6sqft | NYC local news, events, and apartments

After announcing two weeks ago that they'd be launching a free shuttle service to connect with 13 subway lines, the Brooklyn Navy Yard has now released additional details about the shuttle, as well as new renderings of Building 77's $185 million renovation, reports Brownstoner. The 1,000,000-square-foot structure, a former ammunition depot, is the largest on the site, and when it reopens in 2017 it will offer luxury commercial space, a 16,000-square-foot rooftop, and its hotly anticipated food hall to be anchored by Lower East Side mainstay Russ & Daughters. The shuttle will have WiFi and will also connect to the LIRR. Additionally, the Navy Yard will get seven Citi Bike kiosks and 1,600 parking spaces.
More details and all the renderings

March 7, 2016

Subspotting Map Project Shows Where You Can Get Phone Reception in the Subway

The MTA is apparently well into the middle phase of its project to wire 279 below-ground subway stations with cell reception, but as Citylab recently put it, "there are still places you can’t make a call to save your life.” Into this unfortunate void comes the Subspotting project, brainchild of Daniel Goddemeyer and Dominikus Baur, which offers maps "illustrating the unequal geography of subway reception" and helpfully providing information on where you'll be able to make a call or send a text while in transit. In addition to system and individual line maps, there's an app that shows the quality of reception as different sized bars at each station, and MTA-sanctioned posters.
Can you hear me now?

March 7, 2016

Office Cocoon Promotes Privacy and Productivity in any Environment

By Rebecca Paul

Staying focused at work can be challenging for a variety of different reasons, from the coworker who screams on personal calls to the colleague who chews gum with his mouth open, but this clever piece of office furniture is here to help you keep your head in the game (literally and figuratively). Tomoko, designed by MottoWasabi, is an acoustic dome that promotes privacy and concentration in open-plan offices, lobbies, and other public spaces, so you can physically create your own office no matter what your surroundings are.
more on the design here

March 7, 2016

For $1.7M, This ‘Flexible’ West Village Loft Will Have You Climbing the Walls

Lofts being what they are, multi-level sleeping arrangements are often part of their appeal. We've seen every kind of "mezzanine" situation, but this lovely West Village condo at 130 Barrow Street seems a bit too polished to get the kind of pass one would allow a barely-heated Bushwick loft. The listing calls this 933-square-foot apartment flexible, and that's a fair adjective, as the space can be used as-is (it was configured to make use of double-height ceilings to create a massive walk-in closet) or re-done in any number of ways–with or without the "infinity-edge" sleeping platform.
Explore the apartment

Distinctive Homes

March 7, 2016

Chrystie Street’s Turn from Hardscrabble to Hip; Decoding the Empire State Building’s Lights

The Lower East Side’s Chrystie Street is transforming from a sleepy byway to a revitalized thoroughfare dotted with million dollar apartments. [CityRealty] Someone created a real estate listing for the White House using only emojis. [Digital Trends] After allocating $66 million for the second phase of the Second Avenue Subway, the MTA is now seeking contractors […]

Uncategorized

March 7, 2016

Donald Trump’s NYC Properties Owe the City $27K in Unpaid Fines

Donald Trump's fellow Republican presidential candidates have been focused on him releasing tax documents, but since he claims he's not in the position to do so since he's been audited, this little tidbit might make for some good temporary fodder -- Trump's luxury Manhattan properties owe the city for 19 unpaid violations that have amounted to $27,536 over the past 12 years. I Quant NY scoured the city's building records to find that since 2000, at least 14 of his Manhattan properties have received 460 separate violations, totaling $304,165 in fines. Sure this may be a drop in the bucket for the GOP frontrunner, but it's the lack of compliance that seems troubling, especially since only 6 percent of the instances were dismissed. And 2015 had the most violations to date, with 62 separate fines for "Failure to Maintain an Elevator."
Get the rest of the details

Real Estate Trends

March 7, 2016

Baxt/Ingui Architects Designed This $19M UWS Townhouse As an Energy-Efficient Passive Home

The listing calls the townhouse at 25 West 88th Street "beyond mint," and it's certainly green enough to qualify. This 8,000- square-foot Central Park West home has gotten its fair share of publicity recently. In addition to being a landmarked 1910 historic beauty and having undergone a stem-to-stern modern overhaul, the home's current owners, investment banker Kurt Roeloffs and his wife Shyanne, worked with the well-known Baxt/Ingui Architects to create an energy-efficient masterpiece that meets both LEED platinum and passive house standards. Even with all that efficiency, they didn't skimp on luxury. With six floors (and an elevator) and a finished cellar, six bedrooms plus rooms dedicated to yoga, meditation, exercise and crafts, this may, in fact, be "one of the finest contemporary townhomes on the Upper West Side."
Find out more about this amazing, energy-efficient home

March 6, 2016

GIVEAWAY: Win Two Tickets to the Museum of Food and Drink!

