All articles by Dana Schulz

June 8, 2015

Fill Your Home with the Scent of ‘Hot Garbage Radiance’ and Other Summertime City Fragrances

Before you get too excited (which we really hope you're not), let us tell you that these candles don't actually exist. They're a funny series from Mashable that parodies the stench of the city during a season when pleasant candle scents like "ocean breeze" and "fresh-cut peonies" take over shelves. While NYC doesn't generally smell like roses, the heat and humidity do a fine job at intensifying all of the gag-inducing odors one encounters while navigating a typical day. Candle scents illustrated here include Underfed Alley Cat Seduction, Eau du Subway Passenger, Rotting Produce, Formerly Fresh Baked Pizza, and a Gentle Gust of Garbage Truck, among some even more horrendous offenders.
Check the rest out here
June 6, 2015

Weekly Highlights: Top Picks from the 6sqft Staff

A Trashcan Inspired the Design of Rafael Viñoly’s 432 Park Avenue $18 Million Townhouse in Greenwich Village Will Speak to Your Inner Historian and Artist Interior Renderings Revealed for Central Park South’s Brand New 1,210-Foot Supertall Bjarke Ingels Confirmed to Replace Norman Foster in the Design of 2 World Trade Center Elizabeth Roberts Brings Light […]

June 5, 2015

QUIZ: Play 6sqft Trivia to Test Your Knowledge of NYC History, Architecture, and Real Estate

On Tuesday, 6sqft celebrated its first birthday with a party attended by some of our biggest supporters and readers. The evening included an intense three-round game of trivia, where our guests tested their knowledge of New York City history, architecture and real estate. Some of the questions stumped all ten teams, while others turned out to be well-known factoids. Didn't make it to the party? We've created an online version of our trivia game just for you. No Googling allowed!
TAKE THE QUIZ
June 5, 2015

Pier55 Floating Park Gets New Renderings and Updated Design Details

Back in April, the city introduced a plan B for Barry Diller's Pier 55 floating park, but it was far less exciting than the original futuristic design. Thankfully, the latest set of renderings, revealed by Curbed, show that the whimsical nature of the park hasn't gone anywhere. Mathews Nielsen, the landscape architect for the project who is working with designer Thomas Heatherwick, unveiled the latest set of images at a meeting this week. They take into account concerns from the local community board, including its height (the platform will now be 62 feet at its highest point as opposed to 70), circulation (the winding pathways are being designed with congestion in mind), and the issue of people jumping off (the periphery will be lined with shrubbery and a fence).
More details ahead
June 4, 2015

Cobble Hill Townhouse Sets Record for Most Expensive Home Sale in Brooklyn at $15.5M

You know the real estate market is getting shaken up when Brooklynites are abandoning their beloved borough for the cheaper island of Manhattan. And today's record breaker just goes to show how hot Brooklyn is right now. The Daily News reports that the super-modernized Cobble Hill carriage house at 177 Pacific Street sold for $15.5 million, setting the record for most expensive home sale ever in the borough. The four-story, six-bedroom house takes the top spot from Truman Capote's former home at 70 Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights, which sold in 2012 for $12.5 million.
More details about this Brooklyn record breaker
June 3, 2015

Starchitecture Firm Snøhetta Will Design Vornado’s Penn Station Area Overhaul

Back in April, we learned that Vornado Realty Trust was hoping to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into revitalizing the Penn Station area with new retail space, public plazas, and other infrastructure. Now, Crain's reports that the developer has tapped Oslo-based starchitecture firm Snøhetta to handle the overhaul's master plan, the same architects responsible for the 9/11 Memorial Museum Pavilion and the public plaza in Times Square. Snøhetta will be responsible for creating a "framework" for both Vornado's Penn Plaza buildings and the surrounding street-level spaces. And in a similar vein to the recently approved One Vanderbilt scheme at Grand Central, the master plan will include closing off part of West 33rd to vehicular traffic in the hopes of creating a permanent pedestrian plaza near Madison Square Garden.
More details and specifics on the street closures ahead
June 3, 2015

How Does the One WTC Observatory Stack Up Against the World’s Highest Tourist Spots?

It was a big day in New York City last Friday, when the One World Trade Center Observatory officially opened to the public, welcoming New Yorkers and tourists alike to the top of the tallest building in North America. While the view from 1,250 feet up in the air seems like the apex of the world, the folks over at the Skyscraper Museum put together this fun infographic, which compares the highest publicly-accessible tourist spaces around the world, including observation decks, bars, restaurants, and other sky-high thrills. Turns out, the One World Trade Observatory ranks 9th for observation decks and 11th for all publicly-accessible spaces.
More details ahead
June 3, 2015

POLL: Can Snøhetta Transform Manhattan’s Most-Hated Area?

