All articles by Michelle Cohen

Michelle is a New York-based writer and content strategist who has worked extensively with lifestyle brands like Seventeen, Country Living, Harper’s Bazaar and iVillage. In addition to being a copywriter for a digital media agency she writes about culture, New York City neighborhoods, real estate, style, design and technology among other topics. She has lived in a number of major US cities on both coasts and in between and loves all things relating to urbanism and culture.
March 17, 2016

The Plaza Reportedly Headed to Foreclosure Auction Next Month

The Plaza, New York City's iconic 109-year-old hotel and residence (formerly known as the Plaza Hotel) at 1 Central Park South will head for the auction block next month, says Bloomberg Business. An unnamed source claims the storied hotel will be offered in a foreclosure auction on April 26 along with the Dream Downtown hotel in Chelsea. The two mortgages total about $500 million, according to the report.
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March 17, 2016

Colorful $425K Park Slope Co-op Makes Up in Location What It Lacks in Square Feet

It's often said that you can't change your home's location, so you'd better love it; in that case there's plenty to love about this colorful and cozy prewar apartment steps from Prospect Park, restaurants, bars and shopping on Seventh (and Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Vanderbilt) Avenues and the 2/3/B/Q trains. Though the location is fairly perfect, this junior one co-op has plenty of personality on its own, with prewar elegance, high ceilings, decorative moldings, French doors and gorgeous restored parquet wood flooring. "Junior" one bedroom translates to a studio with a separate bedroom area—more often than not somewhat less than ideal, but better than not being able to shut a door between you and your couch-surfing houseguest playing video games for eighteen straight hours.
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March 16, 2016

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Former Plaza Suite Gets a Price Cut to $26M

The 4,000-square-foot Plaza suite that Frank Lloyd Wright once briefly called home just got a price reduction (and a broker change) from $39.5 million to $26 million (h/t Curbed). As 6sqft discovered last year, Wright lived in the corner apartment from 1954 to 1959 while he was working on the Guggenheim Museum. Though the architect's past residency certainly adds interest, the impressive pad at 1 Central Park South does a fine job impressing us on its own—and we're not alone, clearly, since the home was featured in Architectural Digest in 2014. Current owners James and Lisa Cohen (chairman of Hudson Media and home editor at DuJour magazine, respectively) bought the sprawling condo for $13 million in 2009 to use as a Manhattan pied-a-terre (their main residence is in New Jersey). Then they proceeded to gut-renovate and redesign the home with help from Louis Lisboa of VL Architects and interior designer Susanna Maggard. The apartment headed back to the market last year for a renovation-reflecting $39.5 million. Now the colorful, luxurious and impossibly large four-bedroom pad is asking a significantly slimmer but still sizeable $26 million.
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March 16, 2016

New Interactive Map Lets You Explore New York City’s Landmarks

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has just launched a new interactive map that allows anyone to explore all of the city’s landmarked sites (h/t Curbed). The map, called Discover NYC Landmarks, is part of an LPC initiative to "bring greater transparency, efficiency, and public access to the agency." The new tool has mapped every single one of the city’s designated landmarks, including 1,347 individual buildings, 117 landmarked interiors, 114 historic districts, 10 scenic landmarks and even sites that are calendared for LPC consideration.
Start exploring, this way
March 15, 2016

Architects Say Glue May Be the Best Choice to Hold Skyscrapers Together

Adhesives and composite materials are joining 3D printing as innovations that may revolutionize the construction industry. According to architect Greg Lynn, using fast-drying glue to connect today's lighter, stronger and cheaper building materials like carbon fiber, fiberglass and other structural plastics is a more efficient means of construction, reports Dezeen. The combination could mean a new chapter in construction methods, and "lead to entire towers being glued together," making screws, rivets and bolts obsolete.
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March 15, 2016

This Illustrated 1926 Map of Manhattan Shows the City as It Was, Both Fanciful and Familiar