6sqft recently interviewed the Museum of Food and Drink's executive director Peter Kim and the Neighborhood Preservation Center's executive director Felicia Mayro about how food and preservation fit together. As part of the interview, Peter will be giving free admission to the MOFAD Lab in Williamsburg to one lucky 6sqft reader and a guest. You'll get to see their first exhibit "Flavor: Making It and Faking It," an in-depth and multi-sensory exploration of the $25 billion flavor simulation industry. Thanks to science and history displays, the one-of-a-kind "smell synth," and various tasting tablets of flavors like MSG and vanilla bean, you'll never think about flavoring the same again.
Find out how to enter

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Distinctive Homes

Behold the breathtaking views from this $18M home on the Montauk coastline

For $5.8M, this Fifth Avenue co-op has 'Mad Men'-era vibes and Central Park views

For $3.25M, this compact Boerum Hill townhouse goes beyond the condo alternative with three levels and a yard

This $7.75M West Village home updates 1828 Federal style with a perfect country kitchen

For $5.1M, this pretty Gramercy condo comes with a key to the private park

Minetta Lane townhouse with an 83-foot rock climbing wall asks $20M

This $8.75M Village townhouse is a downtown dream home with an elevator, three terraces, and a rooftop office suite

For $1.5M, get (way) off the grid in Gilded Age style on your own private island in Alexandria Bay

From rental income to solar panels, this $3.5M Bed-Stuy brownstone checks all the boxes

An artist's Upper East Side condo is a palace-sized riot of joyful color for $8.75M

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March 6, 2016

The Best and Worst of Brutalist Architecture in New York

By Carter B. Horsley

Frills are not part of the Brutalist vocabulary. Brutalist architecture has never been very popular but its blunt forcefulness, its rude breaking with tradition, and its startling and often simplistic inventiveness have made it hard to ignore and therefore still very vital. While Brutalism flourished in the 1960s, it has long suffered from a reputation […]

March 5, 2016

Weekly Highlights: Top Picks From the 6sqft Staff

Apply for One of Stuyvesant Town’s Affordable Apartments, Starting at $1,200/Month VIDEO: Watch the World Trade Center Oculus Get Built in 65 Seconds Beyond Bars: Designers Reimagine Rikers Island As a Destination Starchitect-Designed Public Projects Are Often Long Delayed and Way Over Budget Police Building Penthouse Gets a $5 Million Price Cut With New Views […]

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March 5, 2016

East 61st Street Condo Finally Reveals Itself, $82.5M Sellout Projected

At the northeast corner of East 61st Street and Second Avenue, a long shrouded condominium project is finally showing us some skin. The 19-story building addressed at 301 East 61st Street exhibits a creamy stone exterior, with inset balconies and vertical fins projecting from a floor-to-ceiling glass curtain wall. The building is being developed by Orlando-based Inverlad Development who purchased the 3,800-square-foot lot for $15.4 million in 2012.
Find out more

March 4, 2016

MAP: Where to Find NYC’s Current Affordable Housing Lotteries

The number of affordable rental units up for grabs through the city and state's housing lotteries has been on the upswing. There are now more than 30 open to a variety of household sizes and incomes, with the bulk of the lotteries geared towards low-income households. For instance, in buildings currently accepting applications, annual incomes for a single-person household range from $18,789 to $36,300 and two-family households from $20,160 to $41,460. However, a growing number of drawings are now available to middle-income households, where for those open, a single person can make anywhere from $44,400 to $105,875 annually to qualify. To stay on top of it all, 6sqft gathered all affordable housing buildings now accepting applicants and compiled them into one handy, interactive map.
Check it out here

Affordable Housing

March 4, 2016

Why Micro-Apartments in Carmel Place Are So Expensive

We’ve been hearing a lot recently about the city’s new micro-apartments. As 6sqft has reported, NYC’s first micro-apartment complex Carmel Place (formerly My Micro NY) at 335 East 27th Street began leasing at the end of last year. The nine-story modular development in Kips Bay has 55 studios that are 260 to 360 square feet. Of these, 22 are affordable and they’ll go from $950 to $1,500 a month. Market-rate units on the other end range from $2,540 to $2,910. According to CityRealty, the average rental price per square foot for New York City apartments overall is $51, while Carmel Place units ring in at $98 per square foot. The idea of micro-housing was presented, in part, to address the need for more affordable apartments. So why is it that the result is what a recent New Yorker article calls “micro-luxury" housing?
Small Is Beautiful–but Not Affordable

March 4, 2016

Spotlight: Jay Schweitzer Keeps Typewriters in Fashion at an 84-Year-Old Family Business

