Manhattan

Here's a new set of images of Property Markets Group's and JDS Development's 111 West 57th Street. In case you haven't been paying attention, the highly-anticipated tower will be among the tallest residential skyscrapers in the world, climbing some 1,421 feet high to its tip. Designed by SHoP Architects, the feathery spire is sheathed in terra cotta, bronze and a glass curtain wall. The tower will be the most slender skyscraper in the world with a height to width ratio of 24:1.
More renderings ahead

March 10, 2016

S9 Architecture Reveals New Design for Apartment Tower at 111 Varick Street

Late last year 6sqft posted a gallery of renderings visualizing a new high-rise for Madigan Development and Robal Parking Corporation's development site at 111 Varick Street in Hudson Square. Now, on S9 Architecture's recently revamped website, we have a revised look at a different and enlarged design for the site. The published set of images shows a slightly taller tower of similar massing clad in a skin of rippling panels where each band of floors resembles a strip of paper repeatedly folded onto itself and thereafter wrapped around the building envelope.
More details ahead

March 10, 2016

Joan Rivers’ Opulent Personal Effects Head for Christie’s Auction This Summer

When the beloved comedian Joan Rivers passed away in 2014, she left behind a lavish Upper East Side penthouse at 1 East 62nd Street packed with a collection of glittering designer gowns, gilded furnishings, jewelry and collected items that reflected a lifetime love of pretty things. Rivers herself once described the decor of the 5,100-square-foot triplex as “Louis XIV meets Fred and Ginger.” Her apartment sold last summer for its asking price of $28 million to 65-year-old Saudi prince Muhammad bin Fahd, who reportedly plans to do a complete gut renovation. So, this summer, the contents of her Manhattan home will come up for auction at Christie's, where 200 lots will be available in a live sale, and 80 lots will be included in an online auction from June 16-23.
Find out more

March 10, 2016

Conservative Queen Ann Coulter Buys $577K Upper East Side Co-op

By Annie Doge

Most residents of the Upper East Side are Hillary supporters, but that didn't stop outspoken conservative political commentator Ann Coulter from buying a co-op in the 'hood. According to city records released today, she bought the two-bedroom home at 12 East 87th Street for $577,000. Interestingly, the sale is significantly under its $1.8 million market value, but it does have a tenant in place who's paying $1,600 a month, and the cash-only listing states that it's for "investors only."
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March 9, 2016

Gwyneth Paltrow Lists Tribeca Penthouse With Fuzzy Nap Zones for $14M

The celeb-spotters at Curbed just discovered that actress, lifestyle guru and best-selling cookbook author Gwyneth Paltrow has just put the penthouse she owns with ex-hubby Chris Martin on the market for $14.25 million. The couple bought the 4,400-square-foot loft atop Tribeca's River Lofts in 2007 for $5.1 million and had architects du jour Roman and Williams design them a heavenly pied-a-terre.
Find out more about the listing

March 9, 2016

Long-Time Tribeca Sculptor Lists His Quirky Loft for $5M, Sauna and Porch Swing Included

16 Desbrosses Street in Tribeca has quite the artistic pedigree. The former textile warehouse, today a modern-day artists' cooperative, is where Lena Dunham's parents (painter Carroll Dunham and photographer Laurie Simmons), lived until recently and where the actress shot her breakthrough film "Tiny Furniture." It's also been home to architect Peter Moore, writer Zoë Heller and her boyfriend, "Sopranos" and "Boardwalk Empire" screenwriter Lawrence Konner, painter Matthew Ritchie, Seven Stories publisher Dan Simons, and sculptor Harry Rosenzweig, who has just listed his somewhat wacky loft for an impressive $4,970,000. Rosenzweig is best know for his "warriors," the larger-than-life, cartoon-like sculptures of men lined up in the 3,000-square-foot loft where he's lived and worked for the past 13 years. If this wasn't artsy enough for you, he also has a porch swing that faces the wall of windows, a sauna, and, though not mentioned in the listing, the factory's original restrooms, complete with urinals in the men's room.
See the rest

March 9, 2016

Apply Today for 47 New Affordable Apartments in Central Harlem, Starting at $847/Month

