6sqft | NYC local news, events, and apartments

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

Pre-War Apartment in One of Jackson Heights’ Prominent Courtyard Co-ops Asks $1.1M

Jackson Heights used to be one of the few New York neighborhoods left to buy a great co-op apartment for a good deal. The prewar cooperatives there are known for their private, interior courtyards, and this building -- The Towers, at 33-27 80th Street -- has one of the best, spanning almost an entire city block. But it looks like this neighborhood is a bargain no longer. A for sale by owner listing has hit the market for a seven-bedroom, four-bedroom apartment at The Towers asking $1.1 million. (It last sold in 2011 for $675,000.) It's a huge apartment, with 1,500 square feet, and loads of beautiful prewar details. And windows from the bedrooms and kitchen offer a view down to the courtyard below.
Take the tour

Distinctive Homes

March 4, 2016

Jewelry Made From the Plaza’s Chandeliers; Diplomats Owe NYC $16M in Parking Tickets

A jewelry designer created an eight-piece collection using crystal from the Plaza’s chandeliers, which date back to the 1920s and ‘30s. [CityLab] Diplomats owe NYC $16,024,266 in unpaid parking tickets. The worst offender is Egypt, which owes $2 million. [I Quant NY] The science behind why it hurts so much to step on a LEGO. [Mental Floss] […]

Uncategorized

March 4, 2016

Live Like Park Slope Royalty Atop a Queen Anne Stone Mansion for $1.85M

There's a lot that's grand about this listing, including the fact that you're steps from Grand Army Plaza (with all of Prospect Park below). But the building that holds this three-bedroom condominium is the kind that turns heads. The historic Queen Anne/Romanesque Revival mansion at 70 Eighth Avenue stands out even in a neighborhood filled with architectural grandeur, with a turret and bell dome, terra cotta ornamentation and stained glass details. This 1,847-square-foot, three-bedroom duplex on the market for $1.847 million would give you a chance to roll up to that bad boy every day. You would have to keep rolling up at least a couple of flights of stairs (there's no elevator to get to this "penthouse") but the landmarked four-story beauty would certainly be an interesting place to call home.
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Over 100,000 Unofficial ‘Ghost Tenants’ May Be Living in NYC Public Housing

Photo via Wiki Commons

March 4, 2016

Over 100,000 Unofficial ‘Ghost Tenants’ May Be Living in NYC Public Housing

Although 400,000 is the official head count of residents in New York City’s public housing units, estimates say that figure may be much higher, and that 100,000 to 200,000 more people live there off the books, Slate reports. In a way it's hardly news: People live with relatives, friends and roommates while they aren't the primary leaseholders–almost standard fare in a regular rental apartment (though market rate tenants may run afoul of the lease if anyone wanted to make a case). The city's public housing units are over 50 years old and in dire need of updates and repairs, but because the city is becoming ever more unaffordable for anyone on a meager income, the real tally of people who live in these buildings could be as much as 50 percent higher than the official number.
Find out more about NYCHA's shadow population

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

Distinctive Homes

For $949K, this Village co-op has a Gold Coast address, prewar charm and a splash of color

This $3.7M Greenwich Village co-op puts the 'classic' in classic seven

Tribeca's iconic skybridge property is back on the market for $30M

From cozy to bold, this $10M Soho condo embodies post-loft luxury

Location, location, location–and a pretty renovation–make up for square footage in this $620K East Village co-op

This $2.85M Crown Heights townhouse is an unspoiled historic beauty on an extra-long lot

For $9M, a Noho penthouse that captures the spirit of the neighborhood's past, and then some

'Secret' live-work compound on Tribeca's skybridge street lists for $30M

Park Slope 'pink house,' now in a more muted hue, asks $5M

Greenwich Village townhouse where Oscar Wilde once stayed asks $7.45M

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The Bedrock Myth: The Evolution of the NYC Skyline Was More About Dollars Than Rocks

