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This is some good Herbert gossip (note: Aric Chen, quoted below, is the gossip columnist for The Architect's Newspaper. And this lawsuit is apparently 'the straw that broke the camel's back' with Herbert and his leading role at the Times). He is so self-destructive. I actually find it sad:
"And now, a word from Off the Record [NY Observer] architecture correspondent Gabriel Sherman:
On Sept. 12, Suzanne Stephens, a special correspondent for Architectural Record, was boarding Delta Airlines Flight 145 traveling back to New York from the Venice Biennale, and found she was seated in the same middle row as 56-year-old former architecture critic of The New York Times Herbert Muschamp.
Ms. Stephens, author of the just-published Imagining Ground Zero: The Official and Unofficial Proposals for the World Trade Center Site, and Mr. Muschamp came to blows earlier this year, when Ms. Stephens tried to include in her book architects who had contributed to a special issue of The New York Times Magazine that pulled together plans for the World Trade Center site, and which Mr. Muschamp had curated. Fellow Times reporter Julie Iovine was seated one row behind.
According to Ms. Stephens, upon realizing the pending seating arrangements, Mr. Muschamp promptly turned to Ms. Stephens and declared: "Would you mind switching seats with Julie [Iovine] so I don’t have to look at your fucking face?"
To which Ms. Stephens said she retorted, "Certainly, and may you rot in hell!"
The verbal volleys drew the attention of nearby passengers, according to sources on the flight. A woman from Croatia jumped up and said, "Well, it looks like you all know each other!" Other passengers sneaked curious looks towards Mr. Muschamp and Ms. Stephens.
"Herbert was already sitting down when I got to my row, and he turned and without saying hello, that’s when it happened," Ms. Stephens told Off the Record. "He told me, ‘Do you mind switching seats with Julie, so I don’t have to look at your fucking face?’ That’s when I answered back."
Neither Mr. Muschamp nor Ms. Iovine returned calls for comment before press time.
Eventually, Ms. Stephens and Ms. Iovine swapped seats, and then Mr. Muschamp and Ms. Iovine traded seats again before take off. Once the musical chairs between the smarting journalists subsided, the parties settled in for the flight, in which architects Jessie Reiser, Nanako Umemoto, Enrique Norten, Preston Scott Cohen, MoMA curator Paola Antonelli and director Spike Lee were also on board.
Aric Chen, a contributing editor at Surface Magazine and a design writer who has penned pieces for GQ and Elle Decor, was also on the plane, seated in the aisle across from the developing fracas.
"Throughout the entire flight, Herbert had this creepy smirk on his face. He had the look of someone who was unraveling," Mr. Chen said. "It was kind of a zombie-ish, smug little smirk."
According to a source familiar with the dispute between Ms. Stephens and Mr. Muschamp, it all began in February of this year, when Mr. Muschamp learned Ms. Stephens was preparing the book. Mr. Muschamp was reportedly furious that Ms. Stephens had contacted the architects in the Times Magazine spread—many of them his personal friends—without approaching him first. This winter, the two sides ratcheted up the legal rhetoric, with Ms. Stephens’ lawyer issuing a letter threatening to sue Mr. Muschamp for tortious interference and Mr. Muschamp threatening legal action of his own. The two sides finally reached an accord this spring, but by that time, most of the architects in the Times Magazine package declined to participate in Imagining Ground Zero.
"The Times was prevented from being represented in the book by one of their employees, and the project couldn’t show all the work of something The Times had sponsored, because of the machinations of one of their employees," a source involved in the proceedings said.
"You know, it’s funny—I guess I felt I was doing the right thing all along, no matter how horrible it got," said Ms. Stephens. "I wasn’t doing something I didn’t think was right. These architects had done a lot of work, and they deserved to be in this project." Then she added: "But I’m not confused or upset. For Herbert, it’s a power thing."
—Gabriel Sherman
via (frequent contributer to this page) Selma