Search Results for: -fifth avenue

September 28, 2018

163rd Street C station reopens, no 5 train service, and more weekend subway service updates

Yesterday, the 163rd Street-Amsterdam Avenue C station reopened for service in both directions after being closed since March for extensive renovations. In addition to structural improvements, cosmetic additions were added in the form of four new glass mosaic murals by area artists. That's the good news – the bad news is there's no 5 train service this weekend and the D and F trains are once again masquerading as one another for a large number of stops.
Here are all the planned service changes for this weekend
September 27, 2018

New renderings for Brooklyn Navy Yard’s 5 million square feet of vertical manufacturing space

After announcing a $2.5 billion expansion of the Brooklyn site in January, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC) released on Thursday new renderings of the plan, which would add 5.1 million square feet of manufacturing space. Developed by WXY architecture + urban design, the plan centers around three sites, all including new vertical manufacturing space along with public, open space and connectivity improvements. About 75 percent of the 10,000 jobs added (bringing the total to the site 30,000) will be manufacturing jobs, with the rest being service-oriented and creative work. The renderings released of the Yard this week by the BNYDC gives us a better look at how the 300-acre development will flow with the surrounding neighborhoods.
See the renderings
September 27, 2018

What’s in a name? Gay Street

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

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

Sixteen years after Columbia University president Lee Bollinger announced the development of the school's $6.3 billion 17-acre Manhattanville campus, he joined Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano to celebrate and unveil the third and final building of the starchitect's ensemble in West Harlem. Previously, Piano completed the Jerome L. Greene Science Center and the adjacent Lenfest Center for the Arts, and today he marked the completion of the Forum, the ship-like structure that peaks at the triangular intersection of Broadway and West 125th Street. The 56,000-square-foot building will serve as a flexible meeting and conference hub, and like its siblings, was purposefully designed with a transparent, public ground floor surrounded by plazas.
See photos of the Forum
September 27, 2018

City Council approves 80 Flatbush development in Downtown Brooklyn

The New York City Council voted on Wednesday to approve 80 Flatbush, a five-building mixed-use development planned for Downtown Brooklyn, Curbed NY reported. The approval comes after negotiations last week between Alloy Development and Council Member Stephen Levin, who represents the area, which led to a shorter, less-dense complex. After the developers agreed to cut the height of two buildings, one from 986 feet to 840 feet and another from 560 to 510 feet, the Council's subcommittee on zoning voted in favor of the project.
More on the project
September 26, 2018

Where I Work: Gregory Wessner organizes NYC’s biggest ’Open House’

As a media sponsor of Archtober--NYC’s annual month-long architecture and design festival of tours, lectures, films, and exhibitions--6sqft has teamed up with the Center for Architecture to feature some of their 70+ partner organizations as part of our Where I Work series. "Nothing replaces the first-hand experience of a great building or city," says Gregory Wessner, the Executive Director of Open House New York. And from October 12-14, New Yorkers will be able to experience stepping into building such as 3 World Trade Center and the Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn, along with public spaces like Domino Park and Hunter's Point South--all as part of this year's OHNY Weekend. Wessner joined the organization five years ago, during which time the Weekend has exploded in popularity. Ahead of the big event, he gave us the low-down on what it's like to plan tour and talks with more than 250 buildings and projects across the five boroughs, his favorite buildings in NYC, and what we can expect from OHNY in the future.
Read the interview
September 26, 2018

New details for Brooklyn’s Pacific Park and a first look at its tallest tower

The development of Pacific Park, a 22-acre mixed-use complex near the Barclays Center, has entered its next phase Greenland Forest City Partners announced Wednesday. The developer is bringing on TF Cornerstone and the Brodsky Organization as development partners for the project. The duo will develop three parcels at the site, which include three rental buildings, a new public school, and new open space. Greenland also announced construction is set to begin in the spring for the park's tallest tower, a more than 500-foot tall tower designed by Perkins Eastman.
More details here
September 25, 2018

REVEALED: Designs for Hudson Yards’ second phase of parkland

Last month, financing was secured for the second phase the extension of Hudson Park and Boulevard at Hudson Yards. The $374 million expansion--which will expand the existing park by 75 percent with a three-acre park over an Amtrak rail cut from West 36th Street to West 39th Street, between 10 and 11th Avenues--has gotten some slack for its price tag, which would make it NYC’s most expensive park project ever. But new renderings of the green space uncovered by CityRealty show everything this Western end of the project will bring to the mega-development, including an open lawn that will be turned into an ice-skating rink in the winter, curving stone paths amidst plush landscaping and tall trees, a food kiosk, and a colorful children's playground.
Have a look
September 24, 2018

New report shows NYC landlords falsified 10,000+ work permits in 2.5 years

Recent news of Kushner Companies' filing of false documents outlining the residential makeup of their buildings in order to get construction permits has prompted a closer look at the practice, which, according to Politico, has been rampant among New York City property owners for years with few consequences. Last month the Department of Buildings fined Kushner Companies $210,000 for repeatedly submitting inaccurate paperwork. Tenant advocacy group Housing Rights Initiative (HRI) will release a report Monday outlining how landlords filed more than 10,000 deceptive PW1s (Plan/Work Applications) in the span of two and a half years.
What's going on here?
September 22, 2018

