This Carroll Gardens townhouse may be the only one in Brooklyn that lays claim to a “natural” swimming pool in its backyard. It was renovated with eco-friendly features in mind and you can experience it yourself through Airbnb for $1,395 a night. Three floors overlook ecologically landscaped gardens and water features that include a natural pond with native fish and turtles. Atop the house is a green roof with its own pergola. And inside, the home is decked out with antique wood floors, clay walls, and large sunny rooms with views of the surrounding greenery.

Check out the natural pool

View to the southwest of the Empire State Building with a conceptual 928-foot-tall tower at the site of 262 Fifth Avenue.

A near supertall skyscraper is coming to Nomad, according to a recent Department of Buildings filing for 262 Fifth Avenue. Boris Kuzinez, an Israeli-Russian billionaire, submitted plans last week for a 54-story, 928-foot-tall mixed-use tower on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 29th Street where a trio of pre-war buildings currently stand. The tower will certainly make a dent on the NYC skyline, and will be the tallest structure between Midtown and Downtown if it wraps before several other projects now in the works.

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If you want to know when and where you can experience autumn in all its glory, look no further than this incredible map from SmokyMountains.com. The predictive map is the ingenious creation of Wes Melton, an engineer who developed a complex algorithm that can compute several million data points—ranging from historical temperatures to historical precipitation and forecast temperatures—to forecast exactly when fall will reach its fiery perfection in any given county across the United States.

Give the interactive map a try here

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• Turkey has officially files permits for a new, 35-story consulate and residential tower at the corner of 46th Street and First Avenue. [Yimby]
• One woman reveals the dirty secrets she found out after cleaning fancy Manhattan apartments. [Guardian]
• Donald Trump’s fortune is down to $3.7 billion, down $800 million from last year, due in large part to a softening of New York City’s retail and commercial real estate market. [Forbes]
• ActiClean may look like your ordinary toilet, but it has a hidden control panel to self clean itself. [Architizer]
• Attend a panel discussion and public forum on the future of Penn Station. [Untapped]

Last 6sqft checked on the rental building at 247 Cherry Street (since renamed 80 Rutgers Slip) in the Two Bridges area of the Lower East Side, it was revealed that the tower would rise to 1,000 feet, not surprising considering it comes from the supertall power team of JDS Development and SHoP Architects. And now, after a Community Board 3 meeting earlier this week where JDS and SHoP addressed the controversial project, CityRealty.com brings a new set of renderings that show close-ups of the 77-story building’s green terra cotta facade and sky decks.

Check out all the new views

As 6sqft previously reported, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced plans early this week for a $1.6 billion overhaul of Penn Station, and further details revealed that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would be responsible for $150 of the project’s costs. Since those plans were released, questions have been raised about where that organization’s share of the tab would be coming from in an already stretched budget.

So where is this money coming from?

Anyone who’s been around long enough to remember what the East Village used to be like–before the days of shiny condos and SoulCycle–might say this rather romantic little 425-square-foot co-op studio at 88 East Third Street is just about as old school as you can get without having your bathtub in the kitchen. Yes, there’s a Starbucks on the corner, but this quintessentially quirky-cool block is still home to the infamous Hell’s Angels East Village clubhouse at number 77 (right next door to the New York Law School dorm). They won’t cause you any trouble, but those bad boys still ride, so we hope you like the sound of motorcycle engines.

Get a closer look

Way back in February 2015, 3 Pierrepont Place hit the market for $40 million, making it Brooklyn’s most expensive listing ever. The Brooklyn Heights Promenade mansion boasts 17,500 square feet, 15 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, and more than 9,000 square feet of garden and outdoor space, in addition to a wealth of period details. Plus it comes with a bit of historic pedigree; it was built in 1857 as the Low Mansion for businessman A.A. Low, whose son, Seth Low, became mayor of Brooklyn, mayor of New York City in 1902, and president of Columbia. Perhaps it’s all these bragging rights that attracted Matt Damon, as the Post reports that he and wife Luciana Barroso recently toured the grand property.

See the entire mansion

Just last week, the first building at Two Trees’ three million-square-foot Domino Sugar Refinery mega-development topped out. The 16-story, $200 million tower at 325 Kent Avenue was designed by SHoP Architects, the same firm responsible for the entire Williamsburg project’s master plan, and features a two-winged scheme with a central courtyard. It’ll hold a whopping 522 rental units, 104 of which will be reserved for individuals earning less than 40 percent of the area media income. As of today, these affordable apartments are up for grabs through the city’s housing lottery, where availability ranges from $596/month studios to $979/month two-bedrooms.

