Images (L to R): Renting Downtown: Top 10 Rental Buildings in Financial District + Battery Park City

• Renting Downtown: Top 10 Rental Buildings in Financial District + Battery Park City [LINK]
• Cobalt Lofts in Harrison Launches Luxury Rentals from $1,915/Month; 20 Minutes from NYC [LINK]
• Contemporary Rentals at Historic 71 Broadway: No-Fee Listings from $3,035/Month [LINK]
• Bed-Stuy Rentals Launch at 1247 Atlantic Avenue with 1 Month Free; Net Prices from $1,825/Month [LINK]
• New Midtown Luxury Rental Tower ARO at 242 West 53rd Street Leasing from $2,920/Month [LINK]
• New Rentals Launch at ML House Across from Bryant Park; Priced from $3,225/Month [LINK]
• Downtown Brooklyn’s The Amberly Leasing Luxury Rentals from $2,550/Month, See New Photos [LINK]
• Live in South Brooklyn at The Hamilton; Contemporary Rentals from $1,950/Month [LINK]

SEE MORE RENTAL NEWS AND OFFERS HERE

Shonda Rhimes — the showrunner behind TV hits like “Scandal,” “How to Get Away With Murder,” and “Grey’s Anatomy” — just picked up a penthouse at 765 Park Avenue for $11.75 million, The Real Deal reports. The Lenox Hill unit first appeared on the market in March for $14.75 million before being dropped to $12.5 million in June. This is Rhimes’ second real estate move in the past few months. In October she listed one of her several Los Angeles properties, a Hancock Park mansion, for just under $10 million.

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A corner one-bedroom co-op combining modern amenities with historic details was listed today for a cool $835,000. Located in the heart of the West Village at 242 West 4th Street, it more than makes up for its compact size with 10-foot ceilings and a central skylight, tons of original details, and quick access to everything the bustling neighborhood has to offer.

Check it out

Rendering courtesy of Handel Architects.

Update 12/7/18: The City Council and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer filed a suit in the Manhattan Supreme Court “claiming city planners usurped the Council’s authority over land-use issues in approving the project,” reported The Real Deal.

The City Planning Commission gave the green light Wednesday to a controversial application filed by four developers to build three new residential towers in the Lower East Side’s Two Bridges development, which are expected to add 3,000 housing units between them, The Real Deal reports. 700 units will be affordable. The large-scale residential towers were approved in a 10-3 vote on Wednesday, after a lengthy, often acrimonious review process. The towers are comprised of JDS Development’s 1,000-unit rental tower at 247 Cherry Street, L+M Development and CIM Group’s 798-foot tower at 260 South Street; and Starrett Corporation’s 730-foot building at 259 Clinton Street.

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Via Flickr

Starting in January, the World Trade Center PATH station will close on weekends to finish repairing damage to tunnels and equipment caused by Hurricane Sandy. Once the repairs start on January 5, service to WTC will terminate at the Exchange Place Station on Saturdays at 12:01 a.m., and reopen at 5 a.m. on Mondays after each weekend.

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While this charming Chelsea co-op at 223 West 21st Street doesn’t have much in the way of extra space, it’s a two-bedroom apartment with a solid reserve of pre-war charm. Mint-condition renovations and an elevator building, combined with the fact that it’s priced at less than a million at $995K make this listing worth a look.

See more, this way

Rendering via Kostow Greenwood

Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theater, which helped launch the careers of Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Jackson, and other such luminaries, is expanding for the first time since it opened in 1934, by adding two new performance spaces and additional office space as part of the redevelopment of the Victoria Theater on West 125th Street. Scheduled to open in fall 2020, the new Apollo Performing Arts Center will allow the nonprofit Apollo Theater to increase the number of programming, educational, and community programs it offers.

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Architecture firm Snøhetta unveiled this week a preservationist-friendly revision to a controversial design for an updated AT&T building at 550 Madison Avenue. The latest design is one of several revisions, each followed by controversy over being seen by preservationists as diverting too much from the building’s original design by Philip Johnson and John Burgee. In addition to comparisons to the original, new designs have had to consider the subsequent revamp that made it the Sony building in 1994, which replaced the building’s open Madison Avenue arcade with “Sony Experience” storefronts and covered a rear public arcade with a glass roof.

‘Hands off my Johnson’

Photo via Wiki Commons

Earlier today, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing to consider landmarking seven buildings on Broadway between East 12th and 14th Streets, one of which many already recognize as an unofficial NYC landmark — The Strand bookstore. In advance of the hearing, The Strand voiced strong concerns that the designation would place crippling restrictions on the scrappy business and potentially threaten its future, as the New York Times reported. Referencing the recent tax incentives that Amazon received to relocate to Long Island City, Strand owner Nancy Bass Wyden said, “The richest man in America, who’s a direct competitor, has just been handed $3 billion in subsidies. I’m not asking for money or a tax rebate. Just leave me alone.”

Find out what happened at today’s hearing