Photograph of Stuyvesant Town by Marianne O'Leary on Flickr The turmoil at Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village continues, as behemoth real estate developer Tishman Speyer Properties, is flushing out rent-stabilized tenants who it believes do not live in Stuy Town-Peter Cooper anymore. It's an old refrain: Tishman claims many tenants are subletting their apartments and abusing the system, while tenants say the developer is harassing them in order to lease the apartments to market-rate tenants--average......

Photo of Stuyvesant Town, by nrvlowdown at flickr Tishman Speyer, the real estate company that bought Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.4 billion in 2006, is going on a landscaping binge at the sprawling housing complex. The company plans on planting approximately 200,000 plants across the property's 80 acres, including 10,000 trees and more than 3,000 shrubs. The net effect on one resident was that it feel as if she were in......

One month's free rent! Pets allowed! These are some of the new strategies from Tishman Speyer for its market-rate rentals at Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village complex. Which is a far cry from its past as a complex where building workers would be rewarded with $150 gift certificates if they narced on pet-owning tenants. The Post reports Tishman Speyer, which bought the development for $5.4 billion in 2006, is facing 5-10% vacancy rates, while the average......

An appellate court ruled this week that a 71-year-old woman could remain in the West Village apartment she shares with her two cats, despite a no-pets clause in her lease. Siiri Marvits has lived in the same apartment for 43 years and has had her two cats Athena and Apollo for more than ten years. The Daily News reports that according to the New York City Law Journal, a landlord must begin eviction proceedings within......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a double shooting/possible homicide on Greene St. in Brooklyn, a shooting at Wyckoff Ave. and Starr St. in Brooklyn, and another shooting at East 51st St. and Church Ave. in Brooklyn. An appreciation of Jewish Delis in New York City. To avoid the widespread use of pesticides on its acres of grounds, real estate firm Tishman Speyer released 720,000 ladybugs around Stuy-Town and Peter Cooper Village. The ladybugs will......

The New York Times looks at the man behind the Mayor's deliberate non-run for the Presidency. Kevin Sheekey is a 41-year-old political consultant, who defers to his boss, but is taking a good amount of the credit for putting the billionaire's dollars to good use in an unofficial campaign for President. As the Times describes it, Bloomberg is criss-crossing the country attempting to gain support and not campaigning in public. In private, Sheekey has been......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a found grenade(!) at Sedgwick Ave. and Depot Pl. in the Bronx, a child abduction on 8th Ave. and 150th St. in Manhattan, and a person struck by a train on 103rd St. and Roosevelt Ave. in Queens. A New Jersey State Police report concluded that the unauthorized use of flashing emergency lights by his driver didn't cause Governor Corzine's near-fatal crash, but it did contribute significantly to the......

With the $5.4 billion purchase of the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village apartment complex by Tishman-Speyer, some longtime rent-stabilized tenants have been worried about whether they will be able to stay. Well, now tenants are complaining that Tishman-Speyer has been spying on them. Some residents have received non-renewal letters, with Tishman-Speyer explaining that since the tenants do not use their Stuy Town-Peter Cooper apartment as a primary residence, then their lease can be over. The......

Cabbies are worried about their safety after robberies on the Lower East Side The city's problem-laden high schools for pregnant girls are closing; check out this article about how one student was facing the difficulties of her school, which included teachers not showing up and student fights Culturegrrl speaks with William Griswold, the future head of the Morgan Library, who actually left the Morgan a few years ago, with stings at the Getty and......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A crime scene at the East 69th Street and 2nd Avenue Eckerd Pharmacy in Manhattan, a building facade collapse on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, and a hazmat situation at Cornell Medical at York and East 69th The city wants to do repair work to buildings that need it - and charge the landlords - in legislation proposed by the City Council and supported by the Mayor and other housing......

It looks like some advances in technology are causing some problems at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. The $5.4 billion complex of buildings is replacing all its regular old keys with fancy electronic key-cards - in the case of Peter Cooper Village, the cards are already being used. The Post reports that Stuy Town residents could be using the new key system as early as next week. This is somewhat of an issue for......

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......

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......

What do slumlords, apartment-seekers, and big real estate developers around the city have in common? Not much. But the latest debate in City Hall should have all of them closely watching the reforms of 421-a, a bill that will decide the future of New York City’s affordable housing policy and long-term housing stock if passed by the state legislature. City Council members will vote tomorrow on reforms to a bill originally designed to provide tax......

Maybe the new black is actually selling huge middle-income housing complexes. The NY Times reports that the 140 acre Starrett City apartment complex in Brooklyn is up for sale. And who's the broker? Why the firm of CB Richard Ellis, which handled the $5.4 billion sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village to Tishman-Speyer. From the NY Times:The complex, whose owner changed its name in recent years to the more chic-sounding Spring Creek Towers, is......

