Manhattan

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

News anchor darling Katie Couric and her husband of nearly two years, financier John Molner, have purchased a lavish Upper East Side condo for $12,168,087, according to city records released today. The five-bedroom, full-floor spread is located at 151 East 78th Street, a recently-completed building by Peter Pennoyer Architects that has only 14 residences spread across its 16 floors. Couric's new 3,966-square-foot digs are classically elegant, as the architect took a modern interpretation of the Rosario Candela-designed residences on Park and Fifth Avenues. The home begins in a private entry gallery and then opens to the entertaining and bedroom wings.
Take a look

March 11, 2016

Former Nets Star Deron Williams’ Tribeca Penthouse Priced to Move at $31M

Mavericks point guard Deron Williams slashed the ask on his trophy pad at 35 North Moore Street by 7.5 percent or $2.5 million from last July's original listing price of $33.5 million, reports The Real Deal. The listing broker for the 7,200 square-foot Merchants House condo says that Williams is "ready to move" on a sale opportunity since his move to the Dallas team. Williams has been renting out the apartment for the past six months.
Check out the full-court sized trophy pad

March 10, 2016

Property Markets Group Shares New Eye Candy of 111 West 57th Street

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.
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March 10, 2016

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

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