By Matt Chaban 1/16/12 3:18pm

In the Rezone

Room to grow. (davidboeke/Flickr)

The Mayor’s Very Big Plans for Midtown East

It turns out a one-liner in Mayor Bloomberg’s State of the City may indeed be one of the biggest development proposals of the waning days of his administration. Last Thursday, the mayor declared, “In the area around Grand Central, we’ll work with the City Council on a package of regulatory changes and incentives that will attract new investment, new companies and new jobs.”

At the time, this could have meant any number of things, from tax incentives to a rezoning. The latter would be the most ambitious, but also the most complex, given it would require the demolition of some of the most built-up real estate in the world. According to a spokesperson for the Department of City Planning, the city is studying exactly what the best approach would be for the area, and expects to have the results by the spring, but according to The Journal, a major rezoning, stretching as far north as Central Park, may well be in the works. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 1/13/12 10:54am

Manhattan Transfers

Scott Rothstein

U.S. Government Sells Ponzi Schemer Scott Rothstein’s $5 M. Bloomberg Pad

Lawyer Scott Rothstein was living high back in 2006. The Bronx-born boy turned Florida legal eagle led the life of the .1 percenter, which, in his words consisted of “the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want, by whatever means you can think of.”

Back in 2009, Mr. Rothstein, however, his house of cards came crashing down when the feds caught wind of his side project, a “structured settlement” plot that evolved into a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. Now serving a fifty-year sentence in a Floridian federal penitentiary, another house in Mr. Rothstein’s once stacked deck has disappeared: a home once belonging to Mr. Rothstein, then seized by the U.S government, has sold for $5.09 million, city records show. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/11/11 11:00pm

Greensward

A land swap to make Robert Moses proud.

Park Life: The East Side’s Landless Gentry Fight for Every Scrap of Open Space

Think of the perfect Saturday on the East Side. Brunch with your friends and the kids at, say, Fig & Olive, Artisinal or—the mayor’s favorite—Viand. Maybe a stroll along Madison for a little shopping and errands, and then off to Central Park to let the little ones wear themselves out before a nap. Or maybe it’s the other way around, soccer and softball in the park, a little tennis with friends or just some sunning on one of the lawns, then a late lunch.

Living East of Eden sure can be nice, but just like Adam and Eve, it always seems like there is more outside the garden gates.

Not satisfied with their proximity to one of the loveliest parks in the world, East Siders have been lobbying for decades for more leisure land, particularly along the river. They look jealously on at their West Side brethren, with Riveside Park and Hudson River Park—and even the green shoots along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. Thanks to rampant development, from Robert Moses’ FDR Drive up through the Bloomberg Building on 59th and Lexington, the East Side has grown more crowded every day, and yet access to the water, a mere mile away, has been all but impossible. Read More