By Susan Cohen

For anyone who thinks computers have entirely taken over, they might want to visit Gramercy Typewriter Company. Founded in 1932 by Abraham Schweitzer, this 84-year-old family business is busier than ever repairing customers' typewriters, as well as refurbishing and selling machines of all shapes, sizes, and even colors. Whereas many typewriter service companies went out of business with the rise of computers, Abraham's son and grandson, Paul and Jay, remained passionate about them and are now two of the only individuals in the city with the skills to work on these machines. For Jay and Paul, the demand for their expertise is a testament to the staying power of typewriters in the 21st century. They continue to be a necessity in fields such as law and accounting, where certain forms are more compatible with the typewriter than the computer. Outside of offices, there are tried-and-true typewriter users who type on them daily. In many cases, the Schweitzers' have customers who are discovering a love of these wonderful machines for the very first time. 6sqft stopped by Gramercy Typewriter Company and spoke with Jay about the business and to get a glimpse of history on the company's shelves.
Read the full interview this way

March 4, 2016

VIDEO: Get a Digital Tour of the Chelsea Market’s New Addition

Annual office rents in the West Chelsea/Meatpacking District area have been topping $90 per square foot with many creative and technology tenants searching for boutique-sized spaces. So it seems like the perfect time for Jamestown Properties to move forward with their piggybacking plan for Chelsea Market. Branding and visualization firm Neoscape put together a cheery film to market the upcoming building's new 240,000 square feet of office space. To be known as BLDG 18, the structure is being designed by Studios Architecture and will rise nine stories atop the westernmost building of the Chelsea Market complex and the High Line. The film shows a private 16th Street entrance for tenants, 40,000-square-foot floor plates, 40-foot-wide column bays, multiple levels of landscaped terraces providing a total of 21,000 square feet of outdoor space, panoramic views, easy access to the High Line, and of course, the block-long Chelsea Market food concourse at ground level.
Watch the video here

New Developments

March 4, 2016

Pre-War Apartment in One of Jackson Heights’ Prominent Courtyard Co-ops Asks $1.1M

Jackson Heights used to be one of the few New York neighborhoods left to buy a great co-op apartment for a good deal. The prewar cooperatives there are known for their private, interior courtyards, and this building -- The Towers, at 33-27 80th Street -- has one of the best, spanning almost an entire city block. But it looks like this neighborhood is a bargain no longer. A for sale by owner listing has hit the market for a seven-bedroom, four-bedroom apartment at The Towers asking $1.1 million. (It last sold in 2011 for $675,000.) It's a huge apartment, with 1,500 square feet, and loads of beautiful prewar details. And windows from the bedrooms and kitchen offer a view down to the courtyard below.
Take the tour

Distinctive Homes

March 4, 2016

Jewelry Made From the Plaza’s Chandeliers; Diplomats Owe NYC $16M in Parking Tickets

A jewelry designer created an eight-piece collection using crystal from the Plaza’s chandeliers, which date back to the 1920s and ‘30s. [CityLab] Diplomats owe NYC $16,024,266 in unpaid parking tickets. The worst offender is Egypt, which owes $2 million. [I Quant NY] The science behind why it hurts so much to step on a LEGO. [Mental Floss] […]

Uncategorized

Live Like Park Slope Royalty Atop a Queen Anne Stone Mansion for $1.85M

There's a lot that's grand about this listing, including the fact that you're steps from Grand Army Plaza (with all of Prospect Park below). But the building that holds this three-bedroom condominium is the kind that turns heads. The historic Queen Anne/Romanesque Revival mansion at 70 Eighth Avenue stands out even in a neighborhood filled with architectural grandeur, with a turret and bell dome, terra cotta ornamentation and stained glass details. This 1,847-square-foot, three-bedroom duplex on the market for $1.847 million would give you a chance to roll up to that bad boy every day. You would have to keep rolling up at least a couple of flights of stairs (there's no elevator to get to this "penthouse") but the landmarked four-story beauty would certainly be an interesting place to call home.
READ MORE

Over 100,000 Unofficial ‘Ghost Tenants’ May Be Living in NYC Public Housing

Photo via Wiki Commons

March 4, 2016

Over 100,000 Unofficial ‘Ghost Tenants’ May Be Living in NYC Public Housing

Although 400,000 is the official head count of residents in New York City’s public housing units, estimates say that figure may be much higher, and that 100,000 to 200,000 more people live there off the books, Slate reports. In a way it's hardly news: People live with relatives, friends and roommates while they aren't the primary leaseholders–almost standard fare in a regular rental apartment (though market rate tenants may run afoul of the lease if anyone wanted to make a case). The city's public housing units are over 50 years old and in dire need of updates and repairs, but because the city is becoming ever more unaffordable for anyone on a meager income, the real tally of people who live in these buildings could be as much as 50 percent higher than the official number.
Find out more about NYCHA's shadow population

