Search Results for: gentrification

In the Settlers of Brooklyn (pronounced inexplicably in the lost tongue of the High Middle Ages), an "award-winning game of entitlement, self-discovery and brunch," there are five resources available: coffee, vinyl, bicycles, skinny jeans, and kale. All of which sound like reasonably life-enhancing additions, but when combined with a tableful of flannel-wearing gits, such as those portrayed in the video below, set on engineering the perfect endless brunch, the whole picture begins to grate like the line outside Egg on a Sunday morning. So the best thing to do may be just to roll with it, which is the idea behind this quick video sendup from snarkmeisters Above Average.
Watch the full video here

City Living

April 7, 2016

POLL: Do You Prefer Starbucks Over the City’s New Cafes?

It was announced yesterday that Starbucks is opening its largest store in the world in the base of Rafael Viñoly’s forthcoming Meatpacking District building at 61 Ninth Avenue. The 20,000-square-foot facility will be a Roastery-branded store, “part of a push to bolster growth with larger locations that offer experiences to customers,” reports Crain’s. The decision may be due to the […]

City Living

March 15, 2016

First Look at Austere East Harlem Tower Set for 1790 Third Avenue

Foundation and groundwork is making headway for an upcoming rental tower at 1790-1792 Third Avenue in East Harlem. Here's our first look at the IBI Group-Gruzen Samton-designed building that will bring some 95 new rentals to the block, where it will be the tallest structure, rising 13 stories and encompassing 48,377 gross square feet of space. The rather austere design features a gunmetal-grey facade, a single setback at the ninth floor, and south-facing lot-line windows that are allowed because the developers secured the adjacent building's air rights. According to the approved permits, there will be an ambulatory facility and commercial retail space at the ground floor, and residential amenities will include a roof deck and bike storage. Some upper floor units will have views overlooking the tree-filled Cherry Hill Playground, the recently rehabilitated El Barrio's Artspace PS109, and the East River.
More ahead

March 14, 2016

One-Cent Coffee Stand Fed Hungry New Yorkers Back in the Day

By Rebecca Paul

The corner coffee cart is a well-known part of New York City's landscape, but it may have been first actualized as a much more charitable endeavor. Back in 1887, the first one-cent coffee stand for poor New Yorkers opened on Ann Street off Broadway. Standing in front of City Hall's high-octane newspaper offices of Park Row, St. Andrews One Cent Coffee Stand served a half-pint of coffee with milk sugar and a slice of bread for just a penny.
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History

March 9, 2016

First Look At Harlem’s Baldwin Condominiums, Inspired By James Baldwin

In a corner of Harlem hemmed in by a steep ravine within Jackie Robinson Park and the Harlem River, a residential enclave is undergoing a renaissance. Among a string of four recently finished sale buildings, a seven-story, six-unit condominium has begun work at 306 West 148th Street, between Bradhurst Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Conceived by Bottom Line Construction & Development (no comment), the 10,000-square-foot building is to be called The Baldwin after the eminent Harlem-born novelist, poet, playwright and social critic, James Baldwin. Channeling the author's spirit, the condo will capture in its residences "the sophisticated details and artistic flare of contemporary Harlem living."
Find out more

March 8, 2016

A Travel Pillow Inspired by Massage Chairs; New Yorkers Really Like to Sit By the Subway Doors

Mapping the hidden rivers of Brooklyn. [Harper’s] Inspired by portable massage chairs, this inflatable travel pillow rests on the seat-back tray so you can rest your head facing forward. [Contemporist] An eight-part podcast called “There Goes the Neighborhood” will focus on Brooklyn gentrification. [Bed Stuy Blog] According to a survey of 7,000 subway riders, New […]

Uncategorized

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

$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

February 25, 2016

Lottery Open for 77 Affordable Units for Seniors at Dattner Architects’ Van Cortlandt Green

It's been widely noted that New York has an ever-growing population of low-income elders, and a new affordable housing project in Riverdale seeks to address the issue. Designed by Dattner Architects (who are also behind the Bronx's huge West Farm Redevelopment Plan), the brand-new building at 6469 Broadway is known as Van Cortlandt Green and overlooks the park. It will offer 77 studios for $832/month for those age 62 and older. They're available to one person earning between $26,430 and $36,300 annually and two persons earning between $26,430 and $41,460, according to the NYC HDC.
Find out how to apply

Affordable Housing

City Planning Commission Approves Controversial East New York Rezoning Plan in 12-1 Vote

Map of proposed rezoning via Department of City Planning

February 25, 2016

City Planning Commission Approves Controversial East New York Rezoning Plan in 12-1 Vote