Manhattan, and the bedrock beneath it, via imgur

March 3, 2016

The Bedrock Myth: The Evolution of the NYC Skyline Was More About Dollars Than Rocks

The reason so many skyscrapers are clustered Downtown and in Midtown isn't so much because of geological feasibility as because everybody else was doing it. It was long assumed that the depth of our venerable Manhattan Schist bedrock, well-suited for the construction of tall buildings, was the determinant in where the city's towers rose. Though the bedrock outcroppings are indeed at their deepest and closest to the surface in the areas where many of the city's tallest buildings are clustered, it's more likely to be coincidence than cause and effect. The real reason there's a big doughnut hole in the spiky man-made terrain between FiDi and Midtown has more to do with the way the city's dual business districts developed from a sociological and economic perspective between 1890 and 1915.
Find out why the bedrock myth is on shaky ground

Stuff You Should Know: How Air Rights Work

Image of One57 © Wade Zimmerman courtesy of Agence Christian de Portzamparc (ACDP)

March 3, 2016

Stuff You Should Know: How Air Rights Work

By Diane Pham

“For whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to Heaven and down to Hell.” Most folks outside the architecture and real estate industries are likely to believe that putting up a new skyscraper is simply about finding an empty lot to build up. However, those in the know understand that it takes much more than a stretch of space and a good […]

Art Nerd New York’s Top Event Picks for Armory Arts Week

The Armory Show courtesy of Roberto Chamorro

March 3, 2016

Art Nerd New York’s Top Event Picks for Armory Arts Week

By Lori Zimmer

In a city where hundreds of interesting happenings occur each week, it can be hard to pick and choose your way to a fulfilling life. Art Nerd‘s philosophy is a combination of observation, participation, education and of course a party to create the ultimate well-rounded week. Jump ahead for Art Nerd founder Lori Zimmer’s top picks for 6sqft readers! The absolute mayhem of Armory Arts Week is upon us once again, with the international art world descending upon our fair city. The Armory Show leads the way once again, taking over the West Side's Piers 92 and 94, with a scattering of satellite fairs rounding out Manhattan. VOLTA takes on a new location at Pier 90, while SCOPE Art Show continues to impress with cutting edge leaders. Further downtown, PULSE hits up the Metropolitan Pavilion once again, and curator-led SPRING/BREAK takes residence at the former post office across from Penn Station. Newcomer Art on Paper impresses for a second year (and will feature a booth co-curated by yours truly) on the shores of the East River at Pier 36. The Art Show by the ADAA sticks with the traditional at the Park Avenue Armory, while Clio reigns supreme as the anti-fair, nestled in Chelsea right next to the High Line. If you're up for it, there is something for every sort of art lover and collector this week, including the bevy of highly anticipated parties and events.
more on all the best events this way

Events & Things To Do

March 3, 2016

NYC Is Home to 79 Billionaires, More Than Any City in the World

All of the major news outlets were reporting last week that Beijing had overtaken New York City as the billionaire capital of the world, not at all hard to believe considering that in 2016, 70 new members to the World’s Billionaires List were Chinese, more than double the number of newly-added Americans. However, the original report from Chinese research firm Hurun has been disproven by research from Forbes. The new data shows that NYC is home to 79 billionaires, more than any other city in the world. This includes David Koch and Michael Bloomberg, two of the ten richest people in the world. The city's billionaires' total wealth amounts to a whopping $364.6 billion.
Get the full list ahead

