Hyper Local News Pages

Web Stats Provided By Google Analytics

Showing posts with label Silver Point Capital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silver Point Capital. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

12/10/08 The Raw Greenwich Business News Feed For Wednesday




Eyecare Business


For the past several years, the luxury sector has grown faster than most other areas at retail. Due to the current economic turmoil, those days may just be gone....


... "We're surviving on our repeat business with good clients," says Eddy Mamelok, owner of Greenwich, Conn.-based 20/20 Optical. "People that have money still have money, so it's also important to keep your inventory up-to-date."...


The Raw Greenwich Business News Feed Continues.....


Congress Should Swiftly Adopt Legislation to Close Current Tax...
MarketWatch
... Congress to move swiftly towards adoption," Mr. Berkley concluded. In addition to W. R. Berkley Corporation of Greenwich, CT, the Coalition For A Domestic Insurance Industry includes: AMBAC Financial Group, Inc., New York, NY; American Financial ...

T-Bill Yields Go Negative
CrossingWallStreet.com
... began selling the debt in 2001. a oeIta s the year-end factor,a said Chris Ahrens, an interest-rate strategist in Greenwich, Connecticut, at UBS Securities LLC, one of the 17 primary dealers that trade directly with the Federal Reserve. a oeEveryone ...

UPDATED: Creditor Files to Liquidate Equity Media, Claims Company Cannot Meet Payroll Obligations
ArkansasBusiness.com
... repeatedly acted in their own self-interest rather than in the interest of creditors. Silver Point Finance LLC of Greenwich, Conn., filed the foreclosure suit and conversion motion, seeking to recoup about $41.5 million the private equity firm ...

==================================================

Please send your comments to GreenwichRoundup@gmail.com

Sunday, July 6, 2008

07/05/08 - 07/06/08 The Raw Greenwich Weekend News Feed (Continously Updated)


GLORIOUS GREEN A jogger takes an early morning lap around the pond at Binney Park, which occupies 24 acres on the western flank of Old Greenwich. Greenwich Point Park, however, at 147 acres, is the jewel of the neighborhood. More Photos >

FEATURED STORY:

Living in Old Greenwich, Conn.:

A Yesteryear Feel,

With Today’s Prices

New York Times

Published: July 6, 2008

AFTER seeing Jimi Hendrix play a 1969 concert at the Fillmore East, a few blocks from her building in the East Village, and living in the same tenement as the poet Allen Ginsberg, Elena Abrahams became enamored of her artsy, walkable neighborhood.

So in 1977, when her husband, Michael, suggested they move to Greenwich, Conn., where the counterculture was perhaps less obvious, she bristled. “I thought it might just be all green and pink ladies,” Ms. Abrahams said. “And I thought I might want to kill myself.”

But in Old Greenwich, a distinct section on Long Island Sound in the town’s easternmost corner, about 35 miles from Midtown, she found neighbors who, in addition to being transplanted New Yorkers, were writers, painters and musicians.

Further, both the pint-sized business district, known as “the village,” and a Metro-North train station, were just a short stroll from her front door, evoking the East Village of her younger days. “I thought, this is a really good, progressive place to be,” said Ms. Abrahams, who works as a substitute teacher.

But not many musicians, or at least the struggling variety, could afford the prices today, with single-family homes starting at around $500,000.

Indeed, Ms. Abrahams’s home, a four-bedroom 1929 colonial, with flower-pot cutouts in the shutters, cost $300,000 in 1984; she estimates it could sell for $2 million today, based on listings on her block.

A better bet for a starter home might be one of the neighborhood’s 400 condominiums, like the alcove studio bought in April by Laura Bennett, who runs a family jewelry store that has been in the village since 1945.

The unit, with 650 square feet and a terrace through sliding glass doors, cost $325,000, she said.

Next-door Stamford, where she also looked, didn’t have nearly the charm of Old Greenwich’s “quaint old-style street,” with many longtime merchants, said Ms. Bennett.

