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.

January 9, 2017

Built in Poland and shipped in pieces, NYC’s biggest modular hotel project is 55 percent complete

By Michelle Cohen

The 20-story, 300-room project at 185 Bowery was constructed in Poland and shipped to New York in 210 pieces. Owned by Dutch hotel developer/operator Citizen M with Brack Capital Real Estate, the high-rise hotel at 185 Bowery is more than half done, reports the Wall Street Journal. It will be the largest permanent modular hotel project ever in NYC. Modular construction is more common in Europe; the developer already has nine hotels up and running and 14 in the works. They’ve used the technique of stacking sealed, factory-made units containing finished hotel rooms on the majority of those projects.
Check out photos of the sealed hotel pods arriving

January 9, 2017

There’s enough room for all of your startup dreams in this $5M live-work Soho loft

By Michelle Cohen

While lofts are often vast and cavernous by their very nature–most are former warehouses and factories after all–at 5,200 square feet this sprawling space at 514 Broadway in Soho–currently on the market for $4.995 million–is large even by those big-shouldered standards. We're guessing two units were combined at some point, and since you're officially allowed to do business here, we can imagine a buzzing hive of innovation, with more than enough room left over for leaving work behind. According to records, former Tiananmen Square activist and student leader during the 1989 protests and current tech mogul Shen Tong purchased the loft for $2.9 million in 2004, which is also when he founded software company VFinity. The avid art collector's office is listed at this address, and we're guessing he's lived here with his wife and three children during that time.
Check out the possibilities

Distinctive Homes

January 6, 2017

Go for baroque in this $18M Upper East Side townhouse with a three-tiered garden, two kitchens and gym

By Michelle Cohen

For anyone who can't decide between an Italian palazzo and a townhouse on the Upper East Side, this 6,800-square-foot "slice of Manhattan" might be just the answer. Rising six stories (five plus a gym/laundry/storage enhanced-cellar) at 115 East 79th Street just off Park Avenue and two blocks from Central Park, this beyond-opulent single-family home was built in 1903 but was far more recently renovated with just about every move-in ready modern upgrade you can think of. There are two kitchens, four outdoor spaces and seven wood-burning fireplaces–all accessible by an elevator or stairs.
Tour this opulent uptown mansion

Distinctive Homes

January 6, 2017

Plans filed for a 21-story Coney Island ‘Dreams’ project on the boardwalk

By Michelle Cohen

Developer John Catsimatidis' Red Apple Group has filed plans for a 21-story tower on a Surf Avenue parcel that he purchased last summer according to Brooklyn Daily; the tower is part of a three-building Coney Island project that will likely include 415 apartments and retail. In the billionaire grocery mogul's typically patient fashion, he has slowly been acquiring the Boardwalk-adjacent lots between West 35th and West 37th streets for the project, called Ocean Dreams, since 2005.
Find out more

January 5, 2017

NYC documents dating back to 1674 will get a new home after gathering dust for centuries

By Michelle Cohen

While paper might be becoming a thing of the past, it's often the one thing that remains of our recorded history. And while it was often our sole means of recording that history, paper is among the most difficult media to preserve. To that end, New York City's painstakingly stacked, filed and boxed New York Supreme Court records, part of an immense collection of official documents dating back as far as 1674, are being moved from the archival homes they’ve occupied for, in some cases, centuries. The New York Times reports on a heroic effort by dedicated archivists to round up the these city records in order to preserve them for posterity and make them more accessible to researchers.
From early immigration papers to Aaron Burr's divorce

History

January 5, 2017

$8M Tribeca loft is artist-owned and comes with a spacious studio and sculptor neighbor

By Michelle Cohen

The interiors at this jumbo Tribeca loft are a work of art even at first glance; that's likely because the 4,223 square foot home at 173 Duane Street is currently owned by artist Merrill Steiger, who bought it in 2008 for $3.85 million. Incidentally, the two-bedroom loft co-op is also in the building where sculptor Richard Serra has lived and worked since the 1990s. Serra, who is known for his large-scale site-specific works, has at various times purchased the first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the classic early 20th-century cast iron building with his wife, Clara. The sprawling second floor apartment with a separate art studio is currently listed by Steiger for $7.95 million.
Take the tour