City Living

March 3, 2016

Grand Carroll Gardens Brownstone With Original Details Gets a Price Chop to $6M

The story of the historic townhouse at 46 First Place in Carroll Gardens is just as much a story of its owner, Kathryn Sennis, who has lived in and worked from the elegant 1899 brownstone for nearly 32 years. In 2012, Sennis, a psychotherapist, opened Who's On First? Children's Enrichment Studio with her daughter here, offering art classes, parties, baby yoga and programs for parents and children, including foreign language classes and parenting groups. Ms. Sennis's story was highlighted in the Observer last May, where she told of buying the townhouse in 1981 for $250,000 from an “elderly Italian woman,” how her presence confused the neighbors at the time ("you ain't even Italian!") and how much the neighborhood has changed since then. She also talks of the extensive, exhaustive renovations she painstakingly undertook. She rents out the upper two floors, and her daughter uses the garden level of the four-family home. It’s a Brooklyn story like so many others–though in this case it's one with a $6 million price tag attached.
Tour the inside

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 3, 2016

Why the Brooklyn Accent Doesn’t Exist; Reviews Are Out for WTC Transportation Hub

By Ondel Hylton and Julian Friedman

Linguists say there are no identifiable differences between speech patterns from New Jersey, Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens, etc. [Atlas Obscura] Michael Kimmelman thinks Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub is “a Soaring Symbol of a Boondoggle.” [NYT] Watch a timelapse video of the recreation of the New York Public Library’s famed ceiling mural. [Gothamist] Architecture firms […]

Uncategorized

March 3, 2016

New Renderings and Video Released for Sheepshead Bay’s Waterfront Vue Condominium

Rybak Development's latest venture named the Vue Condominium will add a bit of pizzazz and a sizable plaza to a popular stretch of Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay. Rising from a prominent, full-block parcel at the intersection of Emmons and Sheepshead Bay Road, the envisioned eight-story structure replaces former neighborhood fixture the El Greco Diner, whose site was snapped up by Sergey Rybak and Jason Reznik for $13 million in late 2014. The project first appeared one year ago, and now a handful of renderings and a video have been released by the developers. The 175,000-square-foot structure will be the first LEED Certified building in south Brooklyn and will house 58 condos, 26,000 square feet of retail, two commercial office units, and a 134-car garage shared by tenants and businesses. The 9,000- square-foot plaza will take up a quarter of the development site and will have raised planters, ambiance lighting and bicycle parking.
Watch the video and see more renderings

March 3, 2016

Inviting One Bedroom Hits the Market for $625K at Popular Park Slope Co-op

Man, there's been a lot of action recently at the Park Slope co-op building 404 3rd Street. Last summer, a Parisian-looking one bedroom went on the market for $575,000, selling in December for $660,000, nearly 15 percent above ask. Then in February, an architect listed the two-bedroom apartment she designed herself for $800,000. (It's still on the market for slightly less, $799,000.) This one bedroom is asking $625,000, which will be a potentially nice profit for the owner, who bought it only two years ago for $515,000. It's got some lovely details like moldings, inlaid floors, a painted brick wall, and a retro kitchen with open shelving and a funky built-in table attached to a mirrored column.
See the rest

Distinctive Homes

The Urban Lens: Documenting New York City’s Vanishing Privilege Signs

By James and Karla Murray

6sqft's new series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In the first installment, award-winning authors and photographers James and Karla Murray brought us 15 years of images documenting the changing storefronts of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. Now they share more amazing images, this time of privilege signs, an industry term for the promotional signs installed by large corporations on storefronts. Are you a photographer who'd like to see your work featured on 6sqft? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. Privilege Signs are an industry term for the promotional signs installed by large corporations such as Coca-Cola and the Optimo Cigar Company. They were popular in the 1930s through 1960s and received their name because store owners were given the "privilege" of completing the signs with their own copy. Large companies benefited from the signs because they were an easy way of weaving a marketing campaign right into a building’s façade. The signs were not only given free to store owners, but they also brought people into the store with instant brand recognition. Today, they read retro and antique, standing out as a testament to a business' ability to endure even in the face of the monumental challenges in a city known for its rapid pace of change. When compiling our books on disappearing storefronts, we were immediately drawn to facades that still had these type of signs, so we've rounded up some of our favorites ahead.
See all the photos 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

