Wall Street, announced yesterday that he plans to retire at the end of the March. Why did the 49-year-old banker decide to call it quits? It's unclear, although the Times did suggest that Winkelried may have simply been worn out, which isn't too surprising given the past few months. Hopefully with a few weeks of rest, he'll be back to his old self—the sort of guy who dresses up as a Rasta for a costume party—soon enough. A few more pics of Jon channeling the ghost of Bob Marley (alongside the rest of the Winkelried clan) below.

Undergoing major surgery is no joke, and obviously you hope that your surgeon is confident, focused, and completely undistracted as they take your life in their hands. But this is 2009, and so such requirements must take second place to a human right that should soon be entering the constitution: the freedom to publicize each move you make via self-aggrandizing 140-character messages. Yes, doctors are now Twittering surgeries, like last week's removal of a cancerous tumor from a man's kidney that was live-Tweeted, including tense updates on each stage of the procedure and shout-outs to the surgical assistants. And there you were thinking that Julia Allison at Fashion Week was currently the most stomach-clenching Twitter experience available.

The murder rate is up. So is syphilis. But city streets are quieter and cleaner, according to a new report by the mayor's office. In fact, the Sanitation Department found that 96% of streets are "acceptably clean," an all-time record! We'll have to keep that in mind the next time we step on chewing gum, old cigarette butts, and used Metrocards. [NYDN]

It's a noble tradition: journalists going undercover and obscuring their real identity, in order to serve the public by bringing them the unvarnished truth about the real issues of the day. And no issue is currently more pressing than the one Eric Wilson takes on in today's Times: Given the grave economic situation, are the sales clerks at Madison Avenue boutiques still complete bitches?

A recap of the shows, parties, and gossip you've missed at Fashion Week thus far after the jump.

• Norah Jones has paid $4.9 million for a 4,100-square-foot townhouse at 166 Amity Street in Brooklyn. The home, which dates back to 1843 and is 25 feet wide, has six bedrooms. [Brownstoner]
• Money manager Christopher Browne has put his 30th-floor, four-bedroom duplex at 515 Park Avenue on the market for $32.5 million with Corcoran's Robby Browne. [NYO, Corcoran]
• Peter Wallace, a managing director at Blackstone (and the son of Fox News host Chris Wallace) and his wife Jennifer have paid $6.75 million for a four-bedroom apartment at 1100 Park Avenue. [Cityfile]
• Disgraced money manager Alberto Vilar has re-listed his three-bedroom apartment at 860 United Nations Plaza, nearly four years after he first put it on the market for $14.5 million. It's now listed for $5.5 million. [Curbed]

Designer Doo-Ri Chung turns 36 today. Matt Dillon is 45. Yoko Ono is celebrating her 76th. John Travolta is turning 55. Magazine icon Helen Gurley Brown is 87. Writer Toni Morrison is 78. Molly Ringwald turns 41. Breakfast Club director John Hughes is 59. Singer Regina Spektor turns 29. Dr. Dre is 44. Cybill Shepherd is 59. Hedge fund manager Mark Kingdon is 60. Film director Milos Forman is turning 77. And Wheel of Fortune's very own Vanna White is 52 today.

• President Obama is unveiling a $75 billion plan today to help struggling homeowners. A press conference is scheduled for 12:15pm. [WSJ, NYT, CNN]
• The Dow fell 3.8% yesterday to close at its lowest point since November. How today goes hinges on the response to Obama's housing rescue plan. [CNN]
• More on the life and times of Allen Stanford, the Texas financier who may have presided over an $8 billion fraud. [BN, NYT, WSJ]
• GM says it needs another $16 billion to stay in business. Oh, but it's still going to slash 47,000 jobs and close five plants anyway. [WSJ, NYT]
• GE's Jeff Immelt is waiving his $11.7 million bonus. [FT]
• Home construction fell a seventh straight month during January. [WSJ]
• Former CNBC anchor Ron Insana is leaving SAC Capital. [DB]
• More on Jon Winkelried's retirement from Goldman Sachs. [WSJ]

• Angelina Jolie was seen apartment hunting in Washington Heights. This comes weeks after Angie and Brad signed the lease on a $100,000-a-month home on Long Island. [Us, NYP]
• Michael Phelps has been hanging out at strip clubs, since it's the only place he can go without having his photo being taken. Good thinking. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan showed up to a party at Southern Hospitality on Sunday so she could hang out with Chace Crawford. But then he ditched her and she spent the rest of the night "glued" to model May Andersen. [OK!, P6]
• Sarah Jessica Parker says the next Sex and the City movie will have to be more recession-friendly. You think? [Us]

Presidents' Week Special [A Fine Blog]

Our favorite new blogger, Giorgio Armani, reports that he traveled all the way up to 166th Street—the Bronx!—today. Okay, so it was to meet Caroline Kennedy because he gave a miniscule piece of his $5 billion fortune to the Fund for Public Schools. But still! And it gets better! After the event was over, he says he decided to ditch his hopeless chauffeur and took the subway home with Kennedy instead: "Caroline and I decided to hop on the subway on our way back down to the city center, which turned out to be a much faster way of getting back. It was really crowded when we got on at 161st Street, but later I sat down next to a nice lady in a North Face puffer jacket and ski hat. She told me she assisted elderly people, and I asked to see her card. I told her, 'Who knows when I might need your help?; Just kidding, of course. When I got up, I left her my own scarf as a parting gift." We can't imagine what he's planning to do tomorrow, although we're pretty sure that if he stops off for a bite at Gray's Papaya, our head is going to explode. [NYT]

So much for the Real Housewives of New York City. The show hasn't debuted yet—it starts tonight on Bravo—but it's already been ravaged by critics, even ones who willingly admit to being fans of the 17 other iterations of the show. (After all, it's not too often that a critic tells the entire cast of a reality show to "drop dead.") The main beef? Not that the show focuses on horrible women who happily spend a weekend afternoon "gearing up for an event for a magazine called Social Life." That's nothing new, of course. It's that the show is hopelessly out of touch with the current economic climate. It was all well and good for Simon Van Kempen to pretend he had a dollar to his name when the economy was cruising along. Now that the world is falling apart and Simon is still "spending" $8,000 on resort-wear? "The whole enterprise, like so much else on Bravo, the 'affluencer' network, feels like a moldy leftover from the pre-Obama age," writes Ginia Bellafante in the Times.

• Giorgio Armani is opening a restaurant inside his new Fifth Avenue flagship later this week. Guess it's time for a little payback, Scott Conant. [Eater]
• The Cedar Tavern on University Place is gone for good. [GS]
• A peak at the new speakeasy-themed bar Raines Law Room. [Eater]
• Anita Lo is closing Bar Q in the West Village. [Eater]
• Dinner at L'Artusi "grinds slowly off a cliff," says Adam Platt, who gives the bar-centric spot on Bleecker a single star in this week's New York. [NYM]
• Inexplicably, the cupcake craze endures. [TFB]
• Daily News food critic Danyelle Freeman has landed a book deal. [GS]
• A hot dog vendor in Times Square is retiring after 41 years. [NYP]
• Starbucks is introducing instant coffee because Americans are "focusing more on seeking satisfying experiences that enhance their lives." Uh, okay. [HP]

Jon Winkelried, Goldman Sachs's No. 2 and Lloyd Blankfein's right-hand man, announced this afternoon that he's retiring from the firm. "Winkelried cited fatigue as the reason he is stepping down," reports the New York Times. Nothing, we're sure, that some downtime at his $38.5 million waterfront home in Nantucket or his sprawling horse farm in Colorado can't fix. [NYT/Dealbook]