Another player in the Bernie Madoff saga has fallen. His longtime auditor, David Friehling, pleaded guilty in federal court on Tuesday to charges of securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, making false filings with the SEC, and obstructing or impeding the administration of the Internal Revenue laws (among others).

Despite the plea, Friehling still told U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, "At no time was I ever aware Bernard Madoff was engaged in a Ponzi scheme."

Toys R Us bought FAO Schwarz in May and is now ready to do something interesting with it.

It's a pretty bold move for a tough retail market. Toys R Us is opening FAO Schwarz boutiques in some of its stores. It's also relaunching the upscale toy seller's website, FAO.com. A year ago, this would have been suicide, but now, it might work out. With retailers in every sector fighting for an edge, this move may beef up the Toys R Us in-store experience, with the online play helping it reach higher-spending consumers that may not have access to an FAO brick-and-mortar spot.

Traditional retailers haven't exactly embraced online sales channels. Sure, they all have websites, and they sell varying amounts of merchandise through them, but they've been slow to tap into the potential. When I was watching the space as an analyst at a major consulting firm (admittedly, back in 2007), many retailers equated a website to a new store opening. Finally, however, this industry is starting to see the potential of this venue, particularly when it comes to tracking consumer behavior.

When the CEO of Macy's (NYSE: M), Terry Lundgren, says that online sales are only good for 6% of last year's total sales, it's a hint. The translation: "We focus on where the revenue is" is much different from "We focus on where the revenue could be." Aeropostale (NYSE: ARO), on the other hand, sees the upside of playing in the online space, which is where it saw revenues spike 85% last year. Aeropostale has seen increases in traditional venues too, but nothing like what it's realized on the web.

So, maybe there's something to this internet, after all.

A year ago, Manhattan homeowners lived within the firm grasp of the worst recession in 70 years. A skyrocketing real estate market seemed ready to come back to Earth, as carnage in the financial services industry – which spread to just about every other business – decimated incomes and net worths throughout the city.

From the second quarter to the third, this year, the sale of co-ops and apartments spiked between 46% and 69% according to several reports from the real estate business. Sales are still lower than last year, but the recovery has been nothing short of amazing (to the chagrin of those of us who had dreams of one day moving up from the rental class).

Prudential Douglas Elliman reported a price increase of almost 2% from the second quarter, though the median was down 8% to 18% from last year – to the $760,000 to $850,000 range. Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel Inc., a real estate appraisal and consulting firm, calls this good news, but cautions that it doesn't mean we're at the bottom.

Disgraced Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff's (former) Montauk, Long Island home is no longer on the market. A buyer willing to pay more than the $8.75 million asking price has picked up the property, only two weeks after the U.S. Marshals Service listed it for sale.

Anne Lacombe, spokeswoman for the Corcoran Group, a real estate broker involved in the transaction, said the home was under contract for more than asking but did not have information on the exact amount, buyer or closing date, according to the Associated Press.

Manhattan apartment rents fell as much as 10% in August, on a year-over-year basis, according to data compiled by the Real Estate Group of New York, with concessions by owners widespread, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.

This is not an abstraction: buildings large and small are showing gaping vacancies. Storefronts are empty. Entire buildings sit waiting to be occupied. In Manhattan, retail vacancies have reached their highest rates since 2001. For the second quarter of this year, vacancies hit the absurd height of 12.4%, thanks to unemployment trends that won't quit and consumers reluctant to pry open their wallets.

Retailers are being hit just like the residential market.

On Monday, convicted con man Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail, and today federal authorities took possession of his $7 million Manhattan penthouse, forcing his wife to leave and look for somewhere else to live.

Ruth Madoff was told ahead of time that she would be forced to vacate her lush Manhattan penthouse, and reportedly she did leave the property this afternoon around 1 PM EST. The penthouse, on East 64th Street will be sold, with the proceeds being used to help reimburse the victims of the nations largest ever Ponzi scheme.

It looks like the nation's last hold-out -- the last bastion of the housing bubble, if you will -- has finally started to burst. Or at least deflate.

Manhattan, which remains, despite the nation's decade of policy errors, the capital of the world, registered its fourth straight quarterly decline in apartment sales in Q4 2008, according to research compiled by Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate (pdf).

Transactions in Q4 2008 fell 9.4% from a year ago to 2,282, Prudential said. Further, while the median price of all units (new and existing) rose 5.9% to $900,000, the median price for re-sale properties fell 3.6% to $732,500. Luxury unit prices fell 3.9% to $4.13 million

Just as telling: inventories have soared. Listings increased 39.3% to 9,081 units compared to a year ago, with the average days a listing was on the market before sale rising to 159 days, from 131 days a year ago.

Driven by record investment banking / financial sector salaries and bonuses, and by creative mortgage forms, New York City's real estate market, specifically the borough of Manhattan, experienced "a 5-year period of clearly unsustainable price gains," so says economist Peter Dawson. Manhattan, he says, was able to hold on in 2007 as the housing slump devastated prices in the U.S., particularly in the California, Southwest U.S., and Florida markets, but the financial crisis that depleted New York's investment banking employee ranks is finally showing up in Manhattan's residential real estate market, he said.

Despite the weak housing market, not everyone is feeling the pain, including Donald Trump who recently made a killing selling a home in Palm Beach for a reported $100 million.

While Trump concedes that the housing market is still weak, he states that he thinks things are about to turn a corner. Trump said that what is most troublesome to him right now is that people are still pretty shy about investing in America, and is what he calls the "saddest part" of all concerning the current economic situation in the country.