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

Bring Tomorrow’s Weather Indoors With Tempescope

By Ana Lisa Alperovich

Weather in New York is anything but predictable these days, with 60-degree days followed up by below-freezing winds. But while fluctuating temps have been irksome, we've found a fun little gadget that makes unpredictable weather a serene and beautiful thing. Meet Tempescope, an ambient physical display devised by Ken Kawamoto that physically visualizes impeding weather conditions like rain, clouds and lightning. The minimal device is designed to receive weather forecasts from the Internet and reproduce the next day's sky inside your home.
Learn more about this cool gadget

March 2, 2016

$4.75M Neo-Federalist House in Park Slope Has Private Parking and Neighborhood Ties

Built in 1913 by Charles Neergaard, a patriarch of the family who founded the neighborhood mom-and-pop pharmacy of the same name in the late 19th century (with two locations, Neergaard Pharmacy is the oldest family-owned drugstore in Brooklyn), this Neo-Federalist home at 234 Eighth Avenue has a lot going for it. For one, it's a block from Prospect Park. It's on a corner lot. And, probably best of all in a neighborhood dubbed "No Place to Park Slope," it comes with private curb-cut driveway parking. All of this is tangential to the fact that this is a 4,000-square-foot renovated 1913 townhouse in perfect condition in one of the most coveted parts of north Park Slope.
Get a room-by-room tour of this unique residence

March 2, 2016

How to Make Shake Shack Burgers at Home; Clean Derrières Aren’t Just for the Rich

Martin’s potato rolls, ground sirloin, pimento peppers — these are just a few of the ingredients you’ll need to make your own ShackBurger. [Brokelyn] The World Chess Championship is returning to NYC. [NYT] Bidets are the new must-have bathroom accessory, and they start as low as $57. [DNAinfo] A $1,600 DIY kit will recycle the water […]

Uncategorized

March 2, 2016

POLL: Should the City Spend Money and Time Hiring Starchitects for Public Projects?

Yesterday, 6sqft took a closer look at the Department of Design and Construction’s Design Excellence program, a city initiative where high-profile architects design public facilities, and the fact that many of these projects are long delayed and way over budget. The Rafael Vinoly-designed NYPD station house on Staten Island known as “The Stapler” is perhaps […]

March 2, 2016

Will Donald Trump’s Divisive Rhetoric Hurt His Real Estate Business?

By Diane Pham

Trump may have swept the southern states on Super Tuesday, but in true blue New York City and other regions with liberal leanings, the presidential candidate remains as polarizing as ever. As such, since announcing his run last year, Trump has been dumped by everyone from NBC (he was axed as the host of “Celebrity Apprentice” […]

Real Estate Trends

March 2, 2016

‘The View’ Co-Host Joy Behar Lists Her Hamptons Home for $3.8M

Snag the Greenest Seat in Town: Gufram's 1972 Pratone Chair is Shaped Like a Patch of Grass

Comedian and co-host of "The View" Joy Behar just listed her 4,000-square-foot vacation home in East Hampton for $3.8 million. Behar, who is once again co-host of the daytime chat show after a two-year hiatus, as well as the host of "Late Night Joy," also has an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. She purchased the classic Hamptons home in 2012 for $2,875,000, which means she'll have a tidy profit if it sells at the ask.
Take a look inside the Hamptons hideaway

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VIEW ALL

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.
READ MORE

March 1, 2016

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

When news broke back in October that Blackstone Group had partnered with Canadian investment firm Ivanhoe Cambridge to buy Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.45 billion, one of the most talked about parts of the deal was that it would reserve 5,000 units of affordable housing for 20 years, 4,500 of which will be for middle-income families and 500 for low-income families. Starting today, qualifying New Yorkers can apply for one of these apartments, reports to DNAinfo. Through March 31st, the housing lottery will accept up to 15,000 names for the waitlist. They'll be entered into a randomized computer system that will assign a number to each applicant, and as more apartments open up, people will be contacted to move in. The units range from $1,210/month studios for persons earning between $36,300 and $48,400 annually to $4,560/month five-bedrooms for families of five to 10 making between $136,800 and $210,870.
See the full breakdown ahead

