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.

May 21, 2019

This $7M Tribeca loft was a famous recording studio in a former life

By Michelle Cohen

This massive six-bedroom loft in the American Thread Building at 260 West Broadway spans 3,800 square feet with 45 feet of frontage facing Tribeca Park; the converted and designer-renovated condominium's $7 million price reflects not only its massive size, rare arched windows and covetable loft bones, but likely also its culturally significant famous past: Built in 1894, the space was once home to Duplex Sound, the studio where world-renowned musicians including Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, Earth, Wind & Fire and jazz saxophonist Paul Desmond once recorded tracks.
Tour the loft

The best things to do this Memorial Day weekend in NYC

Image: United States Marine Corps Official Page via photopin cc

May 21, 2019

The best things to do this Memorial Day weekend in NYC

By Michelle Cohen

The weather has finally gotten the memo, the city's beaches, parks, and urban islands are open for the season and you’ve got a day off. There’s no need to get complicated; just head for the nearest beach with a picnic for two, attend an outdoor concert, find a BBQ bash or a rooftop rave–or celebrate the day with a parade. What you do with the long weekend is up to you, of course, but you'll find some ideas below to get you started.
a bounty of events, this way

Events & Things To Do

Sarah Jessica Parker lends star power to the fight against New York City public library funding cuts

Image via publicdomainpictures.net

May 20, 2019

Sarah Jessica Parker lends star power to the fight against New York City public library funding cuts

By Michelle Cohen

A majority of New Yorkers–95 percent–said in an online survey that Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s proposed $11 million funding cut to public libraries would hurt the city's communities, according to the Daily News; scaled-back hours and reduced programs like free after-school options for teens would curtail staffing and hiring across all five boroughs. Now, actress Sarah Jessica Parker is adding her celebrity firepower to help rescue the city’s libraries with an online campaign, the New York Post reports.
Find out more

May 20, 2019

This $6M Park Slope mansion is as stunning inside as it is outside, from finished basement to green roof

By Michelle Cohen

Just around the corner from Prospect Park at 60 Montgomery Place, this historic two-family head-turner of a townhouse is in good company, but four stories of preserved and perfectly renovated interiors and a few surprises set it apart from its elegant Park Slope neighbors. In addition to a finished basement, plaster walls, central air and a private garden, this distinctive home, asking $5.995 million, is crowned by a green roof with park views.
Tour the many floors of this gorgeous home

Distinctive Homes

May 17, 2019

Cuomo reveals new Penn Station entrance, work set to begin next month

By Michelle Cohen

On Thursday Governor Andrew M. Cuomo unveiled the final design for the new main entrance to Penn Station. The new 33rd Street and 7th Avenue entrance will provide much-needed direct access to the Long Island Rail Road main concourse and the subway, eliminate congestion by doubling capacity for riders entering and leaving the LIRR level and enhance safety and security. Construction begins next month and will wrap up in December of 2020. The new design is the first we've seen of the $600 million Penn Station revamp since last September when Gov. Cuomo revealed a new LIRR entrance and public plaza.
More of the new designs this way

See how five architecture firms designed affordable housing for small vacant lots in NYC

“More with Less,” a winning entry by Palette Architecture

May 15, 2019

See how five architecture firms designed affordable housing for small vacant lots in NYC

By Michelle Cohen

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the American Institute of Architects New York (AIANY) announced on Tuesday the selection of five New York City-based firms as finalists in the Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC design competition for small-scale, urban infill housing. As 6sqft previously reported, the program was organized by HPD and AIANY as a way to address the challenges associated with the design and construction of affordable housing on 23 lots of underutilized city-owned land. First announced by the city last year, the program falls under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Housing New York 2.0 plan. The winning proposals were selected by a panel of nine jurors and evaluated on their design, replicability, and construction feasibility. The finalists will advance to the final stage of the program.
See more of the finalists' designs

LPC calendars six sites linked to New York City’s LGBT history for possible landmark status

Top, left to right: GAA Firehouse, James Baldwin Residence, LGBT Community Center; Bottom, left to right: Audre Lorde Residence, Women’s Liberation Center, Caffe Cino; All photos courtesy of NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project

May 14, 2019

LPC calendars six sites linked to New York City’s LGBT history for possible landmark status