That street, Sound Beach Avenue, evokes an island resort town envisioned by Norman Rockwell, despite afternoon traffic that can snarl 20 cars deep in both directions. It has an ice cream parlor and an open-air restaurant, a barbershop with a checkered linoleum floor and a toy store with trucks in the window.

With the exception of a pharmacy, “we don’t have any chain stores,” Ms. Bennett said, “and we don’t want them.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Measuring just over two square miles, with about 10,000 people, Old Greenwich is split in half by a one-two punch of Route 1 and Interstate 95.

Houses north of that noisy dividing line, which tend toward colonials, raised ranches and brick Capes, are about half the price of ones south of it, and smaller, too. Many examples are found in Havemeyer Park, a 1940s subdivision partly developed by the boxer Gene Tunney, where streets like MacArthur Drive, Halsey Drive and Nimitz Place, bear the names of World War II military leaders, apparently in a bid to appeal to returning soldiers.

The more coveted homes sit south, on Old Greenwich’s nearly eight miles of winding coastline, which encompasses coves, ponds and rocky points, close to named microenclaves like Lucas Point, Tomac and Shorelands.

Here, among traces of a late 1800s summer colony, sit hulking shingles and ornate Mediterraneans and eyebrow-dormered colonials; some seem to have been “Victorianized” with porches, fish-scale shingles and additions.

Along prestigious Shore Road, there is evidence of teardowns behind boxwood hedges, where builders have maximized what’s allowed under generally quarter-acre zoning.

Also, because this section is prone to flooding in severe northeasters, many homes have had to prop themselves up in recent years under federal law.

Condos, meanwhile, are scattered, though most are found in two complexes: Old Greenwich Gables, from the 1990s, and the Commons, from the 1970s, each with about 180 units, brokers say. Rental housing, few and far between, usually consists of sublet condos....

Please Read The Full New York Times Article

Slide Show - Living in Old Greenwich, Conn.

Old Greenwich Community Profile

Old Greenwich Map

On the Market

More Living In Columns

ALSO HERE IS THE PREVIOUS NEW YORK TIMES STORY
ON OLD GREENWICH:

If You're Thinking of Living In/Old Greenwich and Riverside, Conn ...

- New York Times, August 23, 1998

The Raw Greenwich News Feed Continues:

Dog shelters filling up

Greenwich Time - When staff of Adopt-A-Dog picked up four Huskies from a West Haven family last week, it filled the shelter to capacity, according to Allyson Halm, president of the Greenwich-based organization.

Diana Ross Is Doing it in Manhattan

by Your Mama

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Divalicious music icon Diana Ross has long had Quarry Farm–her 9-acre Greenwich, CT estate–on the market with an eye popping asking price of $39500000. Turns out the Supremes queen is also looking to unload her ...
Please see: the Real Estalker - http://realestalker.blogspot.com/

Greenwich Time - Like many teenagers, Kathy Greider wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life. An average student at New Britain High School who spoke out in class and frustrated teachers with her questions, Greider said it dawned on her as she finished her first year at Central Connecticut State University that she wanted to become a teacher.

Police blotter, southern and central Westchester

Journal News

... A Greenwich, Conn., woman who came to police headquarters to complain about her boyfriend, who accompanied her, ended up being arrested ...

Hydrogen cars on the way
Greenwich Time - The vast majority of motorists would have been forced to call AAA or a tow truck. Most would have spent the morning marooned in the breakdown lane on Interstate 95 or, worse yet, the shoulder of the Merritt Parkway, hazard lights blinking and perspiration soaking their business attire.

Teens helped to counter mental ills

Connecticut Post

... homes within the lower Naugatuck Valley towns served by their program. So, if a young adult goes to a home in Greenwich or Waterbury, they have to switch service providers - a move that could likely mean a change in therapists and psychiatrists. ..

Greenwich Post - Deadline for 2007 flood relief approaches
Gov. M. Jodi Rell today is reminding Fairfield, Litchfield and New Haven county businesses that Economic Injury Disaster Loans are still available to small businesses economically impacted by the severe storms and flooding which occurred on Oct. 11, 2007.

