The metamorphosis of art and beauty is my passion. The discovery of contemporary mediums of expression has allowed me to pursue my interest in art, beauty, architecture and progressive cultural exchange. Dubai is a fashion bud on the verge of blossoming into the next fashion hub of the world. The city is alive with culture and rich in personality, making it a perfect place for aesthetic, fashion and design to flourish. Isla Moda has tremendous potential to be the style icon of the future and I intend on driving the island to high style stardom.

Notice he doesn't mention anything about the abra full of dirhem that Dubai Infinity Holdings, the backers of the endeavor, most likely puttered up to his waterside villa.

“I do have clients who worked at Bear Stearns—husband and wife both worked there,” says Lynda Ireland of Prudential Douglas Elliman. “They’d finally found a beautiful home they loved, and they bought it.” The house is in Bridgehampton, in the $2 million range. “Now they may have to sell it. They’ve told me it’s not that they’re afraid of being foreclosed upon. But they’re frightened. They have a big apartment in New York, and they feel they have to choose between New York and out here—they can’t carry both. And they have small children, so they want to be in New York for the kids. It’s very sad.”

We can relate! Since our own recent budget problems, we have been forced to choose between pawning our complete Showtime Pizza animatronic puppet collection or giving up our controlling stake in Dreamworks.

But actually the $20 million and up sector of the market is still doing just fine, thank you, thanks mostly to a man who everyone thought was Tiger Woods but who turned out to be a different guy named "Tiger" and then turned out to perhaps be a shadowy LLC that may actually belong to Tiger Woods. Also Sag Harbor is filled with 100-foot mega-yachts (everything is so mega!), movie stars and James Frey are still hanging out in Amagansett, and various hermits and bloggers have a "colony" in Montauk. Some rich people even have (ironic?) double-wide trailers!

In conclusion, the market is still crashing but we haven't hit the bottom yet but maybe there won't even be a bottom because of Barack Obama but on the other hand the wealthy may just begin burning their giant houses to the ground, which will actually be pretty awesome.

J.K.: Do you have any interest in real estate?

L.G.: Only in the pornographic sense that everybody else does.

J.K.: Real estate is like porn for rich people.

L.G.: So what possessed you to go buy a dinosaur? This is, like, so old-media. Isn't it a bit yesterday?

J.K.: Well, I would say two things. People are hysterical about the death of newspapers and I would say they're not dying, they're just kind of reinventing themselves. What the ultimate body count is in reinvention is still to be determined, but the difference between a weekly and a daily is that my product is a country home, whereas a daily is your primary residence.

L.G.: Now when people come to you, as I'm sure they do, and they just read something snarky about themselves in the Observer, and you have a business or social relationship with them, and they say "Jesus Christ, Jared, look at what your paper did to me"—what do you do in those situations?

J.K.: Well, I think people for the most part are very respectful and they know that I'm a publisher who has strong belief in editorial independence. And I'm very fortunate to surround myself with great people, and I believe that you hire good chefs and you let them shop for the groceries and cook.

He's so rich!

[Portfolio]

Mr. Spitzer is moving aggressively to occupy a niche created by the credit crunch, the subprime mortgage crisis, a surge in foreclosures, and a declining real estate market. He is looking to mine for riches in projects that banks are no longer willing to finance.

Distressed real estate funds — also known as "vulture" or, more euphemistically, "opportunity" funds — typically promise returns of more than 20% and are active in Florida, Nevada, and Southern California. They rely heavily on pension and university endowment investments. Mr. Spitzer is said to be envisioning projects valued between $100 million and $500 million.

This is precisely the sort of thing Spitzer could never have gotten away with back when he had to pretend to care about Regular Folk, so really that whole hooker thing has turned out to be something of a boon! As he told the union officials, people have been surprisingly supportive of him when they stop him on the street. Especially Europeans! Sex is "no big deal," he says people tell him. And the Europeans probably say "ees no beeg deal" or "c'est la vie!" Or "way to fuck hookers, Mr. Governor! Now please pay me significantly less than I paid for this property I bought and flip it for a small profit!"

Spitzer Mulls Starting Vulture Fund [NYSun]

"our building had its first pool party this weekend and i thought you would enjoy. the disastrous combo of hedge fund guys, gay guys, and hipsters caused massive combustion resulting in the cops coming, fdny as well, the roof trashed, drugs, booze everywhere and some random people shitting in our gym. i stopped by for a couple hours and saw the disaster in the making! i'm sure you'll read about it in curbed soon. it was one of those 'only in ny' moments."

This would never happen in Topeka.

[Pic via Curbed]

"Slapdash and haphazard renovations have led to the destruction of architectural detail, while modern additions to historic buildings sharply contrast with the neighborhood's scale and character. In 2007, permits were approved for the full demolition of 11 buildings on the Lower East Side, compared with just one in 2006. These developments, among others, signify the quickening erasure of the neighborhood's architectural and socio-cultural fabric...

