All articles by Dana Schulz

May 12, 2016

Take a Hands-Free Selfie; First Hip Hop Museum May Open in the Bronx

Say goodbye to the selfie stick and use a “stick and shoot” camera instead. [Business Insider] The old Bronx courthouse may be turned into the Universal Hip Hop Museum. [CityLab] This graphic novel was inspired by a Williamsburg resident’s hellish L train commute. [DNAinfo] Check out Astor Place’s new design pavilion, sponsored by downtown supertall […]

May 11, 2016

NYC Must Produce 20,000 New Housing Units a Year to Keep Up With Exploding Population

The 2015 census puts New York City's population at a record high of 8.6 million. This is a 375,000-person increase from 2010, the biggest spike since the 1920s. The rise is attributed to the nearly 250,000 jobs that were created in 2014 and 2015, the $7.3 billion in venture capital present in the city in 2015 (the second-highest level ever), and record-breaking tourism that's created a boom in the hospitality industry. And of course, with more people comes the need for more places to put them, and Commercial Observer estimates that the city "needs to produce at least 20,000 new housing units each year just to keep pace with demand and population growth."
What does this mean for NYC's housing stock?
May 11, 2016

Lissoni Architettura Conceptualizes a Submerged Aquarium in the East River

By now we all know about the urban design fad of floating things in NYC's rivers (Pier55, +Pool, this island), but here's a concept for an under-water public space off Long Island City. Untapped took a look at this proposal for a submerged aquarium from Milan-based architecture firm Lissoni Architettura. Titled NYCAquatrium, it will likely never get built since it's just the winning entry in Arch Out Loud's ideas competition for a New York City aquarium and public waterfront, but it's certainly an innovative project.
See all the renderings and get more details
May 11, 2016

Furniture That References NYC Construction Sites; Do Calorie Counts Actually Make Us Eat Better?

This furniture collection references New York City construction details such as rebar, grid formations, and pinion elevators. [designboom] PlaceILive has new and improved features to help you find out which NYC neighborhoods best match your lifestyle. [6sqft inbox] Six years into Bloomberg’s controversial calorie count system, research shows that these labels have no affect on what New […]

May 11, 2016

The ‘One57 of Assisted Living’ Will Charge Seniors $20,000 a Month

Luxury isn't exactly the word that comes to mind when one thinks of a T.G.I. Friday's, or an assisted living development for that matter, but the chain restaurant's midtown location will soon yield the "One57 of Assisted Living." Bloomberg reports that Welltower Inc., the country's largest senior-housing owner by market value, teamed up with developer Hines (who is also behind the nearby MoMA Tower) to purchase the site at 56th Street and Lexington Avenue, just a few short blocks from Billionaires' Row and the prestige of Park Avenue, where they'll build a 15-story tower "to accommodate wealthy Manhattanites in need of assisted-living and memory-care services." And wealthy is not an understatement -- monthly rents will start at $20,000, and keep in mind that this isn't covered by insurance.
More details ahead
May 10, 2016

First Mansion Donald Trump Ever Owned Now Selling for $45M

When Donald Trump was rising up in the real estate ranks in the early '80s (and when he was still a Democrat), he and then-wife Ivana were looking for their first "trophy mansion." In 1982, they found it in this 5.8-acre Greenwich, Connecticut estate, paying $4 million for the home on its own peninsula. At the time, Trump was busy refurbishing the Plaza Hotel, so he and Ivana infused their new home with the same ornate style of gold leaf, massive chandeliers, and moldings galore. When the couple divorced in 1991, Ivana got the mansion (among many other properties and cash), but she sold it seven years later for $15 million to owners who made the property even more opulent, adding an indoor lap pool, sauna, tennis courts, and a 4,000-square-foot guest suite addition. These owners listed the property back in January for $54 million, but it's now gotten a price chop to $45 million, according to Top Ten Real Estate News.
Live like the Donald
May 9, 2016

Rafael Viñoly Admits 432 Park ‘Has a Couple of Screw-Ups’

432 Park Avenue is the supertall that New Yorkers love to hate. From calling it the "oligarch's erection" to spilling the beans about cracks in its facade, critics of the tallest residential building in the western hemisphere are quick to try to bring the tower down from its 1,400-foot pedestal. And strangely, its very own architect is the latest jump on the bandwagon. The Post reports that Rafael Viñoly admitted at a Douglas Elliman talk last week that his creation "has a couple of screw-ups," namely the window framing, which he blames on developer Harry Macklowe, and the tiny issue of "the interior design and layout." (And The Real Deal has an entire roundup of zingers he delivered during the talk.)
Find out more this way
May 9, 2016

Williamsburg Unsurprisingly Tops List of NYC’s 15 Fastest Gentrifying Neighborhoods

