Search Results for: Brooklyn Heights

Looking at the 25-foot wide townhouse known as the Warwick at 8 8th Avenue in one of the prettiest spots in brownstone Brooklyn, it's easy to imagine that the apartment within would be a study in historic parlor-floor grandeur–and this well-maintained two-bedroom co-op doesn't disappoint. Steps from Grand Army Plaza and a few blocks from Prospect Park, this anything-but-boring home on the Park Slope/Prospect Heights border boasts a romantic wood-burning fireplace and historic details, plus quirky surprises like a loft and a loggia.
Take a tour

Distinctive Homes

INTERVIEW: AphroChic’s founders pursue a passion for storytelling, design, and African American history

Photos © AphroChic/Patrick Cline

March 8, 2018

INTERVIEW: AphroChic’s founders pursue a passion for storytelling, design, and African American history

By Cait Etherington

Photos © AphroChic/Patrick Cline "Modern.Soulful.Style." This is the term coined by Crown Heights-based husband-and-wife team Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason when they started their home design blog AphroChic in 2007. These three little words really must have resonated; just over a decade later, Jeanine and Bryan have taken the design world by storm, starting their own product line (which includes their "Brooklyn in Color" paint collection, the first paint line by an African-American design brand), designing interiors, authoring the book "REMIX: Decorating with Culture, Objects and Soul," and hosting HGTV's "Sneak Peek with AphroChic." 6sqft recently chatted with Jeanine and Bryan to learn how they went from careers in criminal justice to interior design, how African American influences factor into their work, and what's to come from this unique couple who "embraces culture and the unique admixture of the traditional and the contemporary that helps to define us all."
Our interview with AfroChic

Celebrate Women’s History Month with these 15 feminist shops, events, and exhibits in NYC

The Female NY Giants before a baseball game in 1913; via Library of Congress

March 6, 2018

Celebrate Women’s History Month with these 15 feminist shops, events, and exhibits in NYC

It's not surprising one of the original observances of Women's History Month got its start in New York in 1909; the first women's rights convention in the U.S. happened upstate at Seneca Falls, the first large-scale suffrage parade ran through the city and in 1917, the state became the first on the East Coast to grant women suffrage. A century later, there are countless ways to celebrate Women's History Month in New York City, so to narrow it down, we've rounded up 15 feminist-friendly bookstores, art galleries, and educational events. Whether you want to shop for girl-power-themed swag at Bulletin or enjoy a female-led mediation session at the United Nations, there's something empowering for everyone this month.
Get the scoop

Events & Things To Do

My 700sqft: Mommy blogger Brianne Manz balances work and parenting in Battery Park City

6sqft’s series “My sqft” checks out the homes of New Yorkers across all the boroughs. Our latest interior adventure brings us to the Battery Park City apartment of “Stroller in the City” founder Brianne Manz. Want to see your home featured here? Get in touch!

February 27, 2018

My 700sqft: Mommy blogger Brianne Manz balances work and parenting in Battery Park City

By Dana Schulz

The term "mommy blogger" is fairly well known today, but when Brianne Manz started Stroller in the City nearly a decade ago, she was charting new waters. A fashion industry veteran, Brianne has grown the site into a full-scale lifestyle resource, offering tips on raising a family in New York City, the latest in kids' fashion, and "all things that are mommy." 6sqft recently visited Brianne at the Battery Park City apartment she and her husband found 15 years ago but now share with their three children (their oldest son in nine and two daughters are six and four). Not only did we get to see first-hand how this entrepreneur balances work and parenting, but we chatted with her about why she loves her neighborhood, why having kids in NYC is a great idea, and how anyone can create a family-friendly home.
All this and more ahead

February 16, 2018

The Panorama Challenge is back! See if you can answer past years’ toughest trivia questions

By 6sqft

For the 11th year, the City Reliquary, Queens Museum, and The Levys’ Unique New York! have partnered for the Panorama Challenge, considered the ultimate NYC trivia. On Friday, March 2, using the Panorama of the City of New York at the Queens Museum – a room-sized scale model of the entire city, a relic from the 1964 World's Fair – teams will answer questions in categories that may include McKim, Mead, & White sites; the Grammys; the movie Wonderstruck; and the Museum's Never Built New York exhibit. In anticipation of the event, quizmaster Jonathan Turer is testing 6sqft readers with five (one for each borough!) of past years' toughest clues.
Test your knowledge!

