Perfecting steak usually requires a kind of singular dedication. The kind of dedication that makes it impossible for a restaurant to focus on anything else.

That is why it is rare to find a steak outside of a steakhouse with the transcendental capabilities that a peerless steak possesses (yes, we've thought about this a lot).

But of course, Momofuku Ssäm Bar is no regular restaurant. David Chang's dedication to perfection in all things is well known all over the world. So when Business Insider found out that his East Village restaurant, Momofuku Ssäm Bar was launching a dry aged ribeye large format dinner, we had to try it.

Here's how it works: Like many things that have to do with Momofuku making a reservation for this dinner requires patience. The meal is family style, feeding 3-6 people. Figure out your squad, fill out this online application, put down a deposit, and prepare to wait a few weeks before you can get a seat.

It will be well worth the $244.97 (this includes tax, not tip).

Now, Momofuku is not a steakhouse experience. Wall Street, I'm sorry, but you will not have friendly white-clad waiters fluffing your sunshine-smelling linen napkins for you. The quarters are tighter. There's little leg room.

That said, what banker can resist a dinner that their assistant has to schedule weeks in advance? Not one I've ever heard of.

The meal comes with a Caesar salad and fries. That's it and that's all you need. The steak comes from cows that have been humanely raised without anti-biotics. The meat is dry aged for a minimum of 50 days.

Eat it rare. Maybe medium rare — cook it any more and you're a Philistine.

The steak is served with the cap and exterior fat left on and a laundry list of condiments —beef jus, dry aged fat and brown butter roasting juices, red wine and shallot marmalade, béarnaise sauce and bacon ketchup.

It's a great list (we especially recommend the wine and shallot marmalade, and obviously the bacon ketchup) but if it weren't there, you'd never notice. The steak is perfect. It melts in your mouth with that rich, velvety flavor that only comes from well-cooked cow. You'd be hard pressed to find a better steak anywhere in Manhattan. (Yes, I realize what I just wrote and I don't care.)

On top of all this, Momofuku's steak dinner is an incredible deal. Throw a $50-60 bottle of red on it, invite a full party of 6 (there's more than enough to go around), and you'll leave the place having spent less than $80 a person. That's highway robbery for a steak this memorable.

David Chang, thank you for caring.

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Relatives of people killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks will begin a series of protests on Saturday against the storage of the remains of their loved ones inside the new 9/11 museum in New York.

Family members, who are pleading with President Barack Obama to intervene, are planning to picket the early-morning delivery of the last unidentified human remains to the $700m museum, which opens beside the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan later this month. They are due to be housed there in a basement level.

Obama was urged by the relatives in a letter this week to help force city authorities to survey them on whether the museum, which will charge a mandatory $24 entry fee, is an appropriate resting place. Many say that they favour a “place of reverence” above ground.

“We believe the remains should be returned to the World Trade Center site, but in a location that is separate and distinct from the Museum, akin to the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery,” the relatives told Obama in their letter. “For the approximately 1,100 families that did not receive any recovery of their loved ones’ remains, the repository of human remains in the Museum may be the closest thing they will have to a cemetery.”

The controversy over the remains is just one of several surrounding the much-delayed official museum of the al-Qaida attack, which killed almost 3,000 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. After ballooning budgets and squabbles between authorities over control of the project, it is now finally due to open some five years behind schedule.

“It is disgraceful that they are doing this without the permission of the next of kin,” said Jim Riches, whose 29-year-old son Jimmy, a firefighter, was killed in the attacks. “This will be the only cemetery in the world that charges to get in. We are not going to stand silent while this goes on. My son can’t talk any more, so I will speak for him.”

Riches said that he and up to 50 other relatives would demonstrate as a procession of police, fire and EMS officials travel with the remains from the medical examiner’s office in the Kips Bay neighborhood to the museum site, at about 7am. A previous order to keep the delivery secret made by then-mayor Michael Bloomberg as he left office was reversed by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Norman Siegel, a lawyer for several of the relatives, said they would mount further protests at next Thursday’s ceremonial dedication of the museum by Obama, and its 21 May opening to the public. “We will not rest until the remains are removed from this commercial venture,” he said. A lawsuit brought by Siegel to stop the city’s plan was unsuccessful.