A melting pot of cultures and nationalities, the Lower East Side remains central to the social history of the United States. Its preservation of 19th and early 20th century properties convey the story of immigrant home, health, entrepreneurship, labor, education and recreational life in New York City."

Well, at least the character of the neighborhood will be forever preserved on Grand Theft Auto IV. And on the plus side, the Bowery Boys have really calmed down lately.

[via Curbed]

[via Copyranter]

As Brooklyn gets less trendy and more mainstream (and more expensive), the hip young celebrities, flush with a little bit of money, will choose more convenient places to live. It used to be something of a tip of the hat for a rich famous person to move to the borough. "Aren't we shy and intelligent!" "We're just like you!" That kind of thing. But now all sorts of people live out here and there's no gesture or identity associated with "brownstone Brooklyn" anymore. If they moved to Crown Heights, that'd be something! But, they won't. They'll go for ease and (though they'd never admit it) status. And then we'll just be left with a bunch of boring old writers, who actually spend time in the neighborhood and clog up the streets. More pictures of the Connelly/Bettany manse at Curbed.

The "hipsters" who go to Home Buying For Hipsters are probably not hipsters at all, even if Fortress of Solitude totally spoke to them. It may be a Tuesday night, but it's New York in spring. The rooftop garden of the Met is open! Jenna Bush is giving a reading! American Idol is on! Who wants to spend their time hearing about mortgage rates?

Most likely, these "hipsters" aren't actually buying a home themselves. Their parents are. And with bankers uninterested in the skyscrapers on the Williamsburg waterfront and now too broke to afford them anyway, you have to credit the Corcoran Group for going after America's home-owners a second time through their kids. It's like renewing your vows, but with property taxes.

Tonight's Home Buying For Hipsters is being held at Union Pool. Though Union Pool is in Williamsburg (cool) and in a former pool supply store (cred), it is still not hip. It's mostly frequented by people already in the home buying stage, 30-somethings. (Also cougars.)

Home Buying For Hipsters: really Home Buying For Adults. Adults who are still trying to be cool.

(Although— buying a home in this economy may be genuinely edgy. So maybe some real hipsters should try it!)

"Aside from the realities of price and space, the requirements set by New York landlords are also bound to help turn a bright-eyed first-time renter’s outlook grim. To start with, landlords want only tenants who earn at least 40 times the monthly rent, which means an $80,000 annual salary for a $2,000 apartment. According to census data, more than 25,000 graduates ages 22 to 28 moved to the city in 2006, and their median salary was about $35,600." [NYT]

But there's plenty of space in Brooklyn—go there! There's nothing in Queens. Especially not in Forest Hills.

Their neighbor agreed to install air filters and use a smokeless ashtray. The Selbin's suit did not even allege that the smoke was coming into their apartment, just the common hallway in the building. Once publicity about the suit got out, a company called Aerus donated the air filters for free.

Attorney, plaintiff, and terrible rat bastard Jonathan Selbin hopes that this messy affair doesn't make him look bad:

Mr. Selbin indicated on Monday that the publicity surrounding the lawsuit had not been pleasant. "I am confident you will find a way to make us look like terrible people all over again for insisting on such an onerous thing," he said in the e-mail message.

Young Jared is still thought by some to be but a pawn of his parents, specifically felon dad Charles. But his folks surely wouldn't have approved of his relationship with noted not-Jewish person Ivanka Trump, and that whole newspaper-buying thing doesn't have much to do with the family's occasionally-legal business. Regardless, the family remains in business together.

Last year, Charles and Jared sold a bunch of their Jersey properties to refocus on Manhattan. They bought some buildings for ridiculous sums, just before the market slowed to a crawl, and now the Post regularly updates us with news of Kushner's "credit crunch" and complicated real estate stories we don't quite understand that seem to imply that Kushner's crumbly buildings are costing him lots and lots of money.

But now Jared's making a play for Newsday! So maybe he's confident about things! Or maybe he's making a play for another paper to appear to be confident and independent, like when Barry Diller pretended to want to buy Yahoo! He's dumping his girlfriend and buying newspapers because things are just so awesome for him he can take risks. Maybe he'll run for Governor!

Or maybe Ivanka just found someone richer?

UNATTACHED [NYP via NYM]

Dude working for a marketing agency gets a transfer to NYC, paid for by the company. But he finds the city is arduous, necessitating a heroic growing process in which he learns about the dirty heart of the Rotten Apple:

A colleague told him that $2,300 was a cutoff point. Below that, he would find only cramped apartments in bad neighborhoods. It seemed to be true. He saw a few tiny places on the Lower East Side, where the streets felt raucous. "Seamy is the wrong word," Mr. Rahman said, "but you can imagine coming back every night and having to pick your way through punk bars and tattoo shops."