By Michelle Cohen

The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission voted on Tuesday to calendar six individual sites related to the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in New York City. The proposed landmarks highlight both groups and individuals who have advanced the LGBT rights movement by providing structure for community and political support, as well as raising public awareness. The commission's decision to calendar the sites comes ahead of next month's 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and NYC's annual Pride celebration. LPC Chair Sarah Carroll said on Tuesday a public hearing to discuss the sites will be held June 4.
Find out more

Bay Ridge’s first historic district moves one step closer to landmark designation

Image courtesy of Landmarks Preservation Commission

May 14, 2019

Bay Ridge’s first historic district moves one step closer to landmark designation

By Michelle Cohen

Bay Ridge residents and elected officials voiced their support for the neighborhood's first historic district during a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing Tuesday. The commission voted in March to calendar the proposed Brooklyn district, known as the Bay Ridge Parkway Doctors’ Row Historic District. Comprised of 54 architecturally consistent row houses along Bay Ridge Parkway between 4th and 5th Avenues, the district includes a row of limestone-fronted houses–referred to as Doctors’ Row based on both its historic and current residential demographics. This block reflects the neighborhood’s growth from a suburban resort community to an urban neighborhood ahead of the opening of the 4th Avenue Subway line in the early 20th century.
Making the case for historic Bay Ridge, this way

Policy

May 14, 2019

See inside the newly-opened Essex Street Market

By Michelle Cohen

The latest version of the Lower East Side's beloved Essex Street Market, its name streamlined to simply Essex Market, opened Monday in its new home inside the Essex Crossing development at 88 Essex Street. It's triple the size of the original market, from which 21 vendors (yes, Shopsin's remains) have moved in, along with 18 new stalls and two full-service restaurants. The old market officially closed its doors on May 5, making this the first new public market to open in the city since 1955.
See more, this way

Food & Dining

Columbia Medical’s Washington Heights campus will get a new public plaza

Rendering Credit: FXCollaborative and Quennell Rothschild & Partners.

May 13, 2019

Columbia Medical’s Washington Heights campus will get a new public plaza

By Michelle Cohen

On May 28, work is scheduled to begin on Haven Plaza, a pedestrian plaza that will transform Haven Avenue between 169th Street and Fort Washington Avenue into an actual haven for faculty, staff, patients, students and the public at large. Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), in partnership with the New York City Department of Transportation, is creating 60,000 square feet of open green space complete with planters, benches, café tables, and chairs.
Find out more

Architecture And Design

Watch New York City grow from 1609 to today with this animated video assembled from historic maps

By Michelle Cohen

When it comes to the development of New York City over many, many years, we tend not to see the forest for the trees, so to speak. Here Grows New York, an animated map created by urban development buff Myles Zhang, gives us a seriously forest-eye view of how the city changes from the time the first native American tribes populated the five boroughs in 1609 to the noisy tangle of highways of 2019. Complete with cool facts and a soundtrack, the map visually animates the development of this city’s infrastructure and street grid using geo-referenced road network data, historic maps, and geological surveys, highlighting the kind of organic growth spurts that drive development over time, providing an "abstract representation of urbanism."
Watch the city grow before your eyes

Target expansion plans face community resistance in Queens

Image via Google Earth.

May 10, 2019

Target expansion plans face community resistance in Queens

By Michelle Cohen

A planned expansion by Target into several Queens neighborhoods has run afoul of politicians and community groups. The chain store hopes to open new stores in Astoria and Elmhurst by 2022, but activists in the borough have been fighting to stop the new additions, objecting to the fact that they'll replace mom-and-pop stores and concerned about the effects of gentrification in their neighborhoods. Another concern is that Target's non-union workforce will replace union jobs, The City reports.
Find out more

New Developments

May 10, 2019

This sweet Clinton Hill two-bedroom is ‘just right’ for $650K

By Michelle Cohen

In the charming Clinton Hill neighborhood near the buzzy Navy Yard, this two-bedroom co-op at 153 Clinton Avenue checks all the "just right" boxes. Asking $650,000, the bright and airy home has two large–but not too large–bedrooms, a spacious living/dining room, a cute kitchen and lots of closets. It has just enough of everything–including a wall of exposed brick–to be a cool and cozy home.
Bears not included

Distinctive Homes

The many rooms of this $4.6M Prospect Heights brownstone are as colorful as they are historic

