Wow - yet depressingly not surprising: The Port Authority will have to pay World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein $300,000 for every day past December 31, 2007 that it does not turn over a part of the WTC site. The payment could be as much at $13.5 million or as little as $9.3 million. more ›

On the heels of its land use committee's vote last week, Community Board 9, which represents West Harlem, voted to oppose Columbia's ambitious plans to develop a 17-acre area in West Harlem. However, as the Columbia Daily Spectator explains, CB9 did offer "ten specific conditions" that Columbia must agree to before the community board will give their approval. more ›

Last month, when hundreds of tenants had to be evacuated from apartment buildings following the collapse of the retaining wall at a neighboring construction site, people suspected that the new development's dynamite blasting may have caused the collapse. Now, the City Council is proposing to dramatically limit the time builders can use explosives at sites. more ›

Architectural firm Kohn Pederson Fox has drawn up plans for the new JPMorganChase building that will arise near the southeast area of Ground Zero. It involves an interesting integration with the rebuilt St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. The 40-story tower will include seven cantilevered trading floors that will extend from the tower and cover the diminuitive church. more ›

So this is how borough presidents wield power: Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has flexed his BEEP muscles by dismissing five members of Brooklyn's Community Board 6 - and their common quality was that they were vocal opponents of the Atlantic Yards project. And City Council members David Yassky and Bill DeBlasio also didn't reappoint four other members who opposed the massive $4 billion project that has been the source of community tension. Gowanus Lounge calls it "The Atlantic Yards Saturday Night Massacre." more ›

We've known that Westchester enclave Bedford Hills was pretty ritzy, but we had no idea that one of its appeals was an S&M "dungeon" run out the basement at a $3 million estate! Not only that, the dungeon master, "Mistress" Sandra Chemero was renting the place from an "ultra-Orthodox" yeshiva. Oy vey! Naturally, the school served her with eviction papers. more ›

When you shell out $5.4 billion for thousands of apartments in Manhattan, some of them rent-regulated, clearly the next course of action is to oot out the illegal subletters. The NY Sun reports that private detective Fred Knapp has been hired by Tishman-Speyer to find out if tenants are violating rent stabilization rules. more ›

Weird stuff is happening with the Department of Transportation. First, the head of the bike program, Andrew Vesselovitch, left the DOT last Friday, and his farewell email pointed some serious criticism of the DOT. From Streetsblog:

There is much more that the bicycle program could have done than it was allowed to do. The bicycle program, for example, could have produced plans for 40-50 miles of workable bicycle lanes each year. Instead, DOT installed little more than 15 miles, total, in the last two years. We could have saved the city settlements for lawsuits (and residents injuries) resulting from the puzzling addition of unusually high expansion joint covers on the Williamsburg Bridge. I brought this to bridge's attention in 2003 and was told by Michael Primeggia butt out.

As the dust has literally settled from what used to be a four story building at 34 East 62nd, the rather sordid and sad story of the building's owner, Dr. Nicholas Bartha, emerged. Bartha seemed to have blown up the building in a suicide attempt and a lasting effort to make sure his ex-wife wouldn't get the $5 million house in a settlement. After a judge had ruled that the landmark house should be divided and split as part of the his divorce settlement with Cordula Bartha weeks ago, a sheriff's deputy served Bartha with eviction papers on Friday. And their marriage seemed tumultuous - one judge felt Bartha "intentionally traumatized" his wife, a Holocaust survivor, with swastikas and more. The Times linked to the divorce ruling that gave partial ownership of the building to Mrs. Bartha. more ›

At a press conference today, Frank Gehry revealed new designs for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards development in downtown Brooklyn, and The Real Estate has lots of images and quotes from the event. Such as how Gehry named the tallest building the "Miss Brooklyn" after a bride he saw while walking in Brooklyn, saying "She's a bride with her flowing bridal veil--I really overdid it. If you had seen the bride you would--I fell in love with her." And much will be made about Gehry's general comments about Brooklyn: "We're trying to understand what is Brooklyn, what is the body language of Brooklyn and trying to emulate it without copying it. Copying it would trivialize it." Wait a minute - doesn't a massive development literally trivialize other parts of Brooklyn? more ›

In 1978 Barbara Corcoran borrowed $1,000 from a boyfriend and set up a real estate company. That company grew at a dramatic clip and was sold to NRT Incorporated for around $70 million in 2001. And now, in 2005, Barbara Corcoran whose name is nearly synonymous with the current real estate bubble is leaving the company that bears her name. Starting November 15 Corcoran is going to be devoting herself full time to her burgeoning television personality. In the long run this probably means next to nothing, but in the short term you can expect a blizzard of stories about what her exit means to the bubble. more ›