Hola! Hola! Over here! Aqui! Ha! This is so funny to run into you in the Meatpacking District because I was just telling my lover, my partner, mi novio de vida, Javier, about how this area with all its sad ignorant outdated displays of excess seems not only so depressing but also a signal of the upcoming deep recession that America is about to face, and then YOU round the corner, wearing some crazy expensive Marc by Marc thingie, holding, what is that, a Magnolia Bakery cupcake? What is this, 2005? Ha it's just too funny! You have the most precise comic timing.

Of course I said all this to Javier all in Spanish, because mi amante, Javier, and I speak to each other in fluent Espanol.

Hm? Yes, yes, he estado viviendo en Espana, si si. We just flew in to the city, me and Javier, just to kind of stock up on all the cheap fare available to us here in New York. Like a luxury apartment!

We just read ">articles about how even Irish people with discolored teeth are buying apartments in the city, and we had to make a viaje over here.

We were really just interested in getting some investment property, something simple and basic, for like $1 million. But you know, even if we end up not buying this place, the savings we have garnered from shopping actually pay for our trip!

It's like the Meatpacking District is a Cairo Bazaar! All the cheap trinkets and local food! All the sweet local folk in their Theory and funny large winter hats! We went to Pastis, dropped some coin at Alexander McQueen and Illy, fingered the gleaming baubles at the Apple store and spent nary a Euro! Tee hee! I have never felt so free!

All I can say is thank God I transferred my lifesavings into Euros. I don't know what I would do if I were here, where the price of a simple latte is practically the amount I pay to fill the tank on my elegant Vespa! It's funny how much a country can change when you are gone, and its currency can become more worthless than Dinars.

I mean there's still lots of opportunity here in the U.S. for creative monolingual people like you. Like I am sure you are finally writing for television like you had always talked about. There's always the safe, constant industry of Hollywood!

Huh? Really?

Oh that's too bad. Guess I haven't really been keeping up with the news here.

Hey! Let's make lemonade! Maybe it will be like early 90s, during the last recession. You can hang out in coffee shops and think of surreal lyrics for indie rock songs and stuff. You always talk about how cool things were then.

I know for myself, the periods of strife in my life, (like when I was in my 20s and had that really hard month without a fulfilling job and love?) have made me a stronger person. And if there is anyone who I think is so so so so strong it's you. You are a really strong, strong person. No you are.

Sorry to get so emotional and serious. Its just I have really become more open and European since I have been out of America? Does that make sense?

I won't keep you. You do what you have to do. I'll let you know when we are in town again. Besos.

Photo by Trevor Little.

First of all, just how authentically artistic is the space at 151 Wooster? "The Heart of Soho... The art of so many. Ten luxury lofts, two extraordinary penthouses... a loftier way to live," intones the website.

Last night there were lots of people dressed in puffy Reeboks and neon spray-paint print shirts, listening to a DJ playing 80s music. Everyone was drinking free vodka like there was no tomorrow and ignoring the art, which included works by Fab 5 Freddy, Keith Haring, Kenny Sharf and Ero.

As for the mural, it was there—sort of. About a quarter of the original wall was on display, and the rest had been, well, Xeroxed. A photo had been taken of the original wall, printed onto vinyl and stretched across the wall. It's possible that the original was too fragile to be moved, as it had been bisected by pipes over the years.

Perhaps this was a statement about using art to create a feeling of authenticity that sells overpriced lofts, or maybe a remark about the loss of originality in a city where no place is safe from gentrification?

The program (which is riddled with typos and punctuation errors) had an interview with Fab Five Freddy. He says it all: "Twenty years later it's the preverbal [sic] mark on the wall."

Edit: We have been informed that the majority of the mural is currently on the 8th floor, where it was discovered, undergoing a conservation process so that it can be donated to a local museum. The gallery exhibit was on the second floor, where the copy of the mural (and a small part of the original) was on display.

[Photo: Robert Wright]

Tom Acitelli, writing for the paper's Real Estate blog, is concerned that the show may encourage terrible middle-Americans to move to New York in order to be just like those impossibly attractive UES youngsters and that dude from "Williamsburg."

By implying that everyone in New York is rich and beautiful except for the "working-class" ones who live in $900,000 lofts located in the part of Williamsburg that is DUMBO, Gossip Girl is apparently "spreading the gospel to the unsuspecting of a New York City where affordability and leisure are easy to come by."

