Which neighborhoods have the most student debt? The wealthier ones, actually, like Tribeca and the Upper East Side, where residents are most likely to have graduate and professional degrees (and the attendant debt). However, the neighborhoods with the highest student loan default rates are the poor ones, Crain’s reports.
And which neighborhoods are the worst food delivery tippers? Also the wealthy ones! Seamless and Streeteasy crunched the numbers and Gothamist reports that found an area they call “upper Carnegie Hill” to be the worst tippers; in fact, Manhattan tips paled in comparison to those in Brooklyn and Queens.
Comptroller Scott Stringer has put out a new report calling the proposed East New York rezoning an “engine for displacement,” via Curbed. The report notes that the neighborhood currently has 22,000 affordable apartments that aren’t rent regulated and would be susceptible to market pressures. The rezoning would add only 6,312 apartments to the neighborhood, “of which 3,447 would be affordable and 1,742 would be set aside for East New York residents.”
Meanwhile, Ben Shaoul’s new Gramercy condo at 385 First Avenue sits firmly in the newly-declared “low-end” luxury market, Curbed reports, with prices that begin just under $1 million. Is there anything sadder than spending $1 million and only getting a 653-square-foot one-bedroom on First Avenue?
Unaffordable luxury: French businesswoman Dominique Senequier, who runs private equity firm Ardian, has dropped $15 million on an apartment at the Beresford, the New York Post reports. She apparently bought it from the estate of attorney Donald Shack in a private deal.
The city has placed another order for subway turnstiles after a hiatus of more than two decades, Crain’s reports. Twenty-five years had passed without the MTA opening a new station and the remainder of the metal gates, now also out of production, were destroyed during Sandy.
Councilwoman Margaret Chin is sponsoring a bill to legalize the construction of youth hostels, whose ban, she argues helps clear the way for Airbnb to take some 27,000 residential units out of circulation for New Yorkers, according to Crain’s. “Airbnb must acknowledge that it isn’t just a part of the share economy. It must be part of a fair economy as well,” Ms. Chin writes.
Finally, almost all traces of biker bar Hogs and Heifers have vanished, replaced by a Thor Equities poster advertising the empty retail space, DNAinfo reports. Good thing they got those paying tenants out of there!