March 4, 2016

Roman Abramovich’s $80M UES Makeshift Mansion Gets Turned Down By the DOB

A little over a year ago, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich "secretly" purchased two sizable Upper East Side townhouse at 11 East 75th Street and 15 East 75th Street, for $29.7 million and $18.3 million respectively. It was quite obvious that the steel magnate had plans to create his very own makeshift mansion by snatching up the home in between, and this past summer he did just that, dropping $30 million on 13 East 75th Street, which brought the total to $78 million. But now Abramovich may have to alter his grand plans, since the Post reports that the Department of Buildings rejected his $6 million proposal to combine the Queen Anne-style townhouses. Prepared by architect Stephen Wang, the plan called for an 18,255-square-foot mansion with a six-foot front yard, 30-foot backyard, and pool in the cellar.
So, what's next?

Celebrities

March 4, 2016

VOA Architects Design 70-Story Mixed-Use Supertall for the Far West Side

Here's a first idea of what may be coming to a valuable far west side corner owned by former governor Elliot Spitzer. First spotted by the eagle-eyed SkyscraperPage, the scheme was prepared by VOA Architects for Highgate Hotels and shows an approximately 70-story, mixed-use tower stacked with a 1,000-key hotel with condominiums above. The site at 451 Tenth Avenue at 35th Street was picked up by Spitzer for $62 million in 2014 through a 99-year lease from Madd Equities. VOA's blog page states, "the project would have been the first new convention hotel in NY since the Marriott Marquis opened in 1985." Judging by the past-tense nature of the description, it seems this exact vision will not come to fruition.
More renderings ahead

VIDEO: Watch the World Trade Center Oculus Get Built in 65 Seconds

Time-Lapse Courtesy of EarthCam

March 3, 2016

VIDEO: Watch the World Trade Center Oculus Get Built in 65 Seconds

When we talk about Santiago Calatrava's $4 billion World Trade Center Transportation Hub, there's always the inevitable mention of how long (12 years!) it actually took to get the project up and running and built. Which is why this stunning time lapse is all the more fitting to mark the Hub's opening today at 3:00pm. The webcam experts at EarthCam teamed up with the project contractor, Skanska USA, to capture all 42 months (June 2011-December 2014) of construction progress for the famed and notorious winged oculus and condense it into a 65-second video.
Watch the full time lapse here

Architecture And Design

The Bedrock Myth: The Evolution of the NYC Skyline Was More About Dollars Than Rocks

Manhattan, and the bedrock beneath it, via imgur

March 3, 2016

The Bedrock Myth: The Evolution of the NYC Skyline Was More About Dollars Than Rocks

The reason so many skyscrapers are clustered Downtown and in Midtown isn't so much because of geological feasibility as because everybody else was doing it. It was long assumed that the depth of our venerable Manhattan Schist bedrock, well-suited for the construction of tall buildings, was the determinant in where the city's towers rose. Though the bedrock outcroppings are indeed at their deepest and closest to the surface in the areas where many of the city's tallest buildings are clustered, it's more likely to be coincidence than cause and effect. The real reason there's a big doughnut hole in the spiky man-made terrain between FiDi and Midtown has more to do with the way the city's dual business districts developed from a sociological and economic perspective between 1890 and 1915.
Find out why the bedrock myth is on shaky ground

Stuff You Should Know: How Air Rights Work

Image of One57 © Wade Zimmerman courtesy of Agence Christian de Portzamparc (ACDP)

March 3, 2016

Stuff You Should Know: How Air Rights Work

By Diane Pham

“For whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to Heaven and down to Hell.” Most folks outside the architecture and real estate industries are likely to believe that putting up a new skyscraper is simply about finding an empty lot to build up. However, those in the know understand that it takes much more than a stretch of space and a good […]

Art Nerd New York’s Top Event Picks for Armory Arts Week

The Armory Show courtesy of Roberto Chamorro

March 3, 2016

Art Nerd New York’s Top Event Picks for Armory Arts Week

By Lori Zimmer

In a city where hundreds of interesting happenings occur each week, it can be hard to pick and choose your way to a fulfilling life. Art Nerd‘s philosophy is a combination of observation, participation, education and of course a party to create the ultimate well-rounded week. Jump ahead for Art Nerd founder Lori Zimmer’s top picks for 6sqft readers! The absolute mayhem of Armory Arts Week is upon us once again, with the international art world descending upon our fair city. The Armory Show leads the way once again, taking over the West Side's Piers 92 and 94, with a scattering of satellite fairs rounding out Manhattan. VOLTA takes on a new location at Pier 90, while SCOPE Art Show continues to impress with cutting edge leaders. Further downtown, PULSE hits up the Metropolitan Pavilion once again, and curator-led SPRING/BREAK takes residence at the former post office across from Penn Station. Newcomer Art on Paper impresses for a second year (and will feature a booth co-curated by yours truly) on the shores of the East River at Pier 36. The Art Show by the ADAA sticks with the traditional at the Park Avenue Armory, while Clio reigns supreme as the anti-fair, nestled in Chelsea right next to the High Line. If you're up for it, there is something for every sort of art lover and collector this week, including the bevy of highly anticipated parties and events.
more on all the best events this way