Williamsburg has become the poster child for the hipsterfication of Brooklyn and NYC gentrification in general, but behind the beards and beet smoothies are actual facts to back it up. NYU's Furman Center released a report that identifies the city's 15 gentrifying neighborhoods, out of 55 total, and finds that Williamsburg/Greenpoint comes in at number one (h/t DNAinfo). Of course, it's difficult to define gentrification, but the study looks at areas that were relatively low-income in 1990 (among the bottom 40% in the city), but experienced higher rent growth over the past 20 years than other neighborhoods, a trend that the Furman Center feels is of "greatest concern in lower-income neighborhoods." Williamsburg and Greenpoint had a startling 78.7 percent jump in rent over this time period, followed by Central Harlem at 53.2 percent and Chinatown/Lower East Side at 50.3 percent.
See the full list here
May 9, 2016

The Guggenheim Superimposed On a Struggling Colombian City Highlights Urban Identity

When Spanish photographer and artist Victor Enrich visited Rafael Uribe in Colombia, an urban area a few miles south of Bogotá, he was struck by how the struggling city was lively, yet full of contradictions (h/t Dezeen). The result of mismanaged migration patterns in the mid-20th century, the area now lacks an identity, with the younger generations focusing more on the mainstream Bogotan culture than their own heritage. Enrich's photography project titled "Rafael Uribe Uribe Existe," which superimposes New York's Guggenheim museum over the landscape of the Colombian city, highlights the "contrast between North and South American imagination." In doing so, he hopes to show how international cities with a high quality of life are those that protect their different communities instead of allowing them to vanish.
More photos and background
May 7, 2016

Weekly Highlights: Top Picks From the 6sqft Staff

$250M Penthouse at 220 Central Park South Will Officially Be NYC’s Most Expensive Apartment East River Skyway Proposal Gains Steam, Would Only Cost Riders $25/Month The Whole Foods Effect: Does the Green Grocery Increase Home Values? Pinball Prohibition: The Arcade Game Was Illegal in New York for Over 30 Years Live in Extell’s Hudson Yards […]

May 6, 2016

The Garden State of New York: Jerseyans Move to Manhattan and Brooklyn More Than Anyone

New Yorkers might want to stop hating on Jerseyans, because without the bridge and tunnel demographic the city would be a barren wasteland, at least according to this fun map from Very Small Array. First spotted by Brokelyn, the map uses census data to plot the state from which most people come in a given neighborhood (excluding those originally from New York). And as you can see, New Jersey makes up the majority of the city, followed not surprisingly by California. Florida, the third-place state, is a bit more unexpected, as is the fact that Mill Basin/Bergen Beach is full of Alaskans.
More data this way
May 5, 2016

$250M Penthouse at 220 Central Park South Will Officially Be NYC’s Most Expensive Apartment

For over a year, it's been a guessing game with just how expensive 220 Central Park South's penthouse will actually be. Initial murmurings put the price at $175 million, but later reports that claimed hedge fund tycoon Ken Griffin was the buyer upped it to $200 million. The guessing is over, though, as The Real Deal has obtained an amended offering plan filed with the New York Attorney General, which shows that the 23,000-square-foot, four-floor "billionaire's bunker" will cost a mind-boggling $250 million (or $11,000 per square foot), making it by far the city's most expensive apartment.
Check out the insane floorplans
May 5, 2016

Author Ta-Nehisi Coates Buys $2.1M Brooklyn Brownstone; Why NYC Has So Many Tulips

Atlantic writer and MacArthur Genius Grant winner Ta-Nehisi Coates bought a landmarked Prospect-Lefferts Gardens brownstone for $2.1 million. [NYP] Tour the 25 indoor and 12 outdoor venues for this summer’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics via Google Maps. [Refinery 29] For the first time in 40 years, a new brewery opens in Bushwick. [Edible Brooklyn] Take a look around NYC […]

May 4, 2016

East River Skyway Proposal Gains Steam, Would Only Cost Riders $25/Month

With public meetings about the impending L train shutdown beginning this week, much of the conversation is centered around alternate ways to shuttle people between downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. One solution is the East River Skyway, an aerial gondola system that would run along the Brooklyn waterfront and into Manhattan, bringing commuters over the river in just 3.5 minutes. The proposal from Dan Levy, president and CEO of CityRealty*, first surfaced in 2014, then referencing the Brooklyn development boom that will bring tens of thousands of new residential units to the borough in the coming years. But now with a possible years-long shutdown of the L, along with skyrocketing subway ridership, the Skyway is drumming up support from investors, DNA Info reports. Levy told 6sqft, "We've completed some preliminary engineering and design work around the cars and the stations and how they could meld with their respective locations — and more broadly the city skyline. Given their high visibility we want to be context sensitive." He also revealed that, although the project would cost up to $134 million (per estimate from engineers), an unlimited monthly pass would cost only $25.
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May 4, 2016

