Media alert: My friend Bob Elisberg informs me that, this Saturday at 5 PM, Turner Classic Movies is presenting a special 40th anniversary broadcast of West Side Story. Says Bob, "They're promoting it as having new interviews with many of the surviving participants that they'll run before and after the movie."
Who says Broadway is suffering? The producers of The Producers are going to mark up the price of certain of their best seats, all the way from $100 to $480. This is, they say, a way to combat scalpers. Details are here but since it's a New York Times link, you have to register (it's free) and it may expire soon.
A follow-up on our item about the World Trade Center being quietly removed from Conan O'Brien's set: The facade of the New York, New York casino depicts scaled-down versions of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and other major Manhattan landmarks. So do they now have to remove the W.T.C.? No. The World Trade Center was never part of the tableau, apparently because the planners felt that the Twin Towers would present certain design problems. So they just omitted them…and now, the depiction of N.Y. is sadly accurate.
Lastly: This is to inform all that, effective as of last week, I am no longer one of the owners of the restaurant known as Hamptons Hollywood Cafe in the great state of Hollywood. Nor will I probably be dining there in the future, either. (It's a long story…)