While walking through midtown, who among us does not occasionally think, "Jeez, this place sure could use some more skyscrapers?" Well, developer Gary Barnett, of Extell Development Company, has been paying attention to your innermost thoughts. Barnett is gearing up to start construction in the next three weeks on a $1.3 billion skyscraper on 57th Street that will overtake Trump World Tower as the tallest residential building in the city. more ›

With Gov Paterson accused of improper conduct regarding the Aqueduct slots, his top personal aide—who was recently a subject of the Times’ “Bombshell” expose—is struggling to explain a football vacation funded by an NYC businessman. According to the Post David Johnson’s hotel bill, tickets to a Giant-Cowboy game and plane trip to Dallas (he flew coach) were all paid for by affordable-housing developer Jonathan Coren. By law, elected officials and their staff aren’t allowed to accept gifts from parties who seek their good graces. more ›

Is there anything gazillionaire developer Joe "Coney Island Grinch" Sitt can't turn to crap with a wave of his gold card? Having finished holding the Coney Island amusement district hostage, Sitt's dreaming up the future of Red Hook, where he owns land between the Ikea and the Fairway. Both were controversial additions to the sleepy, cobblestone waterfront, which was most recently besieged by the cast of MTV's The Real World. Sitt's latest idea for a neighborhood so full of potential and diminishing returns? Dorms, dude. more ›

Opponents of the Atlantic Yards project have tried to halt the mega-project with murals, lawsuits, and protests. On Wednesday, they'll try a new technique: arresting Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner. Following the closure of a Prospect Heights homeless shelter last week to make room for the $4.9 billion arena and high-rise development, a group of anti-Atlantic Yards activists announced that they will make a citizen's arrest of Ratner, according to Curbed. more ›

Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour is simply not pleased with a developer's plan to build a condo in her Greenwich Village neighborhood. She put pen to paper (official Vogue letterhead, to be exact) and wrote a letter to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, calling the project "a totally out-of-scale, inappropriate eight-story building" and an "unwelcome intrusion." According to the NY Post she wrote the letter in February 2009, but just last week sent an appeal to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. more ›

Another attempt to get New Yorkers across the Hudson! One company is claiming there's a "Mass Exodus to New Jersey Underway" in their new web ad. Headlines on their fake newspaper warn of tax increases in NYC, saying, "Your governor is trying to tell you something: Leave." But where should you go? A Jersey City residential and commercial development, of course — located on the same plot of land that, in the early 1980s, New York City officials described as a "toxic waste dump." [via CityRoom] more ›

The Bloomberg administration made another offer to developer Joe Sitt yesterday to buy roughly 10 acres of Boardwalk property, which the city would like to designate park land for an amusement district. Negotiations between Sitt and city officials have been stalled since November, when the developer shrugged off a $110 million offer; it's believed Sitt spent some $93 million acquiring the land, and hopes to flip it for twice that. So you can imagine how he responded to yesterday's $105 million offer, which was less than what the city previously floated, and based on declining land prices in Brooklyn. Speaking to City Room, Sitt's lawyer sarcastically remarked, "We won’t talk to them until they come down to $100 million." more ›

The cast iron facades, high ceilings, and wide-open floor plans that made the neighborhood so desirable as a place for artists, and later well-heeled residents, are rooted in SoHo's industrial past. It was a neighborhood of factories and manufacturing. That era has passed, however, and after more than a century in business, John De Lorenzo and Bro., Iron and Sheet Metal Contractor closed their shop this week. It will be converted to a building housing luxury condos. more ›

As rescuers pick through the rubble of buildings crushed and damaged by a crane collapse in midtown Manhattan yesterday, real estate developer James Kennelly was familiar with the scene because he served 13 years with the FDNY, where he had been assigned to Ladder 16 in Manhattan on East 67th St. more ›