This fascinating vintage map of "The Wondrous Isle of Manhattan” is an illustrated version of the island as it existed in 1926, when it was designed and illustrated by Charles Vernon (C.V.) Farrow (1896-1936) and published by Fuessle and Colman. The map, though not to scale, highlights scores of actual attractions like landmarks and parks. Familiar buildings and streets are labeled, as is the city’s transit system at the time, with elevated tracks running along the avenues.
Look closer for details of 1926 life in wondrous Manhattan
March 15, 2016

This $1.2M Factory Loft With a Rooftop Garden Is a Pleasant Surprise in Greenwood

A certain "just right" location can make a buying a home there seem like it's a way better idea than it might have been, say, ten years ago. That certainly describes one thing this unexpected loft condominium has going for it; it's exactly at the crossroads where Greenwood meets South Slope and Sunset Park, with a side of Gowanus. All of those neighborhoods are uniquely poised, each in their own way, to become some of the most exciting districts in Brooklyn. Though the surrounding streets are more likely to yield modest clapboard or brick multi-family homes, this 1,255 square foot condominium in a converted factory building at 248 17th Street just south of the border (of Park Slope) conveys a vibe of cool, authentic loft living, with poured concrete floors, painted brick walls, 14-foot ceilings and oversized steel-framed casement windows. And while the $1.2 million price tag may be a sign of the times, it's definitely a sign of the territory.
Check out this lovely loft
March 14, 2016

Former Headquarters of the Christian Brothers Is Now a $15M Hell’s Kitchen Mansion

Spanning 7,000 square feet, with a two-story master bedroom that cantilevers out eight feet over the back garden, a back wall of glass and smart-everything, this single-family modern masterpiece may be mere blocks from the trophy towers of Billionaire's Row, but it outshines any of those eight-figure abodes by a midtown mile. Built in 1910, this six-story, 7,000 square-foot building at 416 West 51st Street was the headquarters of the Christian Brothers, whose main role was to keep neighborhood youth out of trouble, from 1953 until 2011. In the middle days of the 20th century through its end decade, there was trouble aplenty in the rough district known for tenements and street gangs. The neighborhood has come an almost unfathomly long way in recent years, and "the manse," as the listing calls it, is as good a parallel as we've seen. What's now being offered for $15 million is the result of the current owners' four year effort, in collaboration with Suk Design Group, to create a single family home fit more for a heavenly host than the Hell's Kitchen of history. Every inch of the building is wired for comfort and control, and there's a fully-stocked arcade and a "glass-wrapped floating staircase winding around the elevator like a helix," four enormous bedroom suites and that dramatic duplexed master suite.
Tour this unbelievable vertical mansion
March 14, 2016

Clever Bed-Closet Combo Makes Room for Storage and Sleep

Dealing with a closet-sized bedroom or guest room? Optimizing the space for storage and sleep makes the familiar coziness of the tiny NYC bedroom a lot less frustrating, and this compact bed-storage combination from French design company Parisot is a cool solution. Shelves on the side store books and knicknacks, but the real storage solution is within the bed's frame. Lift the mattress to reveal drawers and shelves big enough for seasonal wardrobe items, linens, boxes and anything else you'd like to store out of the way but still have access to in the room.
Find out what's hiding under the bed
March 14, 2016

Actor Michael C. Hall Buys $4.3M Apartment in Greenwich Lane Complex

“Dexter” and “Six Feet Under” co-star Michael C. Hall recently turned up in city records as the buyer of a two-bedroom apartment at 160 West 12th Street for $4.3 million, according to Luxury Listings. The 1,586-square-foot condominium in the Greenwich Lane complex has beamed ceilings, a chef’s kitchen, marble mosaic flooring in the bath, and a view of the pretty Greenwich Village street. Hall recently married longtime girlfriend Morgan Macgregor, an associate editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books, and he also recently sold his Los Feliz home for $4.85 million, so it seems the couple may be warming up to New York City living.
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March 11, 2016

