Search Results for: ridgewood

July 14, 2015

Day vs. Night: What NYC’s Population Looks Like

Click for expanded version >> New York may be the city that never sleeps, but it certainly pulsates far differently depending on what time of day it is. This fascinating map created by Joe Lertola gives us an idea of just how population-filled areas of Manhattan get during working hours, and how the city empties out at night when most workers head back to their homes in the suburbs.
More on how it was created here
July 9, 2015

My 425sqft: Tour a Bubbly Packaging Designer’s Boerum Hill Studio Filled with Eclectic Finds

When we heard that freelance packaging designer Amy Sprague has traveled to 25 countries, we assumed her apartment would be filled to the brim with souvenirs from far-off places including Morocco, Germany, Cambodia, Australia, and Japan. We thought this would be even more true when we learned of her love for antiquing. But the charming Boerum Hill studio is perfectly edited, providing just the right amount of eclectic touches, while still maintaining the feeling of a calm oasis. This is especially true of her lovely outdoor space, where a canopy of trees provides a serene escape from bustling Brooklyn. Amy lived for several years in the Gramercy neighborhood of Manhattan, but after dividing her time in 2013 and 2014 between New York and Offenbach, Germany (a small city outside Frankfurt), she decided to make the move across the East River. We recently visited Amy at her 425-square-foot studio and saw that her apartment's decor is just as fun and bubbly as she is. Let's have a look at how this design-minded gal was able to tastefully display her collection of antiques and travel mementos.
Tour the super-cute space right here
July 8, 2015

This West Village One-Bedroom with a Built-In Ice Cream Maker Is Cute Indeed

A renovation at this one-bedroom apartment, located in the West Village co-op building at 82 Charles Street, has left the unit looking downright adorable. The listing promises it to be a "perfect blend of prewar character and modern conveniences perched on one of the most bucolic blocks in the city." It's hard to argue with the location. And we like how more traditional design elements (exposed brick) are paired with some surprising modern additions (built-in ice cream maker!). It's now on the market asking $899,000.
See more of the interior
July 4, 2015

June’s 10 Most-Read Stories and This Week’s Features

June’s 10 Most-Read Stories Own a Mansion with Celebrity History on a Private Island Overlooking NYC for $11M Beastie Boy Mike D’s Brilliant Brooklyn Townhouse Can Be Yours for $5.7M Queen Elizabeth Comes to NYC: Royal Family Picks up $8M Apartment at 50 UN Plaza Winston Marshall, Banjoist for Mumford & Sons, Buys $3.2M Nolita […]

April 17, 2015

Staten Island’s Revival Offers Brooklyn Cool Alongside $600,000 Six-Bedroom Homes

It's only a matter of time before Staten Island gets pinned as the next Brooklyn. As new developments pop up along the northern tip, the oft-forgotten borough is seeing the tides turn in its favor. Today the Times ran a piece on some of the biggest projects coming to the island, and unlike those popping up in Manhattan, this bunch is far more focused on livability and community building. Moreover, with rooftop beehives, shared vegetable gardens, small-batch espresso, pet spas, artisanal shops shilling specialty olive oils, and cheese caves in the pipeline, Staten Island is also starting to sound a lot like some of the city's most hipster-run areas. In fact, in casting its net for local testimonials, the Times was able to find Ridgewood and Bushwick refugees that have already high-tailed it southwest. And it's no wonder, with real estate being offered at just a fraction of the price—one couple in the story closed on a house with "numerous porches and six bedrooms, for $620,000"—it's only a matter of time before we turn to our significant others and say, "Let's move to Staten Island!"
More on Staten Island's next steps here
March 31, 2015

Chinatown, Once Unchanged, Now Attracting Hipsters–and Real Estate Developers

"Canal Street is a gantlet of billboards and signs; Courvoisier, Pearl Paint, Bally's Grand Hotel, Salem Cigarettes, Lincoln Savings Bank, Mc Donald's, and signs in Chinese impend on traffic, which is the covered with signs and graffiti itself." A New Yorker article published in 1990 paints a picture of Chinatown that isn’t all that different from the one we know today. Despite its prime location, few developers have eyed Chinatown as a destination for luxury living. As a largely self-sustaining community—many stores don’t even bother with English—it has preserved its cultural fabric even as the city has gone through transformation after transformation just streets away. But all of this is changing. A new crop of shops, galleries and condos is starting to find its way into the neighborhood's depths, the Wall Street Journal reports, and brokers are predicting rapid change for Chinatown over the next decade.
more on changes in chinatown
March 6, 2015