The New York City Planning Commission voted 12-1 in approval of Mayor de Blasio's controversial rezoning plan for East New York, Gothamist reports. It's the first of 15 low-income neighborhoods scheduled for rezoning as part of the Mayor's affordable housing plan, which promises to create or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing. The City Council is scheduled to vote on the rezoning this spring. As part of what is known as Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), rezoning plans for East New York's Cypress Hills neighborhood and adjacent Ocean Hill in Bed-Stuy would have 7,000 new apartments built by 2030, 3,447 of which will be designated affordable, in addition to one million square feet of commercial space. Of those affordable units, 80 percent would be reserved for families (defined as a household of three, with any number of earners) making no more than 60 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), or $46,000; 27 percent would go to families making 40 percent of the AMI or $31,000.
Find out more

February 19, 2016

Reasonably Priced Condos at NINE52 in Hell’s Kitchen Hit the Market, Starting at $679K

After years of decay, the second building of the old Saint Clare's Hospital in Hell's Kitchen has been reborn. Named NINE52, due to its address near Ninth Avenue at 416 West 52nd Street, the seven-story red-brick structure has been rehabilitated into 155 affordably-priced condominium homes. Seven units at NINE52 hit the market earlier this week with asking prices starting at $679,000 for 450-square-foot studios, $859,000 for 725-square-foot one-bedrooms, and $1.319 million for an 875-square-foot two-bedroom. According to CityRealty's February Market Report, the median price-per-square-foot for closed condominium sales in Midtown West over the past 30 days stood at $1,833, a bit above the $1,603-per-square-foot asking prices at NINE52.
Get a look at the apartments

February 6, 2016

Weekly Highlights: Top Picks From the 6sqft Staff

Anne Hathaway Buys $2.55M Upper West Side Co-op De Blasio to Announce $2.5B Brooklyn-Queens Streetcar Line Maya Angelou’s Historic Harlem Brownstone Lists for $5M Bjarke Ingels Is Designing a $50M NYPD Station House in the South Bronx They Paved Washington Square Park and Put Up a Parking Lot For $23 Million You Can Be Donald […]

Uncategorized

Bronx Rail Yards Could Become a $500M Mega-Development

Concourse Yard, via Zach Summer/YouTube

February 3, 2016

Bronx Rail Yards Could Become a $500M Mega-Development

Back in September, Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr. put forth a plan to transform an abandoned stretch of rail tracks in Mott Haven into a Lowline-style park. There hasn't been much in the way of updates since then, but now Diaz is turning his sights to another set of tracks, this one much larger and in the northwest Bronx. The Real Deal cites findings from the borough prez that claim the MTA's Concourse Yards, a 19-acre open-air subway depot, could be decked over to yield two million square feet of development rights, resulting in a mega-project like Hudson Yards. At an estimated cost of $350-$500 million (Hudson Yards cost $800 million by comparison), the project would require no rezoning and would be "a real opportunity to not only provide much-needed homeownership, mixed-income housing and retail space, but to allow Lehman College to expand by better connecting it to the Bedford Park neighborhood and making it a true community campus," according to Diaz's report.
More details

RKTB Architects Design Two New Affordable Housing Buildings in the Bronx

824 Saint Anne’s Avenue (L) and 345 Saint Anne’s Avenue (R); courtesy of RKTB Architects

February 3, 2016

RKTB Architects Design Two New Affordable Housing Buildings in the Bronx

Yesterday, the architecture world was abuzz with newly released renderings of Bjarke Ingels' NYPD station house in the Bronx. Nearby, a couple of other buildings are set to rise, and though they may not have the same starchitect cachet, they'll certainly attract some attention for the fact that together they'll offer 269 units of affordable housing. Designed by RKTB, the architects behind our favorite castle conversion at 455 Central Park West, the buildings are planned for Saint Anne's Avenue in the South Bronx, and their designs illustrate how far the city has come in raising the aesthetic quality of government-funded housing.
Find out all about the projects here

January 31, 2016

A New York Minute With Urban Revitalization Consultant Majora Carter

By Alyssa Alimurung

6sqft's new mini-series A New York Minute features influential New Yorkers answering spitfire (and sometimes very random) questions about their life in the big city. Want to nominate yourself or someone you know? Get in touch! The last time we checked in with Majora Carter she was spearheading a proposal to turn Spofford Juvenile Center in Hunts Point into mixed-income housing—but that's just a kernel on her resume. Majora is an urban revitalization strategy consultant, real estate developer, and Peabody Award winning broadcaster. Her 2006 TEDtalk "Greening the Ghetto," was one of the first six videos to ever appear on TED's website, and in it she passionately describes her solutions for environmental equality in the South Bronx. Now, fast forward ten years later, and she's still pushing for green infrastructure projects in her beloved neighborhood. We recently caught up with Majora to find out some fun facts, including what she loves, hates and would change about New York City.
Majora's NY minute this way