“It is all being done as a lure to tourists who will pay to come and stand beside the only thing these families have left,” Siegel told the Guardian on Friday. “It is macabre, and just not what we do with human remains”. He said tactics such as civil disobedience inside the museum, and acts that could see protesters arrested, were also being considered.

Siegel said that of 300 family members who responded to his own poll about where the remains should be housed, 94.6% opposed the choice of the museum. Some are concerned about the site’s vulnerability to flooding, after it was deeply submerged during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

City authorities say the remains need to be housed in the museum so that officials from the medical examiner’s office may continue carrying out DNA testing that could help identify the remains in a fully-equipped facility installed in the basement level.

The 2,500-square-foot area will not be accessible to museum visitors.

Family members of victims, who will not be charged to enter the museum, are due to be able to schedule private visits.

“We know how profoundly significant and sensitive this matter is to victims’ families, especially those whose loved ones have yet to be identified,” the museum’s management says in a section about the repository on its website, adding that the medical examiner’s office believes “this new repository will provide a dignified and reverential setting for the remains to repose – temporarily or in perpetuity – as identifications continue to be made.”

The city officials said that they consulted with some victims’ relatives before going ahead with the plan. “Our administration has engaged the community of 9/11 families continuously since entering office four months ago,” said a spokesman for de Blasio, who none the less stressed in a statement: “The de Blasio Administration is implementing the remains transfer plan it inherited from the previous administration.”

But senior executives at the museum, who are being paid as much as $400,000 a year to oversee its $60m annual budget, have also been criticized for their choice of inscription on a wall separating visitors from the remains repository. The 60-foot statement says: “No day shall erase you from the memory of time,” and is credited to Virgil. The inscription is also expected to appear on official merchandise, such as key rings.

However the quotation, in Virgil’s Aenied, referred not to innocent victims but rather to a pair of Trojan soldiers who have been killed by Latin forces in retaliation for a brutal massacre they carried out. “We are so disgusted and devastated by this whole project,” said Sally Regenhard, whose son Christian, 28, was killed in the attack. “It lacks any kind of serenity, reverence or respect. It is a product of what I call the memorial-industrial complex.”

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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In December, WNYC named Taylor Lorenz one of the 16 best New Yorkers to follow on Instagram.

The recognition was well deserved. Taylor takes beautiful photos that really capture NYC. Like this one.

Lorenz, Head of Social Media at The Daily Mail (and disclosure, close friend of the author of this post), announced she deleted the app off her phone today:

People were not happy to hear it.

Lorenz explained in various tweets that it had to do with the now-defunct broad Explorer tab, which Instagram recently swapped out for a more tight-knit community feel, showing you photos your friends and friends of friends have been liking.

Business Insider reached out to Lorenz for the full explanation on why Instagram's changes forced Lorenz to clear it off her phone.

Here was what she said:

The Explore tab was basically what I loved about Instagram the most. It used to be called the "Popular page" and when Instagram was really small, you actually had a chance of getting [your photos featured] on it. Some of my favorite NYC Instagrammers had pics featured on it in the beginning, and it's basically how I found a whole community on Instagram.

As the platform began to grow, the Popular page turned into the Explore tab. And it was less about local Instagram people and more about celebrities, Russian socialites, Australian YouTubers, landscape photographers who always went crazy with editing, but it was still my primary tool to discover new people and photos.

When I would go on Instagram, I'd spend 20% of my time scrolling through my own feed of people I follow and 80% trolling the Explorer tab, finding cool photos, and awesome communities, like Cheerlebrities.

With the new update, 90% of my Explorer tab is just photos my friends have liked or commented on. It's like, they're giving you a photo from a friend of a friend that your other friend has engaged with.

It feels like the app has closed in on itself and I can't find all the random cool people/photos that I could there before. It seemed like Instagram was creating the communities for you instead of letting you find your own.

It's pointless to me. I checked out the Explorer tab for the last few weeks, and there are fewer and fewer cool things, and I got bored.

When we asked Lorenz if she thought she'd ever add the app back onto her phone, she told us she'd consider it if they developed a better discovery tool. 

