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

World’s Fair Terminal Station. Photo via Bill Cotter 

March 8, 2016

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

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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
Gilded-Age Riverside Drive Mansion With Basement Pool Returns to the Market for $20M
March 8, 2016

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

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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
Subspotting Map Project Shows Where You Can Get Phone Reception in the Subway
March 7, 2016

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

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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?
For $1.7M, This ‘Flexible’ West Village Loft Will Have You Climbing the Walls
March 7, 2016

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

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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
Baxt/Ingui Architects Designed This $19M UWS Townhouse As an Energy-Efficient Passive Home
March 7, 2016

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

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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
Why Micro-Apartments in Carmel Place Are So Expensive
March 4, 2016

Why Micro-Apartments in Carmel Place Are So Expensive

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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
Live Like Park Slope Royalty Atop a Queen Anne Stone Mansion for $1.85M
March 4, 2016

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

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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.
READ MORE
Over 100,000 Unofficial ‘Ghost Tenants’ May Be Living in NYC Public Housing

Photo via Wiki Commons

March 4, 2016

Over 100,000 Unofficial ‘Ghost Tenants’ May Be Living in NYC Public Housing

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Although 400,000 is the official head count of residents in New York City’s public housing units, estimates say that figure may be much higher, and that 100,000 to 200,000 more people live there off the books, Slate reports. In a way it's hardly news: People live with relatives, friends and roommates while they aren't the primary leaseholders–almost standard fare in a regular rental apartment (though market rate tenants may run afoul of the lease if anyone wanted to make a case). The city's public housing units are over 50 years old and in dire need of updates and repairs, but because the city is becoming ever more unaffordable for anyone on a meager income, the real tally of people who live in these buildings could be as much as 50 percent higher than the official number.
Find out more about NYCHA's shadow population
The Bedrock Myth: The Evolution of the NYC Skyline Was More About Dollars Than Rocks

Manhattan, and the bedrock beneath it, via imgur

March 3, 2016

The Bedrock Myth: The Evolution of the NYC Skyline Was More About Dollars Than Rocks

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The reason so many skyscrapers are clustered Downtown and in Midtown isn't so much because of geological feasibility as because everybody else was doing it. It was long assumed that the depth of our venerable Manhattan Schist bedrock, well-suited for the construction of tall buildings, was the determinant in where the city's towers rose. Though the bedrock outcroppings are indeed at their deepest and closest to the surface in the areas where many of the city's tallest buildings are clustered, it's more likely to be coincidence than cause and effect. The real reason there's a big doughnut hole in the spiky man-made terrain between FiDi and Midtown has more to do with the way the city's dual business districts developed from a sociological and economic perspective between 1890 and 1915.
Find out why the bedrock myth is on shaky ground
Grand Carroll Gardens Brownstone With Original Details Gets a Price Chop to $6M
March 3, 2016

Grand Carroll Gardens Brownstone With Original Details Gets a Price Chop to $6M

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The story of the historic townhouse at 46 First Place in Carroll Gardens is just as much a story of its owner, Kathryn Sennis, who has lived in and worked from the elegant 1899 brownstone for nearly 32 years. In 2012, Sennis, a psychotherapist, opened Who's On First? Children's Enrichment Studio with her daughter here, offering art classes, parties, baby yoga and programs for parents and children, including foreign language classes and parenting groups. Ms. Sennis's story was highlighted in the Observer last May, where she told of buying the townhouse in 1981 for $250,000 from an “elderly Italian woman,” how her presence confused the neighbors at the time ("you ain't even Italian!") and how much the neighborhood has changed since then. She also talks of the extensive, exhaustive renovations she painstakingly undertook. She rents out the upper two floors, and her daughter uses the garden level of the four-family home. It’s a Brooklyn story like so many others–though in this case it's one with a $6 million price tag attached.
Tour the inside
Six Architects Reimagine the MetLife Building As an Eco-Friendly Tower of the Future
March 2, 2016

Six Architects Reimagine the MetLife Building As an Eco-Friendly Tower of the Future

