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January 27, 2007
If you illegally sublet your apartment - or are an illegal subletter - watch out! The NY Times has a spooky article about the growing business of investigating illegal sublets. One private investigator says with rents skyrocketing, it's now makes economic sense for landlords to pay detectives to investigate. The Times chats with some private eyes about scenarios they've investigated. One woman who had a $1,500 rent-regulated West Village apartment was found in South Dakota... [continue]
| January 26, 2007
Hoorah! The Brooklyn Paper reports that 94 year old Dominick Diomede has found a new home. Diomede was evicted by his Carroll Gardens landlord, because he didn't have a lease - he had been living there for two decades, based on the verbal agreement he had with the previous owner. Now, Diomede will move into one of non-profit Fifth Avenue Committee's subsidized apartments on Warren Street. A Good Samaritan stepped in with $2,000 for another... [continue]
January 21, 2007
For decades East Harlem has been the center of New York's Puerto Rican community. Over the years many Mexican and Dominican immigrants have also made East Harlem their home. Now, as the squeeze of affordable housing gets tighter and tighter in Manhattan, more middle-class professionals are moving to the neighborhood. In a tale almost as old as New York itself, the changes have long-time residents worried about the loss of community. The Times describes... [continue]
Remember Dominick Diomede? He's the 94-year old man that was about to be evicted from the apartment that's been his home for the last twenty years. There was quite a discussion on our comments after Gothamist wrote about his plight. Diomede was to leave the apartment by January 22nd, but a good Samaritan has come forward with $2000. The money will allow Diomede to stay in his current apartment until the end of February while... [continue]
January 18, 2007
It's official: Barclays Bank has bought naming rights to the Brooklyn Nets' future arena in the Atlantic Yards project. Naturally, there's a website: Barclays Center - Planned Home of the Nets. Cute how it says "Planned," right? And this map showing how all routes lead to the "Barclays Center" is pretty funny. We noticed a few things on the site. Three Nets players were highlighted: Vince Carter, Nenad Krstic, and jersey-popping Richard Jefferson. There's... [continue]
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January 16, 2007
With the record setting $5.4 billion sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village to Tishman Speyer last year, many residents suspected that the new owners would shake things up. But we doubt few tenants would have anticipated the rent increases sent in lease renewal papers. The NY Times speaks with some tenants about their sticker shock. The verdict? A lot of people are moving out. Check out these rents and the increases: - Two bedroom... [continue]
January 14, 2007
Jerry Seinfeld sure has come a long way from being a struggling stand-up comic to trying to avoid paying a real estate broker her commission! Seinfeld and his wife Jessica say that when they called their broker Tamara Cohen to see a townhouse on West 82nd Street, she didn't pick up her phone. But it turns out the Cohen is an observant Jew and was observing the Sabbath. Here are some details from the NY... [continue]
January 12, 2007
We have a nominee for the "Worst Landlord Ever (This Week)" after reading a sad story in the The Brooklyn Paper. Ninety-four year old Dominick Diomede was interviewed about his real estate plight: He is being evicted from the Carroll Gardens apartment he's lived in for years. Diomede, you see, pays just $500 a month for his floor-through apartment on Woodhull Street. His downstairs neighbors? They came much later, so they pay $2,500. Unlike them,... [continue]
January 11, 2007
Wow. The NY Times reports that Broken Angel owners Arthur and Cindy Wood have agreed to (1) dismantle part of the roof at 4 Downing Street and (2) to "share ownership [of the building] with a local developer, Shahn Andersen, who would turn most of the building into condominiums." Broken Angel would have living and studio for the Woods, plus "some form of community space." While Arthur Wood, who designed the building, would have... [continue]
January 7, 2007
At the end of the year, Brownstoner found out that the beautiful, strange and controversial Broken Angel building was being marketed by a local real estate brokerage. Some people have questioned the situation, because owners Arthur and Cindy Wood had enlisted the help from the public to fight the Department of Buildings crackdown (the DOB said the fanciful structure was unsound), and now it looks like the property originally bought for $2,000 may be... [continue]
January 5, 2007
The hard-hitting polemical film, Brooklyn Matters, lucidly articulates and amplifies the movement to stop Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan. Directed and produced by Isabel Hill, the film portrays the AY project as an outrageous scam to be perpetrated upon hoodwinked Brooklynites. Numerous interviews with critical residents, planners, critics, and elected officials portray a scenario in which a cynical developer and corrupt State agencies have hired gullible community allies and a star architect to conceal... [continue]
January 3, 2007
We've been following a debate about leaving Park Slope pretty avidly. On Christmas Day, writer Douglas Rushkoff blogged about being mugged the night before while taking out the trash on his Park Slope street. Getting a knife pushed into your ribcage now and again is just part of the price we pay to live in a city, and New York is supposedly one of the safer of the bunch. But I have to admit, it... [continue]
Real estate pundits are calling the downturn in the New York residential real estate market, as the NY Sun reports, a "soft landing" versus a "bubble burst." Apparently the fourth quarter was pretty good for some real estate brokers! What happened? Real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller, who prepared a report for Prudential Douglas Elliman (one of three reports released yesterday), said there were less properties on the market and sellers were setting realistic asking prices.... [continue]
January 2, 2007
Food for thought: The Sun says that Brooklyn Heights restaurant Palmira's has closed at the end of 2006, making it the seventh restaurant to fail at the 41 Clark Street space since 1982. That a 3.43 year life span for restaurants, but apparently Palmira's had been literally struck by lightning in 2003, "forcing the restaurant to spend its first two years hidden beneath scaffolding." Ouch. One of the problems with the space is that there's... [continue]
Two months after Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village were sold by MetLife to Tishman Speyer for a record-breaking $5.4 billion, an epic review of the deal by Charles Bagli of the NY Times ties up loose ends and brings several underlying issues into sharper focus. Reading between the lines: The purchase is highly speculative. "Financial leaps of faith" about StuyTown's future value inflated the bidding well above a more soberly estimated price tag... [continue]