Acitelli's problem seems to be that he thinks the show will, like Felicity before it, inspire unsuspecting young rubes to come to our city and make the subways more crowded and play their television sets too loud, though he also moralizes a bit about the dearth of genuine working-class representation on our tee-vees and even quotes (late NYU media critic) Neil Postman. He wishes mass culture would present more realistic portrayals of real Americans so that he can stop making into strawwomen with names like "Suzy in Nebraska and Mandy in Alabama" who are dumb enough to think they could afford the lifestyles of people presented on television as being ridiculously wealthy.

"So," Acitelli writes, "when the average L train stop starts looking like the opening scenes of Heathers, don't say we didn't warn you." Don't worry. As soon as 2002 rolls around we'll let you know just how right you were.

(Is the Observer still re-running those wacky old Sex and the City columns?)

Is Gossip Girl Dangerous? Yes [NYO]

According to Times real estate reporter Teri Karush Rogers, living in a townhouse is "the real estate equivalent of riding bareback across Manhattan in an ice storm." Wait, I don't understand really: It's like unprotected gay sex in a Rick Moody novel? Well, ask a rich person: It turns out the problem is the stairs!

"You hate when you come home from a trip with a lot of luggage and have to drag it up the stairs, or you're in a huge hurry to leave and you have to run back up to the third or fourth floor dressed up in high-heeled shoes because you've forgotten something," said Barbara Fox, president of Fox Residential Group, who lived for two decades with her husband, James Freund, in a 7,000-square-foot town house on West 73rd Street near Central Park. "And you hate when you have to have repairs because there's always got to be somebody there to answer the door."

Each team basically agreed on the following: They wanted to preserve and incorporate the High Line Park, create additional green space, and make the space environmentally sustainable. Several emphasized diversity of architectural styles and materials, as well as creating "intimate" spaces within larger ones.

Steven Holl, presenting for Extell, was up first, with what seemed to be the most thoughtful and poetic vision, showing a photo that was taken the year that "the last boxcar went over the Highline, [which] was full of frozen turkeys." "Why not build it greener than anyone else?" he asked, explaining that runoff water could be recycled and adding that his team was careful not to make buildings tower around the park, creating an unpleasant "canyon space." (The second team said hat they, too, were avoiding a "bottom of the well" effect.)

Extell's architectural showpiece would be a triple-tower, all three buildings joined together at the top. Holl added that, in the event of an incoming airplane or an explosion (Seriously: "God forbid, if an explosion or an airplane" is what he said) there would be multiple ways to escape.

He ended by saying that, from the proposed park, one would be able to see the moon passing over the Empire State Building.

Group #2, the alliance of Related and Goldman Sachs and NewsCorp., proposed the area as an expansion of what its Powerpoint presentation called "exciting media district continues the trend West (ABC, NY Times, Heart, Time Warner)." They showed a rendering of a glass building with a banner across it reading "Myspace.com." Seriously. The future, from this perspective, looked scary. At least they mentioned their commitment to building affordable housing.

Group #3, which is Durst and Vornado and Conde Nast, mentioned an "iconic point tower" and a greenspace built like a "wild terrarium," as well as a "galleria," which in computerized renderings appeared to be more of a what one calls a "shopping mall." Oh, and an "automated people mover" similar to AirTrain. Where would the people be moved to, and why? They didn't say.

Proposal #4, from Brookfield, seemed slightly more intelligent, with a "sky exposure analysis" and six new residential towers. They proposed a park that could host Fashion Week and serve as a 24-hour nightlife and cultural center. The kind of place at which one could buy weed and Rolexes. I hope so.

Then came the last proposal, from big bad Tishman Speyer and Morgan Stanley. When the first rendering came up, rather jarringly different from the rest, a collective realization of "WTF" washed over the room. "Four monumental towers that taper as they rise up," their man said, mumbling away in a fast monotone and nearly unintelligible accent. "This is awful," the woman next to me moaned. It truly was. Do not give the bid to Tishman Speyer.

You can judge all of this for yourself, though. The bid proposals will be on public view at 335 Madison Avenue from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. through December 14.

But don't despair yet, New Yorkers! André Balazs' management company will still be running the hotels and so the booze-fueled over-chlorinated book parties at the Hotel QT shall continue. On the other hand— totally despair, New Yorkers. Balazs is opening up a Standard hotel in the Meatpacking District soonish. [Crain's]

Blavatnik's $150 M. Mark Triplex? 'It's Not A Go' [NYO]

The Post also quotes a "wide-eyed real-estate agent" saying, "It's hard to imagine there's a real-estate slump when a number like that is being bandied about... What could possibly be next." Well! Good thing you ask!

One might want to ask Blavatnik about recent times in which there was a massive disparity between the ultra-wealthy and the impoverished masses. It was in October of 1917! The place was Petrograd and the castle was called the Александровский дворец.

The$150 Million Dollar Castle [NYP]