Manhattan

October 1, 2018

Lower East Side Coastal Resiliency Project will get fast-tracked with an updated design

In July, Rebuild by Design released an RFP for a stewardship partner for the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (ESCR), a  reconstruction of the 64-acre, 1.5-mile East River Park, a flood protection system conceived in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. ESCR is the first of three phases in Bjarke Ingels' Big U, a series of self-sufficient flood zones stretching from West 57th to East 42nd Streets. Under the city's new mandate, construction on ESCR, which spans the loop from Montgomery Street on the Lower East Side to East 25th Street, will begin in spring 2020. Roughly 70 percent of the design will be updated, allowing flood protection to be in place one year earlier, by summer 2023, with the entire project wrapping up six months sooner. According to a press release from the Mayor's Office, the updated $1.45 billion design will also "raise the entire East River Park, with the flood wall at the water’s edge integrated with the bulkhead and esplanade that does not obstruct views to the water."
More details on the updated plan
September 29, 2018

FREE RENT: This week’s roundup of NYC rental news

Images (L to R): Hunters Landing, 33 Bond Street, One Sixty Madison and RiverHouse11 Long Island City’s Hunters Landing Launches Leasing: No Fee Rentals from $2,211/Month [READ MORE] Newly Launched 33 Bond Street in Downtown Brooklyn Offers Rentals with Up to 2 Months Free [READ MORE] NoMad’s One Sixty Madison Offering One Month Free on […]

September 28, 2018

$75,000/night Upper East Side hotel room is the most expensive in the nation

Most New Yorker don't spend $75,000 a year on rent, but a hotel room on the Upper East Side is asking that hefty sum for just one night. First reported by Bloomberg, the duplex penthouse suite is at the swanky Mark Hotel and boasts six bathrooms, five bedrooms, two wet bars, a 25,000-square-foot rooftop terrace overlooking Central Park, and a living room under the landmarked building's cupola that can be converted into a full-sized Grand Ballroom. In addition to being the country's most expensive hotel suite, it's also the largest at 10,000 square feet.
See the whole place
September 28, 2018

Battery Park City and Upper West Side communities transition from middle-aged to millennial

Despite recently ranking as the most expensive zip code for renters in the United States, Battery Park City experienced the greatest influx of millennial residents in New York City over a period of five years. The Lower Manhattan neighborhood, with the zip code 10282, saw a population increase of over 54 percent, according to report released this month by RentCafe. Out of the top 20 zip codes with the highest increase in millennials, Battery Park City, with 2,300 Generation Y residents, ranks third in the country, falling slightly behind two downtown Los Angeles neighborhoods (h/t amNY).
Where are millennials moving?
September 28, 2018

Watch a time-lapse video of Waterline Square reaching the finish line

Construction is wrapping up on a trio of glassy residential towers known as Waterline Square, located on the five-acre waterfront site between West 59th and 61st Streets. Three Waterline Square, designed by Rafael Viñoly, got its multi-faceted crystal-planed exterior earlier this month. Richard Meier, on a leave of absence from his firm after accusations of sexual harassment, designed One Waterline Square, the 37-story building that also recently reached its pinnacle. Finally Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates' Two Waterline Square culminates at 38 stories. After the jump, check out a video showing the entire project rise in under 90 seconds.
Check it out
September 27, 2018

Bjarke Ingels-designed office tower in Nomad still on track

While all has been quiet regarding HFZ Capital Group's office tower in Nomad since December, new documents from the Department of Buildings documents filed on Tuesday reveal the project is still on track. CityRealty uncovered a ZD-1 zoning diagram online with a site plan, section, and axonometric drawing that mirror renderings released last year. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, the tower will rise from a through-block property at 3-7 West 29th Street.
Find out more
September 27, 2018

‘Gotham’ star Ben McKenzie lists Scandi-chic Battery Park City condo for $2.7M

Actor Ben McKenzie has come a long way since his teen-drama days on "The O.C." After adding producer to his resume, starring in the hit television series "Gotham," and moving from southern Cali to NYC, McKenzie is now looking to make another change and find a larger home for his growing family. The Post reports that he and his wife, fellow "Gotham" star Morena Baccarin, have put their Battery Park City condo on the market for $2,675,000. Clearly, the couple has good taste, as the sunny, stylish pad at 2 River Terrace is decorated with Scandi-chic furniture, boho accents, and contemporary light wood finishes.
Take a look around
September 27, 2018