Events & Things To Do

Six things you didn’t know about the Lower West Side

59-81-Washington-Street ca. 1935, via NYPL

February 14, 2018

Six things you didn’t know about the Lower West Side

By Historic Districts Council

This post is part of a series by the Historic Districts Council, exploring the groups selected for their Six to Celebrate program, New York’s only targeted citywide list of preservation priorities. The Lower West Side may not be a neighborhood name used by brokers, but for those involved with preservation efforts in the area, it's a neighborhood very much unique from the surrounding Financial District. Encompassing the area west of Broadway from Liberty Street to Battery Place, it was originally home to Irish and German immigrants, followed by Little Syria, the nation’s first and largest Arabic settlement, from roughly the 1880s to 1940s. But the construction of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and World Trade Center "nearly wiped the neighborhood off the map." There are still several buildings remaining that serve as a connection to the past, however, and Friends of the Lower West Side is working diligently to make sure this history is not lost, expanding its oral history program, offering walking tours of the area, and appealing to the Landmarks Commission to designate a small historic district.
Find out six little-known facts about this amazing district

History

The city will produce 500 affordable apartments across 87 hard-to-fill vacant lots

Image: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office

February 14, 2018

The city will produce 500 affordable apartments across 87 hard-to-fill vacant lots

An announcement Tuesday by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) gave lower-income New Yorkers lots to look forward to–literally. HPD Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer announced that nine development teams would be creating 490 affordable apartments and homeownership opportunities on 87 vacant lots through the department's New Infill Homeownership Opportunities Program (NIHOP) and Neighborhood Construction Program (NCP). The programs were designed specifically to unlock the potential of vacant lots long considered too small or irregular for traditional housing with innovative smaller homes, and develop more affordable housing on lots long used for parking at existing housing complexes. This latest round of development is the third and final in a series: The program has already seen the construction of over 600 affordable homes on 81 lots.
'No site has gone overlooked'

Interactive map identifies the New York City neighborhoods most underserved by transit

Map via AllTransit

February 12, 2018

Interactive map identifies the New York City neighborhoods most underserved by transit

Nearly 29 percent of New York City households are underserved by transit, according to data from the Center for Neighborhood Technology and TransitCenter. In a joint project, called AllTransit, the team put together a collection of transit data that includes 15,000 routes and 800 agencies in the United States. A tool called Gap Finder identifies gaps in U.S. cities where underserved communities would benefit from improved service.
Explore it here

Transit

De Blasio administration falls short of pledge to open 20 homeless shelters in 2017

Photo via Wikimedia

January 23, 2018

De Blasio administration falls short of pledge to open 20 homeless shelters in 2017

In 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration opened just 10 out of the 20 shelters planned for New York City under an initiative aimed at curbing the city's growing homelessness crisis. Last February, the city unveiled its "Turning the Tide on Homelessness" plan that included opening 90 shelters over five years, with about 20 shelters each in 2017 and 2018. But, according to the New York Times, the city fell short of its target last year, opening just half the number of shelters planned due to delays in the permit process, time-consuming negotiations with nonprofits that run the shelters and backlash from the community and public officials. Under de Blasio, the homeless population has grown. When the mayor took office in 2014, about 68,000 New Yorkers were without homes. Today, roughly 77,000 people are considered homeless in NYC, with 3,900 on the street, the largest homeless population in the U.S.
Find out more

The Urban Lens: The quest to document every diner in NYC

Metro Diner on Broadway and 100th Street

January 19, 2018

The Urban Lens: The quest to document every diner in NYC

By Dana Schulz

6sqft’s series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In this installment, Riley Arthur documents NYC's vanishing diners. Are you a photographer who’d like to see your work featured on The Urban Lens? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. "There's no comparison to a New York diner experience," says photographer Riley Arthur, which is what led her to start documenting all of the establishments throughout the five boroughs. Though she recently moved from Astoria to Florida, over the past two-and-a-half years she's photographed roughly 215 diners ("I've lost count," she says), usually hitting 10-12 a day and ordering a matzo ball soup at each! Since she began, at least a dozen diners have closed, usually due to rising rents, but Riley still has about 60 left to photograph. She shares her journey on the popular Instagram account Diners of NYC, where you'll see everything from the faux-stone and shiny metal facades to the greasy bacon and eggs to the massive plastic menus to the neon signs and leather banquettes. Riley shared a set of her snapshots with 6sqft and filled us in on her process and favorite spots.
See Riley's photos here

