Wall Street Folly

It's Official: We've moved! Our new home is www.wallstreetfolly.com

Please join us over at our new Wall Street Folly site.  We're still working out some kinks, but it's up and running! (Note, if for some reason you're not directed to that site, keep trying.  It gonna take a bit for the redirection of our wallstreetfolly.com url to be propogated through the system.)

The latest indignity is an aesthetic cleansing: Bankers are becoming persona non grata at Soho House

They're cleansing their membership to get back to their "artsy" roots.

SOHO House no longer wants to be a place where bankers flock to drink and flirt. Sources told us several financial types, already hit by the economy, had their egos slammed when they were notified by the club that their membership would not be renewed as it was returning to its "artsy" roots. Soho House US operations director Mark Somen told us, "We recently celebrated our fifth anniversary and want to make sure we are staying true to our creative roots. We are not pinpointing specific industries, but want to make sure that our members are great creative types.

Bankers Are No-No's At Soho - Page Six

Fashion meets finance: Gold diggers whine and take stock at "Dating a Banker Anonymous"

Pity the poor put upon young, fashionable, upwardly mobile women who have landed rich -- or those they thought would soon be rich -- Wall Streeters as boyfriends or husbands, only to find that their meal tickets were now on budgets and maybe even unemployed.  There's a new place for them to bitch, whine and compare notes -- Dating A Banker Anonymous. Members of DABA actually meet (see the above picture from the Times), and there's also a blog where they dish.  The NY Times did a piece on some of the women:

Scores: The famed gentlemen's club, and a favorite Wall Street hang out, will lapdance into oblivion before the new year

The time has finally run out for gentlemens' club Scores, a favorite entertainment venue for many on Wall Street.

"It's over; it is what it is," said Scores lawyer George Weinbaum. Co-owner Elliot Osher confirmed the closing.

A weak economy, the loss of the W. 27th St. Scores' liquor license and the possibility the E. 60th St. joint would lose its booze ticket all helped do in the flesh factory.

A new strip joint with a liquor license will open at the East Side location, "but it won't be Scores and the owners will be different," Osher said.

Famed sex den Scores, once a top moneymaker, can't jiggle out of financial troubles - NY Daily News

No more scoring a lap dance (or anything else) at Scores in NYC if the State Liquor Authority has anything to say about it - Wall Street Folly

You've been downsized from your Wall Street job? Look at the bright side: now you can grow a beard

And apparently lots of people have been (including a bunch of investment bankers and hedge funders that we know):

After Jorge Hendrickson lost his job at a Manhattan hedge fund three weeks ago, he stopped shaving. "I've shaved for so long, and it's nice to be able to look at the positive side" of losing a job, says Mr. Hendrickson, 24. "I'm changing my lifestyle while I can."

Facial hair is showing up on more former corporate types. It's one of those tiny luxuries unleashed by unemployment, a time when people are briefly released from workaday habits and may wish to take stock of their lives before setting out anew. Al Gore grew a beard after losing the tumultuous presidential election of 2000. Neatly trimmed, it looked cozy and anti-establishment as he pursued creative projects on his way to the Nobel Peace Prize.

Growth Area: Beards on Laid-Off Executives - WSJ

Ace Greenberg: “There’s no more Wall Street”

Former Bear Stearns CEO, now at Lehman Brothers, has seen change after change in his 61 year career on Wall Street.  And now he says that Wall Street as we knew it is gone.

“There’s no more Wall Street,” Greenberg, 81, said last night in an interview on Bloomberg’s “Money & Politics” television program. “That model just doesn’t work because it’s at the mercy of rumors.”

“Rumors can start and turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy,” Greenberg said during the interview in Washington. He said he’s “never seen anything close” to the current economic decline and turmoil in the financial markets.

Former Bear Stearns CEO Greenberg Says Wall Street Is ‘No More’ - Bloomberg

With the credit crisis shrinking the ranks of Wall Street sugar daddies, what's a girl to do?

It's getting tough all over the city for pretty young gold diggers, used to enjoying the finer things of life thanks to wealthy Wall Streeters who lavished them with all sorts of luxuries.  Now many of the men have found themselves unemployed, and forced to radically tighten their belts given their new situations in life.  So how are they taking the suddenly shrinking supply of wealthy men?  This weekend's Page Six Magazine explores the subject:

Credit crunch impact: Stressed out Wall Streeters seek solace in drink, drugs and risky sex

Tucked away in a mini-pullout section of the NY Post is an article on how anxious current and laid off Wall Streeters have become over the credit crunch and state of the industry.  "Substance abuse and risky sex behavior is up among downsized and worried Wall Streeters, say therapists". 

Al goes for three shots of vodka topped off with Red Bull before making his daily networking calls, "Pete" is lifting "a few" Xanax from mom's medicine cabinet.  Others are turning to food, and then there are others that go to strip clubs, massage parlors and are for the first time, hiring hookers....

The C-spot: New erotic Columbia U student run magazine features Wall Street fetishists

Harvard has one.  So do the University of Chicago, Vassar, and Boston University.  Now Columbia University has its own student run magazine focusing on sex.  The inaugural issue of C-Spot, an erotic magazine edited by Columbia University students (although it's not affiliated with or backed by the school) even has a story about Wall Street men.  "In one piece headlined "My Nails Are Red", the writer pens a graphic description of her rough sex with Wall Street guys who choke her with their "expensive ties.""

Not even gonna comment on that one.

They also review their favorite strip clubs in Manhattan (many of which are reportedly still doing reasonably well even during this market downturn) and have a piece on some of the erotic services offered on Craigslist.

Ivy Mag is Lust For Fun (Columbia Laid Bare) - NY Post

Here's a link to the the "My Nails Are Red" article.  Warning: for most of you, it's probably not suitable for reading at work.  Yes, it's very graphic.

Times are tough for Wall Street nannies

There was a time not too long ago that finding a nanny to care for your kids was just about an impossible task because there was so much demand from high flying Wall Streeters. How times haved changed.  With the purge on Wall Street, and many of the former high flyers now unemployed, their nannies are also finding themselves out of work according to NY Magazine.

“It’s been a week and no one’s called,” says Christopher Sager, an out-of-work Soho nanny. “There are, like, 300-plus people looking at two jobs.” Caregivers face lost jobs, reduced hours, pay cuts, and added responsibilities as wealthy families trim household staff. Genevieve Thiers of SitterCity.com says her babysitter-listing service has fielded more than 2,500 new job seekers since February, up from 1,300 in the previous six months.

Wall Street Woes Hit the Nursery - NY Magazine