March 13, 2008 — There’s something about the apartment that Cameron Diaz has bought in the West Village - it took her forever to find it. After searching for more than a year, including showing up at numerous open houses, the leggy blond actress has settled on a two-bedroom pad on West 12th Street.

The five-room renovated residence in a prewar doorman building, with an asking price just under $3 million, includes a large living room with a fireplace, a study, eat-in kitchen, panoramic views, several closets and high ceilings.

The “Shrek” and “There’s Something About Mary” star, whose main residence is in Los Angeles, had been renting a West Village loft, which she found while filming in the city in 2006.

Brooke takes a look

It’s a “Lipstick Jungle” out there, and Brooke Shields wants in. The current star of Candace Bushnell’s success-in-the-city TV show is looking at townhouses in NYC. Sources tell us the original pretty baby and her “Entourage” writer husband Chris Henchy were recently checking out a four-bedroom townhouse on West 20th Street with close to a $7 million asking price.

The 25-foot-wide house is one of a number of row houses on the block between Ninth and 10th avenues, across the street from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal church. Fellow thespian Ethan Hawke is an owner of one of the houses on the block.

Shields and Henchy, who also live on the West Coast, already have an apartment further downtown.

Moving Van Zandt

As we first reported, rocker/actor Steven Van Zandt and his wife (in real life and on “The Sopranos”), Maureen, bid on a condo in a converted church in the West Village known as Novare.

Now we see from city records that their bid was accepted and they have closed on the penthouse on West Fourth Street for $6 million.>PAGE 1>

(01-08) 13:49 PST LAS VEGAS, (AP) —

How many more gadgets do we need to help us pretend to play guitar? At least one, apparently.

The makers of the “Guitar Hero” video game have licensed their name to a $30 toy called Guitar Hero Air Rocker that combines a magnetic guitar pick and a belt buckle with a mini-amplifier.

After the player chooses one of 10 included riffs Д from songs like “Smoke on the Water” and “More than a Feeling” Д the toy captures the rhythm of the player moving the pick past magnetic coils in the buckle, without ever actually touching it, and broadcasts the riff.

Wearing a T-shirt and sunglasses, toy director Brandon Giraldez of Jada Toys in City of Industry, Calif., drew cameras and large crowds with his emphatic air guitar playing at the ShowStoppers media event outside the Consumer Electronics Show.

Giraldez said Air Rocker is intended to latch onto “the air guitar phenomenon.”

The product will be available at major retailers in March. Expansion packs with more songs will be sold later, Giraldez said.

March 13, 2008 — THE Meatpacking District might be aflutter with new retail and restaurants, but with progress comes pain. Many pioneers credited with jump-starting the neighborhood , including popular eatery Florent, now find themselves unable to afford the rising rents.

“What we had escaped in SoHo began here very rapidly. It became a fashion center rather than a gallery center,” says Michael Heller, co-owner with his brother Douglas of the Heller Gallery on 14th Street.

The Hellers moved here in 1998, expecting it to become the southern tip of Chelsea’s art scene. But years passed, rents went up and now theirs is one of only a few galleries left.

“Since Pastis opened [in 1999], rents have quadrupled,” says Robert Futterman of retail-leasing firm Robert K. Futterman and Associates. “Rents have been as high as $400 to $500 a square foot.”

“The Apple store alone doubled rents,” says Andre Balazs, developer of The Standard, NYC.

With rents surging in the area, many prime locations are too pricey even for popular restaurants or clubs.

“We’re lucky, we have nine years left on [our] lease,” Lotus owner David Rabin says about his 14th Street space. “But one fear I have, in all honesty, is that in seven or eight years when [other] leases run out, I think it will be hard for the food and beverage operators to afford the leases . . . In the future it might just be the hotels and the retail.”

So what’s next? Best Buy? Starbucks?

“I don’t think there would be a Best Buy,” Balazs says. “The area will likely remain very high-end. But there might be a Starbucks.”