What’s in a name? Gay Street

Gay Street is one of the most charming and picturesque streets in Greenwich Village, an icon of the historic neighborhood’s anachronistic character. But the origins of its name are hotly debated, with the LGBT rights movement and abolitionism often cited as the source of its unusual nomenclature. And while the street certainly has strong connections to gay liberation and the African-American struggle for freedom, the history behind the name is a little murkier, and a little more complicated to unravel, than one might expect.
Get the story
September 27, 2018

Amazon opens brick-and-mortar store in Soho with only top-rated products

Amazon on Thursday opened a physical store in Soho, stocked only with items rated 4 stars and above by online customers. The new concept, called Amazon 4-star, is located at 72 Spring Street, between Crosby and Lafayette Streets. By using customer ratings and reviews from their website, the store's products will feature customer review cards with quotes from actual reviews.
More here
September 27, 2018

Renzo Piano unveils his third and final building at Columbia’s Manhattanville Campus

Sixteen years after Columbia University president Lee Bollinger announced the development of the school's $6.3 billion 17-acre Manhattanville campus, he joined Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano to celebrate and unveil the third and final building of the starchitect's ensemble in West Harlem. Previously, Piano completed the Jerome L. Greene Science Center and the adjacent Lenfest Center for the Arts, and today he marked the completion of the Forum, the ship-like structure that peaks at the triangular intersection of Broadway and West 125th Street. The 56,000-square-foot building will serve as a flexible meeting and conference hub, and like its siblings, was purposefully designed with a transparent, public ground floor surrounded by plazas.
See photos of the Forum
September 26, 2018

$5.5M West Village townhouse offers location, history, charm–and income potential

In an especially photogenic corner of the uber-desirable West Village where Hudson Street meets Jane Street, this classic townhouse at 613 Hudson Street boasts direct views of Abingdon Square Park. Asking $5.45 million, this 20-foot-wide four-and-a-half story home has elegant historic details befitting an 1842 townhouse and stylish modern updates to the kitchen and baths. It also has commercial zoning–something most townhomes don't offer–for added options.
More West Village townhouse goodness this way
September 26, 2018

LPC calendars 7 buildings on Broadway near recently-approved tech hub in Union Square

The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on Tuesday voted to calendar seven buildings on Broadway in Union Square, marking the first step to designating them as landmarks. The buildings sit adjacent to the tech hub, a 21-story tech training center planned for 124 East 14th Street and approved by the City Council last month. With the hub's approval, the area was upzoned without landmark protections, allowing for about 85,000 square feet of office space and 16,500 more square feet between Civic Hall, step-up space and the workforce development hub.
More here
September 26, 2018

The Frick will take over the Breuer building from the Met

It was announced Friday that the Met Museum would lease the Breuer building to the Frick, the New York Times reports. According to an agreement between the two venerable art institutions, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will likely sign the Met Breuer on Madison Avenue over to the Frick Collection beginning in 2020. Doing so would allow the in-debt Met to free itself of the last three years of an eight-year lease and an $18 million annual expense and enable it to put funds toward improving the modern and contemporary galleries at its Fifth Avenue flagship. Likewise, the Frick would have a suitable temporary home while the Gilded Age mansion that it inhabits is being renovated.
Find out more
September 25, 2018

Bullet-proof Upper East Side townhouse designed by Rafael Viñoly lists for $50M

Uruguayan-born architect Rafael Viñoly is best known for designing 432 Park, the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere, but apparently, he makes time for private homes, too--at least when they come with headline-making features like a bullet-proof glass facade. His firm was first tapped to design the townhouse at 162 East 64th Street back in 2015 by Argentinian business mogul and billionaire Eduardo Eurnekian. Originally, the seven-story (don't worry, there's an elevator) residence was to serve as both his home and U.S. headquarters, but it looks like he instead decided to list the finished product for $50 million (h/t CityRealty).
Check this out
September 25, 2018