Distinctive Homes

January 4, 2017

$3.2M Carnegie Hill condo at the Gatsby lives up to its elegant pre-war namesake

By Michelle Cohen

The classic seven: That increasingly rare breed of New York City apartment, almost non-existent among condos, was much more often seen in the pre-war era, before building owners felt the need to pack as many people as possible into every square inch. This particular specimen in The Gatsby at 65 East 96th Street can be found on the market for $3.195 million in its most likely habitat, the Upper East Side, and it's a beauty. Everything has been perfectly updated for 21st-century living and gorgeous pre-war details are at their best. There are even building amenities, plus the freedom of condo ownership, but mostly it's the kind of apartment that only needs to show its floor plan.
Tour this gracious seven-room home

Distinctive Homes

January 4, 2017

New details for controversial Midtown East rezoning revealed, plan moves forward with land use review

By Michelle Cohen

Plans to rezone Midtown East are few steps closer to reality with the start of the new year. The Department of City Planning has certified a rezoning proposal for the area surrounding Grand Central, and the city kicked off its official land-use review process Tuesday. The next step for the rezoning plans will be the seven-month Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), which includes review by community boards 5 and 6, the Manhattan borough president, the City Planning Commission and the City Council. The zoning proposal could add 6.5 million square feet of commercial space to the 73-block district in the form of 16 larger, more modern buildings that would replace old ones, breathing new life into the office zone that New York Post real estate columnist Steve Cuozzo recently referred to as “iconic but declining.”
Find out more

Policy

January 3, 2017

$40M Brooklyn Heights townhouse with a mayoral past is now four pricey rentals

By Michelle Cohen

After being on the market for over two years, Brooklyn’s priciest townhouse–a $40 million home at 3 Pierrepont Place–is now being offered as four rental units. 6sqft previously featured the home, known as the Low Mansion for the previous owner and businessman A.A. Low, whose son, Seth Low, became mayor of New York City in 1902. Spanning 17,500 square feet, the eight-figure townhouse boasted 15 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, and more than 9,000 square feet of garden and outdoor space with original details galore. Though even Matt Damon toured the grand Brooklyn Heights property back in September, the house hasn't found a buyer, so the owner is now offering the mansion as four luxurious rental homes from a $4,500 one-bedroom to a 1,700-square-foot top-floor unit for $12,000 a month (h/t Curbed).
Find out more

January 3, 2017

Look out over your $5.9M West Village loft from the crow’s nest in the living room

By Michelle Cohen

This 3,400 square-foot loft in an 1890s warehouse at 68 Jane Street not only has 17-foot ceilings, but a cool rounded, windowed loft from which to gaze out at the room below. Currently asking $5,875 million, this sprawling duplex on one of the West Village's prettiest streets has all the important loft attributes like exposed brick and beamed ceilings, plus three bedrooms and a private street entrance.
Take a look

Distinctive Homes

For $525K, this 1880 Dutchess County country house has a horse barn, a wood shop and a pond

By Michelle Cohen

If you owned this Dutchess County home, you’d never need to stay in a cute country inn; the historic Hyde Park/Pleasant Valley four-bedroom house resembles a quaint B&B from its outbuildings and pond to its cozy interiors (h/t CIRCA). Currently on the market for $525,000, 45 Marshall Road is about the most textbook example of an uncomplicated country home that we've seen in a while. And it might be just the thing for next year's Christmas card photo.
Explore the simple life

December 29, 2016

City eyes Gowanus Canal as the next ‘Little Venice’

By Michelle Cohen

Rezoning and the promise of public right-of-way on the west Brooklyn Superfund canal could bring an esplanade like Williamsburg’s, a recreation area and lots of new development. The light-industrial zone wedged between pricey Park Slope and Carroll Gardens hasn't accurately been a polluted flyover zone for decades, but the fact that it now boasts a flagship Whole Foods with a rooftop farm hasn't gone unnoticed. As 6sqft reported recently, the canal-side enclave, despite the sometimes-fragrant waterway in its midst, is on a par with its neighbors as one of the city's most expensive neighborhoods. Now Crain's tells of rezoning plans and lucrative developments that could open the door for a public esplanade and waterfront amenities like those along the Hudson and the East River.
Find out more about the Gowanus rezoning plans

December 29, 2016

$850K Yorkville triplex condo feels like a country cottage on the Upper East Side

By Michelle Cohen

It might be difficult to imagine a having-it-all situation for $850K, especially on the Upper East Side, but this unusual apartment for well under a million at 225 East 86th Street definitely says "home" for someone who loves breezy country cottage style and wants more than the average boxed condo. And with living, dining and sleeping spaces divided over three levels, plus a rare glass-enclosed atrium, this heavenly home has plenty of room for guest visits as well as alone time. What's more, despite its retail cornucopia, Yorkville is very much a residential neighborhood–one whose residents will surely rejoice with the advent of the Second Avenue Line, making the whole package an even sweeter deal.
Check it out

