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real estate
goodbye, brooklyn
Are Celebrities Done With Brooklyn?
Brooklyn "power couple" Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany are leaving the neighborhood. Their beautiful Prospect Park West mansion (see pic, above) is on the market for $8.5m (they paid $3.5 for it back in 2003). They'll be fleeing to a fancypants penthouse in TriBeCa. So, is everyone going to just abandon Brooklyn? First it was Michelle Williams and the late Heath Ledger (though she kept their Boerum Hill brownstone, she spends most of her downtime in LA, he spent it in Manhattan), and now these well-respected "boho" "artists." Thank God we've still got Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, and Keri Russell. And I think M.I.A. lives somewhere in Bed-Stuy. But, they'll probably leave too. More ».jpg)
deep questions
Is 'Home Buying For Hipsters' Actually Just For Tools?
Like "cool," "hipster" is a multivalent word with no set definition but many different meanings. But from a real estate developers' perspective, if you live in Brooklyn, have read a Jonathan Lethem book or have gone to Studio B, you qualify. Sorry! Even so, no real hipster admits to being one. That's worse than saying you want to be cool. Which makes Home Buying For Hipsters — a monthly real estate advising meet-up with ties to the Corcoran Group — so perplexing. What tool would show up to their event tonight, which is aimed at a demographic no one would acknowledge being a part of? More »
Stay Out
A Renter's Guide to Manhattan
Aww... It's the class of 2008! All growed up and coming to NYC for that awesome career and super apartment like in Friends or Sex and the City? Sorry, little camper, we don't serve your kind! "The thousands of new graduates who will be driving the engine of the city’s rental market from now until September will quickly learn that renting in New York is not like renting anywhere else. The second shock is likely to be how small a Manhattan apartment can be. It is not uncommon in New York, for example, to shop for a junior one-bedroom or a convertible one-bedroom, neither of which is a true one-bedroom at all but really a studio that already has or can have a wall put up to create a bedroom." More »
neighbors
Odious Attorney Couple Settles Asinine Smoking Lawsuit
Jonathan and Jenny Selbin—two people who deserve one another—are both attorneys and the worst neighbors you could possibly imagine. In February, they filed a lawsuit against their neighbor for smoking in her own apartment, taking her to court even after she bought air purifiers because her smoking was "endangering" their sensitive child. The note they slipped under her door at the time read "As you may not be aware, we are both lawyers and both litigators, for whom the usual barriers to litigation are minimal." That bit made them the runaway winners of our February ""Which snippet from the Times Real Estate section makes you most want to assault the person in the story?" contest. Now, the suit has been settled [NYT]—and the Selbins are concerned about their own reputation. More »
advertising
Die, Please
Here is a full page ad in today's issue of The Onion (click to enlarge) that is so stupid I had to photograph it with my cell phone camera in a spontaneous feat of journalism. "LIVE HERE OR DIE," it says. This is an ad for Williamsburg Edge, the execrable new high rise yuppie condo in the Burg that previously declared itself to be "Gritty." So, can we all agree on "Die?" We'll take "Die," thanks.
what makes jared run
Why Did Ivanka and Jared Break Up?
Cute li'l real-estate magnate and newspaper-owner Jared Kushner broke up with oddly attractive-despite-her-family Ivanka Trump! This is according to Page Six, who note that Ivanka has gone to parties by herself, which is irrefutable proof. They've been together for almost exactly one year, which is, if you ask us, suspicious. What's Jared up to? Why is he breaking up with his hot, brand-name girlfriend? Why is he pretending he's going to buy Newsday? Is he just toying with us?? More »
One More Place Not To Live
"Fun. Flirty. Fresh. In FiDi." Fun is okay. Flirty? That makes me re-evaluate the "Fun" part. Fresh? In FiDi? By the end of the slogan on this condo ad, its allure has crumbled. Click to enlarge [Vanishing New York]
real estate
Moby's West Coast Neighbors Can't Stand Him Either
Grass-eating canned music maker Moby bought a $3 million house in the Hollywood Hills with alice+olivia designer Stacey Bendet in January, and his new neighbors have a message for him: Quiet down, prick. "Moby is turning the garage into his studio and the neighbors are all up in arms," said one resident, irked by excessive construction noise. "He should be careful. We just kicked Prince off the street for excessive noise." [P6]
disasters
Soul Killing Reality Show Now Rampages In Corporeal World