Crowds gather for fireworks despite weather

Sitting on the stone bridge overlooking Binney Park, 7 year-old Lily Mathes, marveled at the exploding blue, gold and purple fireworks in the sky.

Baba Booey Disses A Soldier?
by chainsaw

They included Artie Lange, Jimmy Florentine, the great Dave Atell and longtime Howard Stern Show producer Gary “Baba Booey” Dell’Abate, who lives in cozy Greenwich, CT. There’sa story circulating the ol’ Internet day from a soldier ...
Please see - Hollywood Chainsaw Blogger - http://newstimescommunity.com/blogs/chainsaw

Two teens trek Appalachian Trail from end to end
Greenwich Time - For the past four-and-a-half months, Philip Gnaedig and Adam Hanbury-Brown have done little more than walk.

Hall Awaits Former McMahon Coach, AD

Norwalk Citizen News

... Hall members with an induction ceremony at the Commission's 4th Annual SportsNight awards dinner on Oct. 20 at the Greenwich Hyatt. King will be joined by five other inductees and will be one of 27 honorees in the Hall. King will be named in the ...

Greenwich Post - Red Cross offers fireworks safety tips for holiday

Greenwich Time - The loud rumble of a 12-cylinder engine is enough to get the blood pumping for most sports car lovers.

Town Drops Plan for Biodiesel Due to Cost

Green Car Congress

Greenwich Time . The town of Greenwich, Connecticut has dropped a plan to use a B20 soy biodiesel blend in half of its 300-vehicle fleet due to the cost.

Greenwich Post - Red Cross offers safety tips for swimmers

Bush-Holley's art background was draw for education director
Greenwich Time - Tara Tomaselli is the associate director of education for children and family programs at the Bush-Holley Historic Site, at 39 Strickland Road.

Nexstar blocks former exec's consulting gig

Dallas Business Journal

... resigned as COO and executive vice president on April 25, stems from Lammers' attempts to work as a consultant for Greenwich, Conn.-based Silver Point Capital, according to court documents. Silver Point owns two companies that own and operate TV ...

Greenwich Post - Suiting off

Greenwich Time - An anonymous donor has given thousands so more than 50 children from Greenwich can attend summer camp.

Castro Valley sculptor has rock-solid reputation

Inside Bay Area

... "Maybe I was 3, maybe I was 5. My parents gave me some clay to play with." Moore was born to artistic parents in Greenwich, Conn., and attended private schools that emphasized the arts. She later majored in sculpture at Bennington College in Vermont ...

Greenwich Post - Church loses old beech tree

Greenwich Time - New round of interns start at hospital

The Weekly B.S.

Whisperbrand.com

... own the conversationA among audiences you seek to attract and influence. This week's B.S.: From Jack Trout - Old Greenwich, Connecticut, USA The Brand Differentiation Mandate The concept of being unique or different is far more important in the year ...

Greenwich Post - Old Greenwich gets new welcome sign

Taco Bell goes to bat for field
Greenwich Time - Taco Bell Field? Representatives of the fast-food chain famous for its chalupas and gorditas tried to reach out yesterday to offer their support to a group of local teens who are facing eviction from the Wiffle ball field they built on a vacant town-owned lot in Riverside.

Greenwich Time - Lisi Coles had no idea whether cell phone reception along backcountry Round Hill Road had improved in the past several weeks.

Greenwich Post - Chase named for 'best steering'

Three Years Later, Cruise Ship Safety Concerns Addressed by Lawmakers

Greenwich Citizen

Three years nearly to the day, July 5, 2005, that 26-year-old George Smith IV disappeared from his honeymoon cruise somewhere off Greece under mysterious circumstances, the Smith family of Greenwich has ...

Sandpipers director retires
Greenwich Time - Sally Randolf Love's last day as director of Sandpipers summer camp at Greenwich Point seemed more like a family reunion than a farewell party for the many well-wishers who gathered to see her off.