"I like what Vine has done in terms of categories," she added, speaking to Twitter's 6-second video platform, "I like Vine a lot."

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When actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died in early February from an overdose of heroin, America turned its attention toward the growing use of the infamous opiate throughout the US – especially in white suburbia, areas far from the stereotype of the shivering urban junkie.

The hub of many of these networks, law enforcement officials say, is New York City, where Hoffman overdosed in his Greenwich Village apartment. Like merchants peddling other commodities, legal and not, drug cartels from Mexico truck the drug into the city to be processed and packaged, officials say, then sell it to the nation’s largest local market – while also easily distributing packets throughout the region.

“What we’re seeing here in New York City is dual problem,” said New York’s special narcotics prosecutor, Bridget Brennan, on Tuesday, testifying before the City Council. “We have a problem in that New York City has been become the hub of regional distribution of heroin throughout the Northeast.

“But what we’ve also seen, and that is equally troubling, is a new user group emerging,” Ms. Brennan continued. “And that is young people, people who are middle class, blue collar, people who have a higher education level than those we have previously seen.”

As a result of this continued surge, city and federal drug agents are taking more heroin off the streets than they have in 20 years. So far, drug agents have seized 288 pounds of heroin from traffickers in New York this year, worth from $40 million to $60 million, officials say. In all of 2013, officials seized a total of 175 pounds in New York City.

“What we have seen thus far this year has eclipsed anything that we’ve seen since we started keeping records in 1991,” Brennan told the City Council.

On Monday, law enforcement officials announced that they had busted a multimillion-dollar heroin ring based in the Bronx, when they seized more than 50 pounds of the drug in Hartford, Conn., worth about $11 million, in a two-city sting last week. US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents and the New York Police Department, working together, also seized $85,000 in cash, as well as 20 pounds of cocaine and a number of assault rifles, raiding two Bronx apartments as well.

“These seizures and arrests demonstrate that NYC is Ground Zero of heroin distribution networks supplying the Northeast, as well as being the prime market Mexican drug traffickers are using to earn profit from the sale of poison,” said James Hunt, acting special agent in charge of the DEA's New York Division, in a statement.

As the Monitor reported in March, much of this surge can be attributed to economics: Heroin is now cheaper and more readily available than the kinds of prescription opiates more commonly abused in the past, especially in suburbs.

The new group of users reported by Brennan has also been noticed throughout the country – as has been widely reported for the past few months. This week, a prosecutor in southwest Ohio, Michael Gmoser, reported that his phone has been ringing off the hook since he announced last Thursday that he wanted to hear from suburban heroin users as he educated himself about his region's epidemic and looked for ways to combat the problem.  

Officials in Vermont and Massachusetts have also brought attention the growing problem among new users.

“Often they start with prescription drug abuse, abusing painkillers, and then when those painkillers become too expensive, they turn to heroin,” Brennan testified. She also noted that the city’s long-term urban hotspots were also seeing skyrocketing use, as prices have fallen as the drug saturates the market.

Not only is heroin cheaper now, bit it also is becoming much more pure, leading to a lethal rise in overdoses, officials say. Between 2010 and 2012, heroin overdoses were up 84 percent in the city.

The heroin being seized by New York officials is about 40 to 60 percent pure, Brennan said. By comparison, the heroin available in the deadly epidemic of the 1970s was 6 to 10 percent pure.

“And so the new users are snorting heroin, because they can get an effective high much more quickly rather than turning toward the needles,” she said. “The needles that might have scared users away are not being used during the initiation stage, as they were in previous years.”

While New York has always been a hotbed of heroin use and a major distribution point for traffickers, the recent surge has exacerbated both. New York DEA agents have seized about 35 percent of total heroin intercepted by the agency since October – compared with about 20 percent of nationwide DEA seizures in previous years.  

“It’s cheap, it’s potent and there’s a user demand here right now and they’re flooding the market,” said DEA Special Agent Hunt, according to The New York Times. “In my time, we’ve never seen the amount of large heroin seizures like this.”

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We've all had awful commutes, from traffic to delayed trains, or cars too crowded to find a seat. 

But nothing compared to the hellscape Gothamist presented us with this morning via video, taken on a Manhattan bound N-Train at rush hour (already a terrible time to be on a subway.)

