President high-tails it out of town via WhatISee
· Northsix goes out with a whimper in Williamsburg [Brooklyn Vegan]
· Throwing out the bedbugs on E. 10th St. [Gawker]
· Brooklyn group crazy about bling, not Wal-Mart [The Real Estate]
· Porn-star-turned-broker Eklund: 'I've been selling my whole life' [TRD]
· Stop sidewalk drifting, draw arrows [East Village Idiot]
· Venus mural update: Developer will help pay for whale mural [BlogChelsea]
It's the first of the month, the traditional time at Curbed to take stock of the state of the residential market in Manhattan and beyond. To prime the pump, three datapoints to consider:
1) The Luxury Letter team reports good times, per their February edition: "2007 has started out strong: Any doubts about whether bonuses would impact the activity levels have officially been removed, and not unlike any other January, this is a very busy market. Inventory levels have scaled back." (Check their graph showing same after the jump.) [Luxury Letter]
2) Equally hopped up are the brokerbloggers. Writes Corcoran's Peter Comitini: "It remains to be seen if the trend has legs, or fizzles mid-year as people head to the beach, and the stock brokers focus on movers and furniture for their new apartments. But right now the deal making momentum is strong." TrueGotham is a little more circumspect. [Comitini, True Gotham]
3) Our pal Jonathan Miller sends along word of a new Miller Samuel market report for Prudential Douglas Elliman covering Queens and Long Island. The Real Estate summarizes nicely: "The average sales price of a Queens home at $492,117 in the fourth quarter of 2006, down 1.5 percent from the quarter before, but up 1.2 percent from the same time in 2005. The median sales price was $485,000 in the fourth quarter, also a slight quarterly decline, but year-over-year increase." [The Real Estate]
So, everyone's giddy—except in Queens. What are y'all seeing out there? Your reports in the comments, please, for everyone's benefit.
We turn to the Ask Curbed Inbox to air the following broker-buyer dilemma:
The question is as follows: if I visit an open house on my own (I was in the process of choosing our broker) and later want to return with the broker I chose, because somehow I feel more comfortable to have someone representing us, can the selling broker deny me the right to see the property and negotiate? It happened to us on a listing at LES. By sheer chance I coincided with the broker I was thinking to approach (a friend of a friend) at the open house and as we left the property, we made an appointment. I was called by the listing agent and I shared very openly this information and he totally freaked out, saying that that brokerage firm had done him wrong so they had to pay, so no, no way I could come into the deal with them... Can I have any comments?Ball's in your court.
A Curbed reader already pointed out that Spitzer's Dress Store on the Lower East Side doesn't have much left in the tank, and here's the sad proof. A special tipster sent along this BREAKING NEWS photo of workers deconstructing the store's innards. Just another day in Hell Square.
· Storefronting: BK Bombshell, Banks, Bakeries [Curbed]
Though plans for a West 34th outpost of the Apple empire are kaput, Steve Jobs' clan isn't done colonizing Manhattan. We've been chatting with Gary, proprietor of the blog ifoAppleStore, about where Apple might land next. Together, we're picking up these vibrations:
1) Upper West Side: Around 84th and Broadway; precise location unknown.
2) Meatpacking: One strong possibility is 401 West 14th Street, the former home of just-shuttered restaurant Markt and old-tyme meat purveyor Western Beef.
Both of these rumors are just that—pure speculation, though it's clear Apple is casing both neighborhoods. Who knows more?
· Home Depot, Apple Say No To New Nabes [Curbed]
· Officially Sanitized: 401 West 14th [Curbed]
Looks like we jumped the gun with a photo of that utilitarian Leviev Boymelgreen building on Fourth Avenue and Second Street in Park Slope called Cityview Gardens that is the little sibling of Novo Park Slope. In any case, figured we'd update things with a shot of the building in all its full frontal naked cream-brick glory. Nice!
· Park Slope #1: Smaller Boymelgreen as Ugly as Bigger One [Curbed]
A special Curbed correspondent offers more evidence that the last product a Williamsburg business produces is condos. This time, there's work getting underway at 91 N. 5th Street, as the corner of Berry where an industrial building that went for $7 million in August is about to get scaffolded. Looks like a six-story condo with 40 apartments is on its way. There's also a nice big hole across the street at 90 N. 5th Street (not to be confused with the really big hole with a busted fence from a couple of weeks back), but plans for that one, drawn up by...drum roll...Scarano Architects have been rejected for now. That one's supposed to be a five-story building with 23 units. Which makes at least three new buildings underway within two blocks on N. 5th, not counting a decrepit building that's going to sprout new apartments, from which our correspondent was told trees growing inside were removed.
