Chelsea Clinton’s banker boyfriend is reportedly buying a new place. More

Schadenfreude is a poor substitute for free flowing alcohol.
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Boozy lunches may be a thing of the past, but that’s not stopping The City’s bankers and lawyers from hitting the bottle. More

No need to wait for the after Xmas sale. More

Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. You must leave your company holiday party. But yet you linger on, wondering where else to hit up. But the answer can be right in front of your chinny chin chin.

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Your bonus cash won’t buy you entry into this Chelsea club … if it ever opens, that is. More

The home for hard-charging Wall Streeters has cleaned up its act, and picked up a few foreigners along the way. More

Part of midtown goes free wifi. More

Or, how to deal with banker-haters. More

Nightmare on 34th street? Merrill Lynch is reportedly close to deciding between a new location near Penn Station over renewing/expanding its Financial District digs. More

Need art for your office? Win a signed, frame-size print of the photo below by a BB photographer by entering the “Best Finance Quotes of All Time” contest on Sidetawk (yes, reborn again!). More

A BBaller emails in: “You ought to get someone down here with a camera. The models (strategically located under Tiffany’s blue umbrellas near every coffee cart on Wall) are perfect trophy material.” (emphasis added) More

No news yet as to the cause of the cab explosion right outside the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center yesterday at about 1pm. Driver was unharmed and so far nothing criminal is suspected.

The Chinatown fixture Double Happiness (173 Mott) is getting a $1MM upgrade to make itself more appropriate for folk like you. Says NYMag: entrepreneur Emma Cleary is aiming to attract “successful and upscale clientele” to the bar, as opposed to the “lower east side crowd.” (Question: isn’t that the same thing as the lower east side crowd?) More

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Hamptons residents and non-residents alike who have been denied parking stickers have been resorting to the black market, reports Dan’s Hamptons. One vigilant beach attendant spotted counterfeits of the “sought-after” stickers; one counterfeit version of which appeared to be scanned, without the telltale perforated edge of an authentic.

The problem is not unique to this season, reports Dan’s. Easthampton has been the victim of counterfeit stickers in the past, which resulted sticker innovation: stickers that change colors once removed from a windshield, thereby rendering it useless.

You’d think if you could afford a pricey summer rental, you could afford countless parking violations at $175 a pop. Maybe so, but the sticker is not just utilitarian; reports one parking attendant:

“I was approached by this guy in a Mercedes who was furious that he couldn’t get into ‘parking lot 1′ at Main Beach. He told me he’d be willing to pay a thousand dollars to get a sticker. I started to laugh at the guy, telling him that he’d be better off just paying the parking tickets, but he was serious. He told me there was no way that he was going to drive around with just a ‘regular’ sticker.”