There are renovations, and then there’s 45 East 74th Street.
Originally built in 1879, the Upper East Side townhouse was tragically disfigured in the 1950s by a renovation that removed its stoop, stripped it of its cornice, clad it in boring red brick and punched holes in its lackluster façade for air conditioning units. But after an extensive mutli-million dollar renovation, the property—now a stark, white, limestone-faced structure that makes its prewar neighbors look frumpy in comparison—is asking $30 million.
Read More
Mayor Michael Bloomberg outlined a nearly $20 billion master plan Tuesday to shield the city from future Hurricane Sandys, complete with levees, sand dunes, bulkheads, flood walls and a proposed “Seaport City.”
The plan calls for the installation of removable “adaptable floodwalls” in riverfront locations across the city, including Hunts Point in the Bronx, along the East Harlem waterfront, the Lower East Side and the Financial District, as well as a new levee and floodwall system along the East Shore of Staten Island, with barriers that could rise as high as 15 to 20 feet.
Read More
Veterans find V.A. mortgage loans hard to swing in New York City. [NYT] A tour inside Greenwood Cemetery’s catacombs. [Gothamist] Is Related delaying the on-sale date of One Madison Park again? [Curbed] Park Slope’s Tracy Mansion gets second price chop, is now just $15 M. [TRD] Corcoran courts potential brownstone sellers in Bed-Stuy. [Browntoner] New York’s population is growing, but where will we put them? [WSJ] Harvard to women in 1961: graduate urban planning study not worth it. [Atlantic Cities] Moving forward: RFP goes out for Queensway park design. [DNAinfo] New York City’ newest immigrant enclaves. [NYT] Are corporate home buyers inflating housing costs across the country? [WSJ] Project Runway’s Christian Siriano has a kick-ass loft. [Village Voice] Your Bushwick apartment may be rent stabilized. [Brokelyn] Foreclosure threatens to shutter a counter-cultural soapbox. [NYT] Owner wants hardship exemption to tear down landmarked UES apartments. [Crain's] Parents at UWS’s P.S. 199 break from PTA to openly fight redevelopment plan. [DNAinfo] Super generic blurb about Greenwich Village residents opposing a new development. [Post]
New York is a city beset by an affordable housing crisis—market forces are eliminating affordable units faster than the city can add them, even rents in the least-expensive neighborhoods are beyond the reach of low-income workers—and now, major cuts to Section 8 program threaten to further reduce low-income New Yorker’s access to affordable housing.
Federal sequestration will cut $120 million from the rental subsidy program, according to Crain’s. To deal with the cuts, government agencies that administer the housing vouchers may reduce the number issued this year by as many as 6,000; other cuts will come in the form of reduced subsidies, forcing tenants and Section 8 housing providers to pick up the slack.
Read More
A family trust sold 11 mixed-use buildings on a newly fashionable strip of the Bowery between Houston and Canal Streets. An investment group led by hip-hop clothier Joseph Betesh bought the portfolio–including the home of Keith McNally‘s Pulino’s–for $62 million in what could be the latest whisper of trouble in Mr. McNally’s restaurant empire.
Read More
Ariel Property Advisors arranged the $11 million sale of the development site, which the buyer entered into contract on last year, and brokers who arranged the sale are calling it a “game changer” for the neighborhood.
“Prospect Lefferts Gardens is one of the lesser-developed areas that has the most potential because there is a Read More
Nearly two decades after George and Antonia Pavia signed a lease on their Upper East Side townhouse with notoriously litigious tenant James Couri, sparking years of legal wrangling and copious quantities of press, the couple’s time at 18 East 73rd Street is finally coming to a close: they’ve signed a contract to sell the neo-Georgian brick townhouse for $19.5 million to an undisclosed buyer, according to Douglas Elliman, who represented the sellers.
Read More
Co-op at 778 Park Avenue wants $29 million (and the board demands all cash). [NYT] In fact, a lot of places are demanding all cash, and not just in New York. [NYT] Inside Dumbo’s new $4.1 million townhouses. [Curbed] Coney Island beach boutique Lola Star re-opens post-Sandy. [Crain's] New York’s movie theater revival, with architecture both good and bad. [WSJ] Tenant lawsuit against NYCHA forces immediate repairs at Smith Houses. [Daily News] Christian Candy tries to sell Plaza penthouse for $59 million. Good luck. [Curbed] Broken hearts, but not leases: living together when the love is gone. [NYT] Luxurious stud farms, where race horses go to retire. [WSJ] Developers flocking to Brooklyn Bridge Park. [Crain's] UWS in tizzy over ramshackle brownstone, demand owner sell. [Daily News] Hasids divided over bike share; some want it, others really don’t. [DNAinfo] WSJ columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz doubles down on her bike hating. [Gothamist] Residents forced to evacuate after Hudson Heights retaining wall collapses. [Daily News] Boerum Hill building comes with a “squatter”—the former owners’ lease-holding son. [Post]
Mysterious, beautiful and fiercely independent—the Schinasi Mansion at 351 Riverside Drive—the Ellen Olenska of real estate, has finally found a buyer. The white marble, 12,000-square-foot French Renaissance mansion is one of the rare free-standing single-family houses in Manhattan (and one could hardly hope to possess Gracie Mansion or the Morris Jumel), but has lingered (some might even say languished) on the market for the better part of seven years. In that time, she has lowered her lofty expectations considerably, dropping her $31 million ask to a much more modest $13.5 million.
When we called, Corcoran broker Tod Mercy confirmed that the magnificent, 12-bedroom, 11-bath mansion, which Robert A.M. Stern called “unsurpassed in refinement in the West End,” is indeed in contract. But he could not comment on the identity of the buyers or the price (which we had heard was close to the ask) and the Corcoran spokesperson he referred us to was unforthcoming about even his unforthcomingness, writing: “We have no comment. Please do not quote me directly.”
Read More
Anderson Cooper‘s partner, Antoine “Benjamin” Maisini, will be pitching in to open a restaurant and bar in Hell’s Kitchen.
Disguised under the entity Oxido Corp., Mr. Maisini and Pablo Raimondi, his business partner, will be teaming up together to open the 5,000-square-foot gay restaurant at 753 Ninth Avenue. The pair specifically sought after a location in the Hell’s Kitchen and Clinton area, likely because of the prominent gay community.
Read More