Race Drives Gentrification and Neighborhood Boundaries, Study Finds

Focusing in on just race can be taboo when looking at gentrification, but a new study finds that an area's racial composition is actually the biggest predictor of how a changing neighborhood is perceived. CityLab recently dissected the study conducted by sociologist Jackelyn Hwang to find that the way that blacks and whites perceive and talk about change in their neighborhood is often wildly different. This gap in perception has wide-reaching effects for changing neighborhoods because not only does it polarize the individual groups, but it can also have a tremendous effect on where neighborhood boundaries are drawn and investment is distributed.
Find out more here
February 27, 2015

Heartbeat Urban Drum to Become a ‘Heartseat;’ 53 New Citi Bike Stations for Brooklyn

Stereotank’s heart-shaped urban drum in Times Square known as Heartbeat will turn into a “heartseat.” [Inhabitat] A Kickstarter campaign is raising funds for a documentary film about Horn & Hardart’s iconic Automat. [Gothamist] Mapping the 53 new Citi Bike stations coming to Williamsburg and Greenpoint. [BK Paper] A small shop in Ridgewood, Queens is the reason NYC […]

February 12, 2015

New Report Shows It’s More Expensive to Rent in Queens than in Brooklyn

A new report released today by Douglas Elliman shows that Queens has surpassed Brooklyn in most expensive rents. The median montly rent in Western Queens rose to $2,905 in January, a 30.7 percent jump from the same time last year. That's $4 more than North and Northwest Brooklyn's median rent, which only rose 2.5 percent to $2,901. We shouldn't be so surprised, though. With constant news of skyrocketing prices in Brooklyn, a lot of attention has been turned to Queens, especially up-and-coming neighborhoods like Ridgewood, as well as already-established hip spots such as Long Island City and Astoria.
READ MORE
January 29, 2015

Bushwick Buzz: A Look at the Neighborhood That’s Dethroned Williamsburg as Brooklyn’s Most Hipster

Of Brooklyn's gentrifying neighborhoods, few have seen such rapid change as Bushwick. The neighborhood, which sits in the northern portion of the borough, running from Flushing Avenue to Broadway to Conway Street and the Cemetery of the Evergreens, has grown as a natural extension of Williamsburg—a haven for creatives and young folks looking for lower rents. But well before its trendy vibe put it on the map, Bushwick was a forested enclave originally settled by the Dutch—its name is derived from a Dutch word "Boswijck,"defined as “little town in the woods”—and later, German immigrants who began building breweries and factories. Unfortunately, as the breweries along Brewer’s Row and factories closed and farms disappeared, derelict buildings and crime took hold—with the looting, arson and rioting after the city’s blackout during the summer of 1977 playing a starring role. According to the New York Times, "In a five-year period in the late 1960s and early 70s, the Bushwick neighborhood was transformed from a neatly maintained community of wood houses into what often approached a no man's land of abandoned buildings, empty lots, drugs and arson.”
More on Bushwick's past... and present
January 27, 2015

‘Rent Is Too Damn High’ Patriot Receives Eviction Notice; Live in an Incredible Brooklyn Church Conversion

Jimmy Mcmillan, a.k.a. founder of the ‘Rent Is Too Damn High’ movement, receives an eviction notice. [NYDN] Leasing starts tomorrow at the incredible Cartlon Mews church conversion development. [Brownstoner] The HPD is selling a coveted piece of land in Fort Greene near BAM to Jonathan Rose Companies for $1. In return the company must build a […]

December 31, 2014

6SQFT’S TOP STORIES OF 2014!