Helmsley reportedly leaves $8B to canine care
6abc.com, PA
Helmsley, who was reviled as the "queen of mean," and went to prison as a tax cheat, died in Greenwich, Ct., ...

Greenwich Post - Former trooper recalls Mianus disaster

The decision to open the island beaches to out-of-towners is a topic of discussion in town, as we all know.

Rakes vs. Leaf Blowers

Greenwich Citizen

Rakes versus leaf blowers and light blazing in an empty Greenwich High on Saturdays were among issues chawed over last Thursday by the Board of Selectmen in Town Hall.

Greenwich Time - The practice of holding morning meetings was such a hit with one class of fifth-graders at Julian Curtiss School that it will be extended to other classes next year.

Greenwich Post - Popular voice to leave airwaves

Staff reports The Greenwich 10 Year-old Cal Ripken All-Stars certainly produced an All-Star performance at the District 1 Tournament recently.

Picture perfect

NewsTimesLive.com

... the fifth-ranked team in the nation, won both its conference and state crowns, but dropped one game, 9-8, to Greenwich on May 3. "It would be nice to have a run at (Darien and Division L state champion Fairfield Prep)," Costabile said. "But even if ..

Greenwich Time - Cannons off to a strong start in their inaugural season
Staff reports - The Greenwich Cannons U-16 baseball team kicked of its inaugural season with a bang. The Cannons placed a strong second in the recent Westchester Classic tournament at Scarsdale High School.

Tapes still not available
Greenwich Time - Surveillance video of an 18-year-old student being tasered by town police during an arrest six weeks ago at Greenwich High School has yet to be made available to attorneys in the case, the student's lawyer said yesterday.

Riverside Yacht Club's Alex Jackson and his crew aboard his Juan K 98-foot racing yacht Speedboat crossed the finish line at St.

Greenwich Post - Junior Cannons fire on all cylinders early

Greenwich Time - Racquet ball: No. 1 seed remains perfect in Senior Babe Ruth
It was a back-and-forth battle every time rivals Rink & Racquet and Eastern Rigging Supply Co. dueled during the regular season, so it wasn't surprising to see Eastern Rigging rally in the seventh inning of last night's Greenwich Senior Babe Ruth playoff game.

Greenwich Post - Field maintenance steps up to the plate

Greenwich Time - A Matt-er of fact: Czarnecki wins second town golf championship
When Matt Czarnecki holed a bunker shot for birdie on the sixth hole of the final round of the Men's Town Golf Tournament, it was apparent that it was going to be another memorable Sunday afternoon for him at Griffith E. Harris Golf Course.

Greenwich Post - Czarnecki wins second Greenwich town golf tournament crown

Believe it or not, there was a time when Greenwich High School football was not the most dominant team in Connecticut.

Greenwich Post - New summer softball league

Friday, November 16, 2007

11/02/07 - Greenwich News Wire

From Paris to the Donald: Watergate reporter gives low marks to the state of the U.S. press
Public Relations Tactics
... problems we have in news and journalism are about us not doing our job well enough," Bernstein told students in Greenwich, Conn. "The ideal of providing the best available version of the truth is being affected by the dominance of a journalistic ...
Auto Notes
Hartford Courant
The state Department of Motor Vehicles says its photo license bus will be at the town hall in Greenwich and at Tri-City Plaza at routes 30 and 83 in Vernon from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and at Westfield ...


Two companies, Teamsters offer to acquire bankrupt Interstate Bakeries
Friday Nov 2 KansasCity.com
... said is a requirement for $400 million in post-bankruptcy financing from Silver Point Finance LLC, based in Greenwich, Conn. Officials with Yucaipa and Bimbo declined to comment. But Rich Volpe, the lead negotiator for the Teamsters in talks with ...

Friday, December 8, 2006

12/08/06 - Archive - News Reports

Agents Try New Tricks to Entice Home Buyers

Source: Natl. Relocation & Real Estate

...... the people surrounding the marketing of them to become focused," said Linda Hodge of Preferred Properties' Greenwich, Connecticut office. The slowdown is a particular conundrum within the new-construction and higher-end markets, said Melanie Healey, ......