Starting today, you can apply for 47 brand-new affordable apartments in prime Central Harlem, according to the NYC HPD. Located at 2139 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, at the corner of 127th Street, the building will offer 12 $847/month one-bedroom units for households earning between $30,412 and $41,460 annually, as well as 35 $1,025/month two-bedrooms for those earning between $36,549 and $51,780. Designed by architects Urban Quotient, the building known as Harlem Dowling will also house community facility spaces for the Harlem Dowling West Side Center for Children and Services and Childrens’ Village, both foster care organizations. Harlem Dowling was founded in 1836 as the Colored Orphans Asylum, the first such institution devoted to children of color. In 1863, its building was burned down during the Draft Riots, and this new location will be the first time since that they've had their own home. Though the current housing lottery announcement doesn't specify this, a 2014 press release for the project noted that preference would be given to youth aging out of foster care.
More details ahead

Affordable Housing

March 9, 2016

First Look At Harlem’s Baldwin Condominiums, Inspired By James Baldwin

In a corner of Harlem hemmed in by a steep ravine within Jackie Robinson Park and the Harlem River, a residential enclave is undergoing a renaissance. Among a string of four recently finished sale buildings, a seven-story, six-unit condominium has begun work at 306 West 148th Street, between Bradhurst Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Conceived by Bottom Line Construction & Development (no comment), the 10,000-square-foot building is to be called The Baldwin after the eminent Harlem-born novelist, poet, playwright and social critic, James Baldwin. Channeling the author's spirit, the condo will capture in its residences "the sophisticated details and artistic flare of contemporary Harlem living."
Find out more

March 8, 2016

My 275sqft: Inside a Creative Director’s Chic Lower East Side Micro-Apartment

By Diane Pham

Our ongoing series “My sqft” checks out the homes of 6sqft’s friends, family and fellow New Yorkers across all the boroughs. Our latest interior adventure brings us to co-founder and creative director of DNA Dustin O'Neal's Lower East Side apartment. Want to see your home featured here? Get in touch! "Living in a small space is all about editing," says Dustin O'Neal. "You have to remove to grow." Sage advice from the co-founder and creative director of DNA, a start-up consulting and PR firm representing some of New York's top and up-and-coming architects and designers. While we know that cutting down your belongings is key to making a small space work, it's not often that we see tiny apartments stray from an all-white color palette to include purple, patterns, lots of art and even pops of electric orange and neon yellow. Having worked with dozens of creatives over the last few years, Dustin has picked up a thing or two about interior design, and his tiny 275-square-foot Lower East Side abode of three years reflects this knowledge. We recently visited the enterprising 26-year-old at home to see first-hand how you can transform even the smallest of apartments into a unique, style-filled space with less stuff.
Take a tour of Dustin's apartment here

March 8, 2016

Beyer Blinder Belle Publishes Renderings of Essex Crossing’s Site 5

By Emrys Fitzgerald

The nine-site Essex Crossing plan underway on the Lower East Side will bring more than 1.9 million square feet of residential, commercial, and community space to the largest undeveloped swath of land in the borough south of 96th Street. The long-tweeked master plan is being developed by an alliance named Delancey Street Associates, which consists of BFC Partners, L+M Development Partners, and Taconic Investment Partners. The plan's site 5, located just a block southwest of the Manhattan entrance of the Williamsburg Bridge at 145 Clinton Street, will bring 211 apartments, 73,000 square feet of retail space, and a 15,000-square-foot park to the full-block parcel between Grand, Clinton, Broome and Suffolk streets. Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners are the designers of the red-brick tower and recently published a set of renderings, first shown to the community in 2015, giving us a more detailed look at the $110 million, 15-story building.
More details and renderings ahead

March 8, 2016

Renderings Revealed of Turkey’s Shiny, New 32-Story Consulate Tower

Though Perkins Eastman's design of Turkey's forthcoming 32-story consulate tower was inspired by a Turkish crescent (a large, ornate, gilded instrument), the firm took a very streamlined approach to their vision, using swooping curves and geometric patterns to "evoke Islamic themes and Turkish art and culture," as 6sqft previously described. The Turkevi Center will rise along Consulate Row, at 821 United Nations Plaza, the corner of 46th Street and First Avenue. According to a press release first spotted by Curbed, it will "feature prominent loggias along the upper floors of the south and east faces, and be stacked atop a podium wrapped in perforated metal paneling." The project had been on the drawing board for more than three years, but Perkins Eastman have now received the green light to move ahead with the building that will house new consulate offices, passport and visa branch offices, conference rooms, a multi-purpose prayer room, fitness center, auditorium, underground parking, and residential space for staff and visitors.
Additional details and renderings ahead