Events & Things To Do

March 3, 2016

NYC Is Home to 79 Billionaires, More Than Any City in the World

Everything you need to know about affordable housing: applying, getting in, and staying put

All of the major news outlets were reporting last week that Beijing had overtaken New York City as the billionaire capital of the world, not at all hard to believe considering that in 2016, 70 new members to the World’s Billionaires List were Chinese, more than double the number of newly-added Americans. However, the original report from Chinese research firm Hurun has been disproven by research from Forbes. The new data shows that NYC is home to 79 billionaires, more than any other city in the world. This includes David Koch and Michael Bloomberg, two of the ten richest people in the world. The city's billionaires' total wealth amounts to a whopping $364.6 billion.
Get the full list ahead

City Living

THE 6SQFT SHOP

The best websites for buying and selling used furniture in NYC

The 6 best furniture rental companies in NYC

8 best places in NYC to thrift for home goods

Everything you need to know about using a guarantor in NYC

15 quintessential NYC gifts for the New Yorker in your life

New York City's best holiday markets of 2023

Raising chickens in NYC: Laws, tips, and everything else you need to know

10 Ways to Decorate an Exposed Brick Wall Without Drilling

Snag the Greenest Seat in Town: Gufram's 1972 Pratone Chair is Shaped Like a Patch of Grass

VIEW ALL

March 3, 2016

Grand Carroll Gardens Brownstone With Original Details Gets a Price Chop to $6M

The story of the historic townhouse at 46 First Place in Carroll Gardens is just as much a story of its owner, Kathryn Sennis, who has lived in and worked from the elegant 1899 brownstone for nearly 32 years. In 2012, Sennis, a psychotherapist, opened Who's On First? Children's Enrichment Studio with her daughter here, offering art classes, parties, baby yoga and programs for parents and children, including foreign language classes and parenting groups. Ms. Sennis's story was highlighted in the Observer last May, where she told of buying the townhouse in 1981 for $250,000 from an “elderly Italian woman,” how her presence confused the neighbors at the time ("you ain't even Italian!") and how much the neighborhood has changed since then. She also talks of the extensive, exhaustive renovations she painstakingly undertook. She rents out the upper two floors, and her daughter uses the garden level of the four-family home. It’s a Brooklyn story like so many others–though in this case it's one with a $6 million price tag attached.
Tour the inside

March 3, 2016

Renzo Piano’s Ship-Like Academic Center Coming to Columbia’s Manhattanville Campus

On a triangular lot, where north-skewing West 125th Street meets West 129th Street, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) and Dattner Architects have crafted a 56,000-square-foot, ship-like structure for Columbia University's Manhattanville Campus. Known as the University Forum and Academic Conference Center, the three-story building will host academic conferences, meetings, and symposia. It will contain a 430-seat auditorium, meeting rooms, and gathering spaces. According to Piano's page, "The building looks like a ship levitating above the light and transparent Urban Layer." Its prow points westward and may be just small enough to sail under the Riverside Drive Viaduct and into the Hudson River.
More details ahead

March 3, 2016

Why the Brooklyn Accent Doesn’t Exist; Reviews Are Out for WTC Transportation Hub

By Ondel Hylton and Julian Friedman

Linguists say there are no identifiable differences between speech patterns from New Jersey, Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens, etc. [Atlas Obscura] Michael Kimmelman thinks Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub is “a Soaring Symbol of a Boondoggle.” [NYT] Watch a timelapse video of the recreation of the New York Public Library’s famed ceiling mural. [Gothamist] Architecture firms […]

Uncategorized

March 3, 2016

New Renderings and Video Released for Sheepshead Bay’s Waterfront Vue Condominium

Rybak Development's latest venture named the Vue Condominium will add a bit of pizzazz and a sizable plaza to a popular stretch of Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay. Rising from a prominent, full-block parcel at the intersection of Emmons and Sheepshead Bay Road, the envisioned eight-story structure replaces former neighborhood fixture the El Greco Diner, whose site was snapped up by Sergey Rybak and Jason Reznik for $13 million in late 2014. The project first appeared one year ago, and now a handful of renderings and a video have been released by the developers. The 175,000-square-foot structure will be the first LEED Certified building in south Brooklyn and will house 58 condos, 26,000 square feet of retail, two commercial office units, and a 134-car garage shared by tenants and businesses. The 9,000- square-foot plaza will take up a quarter of the development site and will have raised planters, ambiance lighting and bicycle parking.
Watch the video and see more renderings