Affordable Housing

March 1, 2016

$5M Home in Boerum Hill Combines Townhouse and Loft Aesthetics

This Boerum Hill townhouse at 243 Dean Street has gone through quite the renovation. A buyer purchased it in 2008 for $2.44 million and then made big changes to the five-story, single-family property, restoring some of the old details and adding lots of new perks in a complete gut renovation. Now it's outfitted with lots of wooden ceiling beams, huge skylights, exposed and painted brick walls and restored fireplaces and plasterwork. The listing even says that new walls, doors windows were fabricated on site. The result is something between a townhouse and a loft—perhaps it's got the best of both worlds. And it's now on the market for a good deal more than $2.44 million, asking nearly $5 million.
Take a look

Distinctive Homes

March 1, 2016

INTERVIEW: The Museum of Food and Drink’s Peter Kim Talks Food and Preservation

This past October, the Museum of Food and Drink opened its first brick-and-mortar space in Williamsburg. Known as the MOFAD Lab, it's a design studio where the team is currently creating and displaying their exhibition ideas, as well as surprising a city who may have likened a food museum to merely big-name chefs and of-the-moment trends like rainbow bagels. Take for example their first exhibit "Flavor: Making It and Faking It," an in-depth and multi-sensory exploration of the $25 billion flavor simulation industry. Two more refreshingly unexpected facts are the background of executive director Peter Kim (he previously worked in public health, hunger policy, and law, to name a few fields) and the museum's first home at the Neighborhood Preservation Center (NPC), an office space and resource center for those working to improve and protect neighborhoods. If you're wondering what preservation and a food and drink museum have to do with each other, 6sqft recently attended an NPC event at MOFAD Lab to find out. After chatting with Peter and NPC's executive director Felicia Mayro, we quickly realized that the two fields have a lot more in common than you might think. Keep reading for our interview ahead, and if you want to visit MOFAD LAB, enter our latest giveaway. Peter is giving a lucky 6sqft reader and a guest free admission to the museum (enter here).
The full interview, right this way

Starchitect-Designed Public Projects Are Often Long Delayed and Way Over Budget

Bjarke Ingels’ design for the NYPD 40th Precinct station house in the Bronx, part of the Design Excellence program

March 1, 2016

Starchitect-Designed Public Projects Are Often Long Delayed and Way Over Budget

The big news last week was the Port Authority's decision not to hold an opening ceremony for Santiago Calatrava's World Trade Center Transportation Hub (followed by their sudden flip flop), citing the fact that it was six years delayed and that final construction costs came in around $4 billion in taxpayer dollars, twice what was projected. Though the Hub has become notorious for these reasons, it's hardly the only public project to face delays and skyrocketing costs. In fact, it's not even close to being the worst of the lot that are draining tax payer dollars. DNAinfo took a look at the Department of Design and Construction’s Design Excellence program, a city initiative where high-profile architects design public facilities. Take for example the NYPD station house on Staten Island known as "The Stapler." Its original cost was projected as $3 million, but when it opened in 2013 this rose to a whopping $73 million. DDC, ironically, blames the emphasis on design for the problems, as well as a faulty budgeting process (cost estimates are calculated before actual designs are selected).
More details ahead

March 1, 2016

Kid’s Caravan Bed Provides the Excitement of an RV From the Comfort of Home

By Rebecca Paul

This funky kid's bed was designed to mimic a caravan, and we secretly wish they also made it in adult sizes! Not only is it cozy and playful, but it's also super functional and equipped to handle even the most rugged camper. The bed is packed full of hidden storage space including the helm as the perfect home for toys stuffed animals or blankets. Plus the base of the bed double as a full-sized pull-out drawer.
READ MORE

March 1, 2016

Brooklyn’s Getting an Olsen Twins Museum; Why Do Airplane Bathrooms Still Have Ashtrays?