Distinctive Homes

December 28, 2016

A mile-deep, 10,000-year-old version of the Grand Canyon sits just below the Hudson

By Michelle Cohen

In the natural wonders department, the East Coast has its very own version of the Grand Canyon. Sitting under about 60 feet of water at the mouth of the Hudson River, the Hudson Canyon was created during the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Located on the continental margin (the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust) off New York and New Jersey at the outlet of the Hudson River, it's so deep (estimated to be at least a mile) that we don't know much about what lies at the bottom, but we do know that it's a biodiversity hotspot. Jon Forrest Dohlin, vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society and director of the New York Aquarium tells NYMetro that due to the unique phenomenon of an upwelling of cold water mixing with warmer surface currents, the submarine canyon is able to provide a home for hundreds of species from plankton to turtles, sharks, whales and birds.
Find out what it's like inside the canyon

History

December 28, 2016

Elegant UES co-op brings designer details to a gilded-age Georgian mansion for $1.1M

By Michelle Cohen

Many an Upper East Side apartment boasts gracious rooms, decorator swag and grandeur to spare. This one-bedroom co-op at 18 East 84th Street in a prime spot just off Fifth Avenue has designer cred with cool, creative execution–and it doesn't sacrifice a bit of grandeur. This enviable "penthouse" residence is on the top floor of a turn-of-the-century Georgian mansion with plenty of original historic details joining unique and stylish interiors; it's currently asking $1.095 million.
Take the tour

Distinctive Homes

December 27, 2016

Watch 24 hours of NYC subway activity in one hypnotizing map

By Michelle Cohen

Who knew watching the movements of the New York City subway could be such a relaxing activity. A new data visualization created by Will Geary shows a day's worth of subway routes in motion in one mesmerizing creation. To build the map, Geary used Processing and Carto software, as well as the framework of another tutorial from Juan Francisco Saldarriaga, pulling data from the MTA and Google Maps to determine the flux. And for some extra fun, the whole thing is set to "Rhapsody in Blue!"
Watch the subway map on the move

Transit

December 27, 2016

Matt Lauer sells cute, beachy bay front Hamptons cottage for $3.5M

By Michelle Cohen

Back in July 6sqft reported that "Today Show" host Matt Lauer had put his Southampton beach cottage at 67 Scotts Landing Road on the market for $4 million; the listing was one of several real estate moves the seasoned TV journo has recently made, including the purchase of Richard Gere's Hamptons estate for $36 million at around the same time. Now Variety reports that the diminutive seaside home has sold for $3.5 million–less than the ask but a nice bump from the home's $2.19 million 2009 purchase price. In addition to the aforementioned 6.3 acre gated North Haven estate, Lauer and his wife Annette also currently own Brightside Farms, a 40-acre tract of land in Water Mill on which they have built a world-class equestrian facility and a 25-acre estate in the Water Mill area that includes an 8,000-square-foot 6-bedroom mansion decorated by Muriel Brandolini; the latter is also currently on the market for $17 million.
Tour the cute, beachy cottage

December 23, 2016

Rent the East Village party pad where Bret Easton Ellis wrote ‘American Psycho’

By Michelle Cohen

The East Village loft owned by novelist and literary bad boy Bret Easton Ellis is available for rent for $5,900 per month. Ellis has been renting out the studio apartment since he decamped for Los Angeles a decade ago; he told the Observer he's been holding on to the 950-square-foot, second-floor condo in the American Felt Building at 114 East 13th Street as a back-up plan, "if Los Angeles just doesn’t work out." The "American Psycho" scribe says he spent the late '80s living in the lofty studio–in his early 20s at the time–writing the iconic 1991 novel of late 20th century privilege, materialism and delusion and throwing massive Holly Golightly-esque bashes packed with his contemporaries back in the day in an East Village very different from today's.
Check it out

December 22, 2016

Live in one of Manhattan’s rare rooftop cabins for $4,200 a month

By Michelle Cohen

Here's another tiny, pricey top-floor studio calling itself a "penthouse" in a buzzy downtown Manhattan neighborhood. Except this particular diminutive dwelling really is one-(or maybe two- or three-) of-a-kind in the city: It’s a rooftop cabin. Curbed calls it "NYC's most unusual rental." Every so often we get a chance to marvel at these quirky homesteads perched atop otherwise ordinary apartment buildings, and we don’t know whether we’d be thrilled to bits every morning to wake up in a country cabin on a city rooftop, or if we’d be totally over it. Let’s go with thrilled to bits–and take a closer look at this unusual aerie at 15 West 28th Street, asking $4,200 in monthly rent.
It's a cabin on the roof. How cool is that?