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During the Second World War the United States (and other European nations) experienced significant food shortages, as the majority of the country’s food supply was being sent overseas to aid in the war effort. In response, government organizations encouraged citizens to plant “victory gardens” to help ease the burden. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson said “Food will win the war,” and launched through the Bureau of Education a United States Garden Army. The program, funded by the War Department, began in 1943 and urbanites living in New York City collectively grabbed their shovels to adorn the bare concrete streets with a far more plentiful kind of landscaping.

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Before buying a penthouse at Tribeca’s 92 Laight Street in 2004 for $9 million, three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep called this lovely townhouse in Greenwich Village home. She purchased the five-story brick residence at 19 West 12th Street for $2.1 million in 1995, and then sold it 10 years later for $9.1 million to heiress Libet Johnson, according to LL NYC. Built in 1895, the home retained much of its historic detail when Streep resided there, but it’s since been given an uber-contemporary makeover, most notably the Calacatta marble master bathroom that the listing describes as “unequivocally one of the most sensational in the city.”

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If you can’t keep up with your dog’s demands for yet another game of fetch, this gizmo could save your throwing arm. The iFetch flings balls from between 10 to 39 feet (depending on the model) and it can even be operated by your pooch. All your dog has to do is drop the ball into the funnel and wait for it to shoot out the front. The device is powered by batteries or electricity and each model has three distance settings, which can be selected via the press of a button. Shira Klazmer, marketing manager of iFetch, explains why pets love iFetch.

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• Does celebrity status help sell a high-end home? [Inman]
• Ample Hills Creamery released two candidate-inspired flavors: Madam President, chili pepper chocolate with Hillary’s own oatmeal chocolate chip cookies; and Make America Orange Again, orange marshmallow with brownie bricks. [TONY]
• The street corner of Nathan’s Famous on Coney Island was renamed for the hot dog stand’s founders. [NYDN]
• The top 10 secrets of Calvary Cemetery in Queens, the largest in the U.S. [Untapped]
• Photographing all 211 New York Public Library branches. [Fast Co. Design]

Via Ample Hills Creamery (L)

On a quiet block of Prospect-Lefferts Gardens–lined with similar round-fronted row houses and low-rise brick apartments–this thoughtfully-renovated, 20-foot-wide limestone townhouse is move-in ready, no contractor required. Asking $1.95 million, 176 Lefferts Avenue changed hands in 2014 for $1.6 million, and just before that in 2013 for $830,000 to a local developer–so you can see how much property values in this neighborhood have changed in recent years. Though the home has been renovated for use as a one-family, it’s legally a two-family if you wanted to take advantage of the income–or other expansion–potential.

Explore all three floors

It’s full steam ahead for SL Green‘s new Midtown supertall, One Vanderbilt. Early this morning the developer announced it had closed on $1.5 billion in financing for its 1,401-foot, full-block office tower slated to rise directly adjacent to Grand Central Terminal. As SL Green Managing Director, Robert Schiffer expressed in a statement: “Closing on the construction financing means that nothing stands in the way of One Vanderbilt becoming an iconic addition to the Manhattan skyline.”

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For NYC renters who don’t have a parent or well-to-do friend who can guarantor their apartment, getting on a lease can be a challenge. In addition to wanting a credit score of at least 700 and looking at bank statements, landlords usually want to see that a prospective tenant’s annual income is 40 times greater than one month’s rent. If that’s not the case, their guarantor must earn a whopping 80 times the monthly rent. Aware of this hardship in a country where rents have risen 20 percent over the last five years, a new financial startup hopes to help clear these hurdles. As noted by the Wall Street Journal, TheGuarantors sells payment insurance to tenants, which gives landlords a guarantee that they’ll still be paid if the tenant fails to meet rent.

More info ahead

With its giant windows and 808-square-foot landscaped backyard, this Williamsburg condo marries indoor and outdoor space quite well. Located at 550 Grand Street, the two-bedroom duplex spans over 1,500 square feet and has just hit the market for nearly $2 million. Big windows that front the backyard bring a tremendous amount of light into the pad, including the lower-level bedroom area. And although 550 Grand is an older brick building, the interior has been completely redone with a modern, sleek aesthetic.

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