5, 4, 3, 2..... It's hard to believe but 2014 has almost come to a close, so we thought what better time than now to reflect on the past year's stories. We launched 6sqft back in May and since then, New York's lively, dynamic, and ever-evolving urbanscape and inhabitants have kept us on our toes. From architecture and new developments to celebs and your fellow New Yorkers, here are the 6sqft stories that really caught our and—more importantly—your eyes this year.
See all the top 6sqft stories here!
December 3, 2014

Brooklyn Artists Plan a Dance Party Funeral for Williamsburg

We've all been talking and writing about the "death" of Williamsburg for years now, and every time a new neighborhood is compared to it (i.e. Quooklyn) we begin the debate anew. But now the Brooklyn-based artists' collective CHERYL is taking matters into their own hands, hosting a dance party funeral in memoriam of the hip 'hood that once was. As the Daily News states, they're "dancing on Williamsburg's grave." The cause of death? "The cancer of mass gentrification and the proliferation of the luxury condo."
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November 20, 2014

Forest Hills Gardens: A Hidden NYC Haven of Historic Modernity

This unique sheltered enclave might be the perfect spot for residents who can handle the rules; just don't call it FoHiGa. Occupying a 175-acre wedge just south of the Forest Hills LIRR station and within the greater Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills, Forest Hills Gardens is one of America’s oldest planned communities. Modeled after England’s “garden cities,” originally intended to create an ideal environment that incorporated shared green space with urban convenience for the working classes, the Gardens (as it's known) is home to about 4,500 residents. The private community is managed by the Forest Hills Gardens Corporation, an organization made up of property owners. This unique community consisting of over 800 free-standing and attached houses and 11 apartment buildings as well as churches, parks and storefronts, dates from 1909, when architect Grosvenor Atterbury and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.–-son of Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape architect who helped design Central Park–-were commissioned to plan a new town. Though the community lies within the boundaries of one of the world’s most modern and populous cities, it has retained much of its co-operative, idyllic nature.
Find out more about this unique community
November 18, 2014

New York Times Will Finally Stop Comparing Everything to Brooklyn

“What’s next? Describing Manaus as the Williamsburg of the Amazon? Katmandu as the Cobble Hill of Nepal?” These are the questions posed by New York Times Standards editor Philip B. Corbett to his writers, who can’t seem to stop comparing everything in the world to Brooklyn. He references The Atlantic‘s article “All the Places The […]

November 18, 2014

Dear Developers: City Proposes Swapping Air Rights for Permanent Affordable Housing

In the ongoing battle to provide more affordable housing to New Yorkers, the city has drawn up a new proposal that might just get developers clamoring to build more below-market units. The Economic Development Corporation has issued a request for proposals from developers who would, in exchange for no-cost air rights, provide a permanently affordable housing program that maximizes the number of units available and their affordability.
Find out more here
September 3, 2014

Coffee Culture: Are Neighborhood Cafes the First Sign of Gentrification?

From “coffices” to lab-like minimalist gourmet coffee meccas to cozy neighborhood hangouts, neighborhood cafes are a fine example of the essential “third place” mentioned in discussions of community dynamics: that place, neither work nor home, where regulars gather and everyone’s welcome. Along with yoga studios, art galleries, community gardens, vintage clothing shops, restaurants with pedigreed owners and adventurous menus and, some say, a change in the offerings on local grocery shelves, cafes are often the earliest sign of neighborhood change. The neighborhood cafe serves as a testing ground for community cohesiveness while adventurous entrepreneurs test the still-unfamiliar waters around them. Beyond the literal gesture of offering sustenance, cafes provide a place where you can actually see who your neighbors are and appreciate the fact that at least some of them are willing to make an investment locally.
Get a fleeting glimpse of old New York City cafe culture in the West Village, meet the future of coffee distribution in Red Hook.
August 30, 2014

Weekly Highlights: Top Picks From the 6sqft Staff

From failed suicide attempts to accidental plane crashes, we uncover the wild and dark history of the Empire State Building. Is Ridgewood NYC’s “next big thing?” We take a look at the rise of the Queens neighborhood. You know those weird outcrops, stairs, doors and out of place architectural adornments that just have us going “huhh??” […]

July 23, 2014

Real Estate Wire: Pier 57 to Go from Super Fud to Superpier; Developers Want Crown Heights Rezoned

Building, business owners and, of course, developers want to see a rezoning of Crown Heights so that more light industry and residential buildings can be brought to the already rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood. [TRD] Ridgewood Lodge No. 710, a mysterious Masonic temple in Ridgewood, has received Landmark status. [Curbed] A look at the former Verizon buildings that have been […]