March 3, 2016

Inviting One Bedroom Hits the Market for $625K at Popular Park Slope Co-op

Man, there's been a lot of action recently at the Park Slope co-op building 404 3rd Street. Last summer, a Parisian-looking one bedroom went on the market for $575,000, selling in December for $660,000, nearly 15 percent above ask. Then in February, an architect listed the two-bedroom apartment she designed herself for $800,000. (It's still on the market for slightly less, $799,000.) This one bedroom is asking $625,000, which will be a potentially nice profit for the owner, who bought it only two years ago for $515,000. It's got some lovely details like moldings, inlaid floors, a painted brick wall, and a retro kitchen with open shelving and a funky built-in table attached to a mirrored column.
See the rest

Distinctive Homes

March 2, 2016

The Urban Lens: Documenting New York City’s Vanishing Privilege Signs

By James and Karla Murray

6sqft's new series The Urban Lens invites photographers to share work exploring a theme or a place within New York City. In the first installment, award-winning authors and photographers James and Karla Murray brought us 15 years of images documenting the changing storefronts of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. Now they share more amazing images, this time of privilege signs, an industry term for the promotional signs installed by large corporations on storefronts. Are you a photographer who'd like to see your work featured on 6sqft? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. Privilege Signs are an industry term for the promotional signs installed by large corporations such as Coca-Cola and the Optimo Cigar Company. They were popular in the 1930s through 1960s and received their name because store owners were given the "privilege" of completing the signs with their own copy. Large companies benefited from the signs because they were an easy way of weaving a marketing campaign right into a building’s façade. The signs were not only given free to store owners, but they also brought people into the store with instant brand recognition. Today, they read retro and antique, standing out as a testament to a business' ability to endure even in the face of the monumental challenges in a city known for its rapid pace of change. When compiling our books on disappearing storefronts, we were immediately drawn to facades that still had these type of signs, so we've rounded up some of our favorites ahead.
See all the photos ahead

March 2, 2016

Six Architects Reimagine the MetLife Building As an Eco-Friendly Tower of the Future

Earlier this week, the six finalists in the "Reimagine a New York City Icon" competition were announced (h/t NY Yimby). The competition to reimagine the MetLife Building, sponsored by Metals in Construction magazine and the Ornamental Metal Institute of New York, isn’t part of any real-life plans for the iconic Midtown tower, but when great minds get to this kind of imagining, great ideas are born. Architects and engineers were asked to "reimagine 200 Park Avenue with a resource-conserving, eco-friendly enclosure—one that creates a highly efficient envelope with the lightness and transparency sought by today’s office workforce—while preserving and enhancing the aesthetic of the building’s heritage." Designed by Emery Roth & Sons, Pietro Belluschi, and Walter Gropius, the 59-story MetLife Building, located to the north of Grand Central Terminal, opened in 1963 as the Pan Am Building. MetLife bought the building in 1981, and though they sold it in 2005, the architectural icon keeps their name. Below are the finalists' descriptions and renderings for the tower's eco-friendly future.
See what the finalists came up with

March 2, 2016

Police Building Penthouse Gets a $5 Million Price Cut With New Views of Its Secret Room

Remember that $40 million penthouse that occupies the cupola of 240 Centre Street, the 1909 Beaux Arts NYPD headquarters in Nolita? It's hard to forget a four-story, 6,000-square-foot apartment that comes with insane outdoor space (right outside the cupola!) and a secret room originally only accessible to clock mechanics. The Police Building was converted to condos in 1988 but this particular apartment, which both Calvin Klein and Steffi Graf have called home, was recently remodeled. The condo hit the market in November to quite a bit of fanfare, but apparently buyers aren't biting. Sotheby's has recently listed the penthouse for a $5 million discount -- a cool $35 million -- and also offers some new interior photos to obsess over.
See the extravagant interior

March 2, 2016

Bring Tomorrow’s Weather Indoors With Tempescope

By Ana Lisa Alperovich

Weather in New York is anything but predictable these days, with 60-degree days followed up by below-freezing winds. But while fluctuating temps have been irksome, we've found a fun little gadget that makes unpredictable weather a serene and beautiful thing. Meet Tempescope, an ambient physical display devised by Ken Kawamoto that physically visualizes impeding weather conditions like rain, clouds and lightning. The minimal device is designed to receive weather forecasts from the Internet and reproduce the next day's sky inside your home.
Learn more about this cool gadget