Having already reduced their audience's minds and spirits to sad, pulpy smithereens, the crew at America's Next Top Model has now turned its destructive gaze upon real estate. Michael Marvisi, the landlord who rented a beautiful TriBeCa loft to the show's producers, to house 14 crazed, near feral contestants, says that the place was so damaged after their stay that he lost a prospective tenant and has had to spend thousands of dollars on repairs. There was extensive water damage in the bathroom, $20,000 curtains ruined, holes in the walls from crew members drilling (and high heels and fire pokers and talon-like finger nails), there was evidence of food fighting, with ketchup and coffee splattered everywhere, and, perhaps the most haunting and poetic detail, lipstick smeared on the walls. The producers offered to settle for a reported $125,000 (after their initial offer of a Seventeen magazine photo shoot and a Cover Girl contract was deemed to be completely useless by pretty much everyone), but Marvisi has, of course, decided to pursue litigation. Tyra Banks could not be reached for comment and a a $1,500 electricity bill remains unpaid. Much like the women who have competed on the show in years past. [P6]
books
Farrar, Straus & Giroux Move Out of Dickensian Offices
They don't even have hot water in the ladies room, the New Yorker reveals. But everybody seems pretty cool with that: after all, it's the literature that's important (publishing Tom Wolfe, Denis Johnson, Alex Ross, et al), not the amenities. A longtime employee explains, "The money went into the books, not into painting the walls." (How expensive could it possibly be to paint the walls?) Now, FSG is moving 'cause they're a bit too cheap for the rising rents on their Union Square offices; nobody wants to spend money on something "inessential." [New Yorker]
real estate
NYC Apartments: Full Of Jerks
It's time to play "Which snippet from the Times Real Estate section makes you most want to assault the person in the story?" There are two entrants this week, and it should be a tight race. First, imagine living next door to a pair of bastard attorneys who slip a note under your door saying, "As you may not be aware, we are both lawyers and both litigators, for whom the usual barriers to litigation are minimal." The crime? Purported secondhand smoke, which was purportedly "endangering" the bastards' four-year-old son, who I imagine is named Jebediah. The kicker: "The neighbor, a chain smoker, said she had tried to respond to their complaints and had even bought air purifiers to reduce the amount of smoke. But the lawyers complained that she had failed to provide them with receipts proving that she had made the purchases." I feel some serious assault coming on. But damn, how about this one: More »
media
The New New York Times Building
The former New York Times Building will get totally cute cafes and clothing stores—maybe even a big box retailer, like T.J. Maxx or Target! It'll also be the new headquarters for the investment group that bought it, Africa Israel USA. We're sure they'll keep it classy. FYI, it shall be called the Times Square Building from here on out. [NY Sun]
breaking
Breaking: Incident At Trump Tower Soho, One Dead
Apparently part of the Trump Tower building in Soho just collapsed after being hit by a crane. One person may have been killed, according to reports. An eyewitness says it was a top corner, another says two floors have caved in. "I was eating lunch in the conference room of my office on Hudson Street and we watched as one entire side of a building under construction collapsed," an onlooker told us. "There are ambulances and fire trucks everywhere." Curbed has more.
the rich
McMansions Explained
There are many economic factors that might have possibly driven the housing boom, all of which are bo-ring. House Lust: America's Obsession With Our Homes, a new book by Newsweek reporter Daniel McGinn, reveals the truth: it was actually driven by idiots with a herdlike, pathological need to fixate on every aspect of their home, much like Freud's analysis of anal-retentive children examining their own feces. Actual quote: "My house is really pretty, with plenty of room, but it just doesn't do it for me... my artistic imagination isn't lit up by it—it's too much 'practical,' and not enough 'dreamy.'" Here's to the idiot in all of us—now, I'm off to look at Floor Plan Porn on Curbed!
the underminer
No one so smug as a returning expat
It's humiliating enough that European tourists, marveling at the decline of the dollar, treat a visit to New York like a trip to the factory outlet. Mike Albo, in the latest installment of his occasional column, channels an even more annoying type: the returning expat. More »
the riches
Laurel Touby: Millions Of Dollars Don't Make You Smart
So Laurel Touby says she came home from the sale of her allegedly freelance-journalist-helping website Mediabistro.com with $9 to $11 million after taxes. (Really? What about those investors? Hmm.) She tells the Times: "'I had all kinds of illusions about how far the money would go and what I would enjoy, but they're not true,' Ms. Touby said. 'I thought, 'O.K., a car and driver and a new apartment and a whole new life.' In fact, I can only afford two out of three.'" Um, which two would that be? Anyway, here is an example of not to do with that kind of windfall: "She remains determined to buy a Manhattan loft apartment, which will consume half her money, and must still earn $100,000 a year to maintain it, she said." Wow, bad call, sister.
a loftier way to live