After the success of their Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan museum, two Brooklynites have launched a $9,500 Kickstarter to fund a new museum — The Olsen Twins Hiding From the Paparazzi. [Brokelyn] New Yorkers are the most wrinkled people in the country. [NYDN] Here’s the lineup for the inaugural Panorama music festival on Randall’s Island (you know, […]

Uncategorized

March 1, 2016

First Look at Pair of Apartment Houses Coming to 220-222 Withers Street in East Williamsburg

By Emrys Fitzgerald

Here's our first glimpse of a pair of four-story residential buildings at 220-222 Withers Street in East Williamsburg. Renderings recently published by the site's owner, BK Developers, depict two identical, eight-unit buildings faced with a routine exterior of red brick, multi-pane windows, and dark metal trim. Three floors are flush to the streetwall, while the fourth is setback. Within each 5,000-square-foot building, the first and second floors will each house a single unit while the upper two levels will contain a duo of duplexes.
More ahead

Lightstone’s Paris-on-the-Gowanus Rental Building at 365 Bond Street Opens

363-365 Bond Street, via Lightstone Group

March 1, 2016

Lightstone’s Paris-on-the-Gowanus Rental Building at 365 Bond Street Opens

By Ondel Hylton and Julian Friedman

One of the Lightstone Group's two new rental buildings in Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood is set to open Tuesday. The new residence at 365 Bond Street, along with its neighbor at 363 Bond (a year from completion) represent a $350 million effort by the developer to build 700 luxury rental apartments on the left bank of the Gowanus Canal. Designed to look like an historic brick-walled warehouse, market-rate apartments at 365 Bond start at over $2,000 a month for a studio and over $3,000 for a one-bedroom unit, according to the Wall Street Journal. Lightstone President Mitchell Hochberg says the project was inspired by the Canal Saint-Martin neighborhood in Paris, known for a residential project near a similarly polluted waterway which helped create a "newly hip atmosphere."
Find out more

March 1, 2016

Williamsburg Hotel/Residential Tower at 500 Metropolitan Avenue Rises Above Ground

Not to be completely outdone by Bjarke Ingels' Via 57 West, Williamsburg is getting its own highway-fronting pyramidal pile. Alongside the bucolic banks of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the concrete frame of 500 Metropolitan Avenue has finally climbed above street level, now reaching its third floor. The uniquely massed 200,000-square-foot, mixed-use project ascends near the Metropolitan Avenue-Lorimer Street station of the G and L lines, and from a V-shaped lot that borders five streets: Metropolitan Avenue, Union, Keap, Ainslie and Rodney Streets. Its stepped, ziggurat-like form will soar 14 stories and 172 feet above the low-slung area, making it among the tallest structures in the 'hood.
Find out more

March 1, 2016

The Color Scheme in This $8.5K Village Rental Is Good Enough to Eat

Ok, those funky retro-Euro Smeg fridges in candy colors are cute pretty much always. But in tangerine? And the matching tangerine-striped vintage light fixture? Amazing. And that candy-orange paired with pale Tiffany-box blue? Yes, please. This two-bedroom, two-bath floor-through at busy-but-convenient 132 West Houston Street in Greenwich Village is no bargain at $8.5K a month, but that's no surprise given the prime downtown location where supermodels, students, tourists and fashionistas jostle day and night. It is, however, surprisingly chic (at least in pictures), with a minimalist vibe and design perfection in the details.
Check it out, this way