March 2, 2016

$4.75M Neo-Federalist House in Park Slope Has Private Parking and Neighborhood Ties

Built in 1913 by Charles Neergaard, a patriarch of the family who founded the neighborhood mom-and-pop pharmacy of the same name in the late 19th century (with two locations, Neergaard Pharmacy is the oldest family-owned drugstore in Brooklyn), this Neo-Federalist home at 234 Eighth Avenue has a lot going for it. For one, it's a block from Prospect Park. It's on a corner lot. And, probably best of all in a neighborhood dubbed "No Place to Park Slope," it comes with private curb-cut driveway parking. All of this is tangential to the fact that this is a 4,000-square-foot renovated 1913 townhouse in perfect condition in one of the most coveted parts of north Park Slope.
Get a room-by-room tour of this unique residence

March 2, 2016

How to Make Shake Shack Burgers at Home; Clean Derrières Aren’t Just for the Rich

Martin’s potato rolls, ground sirloin, pimento peppers — these are just a few of the ingredients you’ll need to make your own ShackBurger. [Brokelyn] The World Chess Championship is returning to NYC. [NYT] Bidets are the new must-have bathroom accessory, and they start as low as $57. [DNAinfo] A $1,600 DIY kit will recycle the water […]

Uncategorized

March 2, 2016

POLL: Should the City Spend Money and Time Hiring Starchitects for Public Projects?

Yesterday, 6sqft took a closer look at the Department of Design and Construction’s Design Excellence program, a city initiative where high-profile architects design public facilities, and the fact that many of these projects are long delayed and way over budget. The Rafael Vinoly-designed NYPD station house on Staten Island known as “The Stapler” is perhaps […]

March 2, 2016

Will Donald Trump’s Divisive Rhetoric Hurt His Real Estate Business?

By Diane Pham

Trump may have swept the southern states on Super Tuesday, but in true blue New York City and other regions with liberal leanings, the presidential candidate remains as polarizing as ever. As such, since announcing his run last year, Trump has been dumped by everyone from NBC (he was axed as the host of “Celebrity Apprentice” […]

Real Estate Trends

March 2, 2016

‘The View’ Co-Host Joy Behar Lists Her Hamptons Home for $3.8M

Comedian and co-host of "The View" Joy Behar just listed her 4,000-square-foot vacation home in East Hampton for $3.8 million. Behar, who is once again co-host of the daytime chat show after a two-year hiatus, as well as the host of "Late Night Joy," also has an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. She purchased the classic Hamptons home in 2012 for $2,875,000, which means she'll have a tidy profit if it sells at the ask.
Take a look inside the Hamptons hideaway

March 2, 2016

Grand, Under-Construction Carnegie Hill Townhouse Could be Yours for $18M

Pre-war architecture is alive and well on the Upper East Side. At 178 East 94th Street, along a bucolic, tree-lined stretch of Carnegie Hill, a six-story, 7,650-square-foot, single-family home is squeezing into place as if it's been on the brownstone block for decades. The 36.5-foot-wide home is being built and designed by Daniel Kohs, owner of Long Island-based Madik Realty. Called the Danville House, the home hit the market earlier this month for $18 million. The sole exterior rendering accompanying the listing shows a red-brick exterior accentuated by vertical piers, culminating into pointed and spherical pinnacles. It's crowned near its apex by an open colonnade not unlike that of Murray Hill's Morgan Lofts.
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March 1, 2016

Apply for One of Stuyvesant Town’s Affordable Apartments, Starting at $1,200/Month

When news broke back in October that Blackstone Group had partnered with Canadian investment firm Ivanhoe Cambridge to buy Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.45 billion, one of the most talked about parts of the deal was that it would reserve 5,000 units of affordable housing for 20 years, 4,500 of which will be for middle-income families and 500 for low-income families. Starting today, qualifying New Yorkers can apply for one of these apartments, reports to DNAinfo. Through March 31st, the housing lottery will accept up to 15,000 names for the waitlist. They'll be entered into a randomized computer system that will assign a number to each applicant, and as more apartments open up, people will be contacted to move in. The units range from $1,210/month studios for persons earning between $36,300 and $48,400 annually to $4,560/month five-bedrooms for families of five to 10 making between $136,800 and $210,870.
See the full breakdown ahead

Affordable Housing

March 1, 2016

$5M Home in Boerum Hill Combines Townhouse and Loft Aesthetics

This Boerum Hill townhouse at 243 Dean Street has gone through quite the renovation. A buyer purchased it in 2008 for $2.44 million and then made big changes to the five-story, single-family property, restoring some of the old details and adding lots of new perks in a complete gut renovation. Now it's outfitted with lots of wooden ceiling beams, huge skylights, exposed and painted brick walls and restored fireplaces and plasterwork. The listing even says that new walls, doors windows were fabricated on site. The result is something between a townhouse and a loft—perhaps it's got the best of both worlds. And it's now on the market for a good deal more than $2.44 million, asking nearly $5 million.
Take a look