Bwahaha! Crain's New York reports that the monster $5.4 billion deal Met Life made to sell Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village to Tishman Speyer could be derailed by a "little-known provision." Apparently the provision says MetLife cannot make more than a 6% annual profit on the complex! From Crain's: Trautman Sanders, a law firm representing the tenant group that lost its bid to purchase the complex, discovered the condition in a 1942 agreement with New......

Yesterday, it was announced that Tishman Speyer's $5.4 billion bid for Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village was successful, making it the largest real estate deal in history. But what's interesting is that the second bid from Apollo was $5.33 billion. We wonder if Apollo executives are "What if"-ing right now. The bid organized by tenants to preserve middle-class housing was $4.5-4.9 billion - well behind the other bids - and City Councilman Daniel Garodnick, Peter......

Breaking: Tishman-Speyer, the real estate concern that controls Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building, the Lipstick Building, and much more around the city and world, was the winning bidder in the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village sweepstakes. The NY Times' Charles Bagli writes: Mr. Speyer and his partner, the Blackrock investment bank, outmaneuvered nearly a dozen bidders, including a group aligned with the tenants at the complexes who hoped to preserve what is fast becoming a......

The City Council has introduced a bill to stall the sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village. At the end of August, MetLife announced it would seek bids for the 110 building complex that spans 80 acres in Manhattan, with an ideal asking price of $5 billion. The sale sent tenants of STPCV into a frenzy, worrying about their status there, as well as advocates for affordable housing, as all signs point to developers taking the......

Yesterday, the City Coucil held a hearing to discuss the sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village. And while tenants of the complex were there, Met-Life, who hopes to sell the parcel of land and buildings for $5 billion, was not. Metro reported that Met-Life's chairman sent a statement:We are deeply concerned that some members of the City Council and other public officials view our decision to review our strategic options with regard to our......

-- "I loved my baby!" cried the young mother of the 4-month-old who drowned in a bucket of her mother's vomit to the Judge. -- A 33-year-old man was stabbed on a 2 train between Union Square and 23rd Street around 3 AM this morning. He is currently in stable condition, police are still looking for his attacker. -- The city is asking reservists to return their Iraq pay. -- Over $29 million for......

There's a wonderful feature on department store Lord & Taylor by Toni Schlesinger in the Observer today. Earlier in the summer, it was announced that the Lord & Taylor chain had been sold to an investor group including the folks that backed the Time-Warner Center; though the deal isn't finalized yet, when Schlesinger wonders if condos could be built on top of the 424 Fifth Avenue location, lead investor Richard Baker says, "Yes, we could......

There may be some high-flying developers and investors interested in buying Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, but the underdog bidders to capture the public's heart of the sale might just be the tenants of STPCV themselves. Really: The Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association reports that tenants are interested in forming an investor group to make a bid. A tenants-investor group would try to preserve stability for tenants - both market rate and rent-stabilized. Now, how......

As news of what could be the biggest real estate deal in history spread, residents of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village - and the rest of New York City - wondered what this could mean for the real estate market. Though selling the 110 building complex and changing over ownership of all the units would probably take years, questions about what Mayor Bloomberg will do about the city's housing policy arose, as well......

After many stories about Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village rents getting crazy expensive and apartments being marketed as "luxury residences," it's official: Met Life is wants to sell the 110 building complex for $5 billion. The NY Times has the bombshell, and many issues are raised, including who will buy it (a team of developers? Dubai money? banks?), a new owner will probably want to make it a "luxury enclave," and where will......

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......

Today, the NY Sun tackles the emergence of "luxury rentals" at Stuyvesant Town. Yes, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village are trying to be "Luxury Town/Village," but the Sun finds that the "1947 plaque proclaiming 'the vision' by which 'families of moderate means might live in health, comfort, and dignity in park like communities' has been taken down, though by whom is an open question." But more shocking than the transformation into higher-end rentals,......

Rent stabilized tenants are bracing themselves for tonight's Rent Guidelines Board meeting where the board will most likely vote for a hike. Expect things to get incredibly noisy tonight! Actually, we imagine the basement of Cooper Union might implode from the feelings of self-pity, anger, and entitlement from both sides. The rent increases owners are asking for is 8%, because of higher gas prices and real estate taxes. And not only that, owners may also......

As usual, Thursday morning finds us trolling the Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association bulletin boards, looking for tasty morsels of real estate gossip. Today's find was a doozy-- one of the tenants posted a note asking for people to anonymously post their rents, and a frenzy of revelation ensued: I'm paying nearly $2600 for a renovated one-bedroom on a high floor. I am paying $3,200 for a 2br and wondering what I......

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......