Six chances to live near Green-Wood Cemetery, from $1,035 a month

Green-Wood Cemetery via Wiki Commons

January 5, 2018

Six chances to live near Green-Wood Cemetery, from $1,035 a month

A rental building with some stellar amenities at 198 19th Street in a rapidly-developing section of Greenwood Heights is now accepting applications for six newly-constructed affordable units. The five-story residence is just a few blocks from Green-Wood Cemetery, the popular Park Slope and Gowanus neighborhoods, and the D and R trains. An impressive amenities package includes a common roof deck, gym and recreation space, basement storage, furnished common area, and washers and dryers in each unit. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 60 percent of the area median income can apply for the $1,035/month one-bedroom apartments and $1,175/month two-bedroom units.
Find out if you qualify

Affordable Housing

The highlife: Architecture, spectacle and Art Deco New York

Photo of the 1931 Beaux Arts Ball courtesy of the Van Alen Institute

January 5, 2018

The highlife: Architecture, spectacle and Art Deco New York

By Lucie Levine

The architects who built the Jazz Age really knew how to get down. In January 1931, they turned the city’s annual Beaux Arts Ball into the ultimate Gatsby-approved bash. Instead of the stuffy historicism of years past, the party’s theme was “Fête Moderne -- a Fantasie in Flame and Silver." Advance advertising for the Ball in the New York Times promised an event “modernistic, futuristic, cubistic, altruistic, mystic, architistic and feministic," featuring the city’s most renowned architects dressed as their buildings, celebrating both themselves and the modern fantasy metropolis they had forged in flame and silver. Art Deco New York: the skyscraper city, glittering and strong, reaching ever higher – through technological advancement and American ingenuity – toward excitement, prosperity, enlightenment, and power.
READ MORE

Snag an affordable one-bedroom in Bed-Stuy for $985/month

Image courtesy of StudiosC

January 4, 2018

Snag an affordable one-bedroom in Bed-Stuy for $985/month

A Stuyvesant Heights building located in the heart of Brooklyn, nestled in the middle of Bushwick, Bed-Stuy and Williamsburg, is now accepting applications for nine affordable units. The five-story rental at 869 Park Avenue sits between two busy thoroughfares, Marcus Garvey Boulevard and Broadway. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 60 percent of the area median income can apply for the $985/month one-bedroom apartments.
Find out if you qualify

Affordable Housing

A massive 1,000-unit mixed-use project is planned right off the Coney Island boardwalk

Rendering of Coney Island North Venture via The Prusik Group

January 3, 2018

A massive 1,000-unit mixed-use project is planned right off the Coney Island boardwalk

By Emily Nonko

It's slated to be a big year for Coney Island--and not just when it comes to new rides and attractions. A massive development will join the growing redevelopment of the beachfront locale, which will be home to at least four major projects totaling 2,151 units in the coming years. According to CityRealty, Taconic Investment Partners and The Prusik Group are planning to build a ground-up, mixed-use complex tentatively referred to as "Coney Island North Venture." It'll be comprised of 1,000 apartments, 80,000 square feet of office space, and 150,000 square feet of retail along Surf Avenue. The complex will join a new 42-story tower, plus a 440-unit development that will boast its very own trolley.
All the development details

New Developments

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

Images (L to R): CAESURA, 777 SIXTH, 15 PARK ROW and 300 ASHLAND

December 19, 2017

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

In the Heart of Chelsea with an Entrance So Discrete It’s Almost a Secret [link] Caesura Leasing Launches for February 1 Move-Ins; Lending Library Lets Residents Pack Light [link] The Eugene Unveils The Hudson Club, Exclusive Rooftop Lounge with Panoramic City Views [link] 507 West Chelsea: Live Inside a 35-Story Glass Tower Above the High […]

Real Estate Trends

November 29, 2017

For $11M, a former Chelsea parking garage transformed into a concrete-clad apartment

By Emily Nonko

This is a quirky New York apartment if we've ever seen one. It occupies a former Chelsea parking garage at 239 West 18th Street that was later used as a warehouse to store vinyl records. At some point down the line it was converted to a four-unit condo. And this particular unit encompasses much of the building: a third floor loft, a commercial space on the ground floor, storage in the basement and garage, exclusive use of building's roof, 7,500 square feet of air rights, and indoor parking. (All that space covers 6,143 square feet total.) The architect-designed interior retains the grittiness of the parking garage, awash in concrete finishes from the floor to the bathtub. The whole shebang is asking $11 million.
Check it out

