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May 14, 2008
Wednesday Blogwrap
B65 Bus Stop, For Now. Photo by threecee.
The 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate [NYO]
At the Food Co-Op, the Politics of Tap Water [City Room]
Clinton-Washington Neighborhood Patrol [Clinton Hill Blog]
Toll CEO: Bklyn Sales 'Faded' [Curbed]
Party for Coney [Runnin' Scared]
Best Burger? [Ditmas Park Blog]
Closing Bell: Windows on Windsor Terrace
A reader sent in this photo she snapped of a window display at Windsor Terrace's Simone condo. What to make of it? GMAP
Brownstoner Bits: The Devil Hangs at Moutarde, And More...
Lights, Camera: Yesterday the cast and crew of "Julie & Julia", a flick about Julia Child starring Meryl Streep and directed by Nora Ephron, was rolling tape outside Moutarde, on 5th Avenue and Carroll Street in the Slope. Anyone spot Streep?
House of D: The controversial proposal to reopen and expand the House of Detention on Atlantic and Court is going to be discussed tomorrow afternoon at a budget hearing in the City Council Chambers. Dept. of Corrections Commissioner Martin Horn will submit testimony from noon to 12:30. An email that's circulating from the plan's opponents says community members are expected to show up in full force to protest the jail's reopening.
Columbia St. Demo: L&M Equity is tearing down a building on Columbia Street, according to Lost City. The developer intends to build more than 170 units of housing near Columbia and Warren.
The New Gowanus: Per GL, The Dept. of City Planning is going to give an update about the effort to rezone about 25 blocks in Gowanus on May 29.
Hey, at Least One Person Digs the Carroll Gardens Atrocity
Pardon Me for Asking spotted a great advertisement Channel 4 spot from a program called "Open House TV" that features 45 3rd Place, aka the Carroll Gardens Atrocity aka the Carroll Gardens Bastard aka the Carroll Gardens Tumor Building. In the program, above, a current resident of Carroll Gardens is looking for a bigger pad in the neighborhood, and she almost does cartwheels while touring a unit at 45 3rd (sample quotes: "beautiful, beautiful"; "the angels are singing!"; "it's everything I want!"). (FYI, they're now trying to sell the two duplexes as a single residence.) PMFA has the following commentary on the show: "Obviously, she did not buy the place, otherwise, it wouldn't be on the market anymore...Pardon me for asking, but why did they need a car to go from one place to the other? The distance from Ms. Stewart's house and the two condos is ridiculously close. What a waste of gasoline." You know, when the angels are singing, it's tough to worry about the little stuff, like gas usage.
Desperately Seeking Buyer For 45 3rd Place! [PMFA]
45 Third Place Open House: Yuck! [Brownstoner]
Condos of the Day: No Buyers for 45 Third Place [Brownstoner]
A Current Look at Third Place Horror Show [Brownstoner]
Price for CG Atrocity a "Fantasy" [Brownstoner]
Real Photos of Carroll Gardens Bastard [Brownstoner]
Carroll Gardens "Bastardization" Hits Market [Brownstoner]
CG Atrocity: There Goes the Neighborhood [Brownstoner]
Streetlevel: Former Galapagos Space Plays Naming Game
As previously reported, the former Galapagos space in Williamsburg is being taken over by some new folks. There was also talk that the venue's fresh blood was going to call it "Natural Selection," which, as it turns out, is not the case. "That name was just sort of a joke," says Matt Roff, who is also one of the people who runs the show at Southpaw and Franklin Park. Roff says he and his investors, who include Mike Palms (also of Southpaw), Larry Hyland (one of the people behind Greenpoint's Matchless), Ted Mann (of Smith Street's Camp and the Slope's Bar 4) and Mike Esposito (also of Camp and Bar 4), can't decide on a name, so they've started a "Name Our Space" contest on the web. If you come up with the name that the new owners eventually go with, you'll get a $1,000 bar tab and free admission to the space for a year. Roff says he and his partners intend to upgrade the venue's sound system and "keep the programming that works," like Galapagos' burlesque nights. "We're getting rid of stuff like the puppet shows," says Roff. The venue's transition is going to start taking place in the next couple of weeks, says Roff, who notes that the plan right now is to have free DJ parties in the front space most nights of the week and then to have additional programming that comes with a cover charge in the back room.