The footage, taken by a passenger, shows about 50 kids crowding into one train car, each of them carrying a recorder.

Then they all begin to play.

You remember recorders right?

Watch this video and you'll never forget.

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Last year, an ongoing Congressional budget fight wiped out one of the military's premier outreach events: New York's Fleet Week, which didn't involve a single vessel in 2013. But the ships are back this year, and three Navy and two Coast Guard vessels paraded through New York Harbor this morning to kick off the Memorial Day week festivities.

The USS Cole led the way. Al Qaeda terrorists blew up the Navy destroyer's hull while it was refueling in the Yemeni port of Aden on October 12, 2000, killing 17 American sailors. The ship was rehabilitated and returned to service in 2003. Today, it led a column of three Navy ships entering New York Harbor from the Atlantic. It then overtook the Campbell, a Coast Guard cutter, near the Verizano Narrows Bridge to lead rest of the Fleet Week vessels.

As Naval Lieutenant Commander Ron Carpinella told Business Insider during an embark aboard the Campbell today, Fleet Week is a chance to educate the American public about their military. "It exposes Americans to their armed forces and helps them understand what all of these men and women do," he said.

For recent Medal of Honor recipient and Army sergeant Kyle White, who was also on the Campbell this morning, being at Fleet Week is partly a show of appreciation for the Navy, Marine and Coast Guard personnel he worked alongside.  "I'm out here showing support for all of the branches of the military," he told Business Insider, adding that "it's been overwhelming and humbling at the same time," to receive the military's highest honor. 

The Campbell is a 270-foot vessel used for fisheries enforcement and anti-narcotics efforts. It has pursuit capabilities and a 62-caliber gun that's occasionally used to shoot out the engines of faster ships, like drug-running boats. The Campbell was inaugurated in 1988 and is the successor vessel to an earlier, identically-named Coast Guard ship noted in naval circles for ramming a German submarine during World War II.

The Campbell also has its own mascot: a dog named Sinbad that sailors from the ship's predecessor adopted in 1938. Sinbad lives on through this shrine in the cutter's mess hall — people even leave it dog treats. 

During its trip to Pier 92 in midtown Manhattan, the Campbell paused briefly to pay tribute to victims of the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Below, the ship's sailors stand at attention prior to the beginning of a moment of silence.

SEE ALSO: The Coast Guard Uses Game Theory To Protect New York

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New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, one of the three most powerful people in state government, had a rather novel excuse when the New York Times dug up evidence of him fighting attempts to build low income housing in Manhattan during the 1970's. He attempted to blame it all on another guy named Sheldon Silver.

"I was forever confused with this guy," Silver told a Times reporter.

There was indeed another Sheldon Silver, a now deceased lawyer who briefly worked for the United Jewish Council of the East Side, an organization that was involved in the push to stop the low income housing development. However, in the story published Thursday evening, the Times cited documents, including a letter written on Silver's official Assembly stationery. The paper said these records "make clear that Speaker Silver ... was in fact the person who pressed New York City officials to allow an international mall to be built on the site, instead of low-income housing."

According to the Times, after being confronted with the documents, Silver's office abandoned an attempt to get the paper to publish a correction on the story. Silver's office did not immediately respond to a request from Business Insider Friday morning about whether they still had any issue with the Times story.

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Not every Wall Streeter is into spending their summer weekends with sand, surf, and New York City club transplants — i.e. The Hamptons.

For those who prefer a more rustic getaway, Camp Orenda in the Adirondacks has become a solid alternative.

Yes, there are gorgeous vistas — like Crane Mountain, one of the few mountains in the eastern U.S. that has a natural large lake on top — a river, three-tiered waterfall, and other examples of the upstate New York's natural beauty.

But the most important thing about Orenda that it's incredibly luxurious.

Think steaming hot showers, tents with gorgeous full beds, and farm-to-table anything (or gluten-free, or kosher, or whatever you need). The point was to create a camping experience for people who can't keep camping gear in their tiny NYC apartment — and that you never have to open your wallet once you get to camp.

Some call this concept "glamping" (glamour plus camping), though Orenda founder David Webb dislikes the term. It's a tradition that predates the term by a long time anyway.

