Just two blocks away from the new Second Avenue subway stop at 96th Street is this very adorable duplex co-op. It’s located at 226 East 95th Street, in Yorkville, a small 29-unit elevator cooperative. This particular apartment last sold in 2014 for $475,000 and is now asking $575,000. A spiral staircase from a brick-walled living room leads up to the single bedroom, which has a sliding door out to the lush private terrace.

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“Master builder” Robert Moses–he of the 13 expressways that crisscross New York City–spent the 1970s living with his wife, Mary Grady Moses, in a three-bedroom co-op at 1 Gracie Terrace in Yorkville on Manhattan’s Upper East Side (h/t NYPost). We can see how the home’s sweeping river views would inspire the subject of Robert Caro’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York,” when pondering the conflicting issues of a complicated and changing city. The apartment is now for sale asking $1.95 million.

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Growing up at the turn of the century on the Lower East Side, which was then home to the Yiddish Rialto (the largest Yiddish theater in the world at the time), is how legendary Hollywood songwriter Irving Berlin was first exposed to music and theater. But later in life, he moved his family uptown, first to Sutton Place and then to 130 East End Avenue, an Emory Roth-designed co-op in Yorkville right across from Carl Schurz Park. He lived in the penthouse duplex, which biographer Laurence Bergreen described as “a formal, stately dwelling with impressive views of the East River,” from 1931 to 1944. Now, the still-stately and “One of a Kind” home has just hit the market for $7.9 million.

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Yorkville has long been considered one of Manhattan’s more affordable uptown neighborhoods–although that’s been changing in recent years–but here’s a neighborhood pad that’s not priced too high. For $695,000 you’ll get a one-bedroom duplex within the historic brownstone at 421 East 84th Street. The upper floor boasts two large windows and a wood burning fireplace, while the lower level has enough space to fit a king-sized bed and other furniture. Plus, it’s located just a few blocks away from the new Second Avenue subway station at 86th Street.

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Ricky Martin might’ve gotten a bit too optimistic about Yorkville‘s Second Avenue Subway-influenced real estate boom, as Mansion Global reports that he’s chopped the price of his condo at 170 East End Avenue from $8.4 million to $7.1 million after just five months. This isn’t the first time the Latin pop star has had trouble unloading NYC real estate; in 2012 he put his condo in Noho’s 40 Bond on the rental market for $28,000/month. In 2014, he listed it for $8.3 million, but it didn’t find a buyer until a year and half later when it sold for the reduced price of $7.55 million.

Will he have better luck in Yorkville?

Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s chief of staff, said Friday that Governor Andrew Cuomo was “cautiously optimistic” about a December opening for the long-awaited Second Avenue subway project, according to AM New York. After several weekly visits to the under-construction 72nd Street site, the governor appeared confident that the MTA would be able to meet the project’s December 31 deadline. U.S. representative Carolyn Maloney had also expressed confidence in the Second Avenue subway meeting its year-end deadline.

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There are just seven weeks left for the MTA to wrap works on the 2nd Avenue Subway if they want to meet their December 31st deadline. According to the Times, at yesterday’s MTA board meeting, officials relayed that an “unprecedented” effort would be required in order to wrap Phase 1 of the project on time.

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MTA Chairman Thomas Prendergast is hoping to squash rumors that the Second Avenue Subway (SAS) will miss its December opening date. As Prendergast told the Times on Friday, “[we want to show riders] we live up to our promises” and that they are “now within striking distance of having it done.” The chairman’s remarks incidentally coincide with some newly unearthed information from the Daily News, who also reported Friday that the agency spent a week shaving down parts of the new subway tunnel wall because 75-foot train cars couldn’t fully clear curves.

more info from the MTA here

Andrew H. Madoff, the son of Bernie Madoff who passed away from cancer in 2014, lived in a full-floor, five-bedroom apartment at 433 East 74th Street on the Upper East Side. He bought the sprawling condo in 2008 for $4.37 million, and initially tried to rent it in 2012 for $25,000/month. After his death, it went on the market for $5.87 million in February of this year, and according to city records, it’s now found a buyer for $5.39 million.

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