Distinctive Homes

February 29, 2016

RAAD-Designed Bushwick Building May Have the World’s Largest Urban Farm

By Ondel Hylton and Dana Schulz

Design firm RAAD is no stranger to boundary-pushing projects (their founder James Ramsey is a co-creator of the Lowline underground park), and their latest endeavor may grant them bragging rights as the designers behind the city's, perhaps even the world's, largest urban farm. Brownstoner spotted conceptual renderings (read: the developer has not filed permits nor have they confirmed they'll move ahead with RAAD's vision) for 930 Flushing Avenue in Bushwick, part of the Rheingold Brewery mega-development. The mixed-use project, officially known as 1 Bushwick, would offer commercial, retail, residential, hotel, cultural, and agricultural spaces. The aforementioned rooftop farm would be nearly 165,000 square feet; Brooklyn Grange, which is currently the world's largest rooftop soil farm, occupies 108,000 square feet across two sites. A description of 1 Bushwick says: "Guests relaxing in the rooftop pool will be regaled by a rare experience: views of the skyscrapers of Manhattan — and cornfields."
More renderings and details

February 29, 2016

10 Clever, Creative and Unexpected Storage Ideas for Apartment Dwellers

By Alyssa Alimurung

6sqft’s series Apartment Living 101 is aimed at helping New Yorkers navigate the challenges of creating a happy home in the big city. This week we offer up spots in your apartment that may be underutilized as storage. Unless you're living in a mega-mansion with amazing closet space, chances are your belongings are scattered across your apartment and overstuffed into drawers and cabinets. With spring right around the corner, you may want to rethink how you've been tackling clutter at home. Below we've rounded up 10 clever, creative and unexpected storage ideas that you can put into action in your apartment right now.
Spring cleaning organization this way

Apply for 30 Affordable Units in Three Williamsburg Buildings, Starting at $532/Month

A rendering of 356 Bedford Avenue from the construction fence from July, 2014. Via Brownstoner

February 29, 2016

Apply for 30 Affordable Units in Three Williamsburg Buildings, Starting at $532/Month

Here's the third affordable housing lottery to open in Williamsburg over the past few weeks. First, 33 units opened at 149 Kent Avenue, followed by 13 more spread across five small buildings. Now, 30 additional apartments are up for grabs at 37 Ten Eyck Street, 37 Maujer Street, and 356 Bedford Avenue, according to the NYC HPD. The Bedford address, the largest of the buildings, is located in the heart of South Williamsburg, just north of the Williamsburg Bridge between South 3rd and South 4th Streets, near a cluster of trendy bars and restaurants; the Maujer and Ten Eyck buildings are in East Williamsburg between Union Avenue and Lorimer Street. According to the posting, the units range from $532/month one-bedrooms to $1,182/month three-bedrooms.
Find out if you qualify

Affordable Housing

Beyond Bars: Designers Reimagine Rikers Island As a Destination

Curtis + Ginsberg Architects’ “city blocks”

February 29, 2016

Beyond Bars: Designers Reimagine Rikers Island As a Destination

The 413-acre plot of city-owned land, most of it landfill, that makes up Rikers Island is known more for its impenetrable prison than its waterfront property and breathtaking city views. Recently City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito called for the closing of the jail complex, reports Crains, calling it an "ineffective, inefficient,” symbol of outdated policies and approach to criminal justice. An independent commission headed by Jonathan Lippman, the state's former top judge, is creating a blueprint for accomplishing the prison’s closing. There is significant opposition to the idea, though others, from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the New York Times editorial board are behind it.
Find out what could replace the jail

February 29, 2016

$2M Greenwich Village Co-op Comes With Eclectic Surprises and Garden Views

The Greenwich Village cooperative 39 East 10th Street was designed in 1870 by James Renwick, the architect also responsible for nearby Grace Church and St. Patrick's Cathedral. The five-story brick building only has 10 units, and this three-bedroom asking $1.995 million is one of them. Inside, a narrow floorplan connects 1,600 square foot of space. There are three bedrooms, a living room, an eat-in kitchen, and office space with some fun surprises thrown in: working wood-burning fireplaces, Art Deco lighting, tons of well-designed shelving and views out onto the building's quaint common garden.
Check out the floorplan

