By Kim Velsey 5/17 5:52pm

Stratospheric Sales

Oh, One57! We know just how you feel.

Doesn’t Anyone Love One57?

Poor, lonely, luxury condo tower! Unlike the co-ops lining Central Park to the East and the West, whose residents really love them, it seems like One57′s new residents are only interested in it for its money. Or, more precisely, how their money might become even more money if they buy apartments there.

As the condo’s top-floor units go into contract, New Yorker’s real estate community has been speculating on who the super-secretive billionaires buying there are. Tantalizingly, Extell confirmed two contracts for more than $90 million, but for months and months and months, there’s been no indication of who the buyers might be. So imagine the collective glee when The Wall Street Journal revealed that one of the buyers was billionaire hedge funder William Ackman. Sort of. Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/11 4:30pm

Real estate kerfuffles

All fixed now! (Getty Images)

One57 Crane Boom Replaced Without Incident, Co-op Dwellers Allowed to Return to Their Homes

A new boom has successfully been hoisted onto the crane at One57, nearly seven months after the previous crane snapped during Hurricane Sandy and dangled ominously over West 57th Street for several days.

The maneuver’s completion—which involved swinging the boom over three buildings before hauling it up the side of the uber-luxury tower—was announced by Extell at just after 3 p.m. this afternoon. Residents of the two co-ops under the boom will now be allowed to return home after being forced to evacuate from their homes last night. It also means that construction will be able to move forward on the condo tower. Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/10 8:18pm

Real estate kerfuffles

Not this again! (Getty)

Residents Evacuate Co-ops So That a New Crane Boom Can Rise At One57

Despite the rainy, windy weather that is set to hit New York tomorrow and a last-minute lawsuit filed to stop Extell from evacuating two co-op buildings adjacent to One57, plans to repair the crane broken during Hurricane Sandy are still moving forward Saturday morning.

Which means that the unfortunate residents of Alwyn Court, the landmarked building at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 58th Street, will either vacate the building voluntarily in the next few hours or face forcible eviction. The crane repair involves swinging a boom over Alwyn and two other buildings before hoisting it up the side of the unfinished tower. Read More

By Kim Velsey 4/09 4:39pm

And then there were condos

11 Photos

The exterior. Check out the penthouse addition. (dbox)

The Carlton House: When You Want Extell, But Don’t Want to Pay One57 Prices

With prices ranging from $2.9 million to $65 million, no one can accuse Extell’s hotel-to-condo conversion at 21 East 61st Street—which just launched sales—of courting bargain hunters. But in comparison to Gary Barnett’s crown jewel rising a half mile away on 57th Street, the Carlton House looks positively affordable.

In comparison to anything other than uber-luxury condos poised to set records when they close for more than $90 million, the Carlton House is pricey indeed. Though anyone who was really hankering for the low end of the luxury market would be well-advised to stay away from Extell projects altogether—only Extell could make $65 million look, well, kind of reasonable. Read More

By Kim Velsey 1/14 3:43pm

Stratospheric Sales

Revealed as the owner of a 40th-floor apartment.

Guess Where Barclays’ Disgraced CEO Bob Diamond Spent His Ill-gotten Gains?

The Observer has spent many an afternoon trying to puzzle out the clues in mysterious LLCs. That is, the LLCs that have clues—those that were not registered in Delaware approximately a month before the real estate purchase they were created to shield, named after the building that they are buying property in, and/or in the care of a huge midtown law firm.

But as real estate chronicler Michael Gross proves in a new Newsweek article, promising clues may well be red herrings. When Novgorod LLC purchased a nine-room spread on the 40th floor of 15 Central Park West in 2009, it was assumed that the buyer was one of the many rich Russians who had been sniffing around the building. Quite possibly a rich Russian with some intense personal or professional connection to the city in whose name he’d purchased a $37 million dollar condo. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/08 8:05pm

Skyscraper Living

EmilyAnneEpstein_57th_23

57th Heaven: How a Boring Boulevard Became the Billionaires Belt

Michael Stern was walking to a meeting last summer when he saw the vacant site, barely wider than a townhouse, at 107 West 57th Street. On one side was the Steinway Building, an 87-year-old city landmark with an etched white limestone façade. On the other was a dowdy old SRO about to be gutted and transformed into the Quin Hotel, yet another boutique confection for the tourist masses.

Yet it was not the barren lot’s immediate neighbors that set Mr. Stern’s heart racing, but another edifice further down the block: Gary Barnett’s One57. The 1,005-foot, 90-story tower was only about halfway built at the time, but already it was on its way to taking the crown, on the skyline and in the record books, as the city’s tallest apartment building. Billionaires were already circling the units, which ranged from $5 million to $115 million.

Looking from Mr. Barnett’s site to the one in front of him, Mr. Stern knew he had to have it.

“Right now, there is nowhere else in the city like 57th Street, and it is only going to get better,” Mr. Stern told The Observer. Read More

By Kim Velsey 12/06/12 5:40pm

SKYSCRAPERS

A tale of two skyscrapers?

Duck! Has Mayor Bloomberg Softened His Stance on Wind-Related Construction Mishaps?

The sky may be the limit when it comes to constructing cloud-skimming Manhattan luxury condos, but when a storm strikes, it’s the sidewalks below that developers need to worry about. In the last month, our eyes and cameras were fearfully focused on One57′s dangling crane boom, but it’s not the first time that high winds have made it mortally dangerous to walk beneath an under-construction skyscraper. Back in April 2004, a freakish wind storm—gusts of 34 mph were recorded in Central Park—dislodged construction material from an upper floor of the still-under-construction Time Warner Center.

Perhaps the most remarkable difference between the two incidents was Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s reaction. In the case of the Time Warner Center, he chastised the developer and ordered work stopped immediately. After the One57 incident, he defended Extell, noting that high wind gusts often cause blameless accidents (which, to be fair, may well be the case and gusts during Sandy did reach 60 mph). Read More

By Kit Dillon 11/26/12 5:47pm

After Sandy

The One57 crane.

Vicarious Vertigo: Up Close and Personal with the Collapsed One57 Crane

It’s a time-honored tradition for men doing ballsy, ridiculous and risky things to photograph their exploits.  Thankfully the steel workers over at One57 are no exception. They recently yielded to this impulse, taking a series of shots of their work  securing the now- famous crane destroyed during Hurricane Sandy.  The removal of which is, according to Curbed, slated to begin the week of December 3rd.  It’s a difficult job. A new crane has to be built to lower the old one down to the ground and there are legal actions to be settled, of course. But in the meantime we can all look at these pictures the workers took and feel relief that’s it’s not us out there. Read More

By Kim Velsey 7:02pm

Buyer Beware

Buyers are flocking to new construction, including Carroll Gardens' Sackett Union.

Boom! Buyers Are Snapping Up Condos—Sight Unseen—Yet Again

Remember the days when condo developers were sinking shiny new celebratory shovels into the ground every other day and the line of buyers eagerly waiting to sign their names to deeds seemed endless? Well, we may not be in in boom times quite yet, but we are definitely out of bust times and the buyers are once again lining up to sign deeds for as-yet unbuilt condos in hot neighborhoods, The New York Times reports. Read More