"If there's ever a true founder of the glamping concept its those old style Robber Barons," said Webb. "They took pride in going into the back country and doing it in style and comfort."

Of course, the Robber Barons took about 150 servants with them, and Orenda does it with a staff of about five. They also probably didn't do yoga along with their kayaking, hiking, and archery.

Either way, it's working. Last year, The New York Times put Orenda on its 46 places to visit list, and since that time visits to the camp have shot up 300%.

Camp Orenda is located in the middle of Adirondack State Park.

But the bedrooms look like this.

And the tents look like this.

There's a grand piano sitting in the East River, and while no one knows how or why it got there, New Yorkers have been increasingly enchanted with its existence.

It started when BuzzFeed Editor Lauren Yapalater spotted the piano on her commute to work.

She went to inspect it closer, and realized it wouldn't play.

Look at the keys.

She expected it to be gone by the end of the day, but it was still there — and has been there — for over a week now.

It's attracted the attention of locals and tourists alike, even moonlighting as a photoshoot prop.

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Real estate mogul and art collector Aby Rosen has sparked a feud with his wealthy Old Westbury, N.Y., neighbors after debuting this graphic Damien Hirst statue on his front lawn.

The statue is titled “The Virgin Mother” and stands 33 feet tall. It depicts a naked pregnant woman in stride, with the right half of her skin peeled away to expose her skull, muscles, and the fetus in her womb.

Somewhat understandably, Rosen’s neighbors were not pleased when he began displaying the statue on his lawn back in May after renovating his Old Westbury Village property, according to Newsday. The complaints from neighbors reached village officials, forcing Rosen to argue to the village’s planning board this week why the statue should stay.

Rosen is also up against the village's Mayor Fred Carillo, who has introduced new legislation in response to the controversy that would limit the height of “accessory structures” — like statues — to 25 feet in height. Carillo has previously said to 1010 WINS’ Mona Rivera that the statue would be more appropriate in a medical building, “especially OBGYN.”

On Monday night, representatives for Rosen testified to the planning board that the statue not only fit with Rosen’s avant-garde estate, but also that with the proper landscaping, the statue could be screened from neighbors as much as possible. Rosen’s land-use attorney Peter MacKinnon previously stated to Newsday that the statue could be moved to a lower elevation or “pocketed into a hill” to accomplish this.

Village officials decided to reserve judgement until touring the estate, according to Newsday. The statue currently remains on Rosen’s property but is covered in a long black sheet.

"The Virgin Mother" is one of three similar statues created by Hirst, including one called "Verity" that is 67 feet tall and holds a sword above its head in Ilfracombe, Devon. Rosen purchased his statue in 2005, and it has previously been displayed at Manhattan’s Lever House.

This is not the only art-related battle Rosen is currently fighting. The real estate mogul is also being sued by the New York Landmarks Conservancy for wanting to take down the fragile Picasso curtain “Le Tricorne” (1919) from New York City’s Four Seasons Restaurant.

SEE ALSO: 19 New Works Of Art That Have The World Buzzing

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio launched a new push Friday for Brooklyn to host the Democratic National Convention where the party's 2016 candidate will officially claim the nomination.

"The progressive spirit of New York City has never been stronger or more vibrant that it is today," de Blasio wrote in his letter presenting the bid to the Democratic National Committee, according to the New York Times. "We believe that this spirit can energize and captivate both the Democratic Party and the nation."

De Blasio proposed the convention be held at the Barclay's Center, the recently-built sports arena near Downtown Brooklyn that is not far from the mayor's house in Park Slope. Some other elements of the convention would "be spread across the city’s other four boroughs," the Times said.

Whether the bid will be successful is unclear. In the past two election cycles, the Democratic Party chose electorally competitive turf — North Carolina and Colorado — as opposed to solidly blue state territory like New York City. On the other hand, de Blasio has come to symbolize a new populist surge in the party. Along with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and de Blasio, Democrats appear to be increasingly embracing topics like income inequality.

The front-runner in the Democratic contest, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, used to represent New York in the U.S. Senate and continues to call the state home.

