Manhattan

In September, 6sqft uncovered the listing for 136 West 130th Street, the brownstone owned by Emmy-nominated “All My Children” regular and current "Entertainment Tonight" correspondent Cameron Mathison and his wife, Vanessa. The couple bought the four-bedroom home for $1.2 million in 2004 after house hunting and falling in love with Harlem's "Sesame Street” vibe. It had already been through a substantial developer-led renovation, but Mathison finished up the job, creating an urban oasis that's a mix of classic charm and contemporary fixes. Though the Canadian actor told the Times in 2009 that he “envisioned being in this place forever,” the plans changed when the TV show moved studios to Los Angeles. That same year, the couple listed the four-story home for $2.7 million, followed by a price cut to $2.5 million in 2011. There were no takers, so they rented the property out for $6,900 a month, before re-listing it this past fall for $2.9 million. Despite moving back to NYC, Luxury Listings NYC reports that the soap opera heartthrob has now sold the residence for $3.3 million, pretty significantly over ask.
Check out the space

March 19, 2016

This Two-Bedroom Upper West Side Co-op Feels Like a Cozy Library

By Emily Nonko

If you're the kind of person that could spend hours curled up on the couch with a book, this two-bedroom apartment is pretty much the perfect place to do that. It's located at the cooperative 242 West 104th Street, in the Riverside Drive area of the Upper West Side. The interior design resembles the best kind of library—warm colors, exposed brick, even a rolling ladder that runs the length of the main hallway. The only thing a buyer would need to add? Lots more bookshelves!
Take a look around

Distinctive Homes

March 18, 2016

Revealed: First Look At the Builtd’s Condos Coming to 570 Broome Street

Who would have thought the hottest new address downtown would be along the approach to the Holland Tunnel? Recently, we published a new set of images showing a Renzo Piano-designed condo tower to rise at 565 Broome Street, last week we unveiled S9 Architects' renderings of a 30-story residential building to rise at 111 Varick Street, and now here's our first look at another stack of condos slated for 570 Broome Street. The rendering posted on the project site's construction fence shows a smart design of staggered setbacks and window groupings that offer an interesting solution to the area's tightly prescribed building envelopes. Designed by Tahir Demircioglu, builtd's facade is composed of a warm stone that clads both the lot-line walls and frames three-story high expanses of glass.
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March 18, 2016

Fire and Ice: City Snow Removal Methods Included an Army Flamethrower

With forecasts threatening snow (?!) on this fine late March weekend, the idea that an "army flame thrower" was among the historic methods the city used to make piles of the formerly-white stuff disappear is oddly satisfying.
Moar! this way

March 18, 2016

REVEALED: TRA Studio’s Eco-Conscious East Harlem Condo, ONE 112

On a rather typical East Harlem block, along 112th Street between First and Second avenues, Soho-based architecture firm, TRA Studio has drawn up plans for a 22-unit condominium that will mend a once derelict site back into Manhattan's taut urban fabric. Commissioned by Gotham LP, the seven-story building will rise from a 60-foot wide, 5,000 square-foot parcel that is a third smaller than a new American home's median lot size. With the city's built-in efficiency already in place, TRA sought to go further and will implement low-energy strategies such as super-insulated glass windows and long rows of sun-shading terraces along the rear will reduce the building's environmental footprint.
Take the tour here

March 18, 2016

Cute Seafoam Apartment Offers Two Bedrooms in Harlem for $699K

By Emily Nonko

Located just across from the northern edge of Central Park, the Park Lane Condominium is a prewar building in Harlem that's been turned into a boutique condo development. This two-bedroom unit has been renovated nicely -- it retains that spacious prewar feel (the foyer is large enough to house two harps!) but has been upgraded with a new kitchen and bathroom. The apartment last sold in 2011, likely before the renovation, for $435,000 and now it's priced for a profit, asking $699,000.
Check out the interior

Distinctive Homes

March 18, 2016

1,436-Foot Supertall May Rise at 80 South Street in the Financial District

By Diane Pham

The sale of 80 South Street from Howard Hughes Corp. to China Oceanwide Holdings has been finalized, reports The Real Deal. The $390 million deal was first announced in August, but closing was contingent on Howard Hughes transferring an additional 303,113 square feet in air rights to the address after already securing 104,167 square feet. With this, 80 South Street's development potential has grown to 817,784 square feet and a tower of 1,436 feet (to put this in perspective, 432 Park is 1,396 feet tall, while 1 WTC is 1,368 feet tall by roof height) with 113 floors could soon rise on the site which has sat in redevelopment limbo for over a decade.
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First Look: The Annabelle Selldorf Condos Replacing Bowlmor Lanes in Greenwich Village