March 8, 2016

Gilded-Age Riverside Drive Mansion With Basement Pool Returns to the Market for $20M

The Philip and Maria Kleeberg House is a stunning, unique and impossibly grand 11,000-square-foot manse overlooking the Hudson River at 3 Riverside Drive. This 19th-century limestone landmark was designed by noted mansion architect C.P.H. Gilbert for the aforementioned wealthy pair. Young Mr. K was something of what today we’d call a serial tech entrepreneur, and the mansion sits on a stretch of the Hudson River that was being developed to rival the grandeur of Fifth Avenue. According to a New York Times article in 2012–when the 18-room home hit the market at $40 million–the home’s current owners, Regina Kislin, a real estate developer, and her husband, photographer Anatoly Siyagine, found it in 1995 in a state of disrepair, bought it for $10 million and embarked on a facelift of epic proportions based on the potential they saw in the regal wreck, which Ms. Kislin says "...reminded my husband of the mansions in St. Petersburg back in Russia.” According to the current listing, "It is as close as a Manhattanite can come to living in a European castle." Several price chops later at $20 million (h/t TRD), it remains a pretty incredible piece of real estate, albeit with a more realistic price tag. In addition to the restoration efforts, modern touches include an elevator and an indoor pool, sauna and gym in the cellar.
Must be seen to be believed, this way

March 7, 2016

For $1.7M, This ‘Flexible’ West Village Loft Will Have You Climbing the Walls

Lofts being what they are, multi-level sleeping arrangements are often part of their appeal. We've seen every kind of "mezzanine" situation, but this lovely West Village condo at 130 Barrow Street seems a bit too polished to get the kind of pass one would allow a barely-heated Bushwick loft. The listing calls this 933-square-foot apartment flexible, and that's a fair adjective, as the space can be used as-is (it was configured to make use of double-height ceilings to create a massive walk-in closet) or re-done in any number of ways–with or without the "infinity-edge" sleeping platform.
Explore the apartment

Distinctive Homes

March 7, 2016

Baxt/Ingui Architects Designed This $19M UWS Townhouse As an Energy-Efficient Passive Home

The listing calls the townhouse at 25 West 88th Street "beyond mint," and it's certainly green enough to qualify. This 8,000- square-foot Central Park West home has gotten its fair share of publicity recently. In addition to being a landmarked 1910 historic beauty and having undergone a stem-to-stern modern overhaul, the home's current owners, investment banker Kurt Roeloffs and his wife Shyanne, worked with the well-known Baxt/Ingui Architects to create an energy-efficient masterpiece that meets both LEED platinum and passive house standards. Even with all that efficiency, they didn't skimp on luxury. With six floors (and an elevator) and a finished cellar, six bedrooms plus rooms dedicated to yoga, meditation, exercise and crafts, this may, in fact, be "one of the finest contemporary townhomes on the Upper West Side."
Find out more about this amazing, energy-efficient home

March 5, 2016

East 61st Street Condo Finally Reveals Itself, $82.5M Sellout Projected

At the northeast corner of East 61st Street and Second Avenue, a long shrouded condominium project is finally showing us some skin. The 19-story building addressed at 301 East 61st Street exhibits a creamy stone exterior, with inset balconies and vertical fins projecting from a floor-to-ceiling glass curtain wall. The building is being developed by Orlando-based Inverlad Development who purchased the 3,800-square-foot lot for $15.4 million in 2012.
Find out more