Distinctive Homes

February 29, 2016

Riverside Center’s One West End Avenue Tops Off, Cantilevering Pool and All

Propelled skyward by the still-sizzling Upper West Side residential market and its dearth of buildable sites, the final phase of the Riverside South master plan is coming together alas. After decades on the drawing board, this southern-most, eight-acre segment collectively known as Riverside Center/Waterline Center has already spawned a pair of residential buildings designed by SLCE Architects and another by Pelli Clarke Pelli with Goldstein, Hill & West Architects (GHWA). Three other parcels to the west are now undergoing site preparation. Those lots will give rise to a trio condo and rental buildings whose developer, Boston-based General Investment and Development Companies (GID), has enlisted a trio of high caliber designers working with GHWA, the executive architect of record. Work has moved forward swiftly on the the plan's first two towers. The shorter of the pair, known as One West End , has just topped off its 491-foot concrete skeleton and is being developed through a partnership between the Elad Group and Silverstein Properties. The robust 41-story spire is the second tallest building on West End Avenue, only behind its more anonymous 521-foot-tall rental neighbor 21 West End.
Details, renderings, and construction photos this way

February 29, 2016

Chilean Design Firm Makes Beautiful Room Dividers From Sustainable Pine Fibers

By Ana Lisa Alperovich

Whether you live on an open-plan loft or tiny studio, you've probably, at least once, considered a reconfiguration of the space. Meet Ensamble, modular flexible room dividers, and the latest project by Chilean studio The Andes House. Lightweight, flexible and low-cost, the panels are easy to assemble into a small office or separate micro-space and were crafted from a sustainable composite material made from pine fibers.
Learn more about Ensamble

255 East 77th Street

Lenox Hill

Upper East Side condos with Central Park views

3 beds starting at $5,300,000
4 beds starting at $7,400,000
5 beds starting at $8,750,000

Learn More

February 29, 2016

Architect Wants to Build a Vertical Central Park; 42 NYC Streets Just Got Renamed

Italian architect Carlo Ratti wants to build a mile-high observation tower that’s (sort of) a vertical version of Central Park. [Dezeen] Without leap years, today would be July 15, 2017. [LA Times] The city co-named 42 thoroughfares and public places, honoring “individuals, cultural icons and entities that made lasting contributions to New York City.” See […]

Uncategorized

February 29, 2016

With Terraces, Fireplaces and a Hidden Bar, This $2.5M Murray Hill Duplex Is Classic Manhattan

On a picture-perfect residential block lined with historic townhouses and understatedly elegant pre- and postwar apartment buildings–yet around the corner from bustling Midtown East, this duplex at 34 East 38th Street may be the Manhattan equivalent of that perfect Craftsman bungalow in a hip suburban neighborhood. It doesn't shout or come with shiny marketing literature, but for the die-hard Manhattan worshipper, it’s just right. The two-bedroom co-op in a five-story Murray Hill townhouse would certainly make a perfect pied-a-terre: Mint renovations mean effortless comfort and style; it's convenient to just about everything the city offers, in a neighborhood where old-fashioned elegance in architecture blends with every modern 21st century amenity catering to busy residents of all ages.
Tour the duplex

Distinctive Homes

February 28, 2016

CWB Architects Build a Musically Inspired Pavilion in the Hamptons for a Pianist Client

By Ana Lisa Alperovich

A former musical director/pianist from Brooklyn Heights and her historian husband contacted Dumbo-based CWB Architects to build an adjacent pavilion at their home in Quogue on Southampton. The result is the wood-clad Piano Pavilion, which echoes the owners' love for organic architecture, but makes a deliberate nod to its namesake instrument with the contour of its roof. The pavilion was made to function as a piano room and small office, but it also works as a guest room, which is important as the couple's children and six granddaughters visit almost every weekend.
Learn more about the Piano Pavilion

Architecture And Design

February 26, 2016

Actors Kerry Bishé and Chris Lowell Buy $2M Skylit Soho Loft