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Earlier this week, the six finalists in the "Reimagine a New York City Icon" competition were announced (h/t NY Yimby). The competition to reimagine the MetLife Building, sponsored by Metals in Construction magazine and the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York, isn’t part of any real-life plans for the iconic Midtown tower, but when great minds get to this kind of imagining, great ideas are born. Architects and engineers were asked to "reimagine 200 Park Avenue with a resource-conserving, eco-friendly enclosure—one that creates a highly efficient envelope with the lightness and transparency sought by today’s office workforce—while preserving and enhancing the aesthetic of the building’s heritage." Designed by Emery Roth & Sons, Pietro Belluschi, and Walter Gropius, the 59-story MetLife Building, located to the north of Grand Central Terminal, opened in 1963 as the Pan Am Building. MetLife bought the building in 1981, and though they sold it in 2005, the architectural icon keeps their name. Below are the finalists' descriptions and renderings for the tower's eco-friendly future.
See what the finalists came up with
$4.75M Neo-Federalist House in Park Slope Has Private Parking and Neighborhood Ties
March 2, 2016

$4.75M Neo-Federalist House in Park Slope Has Private Parking and Neighborhood Ties

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Built in 1913 by Charles Neergaard, a patriarch of the family who founded the neighborhood mom-and-pop pharmacy of the same name in the late 19th century (with two locations, Neergaard Pharmacy is the oldest family-owned drugstore in Brooklyn), this Neo-Federalist home at 234 Eighth Avenue has a lot going for it. For one, it's a block from Prospect Park. It's on a corner lot. And, probably best of all in a neighborhood dubbed "No Place to Park Slope," it comes with private curb-cut driveway parking. All of this is tangential to the fact that this is a 4,000-square-foot renovated 1913 townhouse in perfect condition in one of the most coveted parts of north Park Slope.
Get a room-by-room tour of this unique residence
‘The View’ Co-Host Joy Behar Lists Her Hamptons Home for $3.8M
March 2, 2016

‘The View’ Co-Host Joy Behar Lists Her Hamptons Home for $3.8M

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Comedian and co-host of "The View" Joy Behar just listed her 4,000-square-foot vacation home in East Hampton for $3.8 million. Behar, who is once again co-host of the daytime chat show after a two-year hiatus, as well as the host of "Late Night Joy," also has an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. She purchased the classic Hamptons home in 2012 for $2,875,000, which means she'll have a tidy profit if it sells at the ask.
Take a look inside the Hamptons hideaway
Lightstone’s Paris-on-the-Gowanus Rental Building at 365 Bond Street Opens

363-365 Bond Street, via Lightstone Group

March 1, 2016

Lightstone’s Paris-on-the-Gowanus Rental Building at 365 Bond Street Opens

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One of the Lightstone Group's two new rental buildings in Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood is set to open Tuesday. The new residence at 365 Bond Street, along with its neighbor at 363 Bond (a year from completion) represent a $350 million effort by the developer to build 700 luxury rental apartments on the left bank of the Gowanus Canal. Designed to look like an historic brick-walled warehouse, market-rate apartments at 365 Bond start at over $2,000 a month for a studio and over $3,000 for a one-bedroom unit, according to the Wall Street Journal. Lightstone President Mitchell Hochberg says the project was inspired by the Canal Saint-Martin neighborhood in Paris, known for a residential project near a similarly polluted waterway which helped create a "newly hip atmosphere."
Find out more
The Color Scheme in This $8.5K Village Rental Is Good Enough to Eat
March 1, 2016

The Color Scheme in This $8.5K Village Rental Is Good Enough to Eat

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Ok, those funky retro-Euro Smeg fridges in candy colors are cute pretty much always. But in tangerine? And the matching tangerine-striped vintage light fixture? Amazing. And that candy-orange paired with pale Tiffany-box blue? Yes, please. This two-bedroom, two-bath floor-through at busy-but-convenient 132 West Houston Street in Greenwich Village is no bargain at $8.5K a month, but that's no surprise given the prime downtown location where supermodels, students, tourists and fashionistas jostle day and night. It is, however, surprisingly chic (at least in pictures), with a minimalist vibe and design perfection in the details.
Check it out, this way
Beyond Bars: Designers Reimagine Rikers Island As a Destination

Curtis + Ginsberg Architects’ “city blocks”

February 29, 2016

Beyond Bars: Designers Reimagine Rikers Island As a Destination

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The 413-acre plot of city-owned land, most of it landfill, that makes up Rikers Island is known more for its impenetrable prison than its waterfront property and breathtaking city views. Recently City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito called for the closing of the jail complex, reports Crains, calling it an "ineffective, inefficient,” symbol of outdated policies and approach to criminal justice. An independent commission headed by Jonathan Lippman, the state's former top judge, is creating a blueprint for accomplishing the prison’s closing. There is significant opposition to the idea, though others, from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the New York Times editorial board are behind it.
Find out what could replace the jail
With Terraces, Fireplaces and a Hidden Bar, This $2.5M Murray Hill Duplex Is Classic Manhattan
February 29, 2016

With Terraces, Fireplaces and a Hidden Bar, This $2.5M Murray Hill Duplex Is Classic Manhattan

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On a picture-perfect residential block lined with historic townhouses and understatedly elegant pre- and postwar apartment buildings–yet around the corner from bustling Midtown East, this duplex at 34 East 38th Street may be the Manhattan equivalent of that perfect Craftsman bungalow in a hip suburban neighborhood. It doesn't shout or come with shiny marketing literature, but for the die-hard Manhattan worshipper, it’s just right. The two-bedroom co-op in a five-story Murray Hill townhouse would certainly make a perfect pied-a-terre: Mint renovations mean effortless comfort and style; it's convenient to just about everything the city offers, in a neighborhood where old-fashioned elegance in architecture blends with every modern 21st century amenity catering to busy residents of all ages.
Tour the duplex
Actors Kerry Bishé and Chris Lowell Buy $2M Skylit Soho Loft
February 26, 2016

Actors Kerry Bishé and Chris Lowell Buy $2M Skylit Soho Loft

By
Actors Kerry Bishé (from the AMC drama “Halt and Catch Fire” and the film “Argo”) and "Veronica Mars" veteran Chris Lowell just picked up a gorgeous $2.25 million triplex loft with outdoor space at 196 Sixth Avenue near Hudson Square in Soho. Luxury Listings reports that the 1,292-square-foot loft has 20-foot ceilings, arched windows, exposed brick walls and massive skylights. Lowell listed his Greenwich Village loft back in December, and interestingly, his former bachelor pad also had big arched windows and exposed brick, though the new digs are definitely a bit of an upgrade and more of a love nest.
Take a look
A 1960s Plan to Cover Midtown Manhattan With a Giant Geodesic Dome

Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao Dome Over Manhattan, 1960. Image courtesy of the Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller.

February 26, 2016

A 1960s Plan to Cover Midtown Manhattan With a Giant Geodesic Dome

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During the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to future-thinking genius engineer/utopian Buckminster Fuller, plans were proposed to cover midtown Manhattan with a giant geodesic dome. Fuller, who invented the concept and was deeply invested in studying the domes and their properties, described a three kilometer (1.864 mile) geodesic dome spanning midtown Manhattan that would regulate weather and reduce air pollution. The proposed structure would have stretched from the East River to the Hudson River and from 21st Street to 64th Street. The dome would reduce cooling costs in summer and heating costs in the winter, so buildings wouldn't need separate heating or cooling–the dome above would be kept at a regulated temperature level.
Find out more
This $18M Prewar Co-op Is the Kind of Apartment That Invented Central Park Views
February 26, 2016

This $18M Prewar Co-op Is the Kind of Apartment That Invented Central Park Views

By
In addition to celebrity residents like Robert DeNiro, Paul Simon and, more recently, Annie Liebovitz, the 1928 co-op building at 88 Central Park West has bragging rights to the kind of views that were being enjoyed by the fortunate before trophy towers like 432 Park Avenue were even a glimmer in any developer’s eye. The classic Central Park West residence known as the Brentmore has only 12 floors, but it possesses a Gilded-Age cachet that’s lost very little of its appeal even in the 21st century. Residents add upper-floors and next-doors rather than move, and floor plans are generous and always include foyers and maids’ rooms (almost all units were built with seven rooms). And the location, of course, needs no introduction.
See more of this gracious West Side home
This Cobble Hill Garden Apartment Comes Smelling of Freshly-Baked Cookies
February 25, 2016