Jane Jacobs Google Doodle; WTC Transportation Hub Getting a Massive LED Billboard

Marking her 100th birthday, legendary preservationist Jane Jacobs gets the Google Doodle treatment. [Gothamist] And here’s all the NYC apartments she lived in. [Untapped] Obama is considering making Christopher Park, located right across from the Stonewall Inn, a national monument to the gay rights movement. [NYT] There’s now a dedicated bathroom for dogs at JFK Airport. […]

May 3, 2016

The Whole Foods Effect: Does the Green Grocery Increase Home Values?

Fairway Market, considered by many the quintessential New York City supermarket, filed for bankruptcy yesterday, citing competition from "natural, organic and prepared food rivals" and "online ordering and home delivery services," according to the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps their biggest threats are Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, which both seem to be in a very different boat. Yahoo! Finance looked at data of four million homes in the U.S. that are located in a zip code with either one of these stores, "finding that average property values in a ZIP code with Trader Joe's appreciated by about 40 percent since they were purchased, while homes with a Whole Foods in the ZIP code appreciated by nearly 34 percent." The reasoning is quite simple -- people will pay a premium for the convenience of being near their favorite stores. And proximity to a store like Whole Foods, often thought of as more high-end than other grocery stores, adds an air of prestige to a neighborhood. But the science behind it is a bit of a chicken or the egg situation -- does a retailer directly affect home values, or are these companies able to identify locations where they'll generate the most interest?
Find out this way
May 3, 2016

Average Condo Sale in Manhattan Reaches $2.9M, Setting New Record

For the second quarter in a row, average condo sales prices in Manhattan are breaking records. The first three months of 2016 saw $4.59 billion in aggregate sales, breaking the previous record of $4.57 billion that was set last quarter, according to data from CityRealty. The average sales price topped out at $2.9 million, also significantly higher than last quarter's $2.5 million. These figures aren't surprising considering 24 percent of all condo sales during the beginning of this year were at or above $10 million, with new luxury developments like 432 Park Avenue, The Greenwich Lane, and 150 Charles Street accounting for the uptick.
More stats this way
May 2, 2016

Hedge Funder Daniel Nir’s $52M Co-op Sale Is This Year’s Biggest

When Daniel Nir, founder and CEO of hedge fund Gracie Capital, and his wife, philanthropist Jill Braufman, listed their sprawling Upper East Side co-op for $48 million a year ago, it certainly caught raised a few eyebrows. But the 16-room home at 4 East 66th Street has actually sold over ask for $52 million, making it this year's biggest co-op sale and the seventh biggest co-op sale to date. It's also the first time this pre-war building has cracked the top-ten list. The couple bought the home in 2007 from hotelier Robert H. Burns for $29 million, leaving them with a nice chunk of change.
See what all the fuss is about
May 2, 2016

Interactive Map Shows How Your Neighborhood Has Recovered From the Housing Market Crash

Most Americans are finally starting to feel a bit of relief that the economy is getting back on its feet, but when it comes to the housing market, it's not as cut and dry as we might think. Analyzing data from Black Knight Financial Services from 2004 to 2015 (the bubble, burst, and recovery), the Washington Post asserts that the country's housing arc has only worsened inequality. "It also helps explain why the economic recovery feels incomplete, especially in neighborhoods where the value of housing — often the biggest family asset — has recovered little, if at all," they explain. For example, an average single-family home gained less than 14 percent in value over the past 11 years, but homes in the nation's priciest neighborhoods have gained 21 percent. And interestingly, in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, an area that saw a huge gentrification push during this time period, single-family home values have tripled and risen by 194 percent -- the largest increase of any metro area in the country. The Post has taken the data and compiled it into an interactive map that lets users simply input a zipcode to see how the area has fared.
More national and local trends ahead
May 1, 2016

A New York Minute With Tribeca Gallery Owner and Preservationist Hal Bromm

Hal Bromm landed in Tribeca in the early '70s. He started out working for an architecture firm, but eventually returned to his fine art roots, opening the neighborhood's first contemporary art gallery. It was here in 1981 that Keith Haring had his first solo exhibition, an event that's often credited with his rise to fame. In the '80s, Hal also became involved in historic preservation, successfully advocating for the designation of four Tribeca historic districts and helping to form the Tribeca Trust. The Hal Bromm Gallery is still operating on West Broadway and Chambers Street and now that the hype surrounding its 40th anniversary exhibition has subsided, 6sqft had the chance to chat with Hal about his love for the city past and present.
Hal's NY Minute this way