Who’s the prettiest girl on the beach? In 1924 it was Madge Merritt “New York’s fairest mermaid.” Gothamist delves into the swimsuit competitions of yesteryear, when New York’s beach-adjacent neighborhoods called for their most adorable. Though one thing is for sure: Madge didn’t keep her cute figure by swimming—she was saved from drowning twice by the same lifeguard.
The first resident of Bushwick’s polyamorous house has moved in, according to Bushwick Daily—a woman who refers to herself as “a hippie elitist snob” because of her love of Burning Man and Ivy League degrees. The woman, who goes by the pseudonym Lily, says, “I was always the token monogamy person” until a relationship with two friends several years ago. She’s eager to find a place where her roommate won’t give her weird looks if she brings more than one lover over: “It’s a factor any place where I live, and it’s nice to be in a house where we speak the same language.”
Looking for a kosher eatery on the Lower East Side? Not anymore: The Jewish Daily Forward reports that they are all gone, a fate that is made simultaneously funny and sad by the fact that the last one was Shalom Chai Pizzeria, an unpopular eatery with multiple health code violations.
The City Council is launching a new development office, to be called the Economic and Community Development Division and headed by Ede Fox, according to The Wall Street Journal. It will have a staff of 10 and aim to allow the City Council to participate earlier on in the land use process—something of a response, perhaps, to the de Blasio administration somewhat shouldering the Council out the Domino negotiations.
Meanwhile, the Alliance for Downtown New York claims that worries about a glut of office space in Lower Manhattan are overstated because a lot of office space is being converted to residential and hotel use, Crain’s reports. “We are converting office space at a much faster clip than we realize,” Downtown Alliance president Jessica Lappin told the paper. “It underlines that we do not have a glut of office space.” Well, actually, that proves that Lower Manhattan definitely has a glut of office space… it’s just that developers are aware that no one wants to lease it and are trying to convert it to other uses. And so, the government would be unwise to provide financing for yet another WTC.
The MTA is banking on a lot of transit funds flowing its way as part of the Midtown East rezoning, according to Crain’s, as has been discussed as a requirement of the proposal: the system needs serious improvements to all of the lines that run through Grand Central it in order to accommodate the surge of office workers that the rezoning will generate.
More renters are moving to the suburbs and even if they can’t afford to buy, they prefer single-family homes to multi-family rentals, The Atlantic Yards reports. Well, yeah. Who moves to the suburbs because they want to live in a multi-family rental? Still, if the re-suburbaning trend continues, it may shift the rental housing market from multi-family to single family homes.
One option for those who want to buy in the city but don’t make a ton of money—HDFC co-ops—are becoming increasingly unaffordable, according to DNAinfo. Although units must be sold to someone who falls beneath an income cap, there is no cap on resale price, creating an odd situation wherein the people who qualify to buy units can’t actually afford them.