Where I Work

January 29, 2016

Interactive Graph Compares L Train Commute Times and Rents With Other NYC Neighborhoods

We're hearing lots of anguish and anxiety over the possibility of an L subway shutdown for repairs for as long as a year or more, and we've taken a look at some possible solutions. Now, we've asked the real estate data geeks at NeighborhoodX to go a little deeper beneath the grumbling to find out just how much convenience can be had along that thin grey line, and how it stacks up against other neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. So which other neighborhoods offer commute times similar to the L train stops—and—just as important when choosing a neighborhood–how do their rents compare? And if you're living along the L, in light of the shutdown, what neighborhood alternatives do you have in the city that provide a similar commute?
Find out here

January 17, 2016

A New York Minute With Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

By Alyssa Alimurung

6sqft's new series A New York Minute features influential New Yorkers answering spitfire (and sometimes very random) questions about their life in the big city. Want to nominate yourself or someone you know? Get in touch! With the somewhat-recent arrivals of The Bronx Brewery and Trump Gold Links at Ferry Point, as well as talks of a Lowline-style park and bringing back streetcars, it's no wonder Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. has described the borough as "The New Bronx." Though BP Diaz has only held his position for about seven years, he's a lifelong Bronxite, and he's taken some time out of his busy schedule to chat with 6sqft about what his life has been like in the Boogie Down.
BP Diaz's NY minute this way

Where I Work

January 6, 2016

$1.4M for a DIY Duplex on a Heavenly Hell’s Kitchen Block

Tucked into the top two floors of 521 West 47th Street, a 1910 co-op loft building that was once a commercial bakery, "Penthouse C" is a package deal priced at $1.4 million consisting of units #3C and #4C and the roof space above them. The listing calls it an "Extremely rare and exciting 'once in a lifetime' chance to combine two authentic lofts plus the corresponding roof space to create your own 3-4 bedroom 3 bath penthouse," though that may take some doing; in their current form, the two spaces offer two different flavors of loft-y bohemian charm.
Check out this unique space

Distinctive Homes

Automat by Berenice Abbott, 1936

January 4, 2016

Horn & Hardart Automats: Redefining lunchtime, dining on a dime

In the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s Automats were a New York City dining staple for a hard-working lunch crowd, a modernist icon for a boundless machine-age future. At their height there were over three dozen in the city, serving 800,000 people a day. And nearly everyone who actually experienced Automats in their heyday says the same thing: They never forgot the thrill of being a kid at the Automat. Created by Joseph Horn and Frank Hardart in Philadelphia in 1902, coin-operated Automats were lovingly-designed Art Deco temples to modern efficiency. Sleek steel and glass vending machine grids displayed sandwiches and main dishes as well as desserts and sides, each in their own little boxes, square and even, clean and well-lit. You put a coin in the slot, opened the door and removed your food—which was reportedly quite good, as the founders took terrific pride in their craft.
What was it about the experience that made for such a lasting memory?

December 30, 2015

Attractive New Bushwick Condo Rises on One of Brooklyn’s Ugliest Streets

It's rare to see a new development in Bushwick with any kind of style and grace, but a recently finished six-unit condominium at 27 Dodworth Street actually looks like some thought went into it. Even more remarkable is that it manages to do so on what is probably the most unfortunate looking street on the eastern seaboard. So breathtakingly ugly in fact that it could be thought of, by some, as chic. And as it turns out, buyers have shelled out up to $1 million for condos along this gritty stretch near the Bed-Stuy-Bushwick border.
See the good, the bad, and the ugly

December 24, 2015

See How Much Central Park Has Changed Since the ’80s in These Before-and-After Photos

In 1980, the Central Park Conservancy was formed as a nonprofit organization to manage the park under a contract with the City of New York and the Parks Department. As 6sqft noted in a previous interview with the Conservancy, they're made up of "gardeners, arborists, horticulturists, landscape architects, designers, tour guides, archeologists, a communications team, and even a historian," all of whom help to maintain the park as the gorgeous urban oasis we know and love today. But before this, the park faced countless political and economic stressors, and without a central body to oversee it, entered a state of disrepair and neglect. It culminated in the '80s (as the Conservancy worked on a plan for its rehabilitation) with barren patches of land, graffiti tags, and dead plants. Since it's hard to imagine Central Park in such a state, the Conservancy has provided these incredible before-and-after photos that show just how far the beloved space has come.
See all the photos here

History

December 17, 2015

Colorful and Quirky Four-Bedroom With Pre-War Charm Asks $775K in Hamilton Heights