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat thought to have national ambitions, has been bombarded in recent weeks by liberal activists who have accused him of aligning with Republicans and corporate special interests instead of his own party. The tension culminated last Saturday when Cuomo successfully fought to hold onto the support of the labor-backed Working Families Party. However, even his critics would be hard pressed to question Cuomo's liberal bona fides when it comes to LGBT issues.

Cuomo, who in 2011 made his state one of the largest in the nation to enact same-sex marriage legislation, rolled out another landmark policy change Thursday that builds on his progressive branding on LGBT issues. The policy change will eliminate the requirement for New Yorkers to prove they've had sex-reassignment surgery in order to formally change the sex on their birth certificates.

LGBT advocates describe the sex-reassignment surgery requirement as an unnecessary burden on transgender individuals who do not always undergo surgery. Cuomo's policy announcement was immediately hailed by activists. 

"This is huge news for LGBT New Yorkers, transgender New Yorkers in particular. This issue is something that the Pride Agenda has been advocating for — working closely with the governor’s office — for four years," Allison Steinberg, communications director of Empire State Pride Agenda, told Business Insider.

Steinberg further expects other states to follow New York's lead. (According to Reuters, four other states – California, Oregon, Vermont and Iowa — and Washington D.C. do not require proof of surgery in order to secure a birth certificate sex change.)

"We know that New York in a lot of ways serves as a beacon for the rest of the country," she said. "I think we’ve come a really long way in a really short amount of time. I think that 10 years ago this conversation wouldn’t even be happening but today it feels like common sense."

For their part, Cuomo's allies described the decision as proof he is a true progressive leader. 

"The governor's always said that he believes New York has been the progressive capital of the nation and was always the progressive capital of the nation," a Cuomo administration official told Business Insider Friday. "Over the last few years the state lost its way and he's taking it on to make sure that New York takes its place as the progressive capital of the country."

The administration official also indicated these types of issues are especially close to Cuomo's heart. 

"It strikes a chord with the governor," the person said.

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A son of the oldest living member of the Rockefeller family has died after the small plane he was piloting crashed just outside New York.

Dr Richard Rockefeller, 65, was flying solo in his single-engine plane back to his home in Maine on the morning after celebrating the 99th birthday of his father, the philanthropist David Rockefeller.

The plane, a Piper Meridian, took off from Westchester County Airport just after 8 am on Friday and struck a line of trees just south-west of the White Plains airport minutes later in foggy conditions.

Dr Rockefeller, a father of two, had been working on a way to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in wounded war veterans, family spokesman Fraser Seitel said.

"It's a terrible tragedy," Mr Seitel said. "Richard was a wonderful cherished son, brother, father and grandfather."

Dr Rockefeller's father David, the former chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Bank, now JPMorgan Chase, and a prominent philanthropist, and a nephew of former Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller, who also was governor of New York from 1959 to 1973. On Thursday, Dr Rockefeller ate dinner with his father in Westchester to celebrate the family patriarch's 99th birthday, Seitel said.

Mr Seitel described him as an experienced pilot whose death left the family in shock.

The plane crashed in the hamlet of Purchase, a New York City bedroom community of about 10,000 residents that houses a State University of New York campus.

The airport was closed for a short time after the crash. The Federal Aviation Administration was investigating, and the National Transportation Safety Board was expected to arrive later Friday.

An FAA control tower notified that the aircraft was missing from their radar" and an emergency response was initiated.

At the time of the crash, the weather was foggy and visibility was about a quarter-mile (400 meters), police and airport officials said at a news conference. Pilots of private planes make the decision about whether to fly in such conditions, officials said.

After narrowly missing the house, the plane hit some pine trees and crashed in a yard. The aircraft broke up into many pieces, which were strewn about the property, with some parts lodged in the trees.

Officials said there was no indication of a mayday or problem.

Dr Rockefeller chaired the United States Advisory Board for Doctors Without Borders for more than 20 years, ending in 2010.

He was involved in numerous other nonprofit activities.

"Every aspect of his life was to advance the well-being of the world," said Tim Glidden, president of Maine Coast Heritage Trust, where Rockefeller served as board chairman from 2000 to 2006.

Dr Rockefeller is survived by his wife, Nancy, and their children, Clayton and Rebecca.