March 4, 2016

Why Micro-Apartments in Carmel Place Are So Expensive

We’ve been hearing a lot recently about the city’s new micro-apartments. As 6sqft has reported, NYC’s first micro-apartment complex Carmel Place (formerly My Micro NY) at 335 East 27th Street began leasing at the end of last year. The nine-story modular development in Kips Bay has 55 studios that are 260 to 360 square feet. Of these, 22 are affordable and they’ll go from $950 to $1,500 a month. Market-rate units on the other end range from $2,540 to $2,910. According to CityRealty, the average rental price per square foot for New York City apartments overall is $51, while Carmel Place units ring in at $98 per square foot. The idea of micro-housing was presented, in part, to address the need for more affordable apartments. So why is it that the result is what a recent New Yorker article calls “micro-luxury" housing?
Small Is Beautiful–but Not Affordable

March 4, 2016

Spotlight: Jay Schweitzer Keeps Typewriters in Fashion at an 84-Year-Old Family Business

By Susan Cohen

For anyone who thinks computers have entirely taken over, they might want to visit Gramercy Typewriter Company. Founded in 1932 by Abraham Schweitzer, this 84-year-old family business is busier than ever repairing customers' typewriters, as well as refurbishing and selling machines of all shapes, sizes, and even colors. Whereas many typewriter service companies went out of business with the rise of computers, Abraham's son and grandson, Paul and Jay, remained passionate about them and are now two of the only individuals in the city with the skills to work on these machines. For Jay and Paul, the demand for their expertise is a testament to the staying power of typewriters in the 21st century. They continue to be a necessity in fields such as law and accounting, where certain forms are more compatible with the typewriter than the computer. Outside of offices, there are tried-and-true typewriter users who type on them daily. In many cases, the Schweitzers' have customers who are discovering a love of these wonderful machines for the very first time. 6sqft stopped by Gramercy Typewriter Company and spoke with Jay about the business and to get a glimpse of history on the company's shelves.
Read the full interview this way

March 4, 2016

VIDEO: Get a Digital Tour of the Chelsea Market’s New Addition

Annual office rents in the West Chelsea/Meatpacking District area have been topping $90 per square foot with many creative and technology tenants searching for boutique-sized spaces. So it seems like the perfect time for Jamestown Properties to move forward with their piggybacking plan for Chelsea Market. Branding and visualization firm Neoscape put together a cheery film to market the upcoming building's new 240,000 square feet of office space. To be known as BLDG 18, the structure is being designed by Studios Architecture and will rise nine stories atop the westernmost building of the Chelsea Market complex and the High Line. The film shows a private 16th Street entrance for tenants, 40,000-square-foot floor plates, 40-foot-wide column bays, multiple levels of landscaped terraces providing a total of 21,000 square feet of outdoor space, panoramic views, easy access to the High Line, and of course, the block-long Chelsea Market food concourse at ground level.
Watch the video here

New Developments

March 4, 2016

Roman Abramovich’s $80M UES Makeshift Mansion Gets Turned Down By the DOB

A little over a year ago, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich "secretly" purchased two sizable Upper East Side townhouse at 11 East 75th Street and 15 East 75th Street, for $29.7 million and $18.3 million respectively. It was quite obvious that the steel magnate had plans to create his very own makeshift mansion by snatching up the home in between, and this past summer he did just that, dropping $30 million on 13 East 75th Street, which brought the total to $78 million. But now Abramovich may have to alter his grand plans, since the Post reports that the Department of Buildings rejected his $6 million proposal to combine the Queen Anne-style townhouses. Prepared by architect Stephen Wang, the plan called for an 18,255-square-foot mansion with a six-foot front yard, 30-foot backyard, and pool in the cellar.
So, what's next?

Celebrities

March 4, 2016

VOA Architects Design 70-Story Mixed-Use Supertall for the Far West Side

Here's a first idea of what may be coming to a valuable far west side corner owned by former governor Elliot Spitzer. First spotted by the eagle-eyed SkyscraperPage, the scheme was prepared by VOA Architects for Highgate Hotels and shows an approximately 70-story, mixed-use tower stacked with a 1,000-key hotel with condominiums above. The site at 451 Tenth Avenue at 35th Street was picked up by Spitzer for $62 million in 2014 through a 99-year lease from Madd Equities. VOA's blog page states, "the project would have been the first new convention hotel in NY since the Marriott Marquis opened in 1985." Judging by the past-tense nature of the description, it seems this exact vision will not come to fruition.
More renderings ahead