Former Nets Star Deron Williams’ Tribeca Penthouse Priced to Move at $31M

Mavericks point guard Deron Williams slashed the ask on his trophy pad at 35 North Moore Street by 7.5 percent or $2.5 million from last July's original listing price of $33.5 million, reports The Real Deal. The listing broker for the 7,200 square-foot Merchants House condo says that Williams is "ready to move" on a sale opportunity since his move to the Dallas team. Williams has been renting out the apartment for the past six months.
Check out the full-court sized trophy pad
March 11, 2016

This $1.2M Row House Is in a Charming Historic Oasis Amid the Rooftop Pools of LIC

We may most often think of the Hunters Point section of Long Island City as the home of a decade-plus building boom that has resulted in a neighborhood of glassy luxury condo and rental towers with amenities galore. But the sleek, vertical community also has an historic district and streets lined with 19th-century row houses. Built in 1887 as one of six brick houses, the two-story-plus-basement row house at 21-24 45th Avenue is among the neighborhood's historic finds, and it's currently for sale asking $1.2 million. The listing notes that the building is being delivered as-is with SRO tenants. It's currently set up as a five-unit rental property with a vacant sixth (studio) unit.
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March 10, 2016

Indulge Yourself in History at This $15K/Month Park Slope Brownstone Rental

When you think "historic Brooklyn brownstone," this restored Park Slope home is likely to at least come close to what's on your mind–and more likely to hit a bullseye. Perfectly-preserved flourishes and original details frame every room, including decorative moldings, original oak floors and Lincrusta wallcoverings, adding up to elegance you don't usually find in such flawless condition. Yet there's nothing old-fashioned about daily life in this five-bedroom, 3,680-square-foot triplex currently seeking tenants at $15,000 a month. You'll get zoned central air and heat, a laundry room with a washer/dryer, a kitchen that's ready for cooking and entertaining a crowd, baths filled with luxurious details, and countless other ways this pretty period piece has been optimized for modern life.
Take a walk around
March 10, 2016

Take a Siesta in This Folding Taco Bed From Oradoria Design

For those getting-out-of-bed-but-not-really days, the creative minds at Oradoria Design have created the perfect place to snuggle up. Behold the Blandito -- a blanket-meets-taco-meets-futon that looks like a whole lot of fun for the whole family. The soft, structure-free, transformable piece can be affixed in various shapes using natural wooden ball hooks. One day it's a cuddle-extender, another it's a kids' play mat, and another it's a binge-TV HQ. The only drawback we can think of is that being rolled up in a giant taco might make you crave the entire menu at your local food truck.
So what is this thing?
March 10, 2016

Joan Rivers’ Opulent Personal Effects Head for Christie’s Auction This Summer

When the beloved comedian Joan Rivers passed away in 2014, she left behind a lavish Upper East Side penthouse at 1 East 62nd Street packed with a collection of glittering designer gowns, gilded furnishings, jewelry and collected items that reflected a lifetime love of pretty things. Rivers herself once described the decor of the 5,100-square-foot triplex as “Louis XIV meets Fred and Ginger.” Her apartment sold last summer for its asking price of $28 million to 65-year-old Saudi prince Muhammad bin Fahd, who reportedly plans to do a complete gut renovation. So, this summer, the contents of her Manhattan home will come up for auction at Christie's, where 200 lots will be available in a live sale, and 80 lots will be included in an online auction from June 16-23.
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March 9, 2016

Gwyneth Paltrow Lists Tribeca Penthouse With Fuzzy Nap Zones for $14M

The celeb-spotters at Curbed just discovered that actress, lifestyle guru and best-selling cookbook author Gwyneth Paltrow has just put the penthouse she owns with ex-hubby Chris Martin on the market for $14.25 million. The couple bought the 4,400-square-foot loft atop Tribeca's River Lofts in 2007 for $5.1 million and had architects du jour Roman and Williams design them a heavenly pied-a-terre.
Find out more about the listing
March 9, 2016