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

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

September 21, 2018

Lottery launches for 200+ affordable units in East New York, from $395/month

A lottery is set to launch on Saturday for 240 affordable apartments in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood. The units are spread across a brand new mixed-use development, the Livonia Apartments, located at 453 Hinsdale Street, 500 Livonia Avenue, and 487 Livonia Avenue. Designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning (MAP), the four-building development sits adjacent to the L Train at Livonia Avenue. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 30, 40, 50 and 60 percent of the area median income can apply for the units, ranging from $395/month studios to $1,339/month three-bedrooms.
Find out if you qualify
September 21, 2018

How Prohibition restructured NYC real estate and architecture (and built the Seagram Building)

One hundred years ago, the United States Congress passed a temporary Wartime Prohibition Act banning the sale of beverages with an alcohol content of over 1.28 percent. The 1918 amendment later led to full-blown Prohibition, which wouldn’t officially end until the early 1930s. Find it difficult to imagine a spirit-less New York? In 1918, many New Yorkers, including city officials, also had a difficult time imagining a New York without alcohol. After all, with alcohol banned, the future remained uncertain for an estimated 9,000 hotel and saloon properties. The city itself stood to lose roughly $18 million in tax revenues related to the sale of liquor. In the end, however, New York not only survived the Prohibition Era but, indirectly, had its architecture altered.
Booze and bootlegging this way
September 21, 2018

Entire 2 and M train lines to run with 12- and 20-minute planned delays

Straphangers can expect planned delays on the entire 2 and M lines this weekend, which will respectively be running with 12-minute and 20-minute delays (incredibly exact estimates for an agency rarely known for predictable service). Otherwise, this weekend has a relatively non-crippling array of planned service changes.
Here's the full line-up
September 20, 2018

NYC Council committee approves 80 Flatbush project in Downtown Brooklyn after height chop

The New York City Council's subcommittee on zoning voted unanimously Thursday to approve the rezoning application that allows for the construction of 80 Flatbush, a five-building complex planned for Downtown Brooklyn. Following negotiations between Alloy Development and Council Member Stephen Levin, the developers agreed to cut the height of two buildings, one from 986 to 840 feet and another from 560 to 510 feet (h/t Brooklyn Paper). New renderings reveal not only smaller buildings but an updated design as well. With this key approval, the project will most likely get support from the full City Council followed by Mayor Bill de Blasio.
More here
September 20, 2018

Across from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, RXR plans a 10-building complex in a former printing press factory

The Brooklyn Navy Yard and the area surrounding it continues to expand and live up to predictions calling it the city's new creative hotspot. Just a few months after the Navy Yard and developers broke ground on a nine-story mixed-use creative and manufacturing project at 399 Sands Street, RXR Realty has announced plans to renovate a 10-building, 650,000-square-foot block-long complex at the site of the former Mergenthaler Linotype Company printing press factory, across from the Yard. The refurbished complex will be home to industrial, design, and office space, with ground-floor retail, and restaurant tenants.
More renderings of the new creative space, this way
September 19, 2018

Live in a new East Williamsburg building with roof deck and courtyard for $801/month

If the Manhattan-fication of Williamsburg proper isn't quite your thing but you still want some of that artsy, gritty edge, consider heading a bit east. And if your household earns 60 percent of the area median income, or between $33,875 and $62,580 annually, you might want to apply for one of the 25 affordable units currently available at 125 Borinquen Place, a new 133-unit rental building with an impressive roster of amenities: a rooftop with hammocks, cabanas, dining, and outdoor movies; an indoor cinema room; a duplex fitness center; co-working areas; and a lovely landscaped courtyard. The units range from $801/month studios to $974/month two-bedrooms.
Find out if you qualify
September 19, 2018

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

Awash in gray pavement and grayer steel, New York can be a metropolis of muted hues, but with 39 community gardens blooming between 14th Street and East Houston Street, the East Village is the Emerald City. The neighborhood boasts the highest concentration of community gardens in the country thanks to a proud history of grassroots activism that has helped transform once-abandoned lots into community oases. By the mid-1970s, as the city fought against a ferocious fiscal crisis, nearly 10,000 acres of land stood vacant throughout the five boroughs. In 1973, Lower East resident Liz Christie, who lived on Mott Street, refused to let the neglected lots in her neighborhood lie fallow. She established the urban garden group Green Guerillas, a rogue band of planters who lobbed “seed bombs” filled with fertilizer, seeds, and water into vacant, inaccessible lots, hoping they would flourish and fill the blighted spaces with greenery.
Get to the root of the story!
September 19, 2018

Times Square Theater to get a $100M makeover; developer hopes for Apple, Amazon, or Coke