This Cobble Hill Garden Apartment Comes Smelling of Freshly-Baked Cookies

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The listing for this two-bedroom-plus-office co-op at 275 Degraw Street suggests the garden apartment will "satisfy even the most discerning 'must have' list," and it certainly does seem to be that kind of place. Located on a charming Cobble Hill block in a 1900s brick row house, this spacious, renovated and well-appointed home ticks a lot of boxes for its $1.075 million ask: Two good-sized bedrooms and a bonus room, renovated kitchen, private back yard, central air-conditioning, washer/dryer, low monthlies. But how many New Yorkers can brag that they come home daily to the scent of freshly-baked cookies?
Take a tour and find out what smells so good
City Planning Commission Approves Controversial East New York Rezoning Plan in 12-1 Vote

Map of proposed rezoning via Department of City Planning

February 25, 2016

City Planning Commission Approves Controversial East New York Rezoning Plan in 12-1 Vote

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The New York City Planning Commission voted 12-1 in approval of Mayor de Blasio's controversial rezoning plan for East New York, Gothamist reports. It's the first of 15 low-income neighborhoods scheduled for rezoning as part of the Mayor's affordable housing plan, which promises to create or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing. The City Council is scheduled to vote on the rezoning this spring. As part of what is known as Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), rezoning plans for East New York's Cypress Hills neighborhood and adjacent Ocean Hill in Bed-Stuy would have 7,000 new apartments built by 2030, 3,447 of which will be designated affordable, in addition to one million square feet of commercial space. Of those affordable units, 80 percent would be reserved for families (defined as a household of three, with any number of earners) making no more than 60 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), or $46,000; 27 percent would go to families making 40 percent of the AMI or $31,000.
Find out more
City Filth, Decoded: The Gunk on Subway Platforms Actually Has a Name

Image: Xymox/Flickr

February 24, 2016

City Filth, Decoded: The Gunk on Subway Platforms Actually Has a Name

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Do you ever wonder what that black schmutz that collects on the subway platform is? Has all the discarded chewing gum in the world begun to mobilize? What if I put my bag on it? Slate's What's That Thing column appropriately examines the phenomenon: After repeated unreturned phone calls to the MTA, the intrepid journalists got "Gridlock Sam" Schwartz and his transit gurus on the case. Finally the fine folks from the MTA rallied and gave name to the mysterious muck. According to NYC Transit assistant chief of the Division of Stations Branko Kleva, the stuff is mastic, a tar-like substance used to seal and waterproof the subway tunnels. When it heats up, (in the summer, for example, ironically from the heat generated by subway car air conditioning) it starts to "flow and drip down from the roof of the tunnel onto the platforms below."
More on the mysterious gunk...
VIDEO: Fly Over the Forgotten Vessels of Staten Island’s Arthur Kill Ship Graveyard
February 24, 2016

VIDEO: Fly Over the Forgotten Vessels of Staten Island’s Arthur Kill Ship Graveyard

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In the Arthur Kill waterway, wedged between Staten Island and New Jersey, the Arthur Kill Ship Graveyard is the final home of over two dozen harbor vessels that had their best years in the city's golden age of shipping. There were once as many as 400 of the ghostly crafts left to the wiles of entropy in the waterway, but according to Atlas Obscura, only 25 or so remain, picked over for their useful parts. Seven minutes of eerie and fascinating drone video footage offers a close-up view of the "urban marine cemetery" and the rusted metal hulls of once-useful tugboats and other harbor ships as they slowly sink into the silent, murky waters.
More about this eerie assembly and the full video
$4.8M Brooklyn Heights Duplex Has Amazing Historic Details and the Great Outdoors
February 24, 2016

$4.8M Brooklyn Heights Duplex Has Amazing Historic Details and the Great Outdoors

By
Built by the Pierreponts in 1858, the immaculately preserved 25-foot-wide Italianate townhouse at 104 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights holds four co-op apartments developed by architect and historian Norval White. On the market for $4.825 million, the grandly proportioned parlor and garden floor make up a nearly 3,000-square-foot duplex with 700 square feet of private outdoor space–one of the loveliest gems in New York City's first landmarked district.
Explore both floors
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