New Yorkers will never look out their windows the same way again.

In his latest work, "City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York," illustrator Matteo Pericoli has recreated the city landscape as seen from the offices and homes of renowned urban dwellers including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mario Batali and Philip Glass.

"Women don't have to hate men to get ahead," former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said.

And she should know.

"I used to want to be a journalist," said Albright, who was among a score of successful women who headlined the sixth annual Woman's Conference on Tuesday that drew about 15,000 people to the convention center in Long Beach, Calif. "But when I told my husband's boss what I planned to do, he said, 'Honey, you better find something else to do. So I did."

You may not be able to buy word of mouth, but YouTube is more and more becoming a place to capitalize on it.

Woodstock now as then is shaping up as one big media trip for Henry Diltz.

Diltz, rock photographer supreme and owner of the fine-art photography Morrison Hotel galleries, has been on the phone more times than he can remember in the past two months, bombarded with calls from Japanese magazines, German documentary filmmakers, and eight book authors. "Now, the newspapers are calling me," said Diltz, 70, who was the Woodstock Music and Art Fair's official photographer by way of his friend, lighting director Chip Monck, whom he knew from his days playing banjo on the college circuit around three years earlier.

At Tuesday's open casting call for extras for "Sex and the City 2," a cross section of New Yorkers vied for the chance to share the big screen -- albeit a very small part of it -- with Carrie Bradshaw and the gang.

Knowing the four fashionable ladies wouldn't mingle with anyone less than the best-dressed, hopefuls pulled out their most notable outfits in their efforts to woo casting directors. An assortment of tight spandex dresses, oversize designer handbags, and various Italian labels paraded around a full Manhattan block toward the Metropolitan Pavillion.

As they marched along, WWD asked a few about their look for the big audition, and what role they'd be best suited for.

My back was literally up against the wall.


It was Friday, and the grand opening of the J.C. Penney flagship in the Manhattan Mall. If things seemed a little cramped it was because the ceremony was supposed to be across the street, at Greeley Square Park, but early morning rains put a damper on those arrangements. Only a soggy stage and Kimora Lee Simmons' luxury trailer parked along the curb gave any hint of the original plans. The festivities were quickly moved to the lobby of the mall, where male and female and child models walked down a red runway, stopping long enough to pose for the photographers standing cheek-by-jowl on risers. It was hard to see what was going on, but I knew the "oohs" and "aahs" were for the children. "Woo hoo, woo whoo," some women in front of me hollered when a hunky guy in a beige pin-striped suit sauntered out, as if this were Chippendales.

 

The Eye desk sees some interesting books pass our desks, but the one that arrived on Wednesday took the cake. "How to be Famous: Our Guide to Looking the Part, Playing the Press and Becoming a Tabloid Fixture," by Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt. If only we were kidding.

The book's cover is designed to look like a tabloid, lots of pinks and yellows and a happy couple shot of Speidi. Inside, there are the same paparazzi shots of the two reality stars that have run ad nauseum in Us Weekly, Star, InTouch and the like. But it seems this time the photos serve another purpose: to illustrate Pratt and Montag's erudite prose about how to achieve and maintain celebrity status.

New York's unseasonably cool summer has finally thrown down a week of humid, makeup-melting days. That didn't stop Rose Byrne from test-driving one of fall's much-noted looks, the bold shoulder, Tuesday night at a Brooks Brothers-sponsored Cinema Society screening of her new film "Adam." While fellow attendees like Eva Amurri and Charlotte Ronson went the sleeveless route, the slim Aussie worked a baltic blue lace, mock turtleneck dress by Christian Cota with a structured shoulder, accessorized with Brian Atwood patent leather heels and Bottega Veneta fine jewelry and clutch. "I find Rose to be captivating: she always gets me emotionally involved with her characters," says Cota of Byrne. "She has that special combination of delicate beauty and strength."

And, apparently, a taste for resourceful style: the frock is from the archives of Cota's fall 2008 collection. Which proves that shopping your wardrobe and staying on trend is possible -- though it helps if that closet belongs to a fashion designer.

Oh, those clever "Taking Woodstock" publicists. Enclosed in the invitations for Wednesday night's Gilt Groupe and Quintessentially-sponsored premiere of the 1960s-themed flick is a single rolling paper and a plastic baggie filled with what looks like pot.

Sometimes a once-in-a-lifetime experience can leave a lasting impression. When journalistic icon Walter Cronkite died last week, the first thing that came into my mind was a brief encounter WWD had with him in 1992.