REVEALED: Designs for Hudson Yards’ second phase of parkland

Last month, financing was secured for the second phase the extension of Hudson Park and Boulevard at Hudson Yards. The $374 million expansion--which will expand the existing park by 75 percent with a three-acre park over an Amtrak rail cut from West 36th Street to West 39th Street, between 10 and 11th Avenues--has gotten some slack for its price tag, which would make it NYC’s most expensive park project ever. But new renderings of the green space uncovered by CityRealty show everything this Western end of the project will bring to the mega-development, including an open lawn that will be turned into an ice-skating rink in the winter, curving stone paths amidst plush landscaping and tall trees, a food kiosk, and a colorful children's playground.
Have a look
September 25, 2018

To live across from Central Park, you’ll pay 25% more than every bordering neighborhood

To make Central Park your front yard, you'll have to fork over $277,000 more than the median sale price of every bordering neighborhood. A new report by Property Shark looks at just how much more New Yorkers are willing to spend to be near the 843-acre oasis, a real estate trend which the group calls the "Central Park effect." According to the analysis, the median sale price of units along the first row of blocks across the park was 25 percent more expensive than that of every nearby area. And in the priciest section, the Upper East Side's Lenox Hill, that rose to a 93 percent difference.
More on the Central Park effect
September 25, 2018

Cuomo will bring a Hurricane Maria Memorial to Battery Park City

To mark the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria last week--along with new reports that confirm 3,000 Puerto Ricans lost their lives in the third-most-powerful storm to ever hit the U.S.--Governor Cuomo signed an executive order establishing a new Hurricane Maria Memorial Commission to provide recommendations pertaining to the site, design, and installation of a permanent memorial in Battery Park City. New York City has the largest number of Puerto Rican residents in the U.S. mainland and, to date, Cuomo has set aside $13 million to aide the more than 11,000 displaced Hurricane Maria victims living in New York state.
READ MORE
September 24, 2018

Tenement Museum will stay open late on Thursday nights for special tours and programs

Starting in October, the Tenement Museum will stay open late every Thursday night for exclusive events, programs, and tours. Recently added programming includes a new permanent tour, a pop-up exhibition, and a costumed interpreter tour, all offered on Thursday nights. The Lower East Side museum, which opened in 1992, is a national historic site with a mission to share the stories of immigrants in New York City.
Details here
September 24, 2018

Hell’s Kitchen penthouse-in-a-mansion in former Christian Brothers HQ gets a price chop to $11M

If a massive, multi-storied townhouse is what you're looking for, you don't have to worry about penthouse FOMO with this listing. Spanning 7,000 square feet, with a two-story master bedroom that cantilevers out eight feet over the back garden, a back wall of glass and smart-everything, this single-family modern masterpiece at 416 West 51st Street, now asking just under $11 million, lets you keep your Billionaires' Row penthouse dreams–with the rest of the 25-foot-wide mansion just a quick elevator ride away. 6sqft featured the modern manse in 2016, when it was listed at $15 million. Built in 1910, this six-story building was the headquarters of the Christian Brothers, whose main role was to keep neighborhood youth out of trouble, from 1953 until 2011.
Still impressive
September 24, 2018

Plans, new renderings revealed for $2.5B redevelopment of Times Square’s Palace Theatre

A year after renderings were released and three years after the project's approval by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, L&L Holding Company, Maefield Development, and Fortress Investment Group have revealed plans for TSX Broadway at 1568 Broadway, beginning with the demolition–planned for this winter–of the existing 1,700-seat landmarked Palace Theatre, which will be replaced by a 46-story tower with 550,000 square feet of retail and entertainment space. The theater will be elevated 30 feet and secured within the new building and will be completely renovated, after which an entirely new structure containing a 669-key luxury hotel will be built around it.
More renderings this way
September 24, 2018

Where old meets new: Welcoming a new era of developments in Murray Hill

Unlike many New York City neighborhoods that have reputations that travel far beyond their borders, for many years, Murray Hill has remained low key. If Murray Hill hasn’t always been quick to flaunt its assets, it may have something to do with its Quaker origins. After all, the "Murray" in Murray Hill points back to the Murray family—the clan of Quaker merchants who first settled the area in the mid-18th century. Since the days of the Murray family, much has changed in the neighborhood. The "hill" has been leveled, the neighborhood is no longer considered uptown, and since the early 2000s, the neighborhood’s reputation as a quiet and staid residential enclave has also been shattered as a younger crowd has moved in. In fact, for much of the past two decades, at least some parts of Murray Hill have become synonymous with the bar scene along Third Avenue, which is primarily known as a playground for young professionals. More recently, the neighborhood is undergoing another shift as a new era of higher-end rentals and condo developments attract a somewhat more mature demographic.
More on Murray Hill
September 22, 2018