Bristol-Myers, Sanofi Win a U.S. Court Block on Apotex's Generic Plavix

Source: Bloomberg.com

Sanofi-Aventis SA and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. won an appeals court ruling that prevents Apotex Inc. from selling a generic version of the blood-thinner Plavix until a trial can be held.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington today upheld a lower court ruling that blocks sales of the generic drug until a judge can rule on the validity of a Plavix patent. The trial is set for January.

Prescriptions of brand-name Plavix plunged 32 percent in the third quarter of 2006 after Apotex flooded the market with a six-month supply of the generic drug during three weeks in August. Plavix, which is used to prevent heart attacks and strokes, had global sales of $6.3 billion in 2005, with $3.8 billion in the U.S. last year........

....... never, so it's nice to have the appeal upheld,'' Barbara Ryan, an analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in Greenwich, Connecticut, said in a telephone interview. Apotex ``didn't have to remove the supplies that were shipped. Until those are all ......


Global Gold Names Ambassador Harry Gilmore (Ret) to Board

Source: Market Wire

... with mining properties in Chile and Armenia. Global Gold Corporation is located at 45 East Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830. The main phone number is 203-422-2300. More information can be found at www.globalgoldcorp.com . Contact: Van Z. Krikorian ........


WWII Vet Recalls Drop Behind Enemy Lines

Source: Greenwich Citizen

The 65th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, marked Thursday, presented an opportunity for the Greenwich Citizen to interview Chandler Bates, a veteran of Uncle Sam's super-secret Office of .......

UPDATE:

Please search for this article in the: archive search.


Hedge funds: Secretive, lucrative and part of pop culture

Source: International Herald Tribune

Marshall Wace raised €1.5 billion on Friday in the largest initial public offering of a hedge fund, permitting individual investors to buy into a market normally limited to millionaires.

The London-based company sold shares of MW Tops, a closed-end investment company, for €10, or $13.27, each, Marshall Wace said late Thursday. The stock, which began trading Friday on Euronext Amsterdam, rose to a penny to finish at €10.01.

... huge sums of money on fast cars and fancy art, as well as magazine photo spreads of top managers' estates in Greenwich, Connecticut, and on New York's Long Island. Some might point to the fascination with hedge funds as a sign that the business has ...


George W.S. Trow, 63; Writer, cultural critic spent 30 years on New Yorker staff

Source: Los Angeles Times
By: Elaine Woo

George W.S. Trow, a writer and social critic whose dry humor and coruscating intelligence defined a 30-year career at the New Yorker, where he was a favorite of legendary editor William Shawn, died Nov. 24 in Naples, Italy, where he lived for the last five years. He was 63 and died of natural causes.

Trow, who joined the magazine in 1966, was best-known as the author of 'Within the Context of No Context,' a scathing analysis of contemporary American culture.

Originally published in the New Yorker in 1980 and later issued as a book, it was a collage of riffs, each identified with a subhead such as 'History,' 'Gossip' or 'Celebrities,' that wryly displayed Trow's mortification at the ignorance of a generation reared on television.

'Television is the force of no-history, and it holds the archives of the history of no-history,' he wrote. 'No good,' he concluded, 'has come of it.' 'Within the Context of No Context' quickly attained a cult following for its originality and prophetic insights.

'People passed that copy of the New Yorker from hand to hand,' recalled Martin H. Kaplan, a media expert and director of the Norman Lear Center at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, who knew Trow. 'It was one of those early and prescient works of cultural criticism which conveyed how troubling it was to live in the brave new media world.' It was also intensely personal and heavy with yearning for a bygone social order, when adults were adults and trivia were actually viewed as trivial.

His lamentations focused on an idiosyncratic array of what he called 'Mainstream American Cultural Artifacts,' such as People magazine, the 1964 New York World's Fair and the 1970s game show 'Family Feud.'