Image: 21E12

March 18, 2016

First Look: The Annabelle Selldorf Condos Replacing Bowlmor Lanes in Greenwich Village

The 23-story residential tower that will rise at 110 University Place, home of the beloved now-demolished Bowlmor Lanes, will be designed by starchitect Annabelle Selldorf, Curbed reports. Accompanying this news are brand new renderings and a teaser site for the 56-unit condominium building, which is being developed by William Macklowe Company. The condos replacing the Greenwich Village bowling mecca will be known as 21E12, with sales expected to launch in the next several months. As 6sqft previously reported, in 2012, Billy Macklowe, founder and CEO of William Macklowe Company and son of 432 Park Avenue developer Harry Macklowe, acquired control of the property from a partnership group.
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March 17, 2016

New Views Inside and Out of Renzo Piano’s First New York Residential Building

In January, 6sqft unveiled a set of illustrations and drawings detailing the exterior of Renzo Piano's forthcoming condominium tower 565 Broome Street (formerly known as 555 Broome). Now, with construction finally underway, the investors at Cindat Capital Management have published an online gallery providing a better taste of what's to come. Pitched between two of the city's most coveted neighborhoods, Soho and Tribeca, the much-anticipated development will rise nearly 320 feet in height along a full Varick Street block front between Broome and Watts Streets. The 25-story structure is being propelled forward by a joint venture among Bizzi & Partners Development, Michael Shvo and Itzhaki Acquisitions. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano was tapped as the design architect, while the local talents at SLCE are serving as the architects of record.
More details and renderings ahead

March 17, 2016

Richard Gere Picks Up $2.25M Old-World Condo With Keys to Gramercy Park

Last week, news hit that Richard Gere's former Noho apartment in the Silk Building had finally found a renter. It took eight months to get a tenant in to the sprawling live/work space, which was last listed at $20,000/month. Good thing the transaction went through, because the Post is now reporting that the actor turned activist picked up a $2.25 million Gramercy condo. The sale at 34 Gramercy Park East, which comes with a coveted key to the park, actually went through back in July, according to city records, but apparently Gere is extensively renovating the two-bedroom home and has only stopped by a few times since the summer. Sources say that he found out about the apartment through his friend Jimmy Fallon, who owns a whopping five units in the building.
See the rest of the condo

March 17, 2016

Live in Rolling Stones Guitarist Keith Richards’ Washington Square Penthouse for $12M

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and his wife, model Patti Hansen, bought the penthouse at 1 Fifth Avenue for $10.5 million back in 2014. Putting meaning to "You Can't Always Get What You Want," the legendary musician has now listed his Greenwich Village digs just two years later for $12.23 million, reports Curbed.
Check out the penthouse

March 17, 2016

The Plaza Reportedly Headed to Foreclosure Auction Next Month

The Plaza, New York City's iconic 109-year-old hotel and residence (formerly known as the Plaza Hotel) at 1 Central Park South will head for the auction block next month, says Bloomberg Business. An unnamed source claims the storied hotel will be offered in a foreclosure auction on April 26 along with the Dream Downtown hotel in Chelsea. The two mortgages total about $500 million, according to the report.
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Events & Things To Do

March 16, 2016

Bjarke Ingels Reveals Glassy Wave-Like Design for 2 Penn Plaza Overhaul

By Dana Schulz

Another day, another reveal from Danish wunderkind Bjarke Ingels. This time the starchitect has taken on a project at much-loathed Penn Station, transforming 2 Penn Plaza (the tower directly above the station and Madison Square Garden) from a nondescript, monolithic slab to a shiny, playful tower. The renderings, first spotted by NY Yimby, show a somewhat typical glass mass, but the fun begins above the ground levels, where a wave-like canopy of glass panels ushers people in to a new retail base.
More details on the proposal

Architecture And Design

March 16, 2016

Checking in on Downtown’s Next Supertall, 125 Greenwich Street by Rafael Viñoly Architects