For $3M You Can Live in Williamsburg and Still Have Your Townhouse Dreams

In most cases, the beautifully renovated dream townhouse is not the sort of dwelling you'd find in prime (or any) Williamsburg, but rather in historic brownstone 'hoods like Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Bed-Stuy or Crown Heights. Housing options in the 'burg, though pricey, are limited mostly to sleek new condos or nouveau lofts, with a few old-school converted warehouses, low-lying garages and smaller wood-frame houses. And the few row houses that exist have been split up, often rather unattractively, into many apartments. But this little unicorn at 338 Metropolitan Avenue, on the market for $3 million, puts you in the cool north Brooklyn zip code while getting to live your multi-storied townhouse dreams, complete with patio, skylight, amazing kitchen and creative play space. Since this isn't a landmarked block, you even get to paint the house a cute color with cool contrasting details. In this case the fire-engine red facade matches the fire/EMT station next door.
Take the tour
March 8, 2016

Norah Jones Gets Approval to Renovate ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ Carriage House

According to plans filed with the Department of Buildings, singer/musician/actress Norah Jones is planning to renovate the historic and charming Cobble Hill stable she purchased last fall. Back in September 6sqft reported that Ms. Jones was the buyer of the $6.25 million converted 1840s firehouse that had a cameo role in the Julia Roberts film "Eat, Pray, Love." Permit documentation shows that Ben Baxt of Baxt Ingui Architects has drawn up plans to convert the two-family home into a single-family dwelling and replace an existing rear addition (including the existing solarium) with a new back wall that features a full-height door and sliding glass door on the ground floor and two sets of French doors with Juliette balconies on the floor above. Plans also include six skylights and roof access, among other updates. Landmarks has also given the green light to the proposed rear-facade renovations (h/t Brownstoner).
More on the reno plans this way
March 8, 2016

The Lost Subway Line of the 1939-1940 World’s Fair

There was, for a short time, a line of the IND (Independent) subway that was built for the 1939/1940 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the second most expansive American world's fair of all time (second only to the St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904). The event brought over 44 million people to the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park site. To make visting the fair more convenient, the city created a new dedicated subway line extension and terminal, then the only line owned by the city. The extension began on a bridge (called a flying junction) running through Jamaica Yard near what is now the Forest Hills-71st Street stop on today's M/R lines. The extension turned north along the east side of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park over a wooden trestle and ended at the newly-created World’s Fair Terminal Station, which had two tracks and three platforms. The two-mile addition cost $1.7 million to build.
Find out what happened
March 8, 2016

Gilded-Age Riverside Drive Mansion With Basement Pool Returns to the Market for $20M

The Philip and Maria Kleeberg House is a stunning, unique and impossibly grand 11,000-square-foot manse overlooking the Hudson River at 3 Riverside Drive. This 19th-century limestone landmark was designed by noted mansion architect C.P.H. Gilbert for the aforementioned wealthy pair. Young Mr. K was something of what today we’d call a serial tech entrepreneur, and the mansion sits on a stretch of the Hudson River that was being developed to rival the grandeur of Fifth Avenue. According to a New York Times article in 2012–when the 18-room home hit the market at $40 million–the home’s current owners, Regina Kislin, a real estate developer, and her husband, photographer Anatoly Siyagine, found it in 1995 in a state of disrepair, bought it for $10 million and embarked on a facelift of epic proportions based on the potential they saw in the regal wreck, which Ms. Kislin says "...reminded my husband of the mansions in St. Petersburg back in Russia.” According to the current listing, "It is as close as a Manhattanite can come to living in a European castle." Several price chops later at $20 million (h/t TRD), it remains a pretty incredible piece of real estate, albeit with a more realistic price tag. In addition to the restoration efforts, modern touches include an elevator and an indoor pool, sauna and gym in the cellar.
Must be seen to be believed, this way
March 7, 2016