Distinctive Homes

5 Manhattan West. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu via REX Architecture

November 17, 2017

First look at REX’s pleated-glass transformation of Brutalist 5 Manhattan West office tower

Brookfield Office Properties offered a look at the second building in the nearly-six-million-square-foot, six-building Manhattan West project to be completed. The 16-story office building known as 5 Manhattan West, where Amazon signed a lease for a 360,000-square-foot space, is approaching completion on Tenth Avenue between West 31st and 33rd Streets across from Hudson Yards. Archpaper shares images of the building's sparkling new look and interiors, the result of some fancy architectural footwork by REX. The 1969 Brutalist office building was nearly everyone's example of ugly since a 1980s renovation left it clad in brown metal and beige paint. The rechristened building's new facade wraps it in sleek, form-fitting pleated glass that does more than just look pretty.
More images of the 21st century transformation, this way

November 13, 2017

For $2.3M, an Amzi Hill-designed Bed-stuy townhouse with historic details and an artist’s legacy

On one of the prettiest blocks in the landmarked Stuyvesant Heights section of Bed-Stuy, this 3,240-square-foot 1890s brownstone is brimming with historic architectural details. Designed by prolific Brooklyn architect Amzi Hill, 740 Macon Street has been lovingly restored by the home's longtime owners, one of whom happens to be a celebrated local artist whose sense of history and beauty is reflected at every turn. Highlights include arched windows, six tiled fireplaces, parquet floors, wooden shutters, pressed tin ceilings, pocket doors, a pier mirror, egg-and-dart molding and intricate fretwork, plus a landscaped garden and terrace. The two-family townhouse–there's a one-bedroom garden unit for rental income–is asking $2.3 million.
Tour this beautiful four-story house

Distinctive Homes

Images (L to R): HOUSE39, THE CRESCENDO, THE LANE and 180 WATER STREET

November 4, 2017

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

Images (L to R): HOUSE39, THE CRESCENDO, THE LANE and 180 WATER STREET Live & Play at THE CRESCENDO: Unprecedented Rental in South Bronx Leasing from $2,100/Month [link] One-of-a-Kind Rentals Debut on West Houston Street in Storied Greenwich Village Building [link] Live at The Monterey: Leasing Special at Upper East Side Rental with Health Club […]

Real Estate Trends

November 3, 2017

Rent a renovated Bed-Stuy triplex with a deck, yard and nanny suite for $6K/month

On one of the neighborhood's most beautiful historic brownstone streets where Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy meet, the upper triplex of a turn-key renovated townhouse at 22 Brevoort Place is for rent for $6,000 a month, complete with nanny suite/kitchenette, roof access, and a sweet Brooklyn backyard.
Take the three-floor tour

Distinctive Homes

Images (L to R): LEFRAK CITY, 4720 CENTER BOULEVARD, 200 WATER STREET and PERCH HARLEM

October 21, 2017

This week’s roundup of NYC rental news

Images (L to R): LEFRAK CITY, 4720 CENTER BOULEVARD, 200 WATER STREET and PERCH HARLEM At LeFrak City, New Amenities Unveiled After $70 Million Renovation; Rentals from $1,485/Month [link] Luxury on the East River at View 34; No Fee Rentals with up to Three Bedrooms [link] Leasing Continues at Perch Harlem, Built to Meet Passive […]

Real Estate Trends

October 10, 2017

A borough-by-borough guide to NYC’s food halls

Cronuts. Raclette. Poke bowls. Avocado toast. While the list of trendy cuisines making a splash in New York City’s food scene appears endless, food halls are making it easier for New Yorkers to try a bit of everything all under one roof. The city is experiencing a boom in this casual dining style; real estate developers opt to anchor their buildings with food halls, as all-star chefs choose food halls to serve their celebrated dishes. Ahead, follow 6sqft’s guide to the city’s 24 current food halls, from old standby Chelsea Market to Downtown Brooklyn’s new DeKalb Market, as well as those in the pipeline, planned for hot spots like Hudson Yards and more far-flung locales like Staten Island.
More this way

Images (L to R): 555TEN, 250 EAST HOUSTON, ENCLAVE AT THE CATHEDRAL and YORKSHIRE TOWERS

September 23, 2017

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