Photos by Elizabeth Dooley, courtesy of Compass

May 9, 2019

The many rooms of this $4.6M Prospect Heights brownstone are as colorful as they are historic

By Michelle Cohen

Renovated brownstones may be lovely, but once you've seen a few, they tend to blend together in a blur of pale walls and chandeliers. This Prospect Heights gem at 130 St. Marks Avenue is a very intact two-family home complete with restored wood trim and paneling that resembles neither a museum nor the usual house-tour staple. Color sets each room apart, and, as the listing points out, updates were done with an artist's eye to highlight old details while adding modern design. As configured, the home, asking $4.575 million, has a five-bedroom owner's triplex and a one-bedroom rental apartment on the garden floor. There's plenty of charm left over for private outdoor spaces as well, including the little-known neighborhood bonus of an extra-long back yard.
Take a room-by-room tour

Distinctive Homes

May 8, 2019

Living at the top of the world’s first Art Deco skyscraper just got $20M cheaper

By Michelle Cohen

According to the listing for The Penthouse at One Hundred Barclay, the Tribeca building, designed in 1927 by renowned architect of the era Ralph Walker, is the world's first Art Deco skyscraper. This 14,500-square-foot duplex penthouse is the crowning glory of its 21st century life. In addition to bragging rights to one of the largest living rooms in New York City at over 3,000 square feet, a mere $39.95 million–nearly $20 million less than the property's original asking price of $59 million–gets you unobstructed views of the Statue of Liberty, Hudson River and New York City skyline.
Penthouse grand tour, right this way

Distinctive Homes

May 8, 2019

The terraces surrounding this $2.2M Carroll Gardens penthouse feel more beach house than Brooklyn

By Michelle Cohen

This top-floor condominium in Brooklyn's Columbia Street Waterfront district has the space–2,300 square feet of it–and the views to feel more beachfront than brownstone. The neighborhood has a history of its own, and though the building at 53 Summit Street may be new, 10-foot ceilings and steel-framed windows look right at home in the formerly industrial neighborhood. Asking $2.195 million, this lofty duplex offers three or four bedrooms to configure as you wish and two custom decks for summertime lounging.
Feel the sea breezes, this way

Distinctive Homes

Amazon is building a $5.6M factory in Queens, no high-paying tech jobs expected

Image via Flickr.

May 7, 2019

Amazon is building a $5.6M factory in Queens, no high-paying tech jobs expected

By Michelle Cohen

Last week brought news that a $5.6 million Amazon conversion project is coming to the former Bulova facility at 26-15 Boody Street in Woodside, Queens that will turn the warehouse into a delivery center for the retail giant. Though the new project is expected to create 2,000 new jobs, an Amazon spokesperson told 6sqft they're likely to be $18-$25 per hour jobs rather than the 25,000 $150K professional salaries the no-go Amazon HQ had promised.
Find out more

New Developments

A herd of hungry goats will save Riverside Park from invasive plants

Unrelated, these goats were found loitering on the subway tracks last year by the MTA. Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit via Flickr.

May 7, 2019

A herd of hungry goats will save Riverside Park from invasive plants

By Michelle Cohen

The hilly terrain of the Upper West Side's Riverside park is becoming overgrown with invasive plant species, poison ivy included; but the green hordes will be no match for 24 goats that the park plans to unleash on the hard-to-reach patches human gardeners have had a hard time taming. The goats are being brought out of a cushy retirement upstate to graze on a fenced-in area between 119th and 125th Streets, I Love the Upper West Side blog reports.
'Goatham' returns, this way

City Living

Photo courtesy of NYCxDESIGN

May 6, 2019

NYCxDESIGN 2019: A guide to New York City’s annual celebration of design

By Michelle Cohen

You can expect to see the stars of NYCxDESIGN–sinuous sofas, luminous lighting, fab furniture, terrific textiles, and amazing accessories–for the next several years in magazines, blogs and showrooms, but you'll be seeing them here first. It’s not strictly for design geeks only, but if modern objects are your thing, get out your calendar and get ready for design heaven. ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) anchors an international celebration on a par with the Milan Furniture Fair and Stockholm Design Week, with hundreds of thousands of attendees and designers from across the globe converging on the city's five boroughs from May 10–22; much of the mid-May action happens in Manhattan, but Brooklyn weighs in with a full calendar of collective events in hotspots like the Navy Yard and Industry City that serve as design hubs 365 days a year. Read on for a handful of highlights.
What's next in design, this way

Life science campus to open at former West Harlem bakery site, adding to the Factory District’s revival

Rendering courtesy of The Janus Property Group.