FREE RENT: This week’s roundup of NYC rental news

Images (L to R): 325 Lafayette Avenue, Alvista Towers, 88 Leonard Street and 180 Riverside Boulevard Newly Built 325 Lafayette Avenue in Clinton Hill Offers 2 Months Free: Net Effective Prices from $2,375/Month [link] Live at Alvista Towers from $1,729/Month; Get 1 Month Free on Leases Signed by Nov. 1st [link] Tribeca Rental Specials at […]

September 21, 2018

Will 2018 be the year quirky and historic Hamilton Heights ‘Art House’ sells for $2.7M?

This unusual three-family townhouse at 532 West 148th Street in Hamilton Heights was purchased by Portuguese-born architect Luis Da Cruz in 2006 for $995,000 and thoroughly renovated as a canvas for the artist's personal creative vision. Cruz restored the 1920 home's carved wood stairways and railings, moldings, five fireplaces, beamed ceiling, and exposed brick walls, and added his signature art pieces to an eclectic, bohemian decor, calling the house Musée Maison (Museum House) and making it his studio and workshop. He also hosted art events during which all of the work was for sale and he would perform tricks on aerial silks suspended from the ceiling. The house itself has been on and off the market since 2007. In 2015 6sqft featured the artsy listing at $2.5 million and again after a broker change in 2017 asking $2.7M. Now, another broker switch and more conventional photos–but no change in price–herald the latest attempt to find a suitably visionary buyer.
Tour the toned-down version of this unusual townhouse
September 21, 2018

Plan for eight-story hotel next to historic Merchant’s House Museum faces major setback

In June, a petition was filed in New York Supreme Court to prevent the construction of an eight-story hotel next door to the historic Merchant’s House Museum in the East Village. Now, Curbed reports, the proposal to build the hotel was unanimously rejected Thursday by the City Council’s subcommittee on zoning and franchises. The 186-year-old townhouse belonged to hardware merchant Seabury Tredwell, who bought the 10,000-square-foot residence for $18,000 in 1832.
Find out more
September 21, 2018

Grand Central Terminal celebrates 20 years of retail with 1998 pricing

Grand Central Terminal is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its retail renovation; the iconic terminal's shops and restaurants will be offering 1998 pricing on select products and menu items on October 1. Participating businesses include Cafe Grumpy, The Campbell Bar, Grand Central Oyster Bar and Restaurant, Moleskine, Dyptique and many more. In addition, there will be a special exhibition in Vanderbilt Hall celebrating the terminal’s storied 105-year history.
Find out more
September 19, 2018

Anthony Bourdain’s Upper East Side apartment is asking $3.7M

The Upper East Side home of late chef Anthony Bourdain is for sale for $3.7 million, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Located at 40 East 94th Street in the Carnegie Hill Tower, the apartment features five bedrooms, a sleek high-end kitchen, and lots of custom built-in storage. Bourdain and his ex-wife Ottavia Busia purchased the condo in late 2014 for $3.35 million, according to city property records.
See it here
September 19, 2018

How the East Village grew to have the most community gardens in the country

Awash in gray pavement and grayer steel, New York can be a metropolis of muted hues, but with 39 community gardens blooming between 14th Street and East Houston Street, the East Village is the Emerald City. The neighborhood boasts the highest concentration of community gardens in the country thanks to a proud history of grassroots activism that has helped transform once-abandoned lots into community oases. By the mid-1970s, as the city fought against a ferocious fiscal crisis, nearly 10,000 acres of land stood vacant throughout the five boroughs. In 1973, Lower East resident Liz Christie, who lived on Mott Street, refused to let the neglected lots in her neighborhood lie fallow. She established the urban garden group Green Guerillas, a rogue band of planters who lobbed “seed bombs” filled with fertilizer, seeds, and water into vacant, inaccessible lots, hoping they would flourish and fill the blighted spaces with greenery.
Get to the root of the story!