VIDEO: Watch the World Trade Center Oculus Get Built in 65 Seconds

Time-Lapse Courtesy of EarthCam

March 3, 2016

VIDEO: Watch the World Trade Center Oculus Get Built in 65 Seconds

When we talk about Santiago Calatrava's $4 billion World Trade Center Transportation Hub, there's always the inevitable mention of how long (12 years!) it actually took to get the project up and running and built. Which is why this stunning time lapse is all the more fitting to mark the Hub's opening today at 3:00pm. The webcam experts at EarthCam teamed up with the project contractor, Skanska USA, to capture all 42 months (June 2011-December 2014) of construction progress for the famed and notorious winged oculus and condense it into a 65-second video.
Watch the full time lapse here

Architecture And Design

March 3, 2016

Renzo Piano’s Ship-Like Academic Center Coming to Columbia’s Manhattanville Campus

On a triangular lot, where north-skewing West 125th Street meets West 129th Street, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) and Dattner Architects have crafted a 56,000-square-foot, ship-like structure for Columbia University's Manhattanville Campus. Known as the University Forum and Academic Conference Center, the three-story building will host academic conferences, meetings, and symposia. It will contain a 430-seat auditorium, meeting rooms, and gathering spaces. According to Piano's page, "The building looks like a ship levitating above the light and transparent Urban Layer." Its prow points westward and may be just small enough to sail under the Riverside Drive Viaduct and into the Hudson River.
More details ahead

March 2, 2016

Six Architects Reimagine the MetLife Building As an Eco-Friendly Tower of the Future

Earlier this week, the six finalists in the "Reimagine a New York City Icon" competition were announced (h/t NY Yimby). The competition to reimagine the MetLife Building, sponsored by Metals in Construction magazine and the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York, isn’t part of any real-life plans for the iconic Midtown tower, but when great minds get to this kind of imagining, great ideas are born. Architects and engineers were asked to "reimagine 200 Park Avenue with a resource-conserving, eco-friendly enclosure—one that creates a highly efficient envelope with the lightness and transparency sought by today’s office workforce—while preserving and enhancing the aesthetic of the building’s heritage." Designed by Emery Roth & Sons, Pietro Belluschi, and Walter Gropius, the 59-story MetLife Building, located to the north of Grand Central Terminal, opened in 1963 as the Pan Am Building. MetLife bought the building in 1981, and though they sold it in 2005, the architectural icon keeps their name. Below are the finalists' descriptions and renderings for the tower's eco-friendly future.
See what the finalists came up with

March 2, 2016

Police Building Penthouse Gets a $5 Million Price Cut With New Views of Its Secret Room

By Emily Nonko

Remember that $40 million penthouse that occupies the cupola of 240 Centre Street, the 1909 Beaux Arts NYPD headquarters in Nolita? It's hard to forget a four-story, 6,000-square-foot apartment that comes with insane outdoor space (right outside the cupola!) and a secret room originally only accessible to clock mechanics. The Police Building was converted to condos in 1988 but this particular apartment, which both Calvin Klein and Steffi Graf have called home, was recently remodeled. The condo hit the market in November to quite a bit of fanfare, but apparently buyers aren't biting. Sotheby's has recently listed the penthouse for a $5 million discount -- a cool $35 million -- and also offers some new interior photos to obsess over.
See the extravagant interior

March 2, 2016

Grand, Under-Construction Carnegie Hill Townhouse Could be Yours for $18M

Pre-war architecture is alive and well on the Upper East Side. At 178 East 94th Street, along a bucolic, tree-lined stretch of Carnegie Hill, a six-story, 7,650-square-foot, single-family home is squeezing into place as if it's been on the brownstone block for decades. The 36.5-foot-wide home is being built and designed by Daniel Kohs, owner of Long Island-based Madik Realty. Called the Danville House, the home hit the market earlier this month for $18 million. The sole exterior rendering accompanying the listing shows a red-brick exterior accentuated by vertical piers, culminating into pointed and spherical pinnacles. It's crowned near its apex by an open colonnade not unlike that of Murray Hill's Morgan Lofts.
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March 1, 2016

Apply for One of Stuyvesant Town’s Affordable Apartments, Starting at $1,200/Month