By Daniel Geiger 10/10/12 11:32am

Big Data

Dave Sabey

Enter the Matrix: High-Tech, High-Rise Data Farm Puts Down Roots in Lower Manhattan

Perhaps in the future, silver-legged secretaries will answer the phones, stainless-steel fingers will clack away at keyboards, and Manhattan’s workforce will have been completely supplanted by robotic counterparts who work faster, smarter, longer and cheaper than their human predecessors.

For now, though, most buildings are still stocked with actual flesh-and-blood employees who take long breaks, complain and sometimes confuse their assigned tasks with internet shopping.

The property at 375 Pearl Street, a towering skyscraper in Lower Manhattan at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, won’t be one of them. After buying the building out of foreclosure last year, its developer is taking a brave leap into the future. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/10/11 3:50pm

Machers

If you build it, they will return. (WSJ)

You Can Go Home Again: LeFrak Returns to Queens

When the Forbes 400 list of richy rich Americans came out last month, the richest New York developer was, as it’s long been, Richard Lefrak, with a net worth in excess of $5 billion. That is as much oil and natural gas wealth as it is development wealth—it’s all real estate, when you think about it—but perhaps Mr. LeFrak is feeling nostalgic, because he has decided to return to his home turf of Queens, according to The Journal. Read More