Former governor Eliot Spitzer is really working on the next chapter of his life. When not pundit-ing on talk shows, being discussed as a 2010 candidate, or teaching at City College, he's working at the family biz, his dad's multi-million dollar real estate empire. Now it's been confirmed that Steamroller himself oversaw a pricey Manhattan real estate transaction.
An attendant at a parking garage at University and 12th Street is lucky to be alive, but he'll be even luckier to get his job back after driving a 2009 Mercedes SUV out a 5th floor window yesterday. The owner of the garage thinks the attendant was confused by the vehicle's new-fangled steering wheel gear-change buttons and may have pressed "R" for reverse, instead of "D" for drive. The result was a two-story fall down onto the roof of an adjacent building, which the attendant survived with only minor injuries. The Mercedes, however, is totaled; a blogger for Style Rumor happened to be shopping nearby and has photos of the wreck. As of this morning, what's left of the car was still stuck behind the garage, and police sources told Fox 5 they may need a crane to hoist it out...which means this could get a lot worse before it gets better.
A huge cruise ship was so eager to get to Manhattan this morning that it actually slammed into the island. The Norwegian Spirit--which is a boat belonging to Norwegian Cruise Lines--apparently took a turn too wide and rammed into Pier 90 at 50th St. and 12th Ave. Typical out-of-towners: they never know how to drive in the city!
William Davila surrendered to the police this afternoon, three days after his estranged wife was found stabbed to death in the front of his car on the Lower East Side.
Last night, a woman was found dead in a SUV which was parked on the second floor of an Essex Street parking garage. The woman, identified as 39-year-old Leonida Davila, was slashed in the throat. Her body was wrapped in a blanket, in the front passenger seat.
After stalling their landlord’s attempt to build a parking garage in their courtyard next to the BQE two years ago, tenants and other community activists are still fighting the proposal. Built in 1890, the Riverside Apartments at Columbia Place and Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights were regarded as a great advancement in tenement living. Located near the Columbia Place docks, the nine buildings were unique for their running toilets, common courtyard, ventilation, and fireproofing, something unheard of for tenements at the time.
Fifteen years ago today, a truck packed with explosives detonated under a tower at the World Trade Center. While it failed to knock down the towers (the parking garage suffered the most damage), six people were killed and over a thousand injured.
Last decade's decrepit property along a foully polluted industrial canal is just next decade's prime waterfront lots, ready for development by one the nation's premiere luxury homebuilders. The Gowanus Lounge uncovered a "scoping" document filed with the Department of City Housing by the Toll Brothers construction company. The early renderings portray a spread of mixed-use development between 2nd and Carroll Sts. and bounded by Bond St. and the Gowanus Canal itself.
Over two years after a jury found it negligent for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Port Authority continues to fight that claim. The NY-NJ agency and lawyers for the victims face the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court to argue their sides.
Back in 2006, an agreement signed the day construction started for the new Yankee Stadium promised the team would pay $1.2 million a year in cash and in kind to a fund benefiting Bronx residents for 40 years. It was a gesture to make up for the inconvenience during construction and loss of parkland the new stadium was costing the neighborhood. After a year and half, none of the money has been distributed - and it's unclear who will be distributing it, if ever.
Yesterday morning's rain caused a recently installed sewer main to burst, flooding the basement and parking garage of a Battery Park City luxury apartment building. Water levels reached up to 20 feet. Not only were car owners greeted with news that their vehicles were either submerged or floating on top of sewer water, hundreds of tenants at 90 West Street were evacuated. Fire officials explained that, per WNBC, "rain flooded a re-routed sewer pipe,...
Three men were stabbed during a fight at a Midtown parking garage early Sunday morning. They were apparently in town for a birthday celebration at Mars 2112, but got into an argument with another group, made up of at least five men and two women, while waiting for their car at the Central Parking Corp at 810 Seventh Avenue. It's unclear what the fight was over, but 1010 WINS suggested that the groups had clashed...
It's finally come to this. The lights of the Great White Way have gone dark in a dispute between the theater stagehands of Local One and producers and theater owners. The labor dispute which has been simmering for months and left the stagehands without a contract for an equal time, resulted in a shutdown of Broadway shows on the verge of the theater district's most profitable season. The stalemate came to to a head after...
A 19th century Greek revival building on Pearl Street – the road that formed the oyster shell strewn border of New Amsterdam in the 17th century – will soon be torn down, according to the A.P. The former warehouse at 213 Pearl was built in 1831 and was integral to what Ric Burns calls “the first district in the world devoted exclusively to commerce.” Once the city approves the permit, demolition could start as early...
The Real Deal (via Brownstoner) is reporting that, according to a recent court ruling, the city is taking two Williamsburg properties via eminent domain for Bushwick Inlet Park. The properties are located along the East River between North 9th and 10th streets. According to one real estate expert, the city will only pay about $100 per square foot, compared to the $200 per square foot it could garner on the open market, even though the owners are entitled to the fair market value. The Real Deal doesn't delve into why.
A number of buildings with a possible connection to Brooklyn's abolitionist past and the Underground Railroad may be razed to make way for a public park and an underground parking garage. The commuter daily amNewYork reported yesterday that the Duffield Houses are slated for replacement by a public park along the lines of Manhattan's Bryant Park, mixed-use residential and commercial development, and the expansion of local colleges. Opponents to the plan include Lewis Greenstein, who owns the building at 233 Duffield St., which was built in 1847 and allegedly played a role in helping escaped slaves make their way to Canada. (Good coverage of the issue at Duffield St. Underground.)