Civilization had declined to the point where, Trow wrote, 'a man named Richard Dawson, the 'host' of a program called Family Feud, asked contestants to guess what a poll of a hundred people had guessed would be the height of the average American woman.' To Trow, that millions of viewers could be engaged by such puerile entertainment - guessing what others had guessed, with nary a fact in sight - was alarming evidence of cultural anemia. With some disdain, he described this 'important moment in the history of television' under the heading 'No Authority.'

Authority was one quality Trow (pronounced like grow ) possessed in spades. His pronouncements were godlike, as well as abstract, bordering on mystical.
In reference to an America that had gotten too big and impersonal, for instance, he wrote: 'The middle distance fell away .

Two grids remained. The grid of two hundred million and the grid of intimacy.' But, as Trow saw it, the intimacy was a television-induced illusion. Loneliness loomed. 'What made George's piece great was the deadpan minimalism of the style, a freaky-deaky,

I Ching-like idiom that made it seem like a text carved on some future, unearthed Rosetta stone . It was a gag, but a gag about how everything you've ever cared about was just destroyed in a flashfire,' Donald Fagen, the musician and songwriter who met Trow in the 1980s after co-founding the band Steely Dan, wrote on his website this week.

'He was a kind of genius in the way he saw the world,' said author Jamaica Kincaid, who joined the New Yorker staff in the 1970s through Trow's ardent sponsorship.

Born in Greenwich, Conn., Trow was well-grounded in the rituals of the upper class, even though his old New York family was not rich........


'Day of Infamy' remembered

Source: Norwalk Advocate (home page)

... to him died. 'It's a big deal in our family,' said Breen, 52, a commercial insurance broker who lives in Old Greenwich. 'It inspired our son to go into the Naval Academy.' Along with the Breen and his wife, Jane, close to 40 people turned ...


Festive facades vie for prizes

Source: Stamford Advocate
By: Martin B. Cassidy

While more minimalist than competing displays, Sea Cloth on Greenwich Avenue wowed contest judges with its striking concept: green pillows stacked to look like a Christmas tree.

For the second year in a row, the downtown home furnishings business took top prize in the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce's Winter Wonderland holiday window display contest.

'We're very excited and it's a flattering award to get,' said Ann FitzGerald, the manager of Sea Cloth, which designs and manufactures fabrics for upholstery and other household furnishings.
In addition to naming the top three most original displays at local stores, the contest also includes separate awards in recognition of other displays which are the most traditional, festive, or show community spirit.

Greenwich Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Mary Ann Morrison said that elaborate and creative holiday window displays are an important part of bringing in foot traffic and wooing shoppers away from malls.

'It's part of the community spirit we have here in Greenwich that keeps people from going to the mall,' Morrison said. 'This type of spirit is what people are longing for.'
While primarily a fabric company, FitzGerald said that during the holidays Sea Cloth stocks up on Christmas tree ornaments and other holiday decorations.

'It's one of the most fun times of year to decorate,' FitzGerald said.

Hoagland's of Greenwich took the best traditional display award with a three-dimensional Advent Calendar, among a diorama of elaborately carved wood figurines of Santa Claus and children, and a glittering set of Nativity figurines that rotate inside a gold box.

Lynn Muscari, a sales associate, said the design and construction of the display was done on nights and weekends over several weeks.......


Puppy -- and kitty -- love

Source: Statesman Journal

... According to a 2005-06 pet owners' survey conducted by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association in Greenwich, Conn., Americans planned to spend $2.6 billion (yes, the 'b' is correct) this holiday season. Katie Beckner, general manager of ...

E-mail: online@statesmanjournal.com


Mortgage lender sparks bid battle

Source: REVIEW-JOURNAL
By JOHN G. EDWARDS

Compass Partners, a New York-based investment company, made the apparent highest and best bid of $67 million Thursday for the assets of a mortgage loan fund managed by USA Capital and a contract to service loans for the bankrupt private lender.

Bankruptcy Judge Linda Riegle conducted a slow-paced auction in her courtroom taking bids from three companies, Desert Capital Real Estate Investment Trust of Henderson, hedge fund Silver Point Capital of Greenwich, Conn., and Compass.