New York developer Stillman Development International LLC has signed a 73-year-maximum lease on the Times Square Theater on West 42nd Street with plans for a $100 million makeover in keeping with neighbors like Hershey’s Chocolate World and Old Navy, the Wall Street Journal reports. Shuttered for almost 30 years, the theater, which opened on September 30, 1920 with Florence Reed starring in "The Mirage," is seen by some as the last vestige of the neighborhood's descent into late 20th century blight before rising to new heights as a tourist mecca.
A new idea: Retail!
September 17, 2018

Lottery opens for 95 affordable units in the Bronx’s Kingsbridge neighborhood, from $860/month

It's no wonder the city has spent the better part of the past decade trying to redevelop the former Kingsbridge Armory into the country’s largest ice skating complex--it's less than a block from the 4 train and three blocks from the D and B trains and a quick walk to the Fordham University campus. And for residents moving into the area, it's just a few blocks from the large Jerome Park, St. James Park, and Poe Park. With all this in mind, a new development has sprung up across from the Armory at 2700 Jerome Avenue. The 13-story, 134-unit building is a mix of affordable and supportive housing and retail, and as of today, New Yorkers who earn 60 or 90 percent of the median income can apply for 95 units that fall into the first category. The available apartments range from $860/month studios to $1,940/month three-bedrooms.
Find out if you qualify
September 17, 2018

With most approved residential units in NYC, the Bronx building boom continues

Out of the 20 New York City neighborhoods with the most residential units approved within the past year, seven of them are in the Bronx, more than any other borough. According to a new report from Localize.city, a group that analyzes data related to housing, 13 percent of all approved apartments between 2010 and 2015 were in the Bronx. In the first half of 2018, the Bronx had 27 percent of the city's share of approved new units. While a majority of new buildings in the borough are affordable, increasing land prices could mean more market-rate projects are on the horizon, the New York Times reported.
Get more details
September 17, 2018

Apply for three middle-income units in Brooklyn’s historic Weeksville

After the state of New York State abolished slavery in 1827, the country's second-largest free black community was established in Brooklyn. Known as Weeksville, today the neighborhood falls a bit under the radar, surrounded by more sought-after neighborhoods like Crown Heights and Bed Stuy. But it's a charming little enclave, lined with many two-family homes and small brick rowhouses, that has done well to preserve its history. And just down the street from the Weeksville Heritage Center is a new 10-unit rental building at 1520 Prospect Place that just opened an affordable housing lottery for three $2,098/month one-bedrooms.
See the qualifications
September 15, 2018

FREE RENT: This week’s NYC rental roundup includes 3 months free rent on the Williamsburg waterfront

Images (L to R): LEVEL BK, BKLYN AIR, Synergy Chelsea and Denizen Bshwk Williamsburg Waterfront Rental LEVEL BK Offers 3 Months Free on 2-Year Leases + Free Car Share [link] BKLYN AIR Offering Half-Month Free for Leases Starting Before Sept. 30th [link] New High-Tech Corporate Residences Coming Soon to Synergy Chelsea at 232 7th Avenue […]

September 14, 2018

See the Meatpacking District’s 20-year metamorphosis from desolate to under-construction

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Brian Rose shares his past and present Meatpacking streetscapes. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. A native of Virginia's Colonial Williamsburg, photographer Brian Rose moved to New York City in 1977 and captured some of the most fleeting, bankrupted moments of the Meatpacking District in one January of 1985. In 2013, he returned to the neighborhood – impossibly changed – and once again photographed it. He then presented both sets of photos in his 2014 book "Metamorphosis: Meatpacking District 1985 + 2013." Read on for an interview with Rose on old-school NYC, 9/11, and the city's unknowable future.
See the before-and-afters
September 14, 2018

New Bronx affordable housing lottery tries to make ‘Mott Haven North’ a thing

We've seen it all over Manhattan and Brooklyn--brokers come up with bizarre acronyms and new directional cues to hip-ify (aka gentrify) a neighborhood. Most recently, they tried their hand at SoHa--South Harlem, which certainly didn't stick. And now the trend has spread to the Bronx, though this time it's the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development behind the new moniker. In their defense, "Mott Haven North," was probably chosen for the latest affordable housing lottery based on their 1994 Mott Haven North Urban Renewal plan, but with this South Bronx neighborhood rapidly gentrifying, it's a slippery slope. Regardless, there are eight $1,379/month one-bedrooms up for grabs at 764 East 152nd Street, which, according to maps, is in the Woodstock area.
More info ahead
September 14, 2018

Cortlandt Street Station reopens 17 years later, rest of subway still a mess

Almost two decades later, the WTC Cortlandt 1 station has reopened, and boy does it look spiffy. Maybe not two decades worth of no service spiffy, but certainly it's in better shape than most other subway stations. Meanwhile, weekend G service is once again modified, all M trains are running with (at least) a 20-minute delay between trains, and D, F, and A trains are masquerading as one another.
Now, for the full roster of bad news: