The mood around the city, and especially at U.S. News & World Report and the New York Daily News yesterday morning, was that Mort had it in the bag.
  New York magazine would soon be his--or almost his--its ownership shared by a gaggle of notable and less notable investors assembled by the real estate tycoon turned publisher.
  David Pecker of American Media--think of him as Bonnie Fuller's boss--was still a contender, but less of one as Mort Zuckerman moved in to finish the deal.
  But then by late morning yesterday there was a flurry of new buzz that a dark horse had entered the bidding for New York magazine and that this bidder, Wall Street deal-maker Bruce Wasserstein, now had the city title in his bag, having wrested it away from Zuckerman with a stronger offer--$55 million, all in cash, and assumption of some debts.  
   And so it was to be.
   The bidding for New York had been going on for weeks and was speculated on for the many months leading up, but in a few short hours a player few had ever considered swept in and took the prize.
   Wasserstein apparently met with New York publisher Larry Burstein and editor Caroline Miller over the weekend, and then spent several hours hunkered down with Primedia's Henry Kravis to come up with a deal. He and Kravis were already quite well acquainted, as Wasserstein helped Primedia parent Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. acquire RJR Nabisco in 1988.
  By 5 p.m. yesterday Zuckerman's office was directing calls to in-house PR guy Ken Frydman, who issued this statement: "We wish Bruce Wasserstein all the best with New York magazine."
  Wasserstein, who has made fortunes on Wall Street, was also issuing statements, his promising to nurture back to its former vigor the magazine famed editor Clay Felker founded more than 30 years ago. The title has been in and out of the red and has suffered from an editorial drift in the years it was owned by Primedia, having lost much of the edge it once had under earlier owners such as Rupert Murdoch.
   Wasserstein, chairman of Lazard, had come in $10 million over Zuckerman's $45 million bid, making it a non-contest, even as the real estate tycoon came back late in the afternoon with a counter-bid. It was too late.
   Wasserstein, whose publishing interests include The New York Law Journal and American Lawyer, along with the Daily Deal, obviously saw more value in New York than Zuckerman, Pecker and all the others who had come in and dropped out over the months.
  Rather than seeing this as a prestige deal, as Zuckerman and Pecker apparently did, Wasserstein saw it as a business proposition and was thus willing to dig more money out, from his own pockets and not from an investment group, as Zuckerman had headed.
   Yesterday the New York Media Holdings LLC, with Wasserstein at the head, was sending out jubilant statements about the acquisition. Wasserstein certainly has the money for such an investment -- he sold Wassterstein Perrella & Co. in 2000 to Dresdner Bank for $1.4 billion before coming to Lazard last year.
   Wasserstein showed little hesitancy in plopping down more dollars, but determining just what New York's value is has been a toughie for all the contenders; the only thing anyone seemed to agree on was that it wasn't worth anywhere near the $80 million Primedia was looking for.
   According to the Publishers Information Bureau, New York's ad dollars were up 9.01 percent year to year in November, to $6.64 million, while pages were up 13.24 percent to 257.6, but the title is hardly the money pump of decades earlier.
  The real issue for investors was whether it could ever be again and, if so, at what cost?
  Much of the journalism invented at New York under Felker and honed by later editors such as Ed Kosner has been mainstreamed, appearing in daily newspapers and city magazines now for decades.
   Whoever bought the magazine would have to reinvent New York's editorial mission, which would mean canning much of the current editorial staff. It would also call for rebuilding the entire business side of the magazine.
   Joining Zuckerman in his failed bid for the magazine were ad executive Donny Deutsch, money manager Jeffrey Epstein, financier Nelson Peltz and Miramax's Harvey Weinstein, as well as non-cash contributor Michael Wolff, New York's media writer.
   Pecker received backing from Thomas H. Lee and Evercore.