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.

August 8, 2016

Rent This Charming Cobble Hill Cottage With Private Garden and Backyard Studio for $7,250/Month

By Michelle Cohen

Constructed in the 1870s on a short, private block of Cobble Hill, the 34 modest Gothic cottages of Warren Place Mews were built by wealthy merchant, philanthropist and housing advocate Alfred Tredway White as homes for workingmen and their families. 21st century prices for these unique "private estates" that share an English courtyard have reached the millions; renting doesn’t come cheaply either, with the asking rent on the three-story, eleven-foot wide two-bedroom home at 1 Warren Place at $7,250/month. That may seem a bit more reasonable when you see the home’s gorgeous renovation helmed by Elizabeth Roberts Architecture & Design and landscaped yard with your own private “writers’ compound or tiny playroom” at the back.
Take a peek at this small, beautiful living space

August 5, 2016

Could This Glass-Enclosed Farm/Condo Grow on Rem Koolhaas’ High Line Site?

By Michelle Cohen

From multidisciplinary architectural firm Weston Baker Creative comes this vision of glass, grass and sass in the form of a mixed-use high-rise springing from the Rem Koolhaas parcel along Tenth Avenue and West 18th Street on banks of the High Line. As CityRealty reported, the mixed-use concept would include residences, an art gallery and ten levels of indoor farming terraces. The 12-story structure would rise from a grassy plaza, with the tower's concrete base meeting the High Line walkway in a full-floor, glass-enclosed gallery that would sit at eye level with the park.
Find out more

August 5, 2016

Perfume Heiress Pauline Rochas Lists Trés Chic Williambsburg Loft for $2.6M

By Michelle Cohen

Perfume and fashion heiress Pauline Rochas and partner Carole Beaupré, the impossibly chic and creative photographer couple who currently own this 2,082-square-foot, one-bedroom-plus-office in Williamsburg’s Mill Building at 85 North Third Street, have listed the fashionably renovated loft for $2.585 million. Ms. Rochas is the granddaughter of the late Hélène Rochas, stylish socialite, perfumer and wife of couturier Marcel Rochas; she and Ms. Beaupré run a photography studio, Coolife, that specializes in shooting still-life beauty images for brands like Chanel and Ralph Lauren, and collaborated on a line of perfumes (h/t LLNYC). The pair purchased the home for $940,000 in 2007 and have since elevated it to a level of polished north Brooklyn cool befitting their lifestyle as well as their neighborhood.
Tour this chic Williamsburg loft

Distinctive Homes

August 4, 2016

If You’re Seeking Loft Perfection This $7,200/Month West Village Rental Is For You

By Michelle Cohen

This downtown Manhattan loft in a near-everything-cool spot at 321 West 13th Street between the West Village and the Meatpacking District may not be family-sized, but it definitely seems that no expense was spared in making this an authentic loft to call home. On the rental market for $7,200 a month ($7,500 furnished with Eames, Platner and an impressive art collection), the fifth-floor (by elevator), one-bedroom condo has a rare level of custom interior design that's understated and over-achieving when it comes to comfort and cool. Add open city views, a washer-dryer and plenty of closet space and you can see why that perfection theme keeps coming up.
View loft perfection from all angles

August 3, 2016

BLOCKS NYC Explores Greenwich Village From Bob Dylan to The Ramones in Coloring Book Pages

By Michelle Cohen

BLOCKS (full name: City Blocks Culture Collective) explores and celebrates the architecture of city neighborhoods, introducing stories of how historic landmarks have evolved and how they fit into the city’s cultural landscape. The organization’s Toronto-based founder Rafi Ghanaghounian’s love for music was sparked by a visit to Greenwich Village as a teen, when he experienced the music vibe, history, colorful street life and architecture of the city. BLOCKS NYC is a way to share this passion for music, art and New York City, from the 1940s jazz scene to the beat generation in the ’50s, the folk scene of the ’60s, and Ramones-era punk in the ’70s. The group’s latest project explores the neighborhood via a super-chill coloring book featuring album covers shot on Village streets in the ’60s and ’70s to celebrate the rich musical history of that era’s folk and rock scene.
Find out how you can help

August 3, 2016

Find Prewar Manhattan Glamor in Modern Midtown for $10K a Month

By Michelle Cohen

For old-world Manhattan living it would be hard to argue with the Parc Vendome, from its award-winning formal English tea gardens to graciously-configured apartments—like this 2,000 square-foot, two-bed-plus-office beauty—with wood-burning fireplaces, entry galleries and capacious closets. Built in 1931, the elegant two-building complex at 333 West 56th Street was converted to condominium apartments in 1983. In addition to space and charm and a fortunate location blocks from both Lincoln Center and Central Park, you'll have an impossibly lovely south-facing private terrace and open city views, all for $10K a month (gas and electric are included).
Get a closer look

August 2, 2016

New Interactive Subway Game Lets You Build the Transit System of Your Dreams

By Michelle Cohen

A new interactive New York City subway planning game created by electrical engineer Jason Wright gives you a chance to try your hand at building the subway system of your dreams. Though based on a similar idea to Dinosaur Polo Club's Mini Metro, the game goes further and gives players a lot more to work with. “Brand New Subway” lets players start from scratch or use current subway maps, modify historic maps dating as far back as the 1900s or use maps from the future (like the planned 2025 subway system map pictured above) (h/t DNAinfo).
Try your hand at playing god of the subways

August 2, 2016

$1M Williamsburg Condo Delivers on Location, Space, Price–and a Huge Backyard

By Michelle Cohen

This 1,077 square-foot two-bedroom garden apartment at 206 Montrose Avenue on a convenient and colorful block in "hot, hot, hot East Williamsburg" has two spacious and quiet bedrooms with covetable closet space, plus two baths; there's an amazing amount of outdoor space in the form of a big patio and backyard. And it comes in at (just a hair) under $1 million at $999,000.
Check all the boxes...

Distinctive Homes

August 1, 2016

This Stylish Coffeemaker Lets You Reuse Your Coffee Grounds to Grow Mushrooms

By Michelle Cohen

The modern world never tires of discussing the best ways to brew coffee–and coming up with cute coffeemakers to do it with. Designers Adrián Pérez and Mauricio Carvajal have made the process much more efficient by putting the grounds to good use, too (h/t Inhabitat). The duo's HIFA coffee system repurposes coffee grounds to grow oyster mushrooms.
See how it works

August 1, 2016

Could Facebook’s Entry Into Residential Real Estate Offer a Model for Housing in Expensive Cities?

By Michelle Cohen

Facebook recently proposed a plan to create 1,500 apartments for employees near their Menlo Park, California campus, with 15 percent of the housing set aside for low-income families. According to Wired, "Urban planners and local developers call it a generous gesture that could bring sorely needed housing to the area." The company wants to construct two new office buildings and a hotel on land near its original campus to accommodate thousands of planned hires. Some people argue that the tech company getting into the property development game will actually drive up housing prices in a market that's already one of the nation's most expensive areas.
Would company housing help in New York City?

$3M Prospect Park South Mansion on Michelle Williams’ Street Sold in Only Two Hours

By Michelle Cohen

Recently, 6sqft brought you a look at an extraordinary 23-room mansion at 1305 Albemarle road, freshly-listed at a neighborhood record-setting $2.98 million. According to the listing agents (h/t Curbed) this impossibly grand home entered contract two hours after it officially hit the market. The head-turning house just happens to be on the same street in quiet Prospect Park South as the Colonial Revival-style mansion recently purchased by Michelle Williams; it was a key location in the Oscar-winning film “Reversal of Fortune,” and “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” did some filming on the home’s first floor. We don't know if it was the fame factor, the 10,000-plus-square-foot size, the 30-foot Ionic columns at the entrance, or the unbelievably massive and dramatic third floor ballroom complete with wet bar, but we can see plenty of reasons this house would find a new owner in a flash.
See it all right here

July 29, 2016

Drivers Wanted (Again) for This $4.5M Soho ‘Ferrari’ Bachelor Pad

By Michelle Cohen

Anchoring a Soho building that began life as a horse stable for the fire department, this two-story live/work space at 554 Broome Street, just listed for $4.5 million, has quite a few stories to tell–though by now they may be familiar ones, as this instantly-recognizable property is no stranger to the market. First, there's the story of the late Italian count, prince and duke who was also the relative of two popes, a Ferrari dealer, avid car collector, and playboy. Roffredo Gaetani (full name: Roffredo Gaetani di Laurenzana dell’Aquila d’Aragona Lovatelli) was also frequent gossip column fodder in the 1990s because he and Ivana Trump (Donald's first wife) were a high-profile item for a time. Gaetani died in a car crash in 2005, and his estate sold the racy pad to then-bachelor brothers Arash and Daniel Gohari, who are known for the far less gossip-worthy founding of the Xerxes Group real estate investment company.
If these walls could talk...

July 28, 2016

Time Lapse Video Shows How Midtown’s Tall Towers Will Cast Dark Shadows on the Park

By Michelle Cohen

A dozen supertalls (1,000 feet or higher) in the construction or planning stages in Manhattan include a significant number on the rise along the Billionaires’ Row strip just south of Central Park. This trend has been causing concern due to the shadows the looming towers will cast on the park. Now, a slightly ominous time-lapse video from Cube Cities shows how Billionaires' Row will have a sundial effect on the park (h/t Gothamist). The length and duration of the shadows will vary as the sun's angle changes with the seasons; fall and winter days are looking dark, with the tall towers' long shadows reaching as much as a mile into the park.
Watch the tall towers darken the park on a fall day in the future

New Developments

July 28, 2016

Rupert Murdoch’s Multi-Terraced West Village Townhouse Sells for $27.5M in Just Five Months

By Michelle Cohen

Last August 6sqft reported that News Corp. head and Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch had put his West Village townhouse–the one he'd bought just five months prior for $25 million–on the market. Now, just five months after listing the 25-foot-wide, four-story brick home for $28.9M, the house has found a buyer, the New York Observer reports. Whomever is behind the entity known as West 11th Street, LLC has purchased the 6,500-square-foot Greek Revival manse for $27.5 million. The deal represents a $2.5M profit for Murdoch (and we all know how much he needs a few more million).
See what else makes this townhouse so buy-able

July 27, 2016

For $1.2M This Bright Village Loft Is at the Crossroads of Everything

By Michelle Cohen

This $1.195 million co-op at 9 East 13th Street just off Fifth Avenue is a classic vintage downtown Manhattan loft updated for the 21st century. In a bustling spot at the crossroads of old and new near NYU and Parsons and between Union Square and Washington Square Park, the building may be old but as with most lofts, this bright one-bedroom home's interiors are filled with light and lots of white, brick and pale wood. And this particular loft has the distinction of having an impressive amount of private finished outdoor space perched above the Village scene.
Take the tour

Distinctive Homes

July 27, 2016

Should the MTA Consider These Gymnastics Ring-Like Straps in Their New Subway Design?

By Michelle Cohen

Every day, stoic straphangers face the crowds, dirt and other nasty stuff in the city's subway system (when it's running), and we don't often consider how the various moving parts of the commuting experience are designed. The old subway cars had straps to hang onto (hence the term) in addition to poles and horizontal rails; newer generations have nixed the strap altogether, including the new high-tech designs recently unveiled by Governor Cuomo. While it doesn't sound as cool as a self-driving bus, Keita Suzuki at the Japanese firm Product Design Studio has designed a transit strap that could add a little more comfort to the daily commute.
See more of a good idea

July 26, 2016

$7K/Month Chelsea Rental Gets Points for Townhouse Charm and a Private Garden

By Michelle Cohen

Chelsea living on a beautiful tree-lined street feels even better when the living is being done in an utterly charming pastel-tinted townhouse like the one at 353 West 22nd Street. Surrounded by equally lovely townhouse neighbors and near the High Line, the West Village and all of Chelsea, it's a great downtown location with tons of curb appeal. The apartment itself is also nothing like the average cookie-cutter rental space. With lots of warm wood and brick, impossibly high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling casement windows and a gem of a private garden, this $7,000/month two-bedroom bi-level rental may be on the small side but it gets points for charm and outdoor space.
Take a look around

Distinctive Homes

July 26, 2016

Underwater New York Offers Found Objects From NYC Waterways to Spark Imagination and Art

By Michelle Cohen

The collectors of curious things at Atlas Obscura bring us the work of Underwater New York, a fascinating catalogue of all the weird stuff that’s been found bobbing, sinking or washed-up from the murky depths of the city’s waterways, from a giraffe skeleton to a grand piano, with a bag of lottery tickets thrown in for good measure. In a fascinating study in what-is-it-and-where-is-it-coming from, founder Nicki Pombier Berger and the site's editors and contributors (artists, filmmakers, musicians, photographers and other storytellers) create contexts for the curiosities that find their way to this aquatic lost and found. New York City waterways, like the swampy southern Brooklyn beach known as Dead Horse Bay, and their submerged treasures are the inspiration for works in this digital gallery of sorts. Berger and fellow editors Helen Georgas and Nicole Haroutunian compile a growing list (it currently contains 150 objects) of waterfront finds that they've discovered via everything from news articles to anecdotes. Contributors are encouraged to use the objects to weave their stories in whatever medium they choose.
Find out more of the bizarre items found beneath the waves

Events & Things To Do

July 25, 2016

MTA Announces Details on L Train Shutdown To Begin in 2019

By Michelle Cohen

The MTA plans to announce today that the long-dreaded L train shutdown for repairs needed on the Canarsie tunnel that runs beneath the East River will commence in 2019 and take the line out of service from Manhattan to the Bedford Avenue station in Brooklyn for 18 months, as reported by the New York Times. The 18-month option was the expected choice, the alternative being a partial three-year shutdown that would give about one in five passengers service to Manhattan (20 percent of current service). The agency needs to do major repairs on damage done by the 2012 superstorm Sandy, and while the tunnel is “not in grave danger of collapse,” according to the MTA, it can’t go untreated. As 6sqft previously reported, night and weekend service is off the table because of the amount of work that needs to be done, and building a third tube would be time- and cost-prohibitive.
Find out more

Transit

July 25, 2016

For $12M This West Village Townhouse/Condo Has It All, Plus a Rooftop Pool

By Michelle Cohen

For amenities that rival those shared by residents of the city's top luxury condo buildings–a gym, sun deck with hot tub and privacy cabana, laundry, media room–you won’t even need to get dressed, because all those things are under your roof. But if you should choose to venture from your 4,382-square-foot, four-bedroom triplex "townhouse" at 385 West 12th Street, a whole other level of amenities awaits; the boutique condo building offers a roof-deck with a 50-foot lap pool, an expansive spa, an outdoor shower, two gas grills and a dining area. Should you exit the premises completely rather than just letting the whole world just come to you, you’re on a pretty cobblestoned street in the West Village. So for the $11.995 million this supercondo is asking, it’s pretty much win/win/win.
Check it all out this way

Distinctive Homes

July 24, 2016

The Location is Good and the Price Is Right for This Cozy $440K Prospect Heights Co-op

By Michelle Cohen

This one-bedroom co-op at 786 Washington Avenue may have its limits–space and windows, for example–but the Prospect Heights neighborhood is a winner, a slice of old-meets-new-Brooklyn with a collection of grocery stores, cafes, restaurants and bars that grows daily, and just a few blocks from Prospect Park, Crown Heights and Park Slope for even more options. The street's a bit busy, but then again you're on the third floor where it's quieter, and if you like exposed brick, you're in luck–possibly for less per month than lots of folks are paying in rent for a one-bedroom–or even a studio.
See this little Brooklyn pad from all angles