New York University is reaching out to placate New Yorkers whose parking is disrupted by incoming students by paying to place cars in garages. An annual headache for New York residents is NYU's move-in day, when thousands of students arrive in the city en masse to take up dorm life at one of the school's many residences. Streets are blocked off as parents line up car after car, many pulled onto the curb itself. NY1 quotes a West Village resident who describes the situation as not chaotic, but "a lot of commotion."
For your daily dose of amusement/ outrage/ disbelief at the city we live in, the NY Times has an article about apartment buildings selling private parking spaces for as much as $225,000. Seriously.
If parking at the Onyx Chelsea, a new 52-unit condo at 28th Street and Eighth Avenue, is any indication, there is plenty of demand. The first two spots sold for $165,000, the third for $175,000 and the last two for $195,000. Each space will include about $50 in monthly maintenance costs. Still, there are three buyers on a waiting list.
Another strange, upsetting tale from the club district: According to the police, a 25-year-old woman was dragged from a West 15th sidewalk into a parking garage where she was raped last month. The Post reports that the woman, who was walking along, had dropped her cellphone, and when she "stooped to pick it up, she lost her balance, slipped and passed out" right outside a parking garage.
That's when 24-year-old suspect Juan Castilla - an employee of the garage - allegedly saw his opportunity. According court records, he hauled the woman into the garage and put her inside a limousine parked there.Continue reading "Bizarre West 15th Street Rape"
Remember all the excitement surrounding the BAM Cultural District around, oh, 2001? Well, the NY Post is reporting that the previous plan for a theater and arts library has been expanded to include a dance studio, public park, museum and gallery, underground parking garage and residential housing.
Cities are scenes for epic sci-fi battles. The MTA’s Robo-train has now met its first galactic rival: Robo-lot. This month the city will spawn its first robotic parking garage at 123 Baxter St. in Chinatown, a completely automated system allowing drivers to park their vehicles on a platform that transports it to an underground facility storing up to 67 vehicles. That this parking lot requires no parking attendant makes us feeble humans scratch our mortal heads.
For those of you with a car, here's a handy site. NYC Parking Garage shows daily and monthly rates for many many garages in Manhattan. You can find garage by selecting a neighborhood, putting in an address, picking a cross street, or choosing an attraction. And then type in when you're parking your car and voila, you'll get a map and list of the different rates.
A man who allegedly pointed a loaded pistol at police was shot in the legs last night in Queens. A sergeant and two officers began following a man after he was seen acting suspiciously near the Queens Center Mall, according to the Times. The plainclothes cops gave chase in an unmarked car when the the suspect began to run. The chase continued on foot until the suspect ran into a parking garage on Junction Blvd at 59th Avenue.
Here we go: Rapper Fabolous now says that he had nothing to do with the unlicensed guns (or car, for that matter) in the car that took him to the hospital. Fabolous had been shot in the leg after an evening at Justin's, and three friends drove him to Bellevue, only to run a red light and have the police stop them, search the car, and find two unlicensed guns in a secret compartment. So the police arrested Fabolous and friends - though Fabolous was able to get treatment for his wound. The rapper's lawyer Alberto Ebanks explained, “If any car had pulled up and offered him a ride to a local emergency room, he would have jumped in. He was in the back seat bleeding profusely.” However, the NY Times reports that the 2005 Dodge Magnum he did jump into was registered to Fabolous's production company - Ghetto Fabolous, Inc.
Rapper Fabolous was shot in the Flatiron District this morning. Fabolous is now in stable condition, after being shot in the thigh, - and he's under arrest as well. WABC 7 reports that a fight had spilled out from Justin's Restaurant (which is owned by P. Didddy), and the shooting occured in a parking garage nearby. The reports have been a little confusing, but it looks like after Fabolous was shot, three of his friends put him in a car to take him to the hospital. But they ran a red light at Third Avenue and East 22nd Street, and the police pulled them over and found two unlicensed, loaded weapons. Fabolous did make it to Bellevue Hospital, as charges are pending against him and his friends.
The hell that is parking in our city remains one of the top reasons why we still haven't gotten our license. Our friends cursed with cars regularly bitch loudly of the nightmare that is finding a place to put one's car. If there are no spaces on the street, one has to use a lot and they certainly ain't cheap. This summer has seemed especially bad for driving in the city and we can think of at least two friends who have used the non-existence of parking as their excuse for getting rid of their cars entirely (and that's not even getting into our friends who simply refuse to bring their cars anywhere near Manhattan). But maybe the problem isn't as bad as we thought. Maybe, like so many things in Gotham, one just needs to know where to look.
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.
While Wal-Mart decided not to build a store in Rego Park last year, the NY Sun says the behemoth retailer working on surround then attack approach by opening up stores in just outside the city limits Last month a store in Kearny, NJ opened, and next up is one in White Plains that will be an "urban model." As in an urban model with "design elements that could be incorporated into a New York City store." Huh, does that include uncensored DVDs and controversial music or books? Here's what the store will be like:
The 179,731-square-foot Wal-Mart is split onto two levels, underneath a six-floor parking garage where customers can park for free if they spend more than $5. Special escalators will transport shopping carts between floors.Continue reading "Wal-Mart Continues to Eye NYC"
Yikes! Two women got into a fight at a Midtown nightclub and one took her stiletto heel and hit the other woman on the head with it. Stiletto heels are total weapons, so it's not surprising that Jessica Miller was charged with felony assault; the Post says the maximum term is 25 years. The incident occured at Corner 51 and the victim, Vicki Herrera, needed two staples for her shoe-related wounds.
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