· N. 5th Street #1: Another Big Hole [Curbed]
· N. 5th Street #2: The Big Red Dumpster Cometh [Curbed]
The New York Historical Society brought their proposed renovation plans to the community last night, and the community came out in force to object to their hi-rise plans. A Curbed tipster was in attendance and reports:
Big community meeting last night at the Unitarian church on the Upper West Side across from the NY Historical Society. The Society came to talk to the neighborhood about its $15 million renovation, but said little about what they called the "second project," the potential high-rise condo they would build right off of CPW and 76th. That angered almost everybody there since no one objected to the museum part, but everyone turned out to vent against the hi-rise. Bill Moyers, a neighborhood resident, got a standing ovation when he told a museum rep that he could only support the museum renovation if the Society promised not to build the hi-rise.More Bill Moyers, plus the Society's response, on the other side. >>
[Photo courtesy of lightstarangel/flickr]
So, if you visit Coney Island in 2011will you know where you are? We've already got the big Coney Island boardwalk remake, glass towers and the Aquarium redo. Now, a 5,000 seat concert venue could replace the little bandshell that hosts a summer concert series with the likes of Julio Iglesias and Liza Minelli. It would be an ampitheater modeled after Jones Beach. Price tag: about $30-$35 million give or take. So, would Bjork play KeySpan Park or the Jones Beach Nouveau ampitheater? No reaction yet from the neighbors.
· Beep sets stage for new venue [NYDN]
· Here's Coney Island V. 2.1 [Curbed]
Usually we're confident in these assertions, but we're leaving this one open to debate: Hideous, or kinda awesome? Sleep pods! This one is certainly the craziest thing we've seen since The Apartment got their hands on a basketball court, and there's more. So much more. Just check out the listing. Should be quite the popular open house on Sunday.
· Listing: 130 Barrow Street [Citi-Habitats]
· New fight brewing over Hell's Angels E. Village building [NYT]
· Downtown residents want to fight 'cookie cutter' street fairs [Sun]
· 22,000 people line up for affordable housing voucher applications [NYDN]
· Robert Moses gets all aired out again [AYR]
· Hard to find a 'Lou Reed/Andy Warhol' apartment [NYPress]
· McCarren Pool is still not a landmark [Gowanus Lounge]
· New Yorkers go east to Jackson Heights, Sunnyside, Forest Hills [TONY]
· Also in Queens...the 'hidden wonders' of Flushing [amNY]
Want to watch nine minutes of water leaking through a Morton Square condo's roof while a woman keeps dropping SH-- bombs? No? OK, then just read the accompanying YouTube caption: "Beware buying in a new development. How can anyone live like this? You spend your hard earned money for an apartment and there's a deluge in the bedroom ceiling? Enough is enough."
· The Flood in Morton Square [YouTube]
· On the Market: Olsen Twins' Would-Be Dorm Room [Curbed]
Answers to Tuesday's questions, by readers for readers, below. If you've got a better answer, another question, or a sweet, sweet digital photograph, drop us a line at tips@curbed.com.
1) Williamsburg: The demolition is apparently too fresh at Kent between N. 3rd/4th for any meaningful discussion of what is to come.
2) Chelsea: Regarding the property at 21st between 5th and 6th, reliable commenting sources say large rental!
3) Harlem: Meanwhile, uptown at 125th and Lenox, the silence continues. A commenter notes, "i've checked on the DOB website several times for into on the lenox and 125th site, and the only permits filed are for demolition. i think they just cleared the site to make it attractive for sale and the macy's thing is a rumor. unless someone else has hard info..."
4) Hell's Kitchen: Lots of movie buffs out there. Apparently, the Swedish American Line seen behind De Niro in Taxi Driver docked at Pier 97 at 57th Street (above). The "High Line" in the background was likely the still elevated West Side Highway. More Taxi Driver locales at The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations.
Real Philip Johnson fanboys don't buy at that other Urban Ass House. Nope, they go straight for the real one: the Manhattan pied-a-terre the late architect rested his shiny noggin in. The Post's Braden Keil reports that PJ's 1,427-square-foot apartment in the Museum Tower is up for grabs, and the brokers appear to be banking on some pedigree. The one-bedroom is listed at $2.5 million. The apartment has views of both the Johnson-designed MoMA Sculpture Garden and the Johnson-designed AT&T; building, which, when Johnson was still kicking around, had to have been the greatest deal-closer of a line ever. "And if you look out my windows, you'll see some buildings I designed..."
