As Stuyvesant Town gets ready for foreclosure, a judge has ruled that current owner Tishman Speyer and past owner MetLife must pay back tenants retroactive rent rollbacks. The Rent Stabilization association's counsel was unhappy that the definition of "retroactive" wasn't determined, because "Do the rollbacks go back one year? Four years? Ten years?" more ›

Four years after buying the middle-class housing complex in what was deemed the most expensive deal in real-estate history, the owners of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village are giving it over to their investors. Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty bought the 11,227 apartment development in 2006 for $5.4 billion, but since then its value has decreased to a third of that, estimates the Wall Street Journal. Facing bankruptcy, the real-estate giants see no option but to hand the keys to their investors. more ›

In 1960, big shot restaurateur Joe Baum opened La Fonda del Sol, making a huge splash with what was then a novel concept: the "theme" restaurant. Though the chef was Swiss, the cuisine was South American, served in a kitschy setting replete with an adobe hut for a bar. Fast forward to '09, and a new restaurant with the same name is opening in the MetLife Building, with Colombian-born chef Josh DeChellis at the helm. more ›

Pet-owning tenants of eight buildings in the Bronx are distressed over letters recently sent out by the South Bronx Management Company, who took over the buildings that were once owned by the city. The letters point out that leases prevent the keeping of pets in the building and threaten that if tenants don't get rid of their animals, they will be evicted. This sounds like a case for the pet lawyers! more ›

A reader who works across the street from Grand Central wrote in saying "I just went downstairs and saw cops, fire, ConEd, and people said a transformer blew up in the station." It appears Grand Central is fine, however the Met Life Building is on fire! From BNN:

FIRE ON THE 10TH FLOOR OF A METLIFE BLDG.| FIRE ON 10TH FLR TRANSORMER VOLT ROOM OF A 59 STY BRICK BLDG more ›

In an effort to cut power consumption and adopt a more green profile, some New York City office towers are making use of a somewhat archaic air conditioning system: blowing air over giant blocks of ice. WNBC reports that financial firm Credit Suisse is using such a system to cool its offices in the Met Life tower off Madison Square. The basement of the building houses three main cooling rooms with "chilling machines and 64 tanks that hold 800 gallons of water each." more ›

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Hmm, Met Life is thinking about selling Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Maybe it's logical that the complex, which has been trying to upsell their renovated apartments to tenants with bigger bank accounts, would be on the block, because there's only so much Met-Life can probably take from tenants of both the rent-stabilized and market rate kind. And we expect tenants to go nuts if the building is sold - we wonder how lease rights will be handled. Hilariously, someone from an investment bank emailed us to ask us if we had any information about the buildings to aid in "research." All we can say is that if i-banks are researching deals on blogs,we're putting our money in pumpkins futures - they should peak around Christmas. Check out the official Peter Cooper Village Stuyvesant Town site for market rentals and the Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association website for information. more ›

Remember kids, before you head out partying or go to sleep tonight try to remember to set your clocks . more ›

A judge ruled that Met Life can start moving towards a photo ID system for residents at Peter Cooper Village, BUT residents won't be barred from the building if they don't have a photo ID. Huh? This is like King Solomon cutting the baby in half, because Gothamist can just imagine some serious clashes between tenants without IDs and the management. This judge's order will stand until April 14, when the entire case is more fully addressed. The tenants had filed a suit, claiming that needing to have their photographs on ID cards was invasive - and dangerous if their Social Security numbers were put on them as well. more ›