Today the Department of City Planning launched a pretty neat series of interactive maps covering the waterfront in all five boroughs. The maps include 224 publicly accessible waterfront spaces, comprising approximately 200 linear miles of shorefront public parks and other publicly accessible spaces on private property. (27 of these sites are under construction or in the planning stages.) Here's how it works, according a statement from the Planning Dept: more ›

A woman used to have to move to Alaska to find herself the center of attention of an overwhelmingly male population; now she just has to move south of Chambers St. According to an article in the New York Times, residential development of lower Manhattan and a booming financial sector economy have resulted in a population that is heavily skewed towards men.

Since 2000, men, mostly between ages 25 and 44, have accounted for more than three-fourths of the population increase in Lower Manhattan. As a result, according to a special census calculation, the sex ratio there increased to 126 men per 100 women in 2005, from 101 men per 100 women in 2000. In the rest of Manhattan, and in the city over all, there were only 90 men for every 100 women. more ›

Willie Neuman points out an interesting conundrum in today's Big Deal (third item). If a developer with a known history of building oversize and then biting the cost in sheer profits comes into your neighborhood and makes a play to build an oversize building there, what do you do? What if the property in question is an enormous pit? That's exactly what has happened in Borough Park where Mendel Brach, a specialist at the 'we'll build extra and just say teachers will live here' style of building development, is asking the city for a variance to build a 12-story building and 259-car parking garage at 886 Dahil Road in Borough Park, specifically over the area on the other side of the supermarket parking lot in the aerial shot above.

Neighbors said the abandoned building had been a scourge for years, attracting the homeless and people who illegally dump trash. A violation issued by the Buildings Department last Tuesday was taped to the gate, citing hazardous conditions and ordering the owners to clean up the building, shore up a weak wall and secure the entrances. It was the second such violation since the developers bought the building.