Name Our Space [70 N. 6th Street] GMAP
Last Week's Biggest Sales
The sale of one of those bank-breaking Carroll Gardens listings was recorded last week—for almost $1 million less than it was originally asking.
1. CARROLL GARDENS $2,550,000
78 3rd Place GMAP (left)
3,100-square-foot, three-story, 23-feet-wide brick house. When featured as House of the Day in January, it was asking $3,495,000 and one of a new crop of super-pricey Carroll Gardens listings. As noted in March, the asking was reduced to $2,700,000. Deed recorded 5/9.
2. GREENPOINT $1,975,000
538 Graham Avenue GMAP (right)
According to StreetEasy, this 4-story townhouse was listed at $2,200,000 in January. Multi-residential building with eight units, six of which rent for market-rate and two of which are set to become destabilized. Deed recorded 5/8.
3. FORT GREENE $1,470,690
One Hanson Place GMAP
Deal was for unit 16BC at the landmark former Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower. Deed recorded 5/7.
4. WILLIAMSBURG $1,427,990
51 North 8th Street GMAP
Unit 4D and a parking space at the North 8 condo. Deed recorded 5/7.
5. DUMBO $1,375,000
100 Jay Street GMAP
Closings at J Condo keep coming in. This one's for a 22nd-floor unit. Deed recorded 5/5.
Photos from Property Shark.
NYCHA Funding Shortfall Could Mean Dark Days for Projects
City Hall News reports that the New York City Housing Authority is looking at a $200 million budget shortfall this year, which some officials say is likely to result in worsening conditions at public housing. “You see the conditions they're living in and the problems they're going through,” says Council Member Rosie Mendez (D-Manhattan), who chairs the Council's Public Housing Committee, “and you're sort of helpless in trying to rectify the situation.” Last year NYCHA had a $168 million budget deficit. As federal funding for the projects has dried up, so too have city and state dollars. In recent years NYCHA has laid off thousands of employees and cut hundreds of millions of dollars from its operating budget. Some public housing advocates say that the city uses the projects as a "cash cow," collecting millions every year for things like police services. Although there have been rumors that some of the city's public housing stock would be sold off to private developers, Nicholas Dagen Bloom, an assistant professor at the New York Institute of Technology and author of "Public Housing That Worked: New York in the Twentieth Century," says that's probably not going to happen. “It's not likely the program will be privatized,” he says, “but there will be structural changes in the way it operates to reflect current conditions, which is higher costs.” The are currently more than 400,000 residents of public housing in the city, and rent averages $320 a month for tenants who earn, on average, $20,000 a year.
The City's Own Looming Housing Crisis [City Hall]
HUD Official Speaks the Unspeakable: Selling The Projects [Brownstoner]
Politicians Can't Back Sell-The-Projects Idea [Brownstoner]
Photo by bondidwhat.
Park It, Slope: Alternate-Side Regs Tossed 'Indefintely'
It's good to be a Sloper. Especially, nowadays, one who owns a car. The Department of Transportation is suspending alternate side of the street parking in the neighborhood starting this Monday, according to a post on Gowanus Lounge. The suspension will be in effect "indefinitely" for the area from Pacific Street to 15th Street and from 4th Avenue to the park, or until the DOT changes the neighborhood's signs so they reflect new regulations that cut restricted parking periods down from three hours to 90 minutes. GL reports that similar suspensions are on tap for Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook. The big question right now, probably, is whether this is going to mean a very dirty summer for Park Slope curbs.
Alternate Side Parking Suspended in Park Slope [Gowanus Lounge]
Photo by redxdress.
Wednesday Links
Waterfront sunset. Photo by ChivoJudas.
Senate Approves $350 Million in Projects for Economic Development [NY Times]
Profit Dips at Whole Foods Market [NY Times]
Charter School OK'd for Slope [NY Sun]
Hospitals Face Fund Cuts [NY Post]
Union Hall Meeting Tonight [Gothamist]
May 13, 2008
Tuesday Blogwrap
South Slope. Photo by Heather-D.
Real World Really Coming to Brooklyn [Curbed]
Toll Brothers Launch a Gowanus Website [GL]
Courier Life, We Hardly Knew Ye [Brooklyn Junction]
Illegal Duplexes at Atlantic & Court? [Cobble Hill Association]
2 Storefronts on Van Brunt [Lost City]
Fairway Expands to the Bronx [Crain's]