· Gimme Shelter [Braden Keil/NYP]
· Listing: 15 W 53rd Street [Elliman]
Yams on the G via Test of Will
· Doughnut Plant donuts yours for $3 in Carroll Gardens [Blognut]
· UWS standby P&G; Bar negotiating new lease [Observer]
· Bruni on Top Chef finale: bad dudes, good idea [NYT]
· More Marcel: '[Ilan] calls me like every other day' [Gothamist]
· Long way from Hell's Kitchen at 2-star Gordon Ramsay [NYT/Bruni]
· Gramercy Park room service will feature riffs on other chefs [Grub St]
· Farm on Adderly: 'This place is SWEET!' [Strong]
· Tough sell for Spanish restos in the City [NYP/Cuozzo]
1) Williamsburg: Regarding the 225 Grand demolition, a tipster writes, "seems that the asbestos removers also have a license for demolition. This must be the workaround - remove the asbestos by taking down the roof." [CurbedWire Inbox]
2) Midtown: Has Brad Pitt's crush on Frank Gehry inspired a certain gravelly voiced actor/pitchman to get in the condo biz? Um, maybe not. A reader writes, "I had no idea that Peter Graves was designing luxury midtown condos these days. I'm sorry, Mercedes, but the starchitect we were looking for is Michael Graves. [CurbedWire Inbox]
We're going to lay on the Long Island City love extra thick today because a special Curbed correspondent with a killer view sent us the above shot of the Avalon Riverview North building being topped off. Seems like only yesterday it was a hole in the ground, although our correspondent writes that no such progress has been made on a promised library:
No visible progress has been made on the Parcel 8 Library swap that cost at least the top 6 floors of Citylights their view.Thus, it would seem that some residents may be gazing on their new neighbor with something less than joy.
The first units at 48 Bond, home of 10' slabs of flamed-granite and a salt-water lap pool are listed, for your pleasure, courtesy of Stribling. All 1590sqft of the floorplan porn above comes from apartment 6A, which goes for $2.325 million and carries a $2699 monthly maintenance. Like its similarly priced siblings, the unit has 2 beds and 2 baths. Its occupants may also access the aforementioned salty pool, which is animated in strangely terrifying fashion here.
· 48 Bond Street [StreetEasy]
· 48 Bond Availabilities & Floor Plans [48Bond.com]
· 48 Bond Update: 10' High Flamed-Granite Damnit! [Curbed]
· Development du Jour: 48 Bond [Curbed]
We came across this item on the Clinton Hill website about Fresh Direct, which is hit-or-miss in terms of deliveries in Brooklyn. They write that FreshDirect:
has followed an arbitrary pattern of opting neighborhoods into its delivery zone. Many parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are not yet served by FreshDirect. These are neighborhoods that FreshDirect deems underserved, or in plain terms not worth the bother.There's also an ongoing discussion at the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy Forum complaining of lack of Fresh Direct:Bed-Stuy my old neighborhood is one such place. It borders Williamsburgh and Clinton Hill but FreshDirect wont go there.
they had the nerve to have a subway ad in the Myrtle-Willoughby train station and they don't even deliver here! And wha's more insulting is that I think some of the people around here actually WORK for Fresh Direct! Evil or Very Mad Fresh Direct can go directly to hell.But even the original Clinton Hill writer writer complains that "the trucks park all over my neighborhood and are idling all the time" and that "I, living on the first floor, breathe the exhaust directly aimed at my window. And all that because one of my neighbors wants to eat healthy." Can't live with 'em. Can't live without 'em.
Toll Brother's LIC development Fifth Street Lofts (5SL for the cool kids) has updated its website, and we have all the details. Units come equipped with maple floors, Alpine Snow counters, Kohler Fixtures and all the standard features. There are no listings yet, but plenty of other goodies. Our favorite part: The Living Here tab which explains the type of buyer who would want a place in 5SL, a person that wants:
Culture. And art. Sculptures that provoke me. World Famous DJ's to move me. And breathtaking sunsets. I'm looking for volleyball in the summer and live music in the winter. And a place to walk my dog.Long Island City? Sounds like Miami to us.
· Fifth Street Lofts LIC
· Toll Brothers' (Not So) Secret Battle Plans Revealed [Curbed]
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