Distinctive Homes

March 1, 2016

INTERVIEW: The Museum of Food and Drink’s Peter Kim Talks Food and Preservation

This past October, the Museum of Food and Drink opened its first brick-and-mortar space in Williamsburg. Known as the MOFAD Lab, it's a design studio where the team is currently creating and displaying their exhibition ideas, as well as surprising a city who may have likened a food museum to merely big-name chefs and of-the-moment trends like rainbow bagels. Take for example their first exhibit "Flavor: Making It and Faking It," an in-depth and multi-sensory exploration of the $25 billion flavor simulation industry. Two more refreshingly unexpected facts are the background of executive director Peter Kim (he previously worked in public health, hunger policy, and law, to name a few fields) and the museum's first home at the Neighborhood Preservation Center (NPC), an office space and resource center for those working to improve and protect neighborhoods. If you're wondering what preservation and a food and drink museum have to do with each other, 6sqft recently attended an NPC event at MOFAD Lab to find out. After chatting with Peter and NPC's executive director Felicia Mayro, we quickly realized that the two fields have a lot more in common than you might think. Keep reading for our interview ahead, and if you want to visit MOFAD LAB, enter our latest giveaway. Peter is giving a lucky 6sqft reader and a guest free admission to the museum (enter here).
The full interview, right this way

222 LES Tower + Lofts

222 East Broadway

Lower East Side

Art Deco romance meets 21st-century convenience

Studios starting at $799,000
1 bed starting at $1,100,000
2 beds starting at $1,955,000
3 beds starting at $2,875,000

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Starchitect-Designed Public Projects Are Often Long Delayed and Way Over Budget

Bjarke Ingels’ design for the NYPD 40th Precinct station house in the Bronx, part of the Design Excellence program

March 1, 2016

Starchitect-Designed Public Projects Are Often Long Delayed and Way Over Budget

The big news last week was the Port Authority's decision not to hold an opening ceremony for Santiago Calatrava's World Trade Center Transportation Hub (followed by their sudden flip flop), citing the fact that it was six years delayed and that final construction costs came in around $4 billion in taxpayer dollars, twice what was projected. Though the Hub has become notorious for these reasons, it's hardly the only public project to face delays and skyrocketing costs. In fact, it's not even close to being the worst of the lot that are draining tax payer dollars. DNAinfo took a look at the Department of Design and Construction’s Design Excellence program, a city initiative where high-profile architects design public facilities. Take for example the NYPD station house on Staten Island known as "The Stapler." Its original cost was projected as $3 million, but when it opened in 2013 this rose to a whopping $73 million. DDC, ironically, blames the emphasis on design for the problems, as well as a faulty budgeting process (cost estimates are calculated before actual designs are selected).
More details ahead

March 1, 2016

Kid’s Caravan Bed Provides the Excitement of an RV From the Comfort of Home

By Rebecca Paul

This funky kid's bed was designed to mimic a caravan, and we secretly wish they also made it in adult sizes! Not only is it cozy and playful, but it's also super functional and equipped to handle even the most rugged camper. The bed is packed full of hidden storage space including the helm as the perfect home for toys stuffed animals or blankets. Plus the base of the bed double as a full-sized pull-out drawer.
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March 1, 2016

Brooklyn’s Getting an Olsen Twins Museum; Why Do Airplane Bathrooms Still Have Ashtrays?

After the success of their Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan museum, two Brooklynites have launched a $9,500 Kickstarter to fund a new museum — The Olsen Twins Hiding From the Paparazzi. [Brokelyn] New Yorkers are the most wrinkled people in the country. [NYDN] Here’s the lineup for the inaugural Panorama music festival on Randall’s Island (you know, […]

Uncategorized

March 1, 2016

First Look at Pair of Apartment Houses Coming to 220-222 Withers Street in East Williamsburg

By Emrys Fitzgerald

Here's our first glimpse of a pair of four-story residential buildings at 220-222 Withers Street in East Williamsburg. Renderings recently published by the site's owner, BK Developers, depict two identical, eight-unit buildings faced with a routine exterior of red brick, multi-pane windows, and dark metal trim. Three floors are flush to the streetwall, while the fourth is setback. Within each 5,000-square-foot building, the first and second floors will each house a single unit while the upper two levels will contain a duo of duplexes.
More ahead

Lightstone’s Paris-on-the-Gowanus Rental Building at 365 Bond Street Opens

363-365 Bond Street, via Lightstone Group

March 1, 2016

Lightstone’s Paris-on-the-Gowanus Rental Building at 365 Bond Street Opens