Distinctive Homes

July 22, 2016

Grand Mansion on Michelle Williams’ Street With a Huge Ballroom Asks $3M

By Michelle Cohen

Actress Michelle Williams' exquisite taste in real estate has had us swooning over each of the extraordinary properties she's bought and/or transformed–and renovation plans for the pixie-haired star's historic 18-room Colonial Revival-style mansion on Albemarle Road were recently approved. In quiet Prospect Park South, her fame has paved the way for a new level of exposure for historic homes like this one at 1305 Albemarle, which hit the market yesterday for a neighborhood record-setting $2.98 million. The unusual and somewhat haunting (though hopefully not haunted) 10,000-plus-square-foot, 23-room mansion would turn a few heads on its own, but a celebrity neighbor certainly doesn't hurt. The impressive home has 10 bedrooms, six full baths and floors of pine, cherry, mahogany and oak. There’s a two-car garage and decks galore, including one with a six-person hot tub. But the Oscar for cool house features definitely goes to the unbelievably massive and dramatic third floor ballroom, complete with wet bar.
Is this antebellum manse cool, or creepy? You decide.

July 22, 2016

Local Pols Say Port Authority’s $10B Bus Terminal Plan Is a Hot Mess

By Michelle Cohen

A request to put the brakes on a $10 billion plan for a new West Side bus terminal and rethink the process with more input from local officials and the public was rebuffed by the Port Authority chairman, reports Crain’s. Rep. Jerrold Nadler and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer were joined by Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris, state Sen. Brad Hoylman, Assembly members Richard Gottfried and Linda Rosenthal and Councilman Corey Johnson in backing the effort to slow the Port Authority's call to move ahead with a design competition to get ideas for the West Side plan. The controversy emerged after a board meeting on Thursday. "We’re not going to defer the design and deliverability study,” was the reply from John Degnan, the New Jersey-appointed chairman, amid concerns that the new terminal will necessitate the seizure of private property using eminent domain, threaten area homes, small businesses and other organizations and belch more carbon from a larger fleet of buses into the air in an area that already "runs afoul of federal air-quality standards."
Find out what the fuss is all about

Real Estate Trends

July 21, 2016

Unpretentious Beach House by Space Exploration Is a Perfect Retreat For a Creative City Pair

By Michelle Cohen

Understandably busy creative couple Elisa Restrepo, co-founder of the luxurious minimalist shoe label Dieppa Restrepo, and restaurateur Dylan Dodd (Karasu, Walter’s, Walter Foods, and Barrio Chino) turned to Brooklyn architects Space Exploration to transform their three-story split-level house in the laid-back (though lately less so) surfing village of Montauk. 6sqft has featured the firm's work before, and they've done another fine job creating an un-fussy and livable space with white and pale woods, earthy textiles and plenty of natural light. The house underwent a full gut remodel, including extensive landscaping, which took a year, but looks completely worth the effort.
Summer serenity this way

Trendy, ‘Affordable’ Food Hall and Beer Garden Headed to the South Bronx

Image: View Grand Concourse via photopin (license)

July 21, 2016

Trendy, ‘Affordable’ Food Hall and Beer Garden Headed to the South Bronx

By Michelle Cohen

Controversial South Bronx Developer Keith Rubenstein of Somerset Partners has purchased a 16,000-square-foot warehouse (expandable to 30,000 square feet) at 9 Bruckner Boulevard for $7.5 million and intends to create a Gansevoort Market-style food hall called Bruckner Market, reports The Real Deal. According to the developer, who purchased two other South Bronx waterfront sites last year, the space will offer a fresh food market, kiosks and restaurants and may have a beer garden, though he made a point of addressing how the new addition will affect the community: “It will provide great food and beverage options at affordable prices for the existing community and new community.”
Find out more

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