Subspotting Map Project Shows Where You Can Get Phone Reception in the Subway

The MTA is apparently well into the middle phase of its project to wire 279 below-ground subway stations with cell reception, but as Citylab recently put it, "there are still places you can’t make a call to save your life.” Into this unfortunate void comes the Subspotting project, brainchild of Daniel Goddemeyer and Dominikus Baur, which offers maps "illustrating the unequal geography of subway reception" and helpfully providing information on where you'll be able to make a call or send a text while in transit. In addition to system and individual line maps, there's an app that shows the quality of reception as different sized bars at each station, and MTA-sanctioned posters.
Can you hear me now?
March 7, 2016

For $1.7M, This ‘Flexible’ West Village Loft Will Have You Climbing the Walls

Lofts being what they are, multi-level sleeping arrangements are often part of their appeal. We've seen every kind of "mezzanine" situation, but this lovely West Village condo at 130 Barrow Street seems a bit too polished to get the kind of pass one would allow a barely-heated Bushwick loft. The listing calls this 933-square-foot apartment flexible, and that's a fair adjective, as the space can be used as-is (it was configured to make use of double-height ceilings to create a massive walk-in closet) or re-done in any number of ways–with or without the "infinity-edge" sleeping platform.
Explore the apartment
March 7, 2016

Baxt/Ingui Architects Designed This $19M UWS Townhouse As an Energy-Efficient Passive Home

The listing calls the townhouse at 25 West 88th Street "beyond mint," and it's certainly green enough to qualify. This 8,000- square-foot Central Park West home has gotten its fair share of publicity recently. In addition to being a landmarked 1910 historic beauty and having undergone a stem-to-stern modern overhaul, the home's current owners, investment banker Kurt Roeloffs and his wife Shyanne, worked with the well-known Baxt/Ingui Architects to create an energy-efficient masterpiece that meets both LEED platinum and passive house standards. Even with all that efficiency, they didn't skimp on luxury. With six floors (and an elevator) and a finished cellar, six bedrooms plus rooms dedicated to yoga, meditation, exercise and crafts, this may, in fact, be "one of the finest contemporary townhomes on the Upper West Side."
Find out more about this amazing, energy-efficient home
March 4, 2016

Why Micro-Apartments in Carmel Place Are So Expensive

We’ve been hearing a lot recently about the city’s new micro-apartments. As 6sqft has reported, NYC’s first micro-apartment complex Carmel Place (formerly My Micro NY) at 335 East 27th Street began leasing at the end of last year. The nine-story modular development in Kips Bay has 55 studios that are 260 to 360 square feet. Of these, 22 are affordable and they’ll go from $950 to $1,500 a month. Market-rate units on the other end range from $2,540 to $2,910. According to CityRealty, the average rental price per square foot for New York City apartments overall is $51, while Carmel Place units ring in at $98 per square foot. The idea of micro-housing was presented, in part, to address the need for more affordable apartments. So why is it that the result is what a recent New Yorker article calls “micro-luxury" housing?
Small Is Beautiful–but Not Affordable
March 4, 2016

Live Like Park Slope Royalty Atop a Queen Anne Stone Mansion for $1.85M

There's a lot that's grand about this listing, including the fact that you're steps from Grand Army Plaza (with all of Prospect Park below). But the building that holds this three-bedroom condominium is the kind that turns heads. The historic Queen Anne/Romanesque Revival mansion at 70 Eighth Avenue stands out even in a neighborhood filled with architectural grandeur, with a turret and bell dome, terra cotta ornamentation and stained glass details. This 1,847-square-foot, three-bedroom duplex on the market for $1.847 million would give you a chance to roll up to that bad boy every day. You would have to keep rolling up at least a couple of flights of stairs (there's no elevator to get to this "penthouse") but the landmarked four-story beauty would certainly be an interesting place to call home.
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