It's more or less an open secret, but we learned that the Top Chef cast has definitely been living for about two weeks now in a terraced duplex penthouse in Williamsburg overlooking McCarren Park.

So far, the chefs have pretty much kept to themselves, said an extremely well-placed source, leaving around 8 or 9 in the mornings for a soundstage in Greenpoint and coming straight back in the evenings.

“They’re not allowed to talk to anyone, really, or even do their own thing,” the source said. They’re trying to keep things under control before the paparazzi start camping out.”

Luckily, it sounds like they have the typical luxe reality show digs, complete with a private roof deck and a sweeping view of the city skyline, to occupy them when they are not shopping, cooking or shooting.  read more »

Pedro Espada, the head of the nonprofit Soundview HealthCare Network, is sending campaign-like mailings (“From the Desk of Pedro Espada, Jr.”) from the organization's office offering things like "free mammography mobile screenings" and "free fruits and vegetables."

These mailings were handed over by a reader who lives in the Bronx. Three of the amilings were sent out in May and June and a fourth had no date stamped on the envelope.

By advertising the group’s legitimate work, Espada, who served in the State Senate representing the neighboring district, can reap the political benefit of raising his profile and being in contact with the public in a favorable way.  read more »

On Wednesday night, CNN premiered its new documentary "Black in America: The Black Woman and Family" in which correspondent Soledad O'Brien takes a look at "the varied experiences of black women and families and investigates the disturbing statistics of single parenthood, racial disparities between students and the devastating toll of HIV/AIDS."

On its first night, the doc put up big numbers for the cable news channel. According to a release from CNN, over 2.1 million viewers tuned in, including 966,000 in the 25-54 demographic.

More from the release:

According to Nielsen Media Research data, CNN’s two-hour premiere of Black in America: The Black Woman & Family was a resounding success, topping Fox News and MSNBC during the 9-11pm time period.  read more »

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Ecco announced this morning that they've acquired a major memoir called Crazy for the Storm, which tells the story of a boy from Southern California named Norman Ollestad who at 11 years old survived a plane crash that killed his father.

Interestingly, the agent who sold the book to Ecco is Rob Weisbach, former publisher of Weinstein Books.

About four months have passed since Mr. Weisbach announced he was leaving Weinstein, and until now, no one really knew what he was up to. At the time, he said he was not quite ready to announce his next move, but confirmed that it would "definitely" be somehow related to the business of literature.  read more »

Theodore Sorensen, who was John F. Kennedy's speechwriter and one of his closest advisers, approves of the speech Barack Obama delivered yesterday to 200,000 Germans in front of the Victory Column in Tiergarten.

"I thought it was a magnificent, historic speech," said Sorensen, who helped draft Kennedy's famous 1963 "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. "It was a comprehensive declaration of new American foreign policy which will close the chapter on the nightmares of the last seven and a half years and hold out hope for sensible Europeans that America will once again be a collaborator."

Asked how Obama's speech echoed Kennedy's decades earlier, with its tone and repetitive references to freedom and Berlin, Sorensen said, "Of course there are parallels between two, young, aggressive internationalist minded Democrats speaking in that historic place," said Sorensen.  read more »

The former North Phoenix home of John and Cindy McCain has been listed for $12 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. The seller, Jane Popple, hopes to capitalize on the prospective first family's cachet: She's listing it for nearly four times what she paid Cindy McCain in 2006.

"If Mr. McCain does get elected," said Ms. Popple's broker, "obviously there will be a lot more value in a potential buyer's mind."

The house, on two acres, was Ms. McCain's childhood home and Senator McCain's family residence for 20 years.

The prayer Barack Obama left at the Western Wall has been published. [AP] 

"It's a tough national environment," Rudy Giuliani tells new lawmakers. [The Washington Post] 

An upstate blogger praises the likely passage of the Great Lakes Compact, hoping that as water become more precious, people will need to turn to the Great Lakes more often. [Strike Slip]

Nicholas Wapshott wonders if Obama can maintain his popularity with Europeans if he's elected. [City Journal]

Congressional Quarterly has changed the rating for John Hall's district from "Leans Democrat" to "Democrat Favored." [C.Q. via The Albany Project]

The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s
By G. Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot
The Penguin Press, 422 pages, $27.95

These days "liberal" is a word rarely used as anything but a pejorative in American politics. In the 1960s, however, it was the dominant political philosophy in Washington. President Lyndon B. Johnson ran his election campaign in 1964 as a liberal against archconservative Senator Barry Goldwater and won in a landslide. There were overwhelming Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress and a solid Supreme Court majority led by Chief Justice Earl Warren that viewed itself as a liberal, activist vanguard.  read more »

And exhale, everyone. If you have clicked on Romenesko over the last 20 minutes you were redirected to this site and noticed a frighteningly different-looking page--Jim's Tumblr page, maybe?

It's not a redesign.

"No, that's our default when our damn unreliable servers go down," he wrote in response to a question from Media Mob.

Extell Development is in talks with discount bulk retailer Costco to occupy a large underground store as part of a new 3.3 million-square-foot development of mostly residential buildings on the Upper West Side.

Extell, led by Gary Barnett, is seeking to move forward on developing the last parcels of Riverside South, the 55-acre swath of Upper West Side land known as Trump City when Donald Trump first started planning the complex in the 1980s. The company's plans for the final parcels between 59th and 61st streets would need approval of the City Council and City Planning Commission, as the firm is seeking to change the initial restrictions to allow for more density and different uses (the original development planned for a commercial tower for NBC at the site).  read more »