It's been some time since 6sqft checked on 125 Greenwich Street, a slender tower that will soar more than 1,000 feet high and offer a limited collection of condominium residences with unparalleled views of the lower Manhattan skyline and beyond. Developed by a joint venture comprised of Michael Shvo, Bizzi + Partners Development, and Howard Lorber's Vector Group, the 9,000-square-foot corner site will yield 275 compact residences spread over 306,000 square feet of space, along with a retail- and amenity-filled podium. Plans submitted to the Department of Buildings in October show that most of the building's floor plates will house six apartments each.
Get a look at the current site

March 16, 2016

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Former Plaza Suite Gets a Price Cut to $26M

The 4,000-square-foot Plaza suite that Frank Lloyd Wright once briefly called home just got a price reduction (and a broker change) from $39.5 million to $26 million (h/t Curbed). As 6sqft discovered last year, Wright lived in the corner apartment from 1954 to 1959 while he was working on the Guggenheim Museum. Though the architect's past residency certainly adds interest, the impressive pad at 1 Central Park South does a fine job impressing us on its own—and we're not alone, clearly, since the home was featured in Architectural Digest in 2014. Current owners James and Lisa Cohen (chairman of Hudson Media and home editor at DuJour magazine, respectively) bought the sprawling condo for $13 million in 2009 to use as a Manhattan pied-a-terre (their main residence is in New Jersey). Then they proceeded to gut-renovate and redesign the home with help from Louis Lisboa of VL Architects and interior designer Susanna Maggard. The apartment headed back to the market last year for a renovation-reflecting $39.5 million. Now the colorful, luxurious and impossibly large four-bedroom pad is asking a significantly slimmer but still sizeable $26 million.
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March 16, 2016

New Views of Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Columbia School of Business Buildings

Back in 2004, Diller Scofidio + Renfro unveiled their proposal to build a new facility for the Eyebeam Atelier/Museum of Art and Technology. Their winning competition bid resembled the insides of a mitochondria dyed baby blue and blown up to an extreme proportion. DSR presented a more poetic explanation, referencing a pliable ribbon where horizontal surfaces turned into walls and vertical planes slouched into floors. The ribbon's thin divide would separate the production spaces of the museum from the presentation areas. The project was never realized, but fast forward 12 years, after the completion of the firms' well-regarded Lincoln Center overhaul and three phases of the High Line, and DSR has dusted off their undulating ribbons for Columbia University. Now that their Columbia University Medical and Graduate Education Building is nearly complete, their next set of wiggles are planned for a pair of academic buildings at the University's now-under construction Manhattanville campus in West Harlem. Amounting to 460,000 square feet of space, the two buildings will be separated by a central outdoor green space, and their insides will house classrooms, faculty offices, lounge areas, and support spaces for Columbia's Graduate School of Business.
Lots more renderings and details ahead

March 15, 2016

First Look at Austere East Harlem Tower Set for 1790 Third Avenue

Foundation and groundwork is making headway for an upcoming rental tower at 1790-1792 Third Avenue in East Harlem. Here's our first look at the IBI Group-Gruzen Samton-designed building that will bring some 95 new rentals to the block, where it will be the tallest structure, rising 13 stories and encompassing 48,377 gross square feet of space. The rather austere design features a gunmetal-grey facade, a single setback at the ninth floor, and south-facing lot-line windows that are allowed because the developers secured the adjacent building's air rights. According to the approved permits, there will be an ambulatory facility and commercial retail space at the ground floor, and residential amenities will include a roof deck and bike storage. Some upper floor units will have views overlooking the tree-filled Cherry Hill Playground, the recently rehabilitated El Barrio's Artspace PS109, and the East River.
More ahead

March 15, 2016

Demolition Permits Filed To Make Way for 25-Story New Hudson Yards Hotel

Demolition permits were filed yesterday to take down two small structures near the corner of West 31st Street and Dyer Avenue. Situated directly across from Brookfield's Manhattan West residential tower and just east of Hudson Yards, the parcel is owned by Arisa Realty, who purchased the buildings for $11 million in August of 2014. A revised new building application shows that the two- and one-story structures will be replaced by a 107,853-square-foot, 210-room hotel. The project's scale has been revised upward since initial filings, growing an additional 12,000 square feet and rising 25 stories instead of 21.
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March 14, 2016