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office was so hyped about New York's new and improved bond rating that someone baked a cake to celebrate it.

On Monday, Moody’s Investors Service announced it upgraded New York State’s general obligation bond rating to Aa1 from Aa2 and moved the state’s outlook to "stable."

Cuomo, a Democrat who has made stabilizing New York's finances a top priority, naturally responded with glee.

"Today's announcement by Moody's represents everything we’ve been talking about for the past four years," he declared in a statement. "We are pleased to celebrate New York's best Moody's credit rating in fifty years, and the highest rating from any agency in more than forty years."

To further build on the excitement, his office commissioned a cake with "First Time AA1 in 50 years" written in frosting.

Business Insider followed up on the cake situation with Cuomo's office.

According to a spokeswoman, the cake was marble-flavored, made by Zachary's bakery in East Greenbush, "and shortly after the leaders' briefing, it was enjoyed by the budget office staff."

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She may be in hot water with Hannibal Pictures, but Sonja Morgan is raking in the dough from her work on Real Housewives of New York City.

According to documents filed in her bankruptcy case, Morgan is set to make $426,500 from the reality TV show. No wonder she was one of the first to sign back onto the show!

Prior to the start of production on season 6, certain cast members refused to sign their contracts over salary disputes. Countess LuAnn de Lesseps was the last one to give Bravo her John Hancock.

The documents filed by Hannibal Pictures, the production company that sued Morgan for failing to raise money for a movie involving John Travolta, states, “Morgan’s current annual gross earned income of $426,500 derived from her employment as a performer on the reality television program The Real Housewives of New York, as reported in her monthly operating reports filed with the Court.”

READ: The Documents Here!

Morgan was forced to file bankruptcy because of the $7 million judgment — which reached a staggering $8.5 million total with interest and attorneys’ fees included, RadarOnline.com previously exclusively reported.

Judge Rita Miller not only upheld the financial settlement, but she also gave Hannibal Pictures an additional year to enforce a lien on Morgan’s earnings and assets.

SEE ALSO: 'Real Housewives Of New Jersey' Couple Admit To Financial Fraud

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An eccentric Chinese billionaire has announced plans to invite 1,000 impoverished Americans for a slap-up meal in Central Park in a bid to show fellow tycoons there is more to life than “luxury goods, gambling and prostitution”.

Chen Guangbiao, a recycling magnate from the eastern province of Jiangsu, issued the invitation to his “charity luncheon for 1,000 poor and destitute Americans” through two prominent adverts placed in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal this week.

Guests will be given $300 (£177) to spend on “occupational training” as well as lunch at the Loeb Boathouse restaurant in Manhattan’s Central Park.

The restaurant, which featured in the 1989 comedy When Harry Met Sally, describes itself as “the ultimate urban oasis” and “a haven for romantics and nature lovers”.

Mr Chen said he hoped the lunch, which he expects to cost around $1 million (£590,000), would boost relations between China and the United States and change people’s perceptions of wealthy Chinese.

“I want to spread the message in the US that there are good philanthropists in China and not all are crazy spenders on luxury goods,” he told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post on Wednesday.

The tycoon, whose past stunts include selling canned air to raise awareness of pollution and smashing a Mercedes Benz to draw attention to global warming, also hoped to serve as a role model for Chinese billionaires with a penchant for squandering their fortunes on “luxury goods, gambling and prostitution”.

“There are many wealthy Chinese billionaires but most of them gained their wealth from market speculation and colluding with government officials while destroying the environment,” he said.

“I can’t bear the sight of it, because all they do is splurge on luxury goods, gambling and prostitution and very few of them sincerely live up their social responsibility.”

It was not immediately clear whether Mr Chen’s guests would be offered a set menu at the Central Park feast or be allowed to choose from the restaurant’s à la carte lunch menu which features dishes such as Lemon-Oregano Crusted Salmon and Yellowfin Tuna Sashimi with Tobiko Caviar and Jalapeno Wasabi Vinaigrette.

In a 2010 interview with The Telegraph Mr Chen said he hoped to build a “charity army” of wealthy Chinese business people who would pump large chunks of their profits back into society.

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At 10:00 am this morning, the MTA posted an alert stating all subway lines will experience delays because of temporary power loss. 