December 21, 2016

Parlor floor pad offers brownstone beauty without the beastly mortgage at $4,300/month

By Michelle Cohen

Even when it's tucked into a postcard-pretty brick townhouse, it's unusual for a rental apartment to look like a longtime home. This two-bedroom parlor-floor unit at 155 Luquer Street in Carroll Gardens is about as welcoming as we've seen in a while. The home is 25 feet wide–standard townhouse width is 20 feet–which helps, and big rooms and blond wood add to the pretty picture.
Check out the rest of the space

Distinctive Homes

December 20, 2016

Late fashion designer L’Wren Scott’s Chelsea ‘Sky Garage’ apartment sells for $6.5 million

By Michelle Cohen

The Chelsea apartment that had been the home of late fashion designer L’Wren Scott has sold for $6.5 million according to public records. The 3,328-square-foot duplex at the Annabelle Selldorf-designed 200 Eleventh Avenue was listed earlier this year for $8.25 million after Scott’s tragic suicide shocked the fashion world in 2014 (h/t New York Post). Scott, who was Mick Jagger's longtime girlfriend, had purchased the home in 2010 for 5.6 million. The apartment was one of the building's famed Sky Garage units with a car elevator leading to a private 337 square-foot garage adjacent to the apartment.
Celebrity neighbors and a Sky Garage

December 20, 2016

Another gorgeous Albemarle Road house hits the market for $2.25M, koi pond included

By Michelle Cohen

In June of last year the Albemarle Road buzz reached public ears when Michelle Williams purchased a $2.5 million Colonial Revival mansion on the Prospect Park South Historic District mansion row; in August, 6sqft reported that the extraordinary and storied 23-room mansion across the street at number 1305, listed at a neighborhood record-setting $2.98 million, had entered contract just two hours after it officially hit the market. Now, about five blocks to the west, a lovely and historic seven-bedroom home at 916 Albemarle Road is asking $2.249 million.
Tour the classic home

Distinctive Homes

December 19, 2016

Louise Bourgeois’ son gifts $4M West Village townhouse to Native American tribe

By Michelle Cohen

Jean-Louis Goldwater Bourgeois, son of the celebrated sculptor Louise Bourgeois, is transferring the deed for his $4 million West Village townhouse to a non-profit organization run by the Lenape tribe, who were among the original Manhattanites. The 76-year-old architectural historian and activist told the New York Post, “This building is the trophy from major theft." Bourgeois explained his romance with the city and the fact that he feels guilty that he has profited from actions that have appalled him. "The right thing to do is to return it.”
Find out more

History

December 16, 2016

Trump isn’t the first president-elect with a New York City home base, FDR stayed close too

By Michelle Cohen

Just when you thought you'd get to enjoy a low-key pre-holiday Friday, the New York Times compares Donald Trump to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While just 12 blocks away Trump Tower snarls traffic and confounds anything resembling daily life in the surrounding area with a round-the-clock hive of security details, reporters and protesters—and of course the prez-elect himself, his entourage and various cabinet-members-to-be—Hunter College’s Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute director Harold Holzer reminds us of another presidency whose earliest days were spent ensconced in a NYC residence. Of the century-old double-width townhouse at at 47-49 East 65th Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, now the Institute's home, Holzer says, “It was the Trump Tower of 1932-33.” The 65th Street residence was the longtime home of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Definitely not an apples-to-apples comparison

History

December 16, 2016

$4M Williamsburg townhouse adds industrial interiors and contemporary drama to 19th century brick

By Michelle Cohen

It's a good thing there's so much to see in every direction while strolling the sidewalks of Williamsburg, because this $3.995 million single-family Northside townhouse looks a lot better on the inside than the outside. The three-story-plus-finished-basement home's interiors will definitely appeal to someone looking for a jumbo "loft alternative" accented with authentic materials like brick and wood, but with none of the hassles of the actual 19th century left to contend with.
Tour this 'Brooklyn masterpiece'

Distinctive Homes

All articles by Michelle Cohen

Pitch a Story

Interested in seeing the property in person?

Interested in seeing the property in person?

Distinctive Post Form

Get in Touch

Send us a Tip

Interesting in learning more about purchasing a new home?

Thinking about selling your home?

Sell a Home (Footer)

Before You Move On from this Page.

Your Daily Doseof NYC Life!

Before You Move On
from this Page.

Your Daily Dose
of NYC Life!