Famed Fashion Photographer Steven Klein Snaps Up a $12.5M Condo at 150 Charles Street

The rich, famous and those who love photographing the rich and famous are quickly flocking to 150 Charles Street, creating a modern-day celeb hideout in the heart of the Village. According to city records just released, famed fashion photographer Steven Klein has just purchased an eight-room condo for $12.5 million (the home was originally listed for $14 million). Klein joins other high-profile names including supermodel Irina Shayk who scooped up an apartment at the same address for $6 million just last month, and rocker Jon Bon Jovi, who paid $12.88 million for a 10-room spread in September. Fun side fact: In addition to shooting ads for the likes of Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga, as well as editorials for Vogue and W magazines, Klein has also photographed new neighbor Bon Jovi!
more here

Celebrities

March 14, 2016

Former Headquarters of the Christian Brothers Is Now a $15M Hell’s Kitchen Mansion

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 may be mere blocks from the trophy towers of Billionaire's Row, but it outshines any of those eight-figure abodes by a midtown mile. Built in 1910, this six-story, 7,000 square-foot building at 416 West 51st Street was the headquarters of the Christian Brothers, whose main role was to keep neighborhood youth out of trouble, from 1953 until 2011. In the middle days of the 20th century through its end decade, there was trouble aplenty in the rough district known for tenements and street gangs. The neighborhood has come an almost unfathomly long way in recent years, and "the manse," as the listing calls it, is as good a parallel as we've seen. What's now being offered for $15 million is the result of the current owners' four year effort, in collaboration with Suk Design Group, to create a single family home fit more for a heavenly host than the Hell's Kitchen of history. Every inch of the building is wired for comfort and control, and there's a fully-stocked arcade and a "glass-wrapped floating staircase winding around the elevator like a helix," four enormous bedroom suites and that dramatic duplexed master suite.
Tour this unbelievable vertical mansion

March 14, 2016

One-Cent Coffee Stand Fed Hungry New Yorkers Back in the Day

By Rebecca Paul

The corner coffee cart is a well-known part of New York City's landscape, but it may have been first actualized as a much more charitable endeavor. Back in 1887, the first one-cent coffee stand for poor New Yorkers opened on Ann Street off Broadway. Standing in front of City Hall's high-octane newspaper offices of Park Row, St. Andrews One Cent Coffee Stand served a half-pint of coffee with milk sugar and a slice of bread for just a penny.
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History

March 14, 2016

First Look at Morris Adjmi’s Romanesque Design for Soho’s 134 Wooster Street

This past December, Premier Equities, with Morris Adjmi as the architect of record, filed new building permits to construct a 26,000-square-foot, seven-story office building at 134 Wooster Street. Thanks to an online version of the presentation the team will show to the LPC, we have our first look at Adjmi's design. The Wooster Street facade is articulated by a repeating successions of Roman-arched windows, referencing the area's signature cast-iron fronts. Since the site is squarely situated within the Soho-Cast Iron Historic District, the development team will need to muster the approvals of the Landmarks Preservation Commission to build their vision.
More details ahead

March 14, 2016

Actor Michael C. Hall Buys $4.3M Apartment in Greenwich Lane Complex

“Dexter” and “Six Feet Under” co-star Michael C. Hall recently turned up in city records as the buyer of a two-bedroom apartment at 160 West 12th Street for $4.3 million, according to Luxury Listings. The 1,586-square-foot condominium in the Greenwich Lane complex has beamed ceilings, a chef’s kitchen, marble mosaic flooring in the bath, and a view of the pretty Greenwich Village street. Hall recently married longtime girlfriend Morgan Macgregor, an associate editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books, and he also recently sold his Los Feliz home for $4.85 million, so it seems the couple may be warming up to New York City living.
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March 13, 2016

Downtown Wonder: How One Chase Manhattan Plaza Changed the New York Skyline

By Diane Pham

This large, boxy skyscraper at 28 Liberty Street may not be ornate or even as attractive as some of the simple glass towers we see sprouting up on the city’s side streets, but One Chase Manhattan Plaza’s architectural significance is profound. Erected in 1960, the building is accredited with bringing forth a downtown renaissance that paved the […]

March 11, 2016

Katie Couric Buys $12M Upper East Side Condo