The MTA has since removed the alert. We'll update this post as we know more.

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What do you do if you're a billionaire who wants to change apartments without leaving your building? Well, you simply buy the duplex downstairs. 

That's just what Israel "Izzy" Englander, founder of the hedge fund Millennium Partners, reportedly did at New York City's swanky 740 Park Avenue, according to Paris Match (via Curbed).

The billionaire purchased the apartment from the country of France, which was once used by the French ambassador, for $70 million, a whopping $22 million over the asking price. A three-way bidding war pushed up the apartment's price, Curbed reports. 

Features of the palatial home include hardwood flooring, high ceilings, classic moldings, five fireplaces, and a small planting terrace. Among the 18 rooms, six are staff and maids' rooms, with a servants' hall and a two-bedroom master suite. 

Let's see for ourselves: 

This is 740 Park Avenue, one of Manhattan's most famous and powerful buildings. Located on the 12th and 13th floors, the apartment has an astounding 18 rooms with 38 windows. A private elevator vestibule opens to a 35-foot marble gallery and the staircase leading to the second floor.Off the gallery is a baronial corner living room. The yellow accents offset the formal furniture.And if you step through the living room, you enter what looks like could be part of the library.On the same floor room is the 10-person dining room with large windows and a fireplace.There's also a study, complete with old-world paintings, wallpaper, and a fireplace.Here's the floor plan:

SEE ALSO: Buy The Most Expensive Home In Las Vegas For $38 Million

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Jean-Georges, a three Michelin-starred restaurant at the Trump Hotel Central Park, is one of the most affordable high-end restaurants in New York.

It recently solidified its status when The New York Times food critic Pete Wells gave Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten another four-star review back in April.

But now the New York power lunch hot-spot is raising the prices on its outstandingly affordable lunch menu, according to Ryan Sutton at Eater NY.

Jean-Georges previously offered a two-course lunch menu with dishes like "sea trout draped in trout eggs" and "foie gras brule" for $38, with each additional course costing $19 after that.

But now the restaurant is raising its prices to $48 for the lunch menu and making each additional course $24. That means a three-course meal for two people will now cost $217, or $39 more expensive than before.

The six-course lunch tasting menu is also being hiked, according to Sutton, to $158 from $148.

Paying $48 for two courses is still one of the best deals in the city compared to some of the other Michelin starred restaurants in New York; for example, Eleven Madison Park is $225 for 16 courses (for lunch or dinner) and Le Bernardin's lunch menu costs $76 for three courses.

If you're looking for a better deal, Chef Jean-Georges also owns several other restaurants in Manhattan, including Mercer Kitchen in SoHo and JoJo on the Upper East Side, both of which still have $32 lunch tasting menus.

SEE ALSO: The 13 Best Restaurants In New York City

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo couldn't be more pleased about his state's Fitch credit rating upgrade. In a conference call with reporters Friday, Cuomo made what may be the first cred rating-themed joke in history when he said he planned to celebrate with drinks.

"Instead of, 'It's Miller time,'" Cuomo said, referencing the famous beer slogan, "It's Moody's and Fitch time."

This won't be Cuomo's first credit rating party this week. On Monday, Cuomo celebrated New York's Moody's upgrade with a cake. This inspired several more credit rating quips during the cake pun-filled conference call. 

"We have a cherry on the cake for what was a really great few weeks for the State of New York," said Cuomo, a Democrat widely thought to have ambitions for higher office. "It’s probably the most powerful affirmation of the progress the state has been making."

However, Cuomo told Business Insider there will be no credit cake after the good news from Fitch Friday.

"I wish!" he exclaimed. "[The upgrade] came so quickly on a Friday we may actually toast this one with a drink."

Across the Hudson River in New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie most certainly hasn't been toasting his state's credit rating. Last month Fitch downgraded the Garden State. Because of this, Business Insider asked Cuomo whether he had any advice for Christie about improving his credit rating. Cuomo said he did not know "the basis" for Fitch's decision to downgrade New Jersey and theorized Christie, a Republican, wouldn't want his input on the matter.  

"The governor wouldn’t call me for advice," Cuomo said of Christie. 

This post was updated at 5:25 p.m.

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