USA Capital solicited investments from about 6,000 individual investors around the country and used the money to make short-term loans to developers, including USA Capital majority owners Tom Hantges and Joe Milanowski.

USA Capital controlled $962 million in assets for investors when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection in April. While USA Capital was making monthly payments to investors, many of its loans were not being repaid.

Some investors bought fractional interests in the loans. Others invested through USA First Trust Deed Fund and USA Diversified Trust Deed Fund, which served like mutual funds for these real estate-backed loans.

An interim management team led by Tom Allison has run USA Capital since the bankruptcy filing.

Silver Point Capital was approved as a "stalking horse," or first bidder, with an offer of $46.5 million to buy out investors in the First Trust Deed Fund. In addition, Silver Point agreed to take over loan servicing from USA Capital for other loans.

The auction started Thursday with that $46.5 million bid.

Compass came next with an offer of $57.5 million. The three bidders took turns usually raising their bid often in $100,000 increments over the previous bid, but sometimes by $1 million or more. Bidders often made higher bids on the spot, but they were allowed to privately confer for 20 minutes before deciding in several instances.

At the end, both Silver Point and Desert Capital passed, leaving Compass as the apparent high bidder at $67 million..........


A new pecking order

Source: Rocky Mountain News
By: Patti Thorn

Weary of reading the same old authors and their formulaic plots?

Today, we welcome some fresh faces.

This year, while big-name authors were busy stealing the spotlight, scores of titles by unknowns were hatched. Many were superb reads. How do we know? Our critics spent 2006 screening nearly 60 debut novels that weren’t reviewed on the regular books pages. They read books of all stripes: futuristic tales, family sagas, suspense stories and more. And when it was all said and done, they had uncovered a wealth of fresh talent — in every genre. Today, we offer 10 of the best, books of all types of plot and style. If you missed these titles when they were first released, here’s a hint: Don’t make the same mistake twice.

And a special thanks... To those who have dedicated countless hours to this annual project. We owe a debt of gratitude to Joan Hinkemeyer, Christine Jacques, Justin Matott, Verna Noel Jones and Vicky Uhland.

.......The Dressmaker

By Elizabeth Birkelund Oberbeck (Henry Holt, 306 pages, $23).

Author’s background: Oberbeck has written for numerous publications, including Cosmopolitan, Travel and Leisure, Glamour and Working Woman. She lives with her husband and four sons in Greenwich, Conn., and was introduced to the world of haute couture through her mother, who worked with Diana Vreeland at Harper’s Bazaar.

Plot in a nutshell: Claude Reynaud is a shy yet skilled dressmaker working in the small town of Senlis outside of Paris. He and his chatty pet parrot Pédan live a contented life, where Claude diligently designs and stitches eye-catching gowns while humoring his nephews with puppet shows. The dressmaker’s life is turned upside down, however, when he becomes smitten at first glance with the lovely Valentine de Verlay, who has come to him to have her wedding dress made. Claude then sets out on a Don Quixote-like quest to lure Valentine away from her fiancé and into his own arms. Along the way, the author composes poetic visual pictures of dresses designed expressly to reflect an individual’s outer and inner beauty.

Sample of prose: "His greatest talent — and what he was becoming renowned for beyond the small town of Senlis — was his ability to match a client’s natural colors with enhancing hues and textures. He obsessed over color classifications and names. Inadequate descriptions frustrated him to the point of fury. He would yell across his studio to Pédant, ‘That is not the color pink! Non! That is the color of dawn reflected on the yellowing marble steps of the Trevi Fountain.’"

Author reminds me of: No one in particular; Oberbeck has a unique voice.

Best reason to read: This is the kind of story that sneaks up on you. It seems simple enough in the first 20 pages or so, but as you continue reading, it quickly develops into a rich fabric of sharply drawn characters with real complications in their lives that aren’t tied up so neatly at novel’s end. You’ll relish the complexity. Verna Noel Jones

The Raw Greenwich Blog And RSS Feed - Bloggers Who Are From, Work In Or Used To Live In Greenwich