Since the American economy is driven so much on oil, Trump admits that there are better investments that you can make by looking abroad.

A lot of Americans are watching their homes decline in value, and many families are finding themselves upside down on their mortgages -- owing more than the home is worth.

But don't worry: if you were wealthy enough to afford New York City's sky-high real estate in the first place, you're doing quite well. New York apartments hit record highs in the first quarter -- an average of between $1.63 million and $1.72 million, depending on which data source you believe. That's a year-over-year price increase of more than 19%.

Manhattan real estate rose 13% to between $855,000 and $945,276, depending on which source you believe. But some experts say that that number is inflated by a disproportionate number of high-end properties and that prices on lower-end units are flat to negative.

In a related story, Italian businessman Luigi Zunino is looking to sell a Park Avenue apartment he hasn't yet closed on for $100 million.

According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), the 1907 Plaza Hotel where the unit is located is also home to Bear Stearns Chairman James Cayne and developer Harry Macklowe -- both of whom are suffering (or rather their investors are suffering) in the wake of the falling housing market.

But as long as executives who destroy value still reap large paydays, high end real estate will probably continue to do fine.

Rarely does any new online toy launch with features that seem better from those that were advertised in the mockups. But somehow, this next-generation dynamic quotes and company research site launched today by our parent, AOL Money & Finance, still blows me away. I've watched demos and made notes on large-format printouts of how it could be; I've listened to calls in which developers enumerated its benefits. I'm still giddy like a kid Christmas afternoon trying out her new toys, such as:

• Interactive charting. Sure, that could mean anything, but this is truly great. Hover your mouse over the chart to see the high, low, open, close and volume from the day in question, or see where earnings and dividends were announced. Compare with a competitor at the click of a mouse; add in any symbol to compare quickly (I wanted to compare two of my portfolio holdings, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX)). Clicking through to see seasonal performance shows trends (Apple often spikes at the end of November as investors anticipate holiday sales of gadgets and Macbooks and such).

I have reposted here my experience on Sept. 11, 2001, archived at http://911digitalarchive.org/parser.php?object_id=19929.

That morning my boyfriend, a NYPD officer, dropped me off at work at P.S.11 (on West 21st Street), where I was an assistant teacher at the time. Shortly after my students got to their classroom, while I left to retrieve something from another floor, another staff member told me a plane had crashed. On my way back to my classroom, someone said, "You need to turn on the T.V." I heard someone else say "The World Trade Center is gone." I went upstairs and shared the news with the other teachers in my room.

I left the room again to call my boyfriend since no one's cell phone was working. He was awaiting my call desperately, as he was being called in to duty. He told me we were in a state of emergency, and that I should try to make it to my mother's place in Spanish Harlem and not come home. He promised to call me. I told him I was to remain at school until all the parents came and that my kids were still unaware of the news. Parents began streaming in, tears falling from their eyes as they tightly hugged their small children and took them home. The children in my special education class sensed our anxiety and sadness and began to ply us with questions. What was happening? Why were the parents coming so early? Was it a half-day? I simply said the train was out of service, which was true, because I didn't want to frighten the kids.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Countrywide Financial (CFC), Brandywine Realty Trust (BDN), Manhattan Associates (MANH), Spectrum Pharmaceuticals (SPPI) and Amazon.com (AMZN) were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• Keefe Bruyette upgraded shares of Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) to Market Perform from Underperform on valuation.

• Brandywine Realty Trust (NYSE: BDN) was upgraded at Wachovia to Market Perform from Underperform based on pipeline progress and valuation.

• JP Morgan upgraded Manhattan Associates (NASDAQ: MANH) to Neutral from Underweight following better-than-expected Q2 results.

• Spectrum Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SPPI) was upgraded to Hold from Sell at Brean Murry, expecting shares to remain stable into the spected Phase III initiation with Ozarelix coming in Q4.

• Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) was upgraded by a host of companies following the strong quarter and margin growth, including JP Morgan, which upgraded shares to Neutral from Underperform. Bear Stearns upgraded shares to Peer Perform from Underperform, Lehman upgraded shares to Equal Weight from Underweight and Credit Suisse upgraded shares to Outperform from Neutral...

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Merrill upgraded United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) to Buy from Neutral.

• Goldman added AT&T (NYSE: T) to its Conviction Buy List.

• Raymond James raised Cheesecake Factory (NASDAQ: CAKE) to Strong Buy from Outperform.

• Kaufman upgraded Plantronics (NYSE: PLT) to Hold from Sell.

• Matrix USA upgraded Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) to Hold from Sell.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the city's entire taxi fleet, all 13,000 cabs, will become hybrid by 2012.

Under Bloomberg's new plan, 1,000 NYC cabs will be hybrid by October 2008 and then 20% will make the switch each year until 2012.

The standard cab, the Ford Motor Co (NYSE: F) Crown Victoria, gets 14 mpg. The city's hybrid models have expanded to include three Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM) models: the Prius, the Highlander Hybrid and the Lexus RX 400h. NYC will also use the hybrid Ford Escape.

That news doesn't bode well for Ford.

In addition to the five-year hybrd rule, New York City will require all new taxi's to get a minimum 25mpg vehicle starting in October of 2008. By 2009, the minimum bumps up to 30 mpg and must be hybrid.

The new standards are expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 200,000 tons each year after 2012.

I'm breathing a sigh of relief right now. For decades, if you tried to look at Manhattan from the suburbs all you'd ever see is a cloud of smog surrounding the island. Thanks to Mr. Bloomberg, our lungs will breathe a little easier on the streets of Manhattan starting in 2012.