Earlier today, we learned that Vornado Realty Trust tapped Oslo-based starchitecture firm Snøhetta to create a master plan for the redesign of the Penn Station area. Even the developer referred to Manhattan’s most-hated and most-congested location as “the collision of humanity.” But Snøhetta worked their magic creating the Times Square pedestrian plaza, so we want to know if […]

June 3, 2015

Extell May Build Brooklyn’s Tallest Tower at City Point

Extell, the development company best known for gobbling up billionaires' row sites and building supertall towers like One57, is venturing into Brooklyn, a place they've long avoided. The New York Times reports that Extell has bought the last development site at City Point, a huge, mixed-use complex in Downtown Brooklyn that will include residential and retail space, and, of course, a massive food hall. Extell will pay $120 million for the city-owned property, on which they will likely build a 500-unit rental building. What's more noteworthy than Extell's move into the borough, though, is the fact that the tower could reach 60 stories, according to Extell president Gary Barnett, which would make it the tallest building in Brooklyn.
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June 2, 2015

Wake Up to the Smell of a Hot Croissant or Cut Grass with This Olfactory Alarm Clock

Caffeine fiends were pretty excited when we featured the Bariseur, a hybrid coffee brewer-alarm clock that wakes you up with a fresh cup of Joe. But what if you're not a coffee drinker or if some mornings you'd prefer to rise with the aroma of the seaside rather than espresso? Don't worry, we've got you covered. SensorWake is a scent-based alarm clock that wakes you up with the aroma of chocolate instead of the sound of a blaring horn. It uses interchangeable scent cartridges that include the aforementioned seaside and chocolate, coffee, of course, hot croissants, peaches, rose, peppermint, and, curiously, dollars, among others. Each cartridge is good for about 60 wake-up calls, and the company claims it will have your eyes open in two minutes. If you're still snoozing in three minutes, a traditional sound-based alarm will go off.
Watch the product video and learn more here
June 2, 2015

Jewelry Designer Asks $1.3M for Rego Park Condo Decked out in Gold and Crystal

Experts recently said that NYC apartments are a better investment than gold. But how does the formula work out when the apartment is dripping in gold? A Queens-based jewelry designer spent $150,000 to outfit her Rego Park condo with glittering and gilded touches like door handles made of Swarovski crystals, walls and ceilings painted with crystal dust, 24k white gold leaf mosaics on the kitchen backsplash and columns and gold-plated bathroom fixtures. And she appropriately named her home the Jewelry Box. DNAinfo reports that the apartment, located at the Millennium 99 luxury condo at 63-36 99th Street, has hit the market for $1,288,886, which might be the highest asking price to date in the neighborhood.
Check out the opulent pad here
June 1, 2015

VIDEO: Driving Around NYC in the 1920s Was a Dangerous Task

I didn't. It's a gift. Next time you're holding on for dear life in the back of a taxi, watch a few seconds of this video and you'll likely feel a bit better about your fate. In this 1928 parody of what bad drivers New Yorkers are (some things never change), actor Harold Lloyd, famous for his silent comedy films, assumes the role of a city cab driver who takes passengers on a bumpy ride, dodging street-level trains and weaving in and out of traffic. We then see that the alternative modes of transportation, horse and carriage or bus, are just as dangerous.
Watch the full video here
June 1, 2015

UWS Co-op of the Late Andy Rooney Lists for $2.4M

We had some celebrity action at 522 West End Avenue just a couple weeks ago when we discovered that "Girls" star Zosia Mamet bought a rather unimpressive apartment in the building. And we've now learned from the Journal that the former home of the late Andy Rooney, legendary "60 Minutes" anchor, has hit the market for $2.385 million. The two-bedroom, ninth-floor co-op is quite lovely, but what's really going to attract potential buyers is the collection of Mr. Rooney's wood art pieces–like the dining room table and headboards–on display throughout the home. He was an avid woodworker in his free time, and the staging and brokerage teams decided to utilize his creations. They've also included photos of Rooney and his typewriter. Unfortunately, none of these mementos come with the apartment.
Take a look around
May 30, 2015

May’s 10 Most-Read Stories and This Week’s Features

May’s 10 Most-Read Stories New York Times Columnist Frank Bruni Nabs a Broadway Corridor Pad for $1.65M New Renzo Piano-Designed Residential Tower to Rise in Soho Go Inside 190 Bowery This Saturday for an Art Opening Bradley Cooper Scopes Out an $8.5M Three-Bedroom in Tribeca’s Hubert Live in Eleanor Roosevelt’s Historic Townhouse for $18M Paul […]

May 29, 2015

Fantasy Floorplans Bring to Life Your Favorite TV Show Homes from ‘Friends’ to ‘Mad Men’

Do you get distracted watching your favorite television shows because you're too busy trying to figure out Don Draper's address or how the heck Monica and Rachel afford that massive Greenwich Village apartment? If so, we've got the perfect piece of wall art for you. Fantasy Floorplans (h/t Bezar) are hand-drawn blueprints of the apartments and homes in your favorite TV shows. From "Friends" to "Mad Men" to "Sex and the City" to "The Jeffersons," tons of popular NYC-based television shows are included. And for our friends outside the big apple, the floorplans cover locations throughout the country from shows that aired as far back as the 1950s.
Find out more ahead
May 28, 2015

How the Whitney Installed an Invisible Flood Barrier After Hurricane Sandy

For the past few months, all eyes have been on the new Whitney. From architecture reviews of Renzo Piano's modern museum to insider looks at the galleries, New Yorkers can't stop talking about the design of this game-changing structure. It wasn't all sunshine and roses for the building, though. In 2012, halfway through construction, Hurricane Sandy flooded the museum with more than five million gallons of water, causing the architects to rethink the site. The Whitney now boasts a custom flood-mitigation system that was "designed like a submarine," according to engineer Kevin Schorn, one of Piano's assistants. As The Atlantic reports, the system has a 15,500-pound water-tight door that was designed by engineers who work on the U.S. Navy's Destroyers and can protect against a flood level of 16.5 feet (seven feet higher than the waters during Sandy) and withstand an impact from 6,750 pounds of debris. But what's just as amazing as these figures is the fact that this huge system is invisible to the average person.
Find out more here