Mayor Bloomberg's townhouse clearly has a certain magic to it. The five-story Beaux-Arts building at 17 East 79th Street boasts 7,500 square-feet of living space (even more if you include the floors of the neighboring buildings he has been annexing) and is so nice the billionaire from Boston has continued living there rather than move into the over-chefed Gracie mansion. But living in an Upper East Side townhouse does have its hardships. Like when the elevator isn't up to snuff and gets an "unsatisfactory" rating. more ›

Nothing quite captures the unique essence of geriatric rock 'n' roll like KISS. They have perfected the art of rock-band-as corporation, whether they're ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange in celebration of Dr Pepper's 125th anniversary, or helping their fans die in dignity with the Kiss Kasket. They should just go ahead and change the word to "klassy." But one former member of the KISS family isn't so keen on letting musicians rock out in an Upper West Side townhouse. more ›

The Landmark Preservation Commission is making an example out of one Upper West Side homeowner. The 19th-century Queen Anne-style mansion at 12-14 West 68th Street is in an area that was landmarked in 1990, but sometime in 2005 the owner at the time, Polly Cleveland, received a permit from the Buildings Department to add one floor to the five-story structure. This was completed in 2007, but Cleveland has since moved out. Arthur Minerof is the current owner, and he's now been told the sixth floor has to be torn down. more ›

Back in 2008 Brooke Shields purchased a four-apartment Greek Revival townhouse on West 10th Street in the West Village. At the time, Curbed noted it was "going to take some serious work to combine into a single-family mansion, but Brooke Shields is up to the challenge." Flash forward to today, when the Daily News reports that her neighbors are fed up with construction, which starts around 6 a.m. every morning and has been going on for months. more ›

Demonstrators are suing the city after the NYPD rejected their application to protest charter schools and school closings directly in front of Mayor Bloomberg's Upper East Side townhouse. The plaintiffs claim the NYPD "unconstitutionally and without any legal basis" denied their application to march single file on both sides of 79th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenue on Jan. 21. "Our voices haven't been heard, so we thought that the best way for the mayor to hear us would be for us to take our voices to his block," said protester Julie Cavanagh. more ›

Click on the images for more details on truffle specials at Bottega Del Vino, Sapori D'Ischia in Queens, Marea, Gilt, Scarpetta, David Burke Townhouse, and Craft. more ›

For too long bacon lovers have cursed both the darkness and their deceptive, maddeningly inedible, bacon-scented candles. Who hasn't raised a bacon-scented candle to their lips and tried to drink the savory-smelling wax, only to be badly burned by the meretricious aroma and nauseating flavor? more ›

Exuberant chef David Burke is no longer involved with Hawaiian Tropic Zone, and that's probably for the best, since he's had his hands full with plenty of other projects anyway. Last fall his sustainable seafood restaurant Fishtail opened on the Upper East Side to favorable reviews, and his restaurant at Bloomingdale's continues to give shoppers the sustenance they need to keep our economy afloat. Burke, who first made a splash at the River Café in Brooklyn in the '80s, has recently finished changing up his other serious venture in the neighborhood, which opened in 2003 as "davidburke & donatella." Restaurateur Donatella Arpaia is no longer involved (the partnership is said to have ended amicably) so it's now simply called David Burke Townhouse, and has reopened with a new menu after renovations. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg really likes his space! The NY Times reports that the billionaire who lives in a 5-story "flawless Beaux-Arts limestone with 7,500 square feet of exquisite living space" at 17 East 79th Street, has been "been buying up space in the building next door, knocking down walls and combining two entire floors along the way." more ›

Her punk band would have likely had her waiting in the breadlines with the rest of us, but it's safe to say that since its release, Norah Jones has made a pretty penny off her 2002 debut album Come Away With Me. So a little (epic) financial crisis certainly isn't going to stop her from throwing down millions on some Brooklyn real estate. Brownstoner reports on the Cobble Hill home, a 4,100-square-foot circa 1843 townhouse that Jones paid $4,990,000 for (allegedly barely below the asking price).The site also notes the "killer" parlor floors and the not-so-killer nouveau-Tuscany vibe in the kitchen—which actually sort of screams "adult contemporary"! more ›

The Observer takes a look back at the old days of 18 West 11th Street. The townhouse between 5th and 6th Avenues in Greenwich Village has a sordid history involving the Weatherman organization; "On March 6, 1970, five members of the radical Weather Underground accidentally detonated dynamite at a makeshift bomb factory in the basement. The bombs were, according to rumors, destined for a military compound in New Jersey and for Butler Library at Columbia University." The explosions leveled the townhouse and killed three group members. Meanwhile "residents of the neighboring building, including actor Dustin Hoffman and his family, never returned to their homes." These days, the stigma attached has warn off, one realtor selling a nearby townhouse noted, “They don’t care about a building’s history...They just care if it’s pretty.” Not everyone thinks the reconstructed No. 18 is pretty, however, one passerby said, “It doesn’t fit in the face of the neighborhood at all. That forceful geometric shape is too modern in a bad way.” [Photo cred.] more ›