May 3, 2019

Life science campus to open at former West Harlem bakery site, adding to the Factory District’s revival

By Michelle Cohen

From the mid-19th to early 20th century, an area in West Harlem known as Manhattanville was a bustling industrial village dotted with factories and breweries. Now the area is transforming from a unique former factory district into a home for a growing roster of commercial businesses, nonprofits, and students and researchers from Columbia University and CUNY’s City College. Leading the way on developing this evolving neighborhood is Janus Property Group. The company announced that its 11-story Taystee Lab building will break ground next week, bringing the city’s first major life science campus to the site of a former bread bakery.
More uptown excitement, this way

New Developments

May 2, 2019

Loft in Soho’s first building designated to low-income artists is now asking $3M

By Michelle Cohen

In 1978, a ragtag band of artist residents of Soho's 45 Crosby Street won what the New York Times called "an impressive victory." The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development had granted the former industrial building's title to its residents in exchange for merely the "sweat equity" of getting it up to code (estimated cost: $164,000), making it the city's first loft building exclusively set aside for low-income artists. Now, a 2,100-square-foot loft co-op in the building, which has been home to artists ever since, is asking $3 million.
Times change, the loft remains a classic

Distinctive Homes

Manhattan intersection is permanently renamed to honor 50th anniversary of ‘Sesame Street’

Image credit: Paige Polk/Mayoral Photography Office

May 2, 2019

Manhattan intersection is permanently renamed to honor 50th anniversary of ‘Sesame Street’

By Michelle Cohen

The city has officially renamed the intersection of West 63rd Street and Broadway in Manhattan "Sesame Street," to honor the beloved educational program's 50th anniversary. As part of a year-long celebration, Mayor Bill de Blasio was joined by Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Oscar, Elmo and other members of the "Sesame" crew at a renaming ceremony at the bustling West Side corner–the location of the Sesame Workshop offices. "We’re here because we believe in what Sesame Street means today and what it’s meant for half-a-century, what it’s done for our children."
de Blasio and Big Bird: separated at birth?

City Living

May 1, 2019

$735K Park Slope co-op is light, bright, and brimming with rustic chic

By Michelle Cohen

This Park Slope co-op at 135 Garfield Place, asking $735,000, will definitely appeal to lovers of exposed brick and rustic chic. It's been freshly renovated with the latest in attractive materials and calming shades of pale. While the home has plenty of charm and modern conveniences like split-system AC and a top-of-the-line kitchen, the bedroom is only seven feet wide and the only closets are in the apartment's entryway. A lovely common roof deck looks great for warm weather, and Prospect Park is mere blocks away.
Get a closer look

Distinctive Homes

Report says city needs 24,000 subsidized apartments to address record homelessness numbers

Photo via Wikimedia

May 1, 2019

Report says city needs 24,000 subsidized apartments to address record homelessness numbers

By Michelle Cohen

According to a new report titled "State of the Homeless 2019" by the Coalition for the Homeless, the number of New Yorkers sleeping in shelters each night is large enough to count as the state's ninth-largest city: Close to 64,000 people took refuge in shelters each night according to the report–a record high figure that fell only slightly in February. The report takes both Mayor Bill De Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to task on the issue, AM New York reports, and advises that the city build at least 24,000 subsidized affordable units and set aside 6,000 units for homeless households as quickly as possible to keep the numbers from growing.
More from the report

New glamping experience on Governors Island offers boat rides, seafood dinners, yoga and more

Image courtesy of Collective Retreats.

May 1, 2019

New glamping experience on Governors Island offers boat rides, seafood dinners, yoga and more

By Michelle Cohen

A new option for summer fun without leaving the city begins today: Urban camping on Governors Island kicks off its summer season, courtesy of Collective Governors Island. The activity-packed retreat experience includes private boats, new menus, kids' activities, wellness programs and more, plus a chance to sleep under the stars with stunning views of the Statue of Liberty and New York skyline while enjoying plush beds with 1,500 thread count sheets, private en-suite bathrooms and decks, electricity and wi-fi.
Find out more

Getting Away

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