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Others followed his lead, and Greenwich Village, with its emerging bohemianism and stock of older, decaying houses, became a center of reimagined quaintness, typically with pastel stucco fronts, studio-type windows and tile roofs.

Exhibition Review - 'Traveling the Silk Road' - Camel-Speed Information Highway at Museum of Natural History - NYTimes.com

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NYC Silk Road

It is some 4,600 miles long and takes at least half a year to traverse. And it passes through regions whose temperatures range from minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit to more than 120.
And the point of it all, particularly during the era focused on here — from the years 600 to 1200

03 Nov 09

Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags (We Have Come Full Circle) - Jeanette DeMain - Open Salon

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schmatta NYC garment district history manufacturing decline

24 Oct 09

Bloomberg Sets Record for Personal Spending in Pursuit of Public Office - NYTimes.com

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Bloomberg NYC

22 Oct 09

Op-Ed Contributors - A Battery Park Bargain - NYTimes.com

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NYC Housing Battery Park

Court Deals Blow to Owner of Manhattan Apartment Complexes - NYTimes.com

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NYC Appeals Court decision Housing

In a majority ruling (two of the six judges dissented), the court said the owners improperly raised rents beyond certain set levels at the complexes while receiving tax breaks from the city for major renovations.
The decision could also affect landlords of as many as 80,000 apartments across the city who may also have improperly raised rents and deregulated apartments while receiving special tax breaks.
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- And “if the statute imposes unacceptable burdens, defendants’ remedy is to seek legislative relief.”
- Shortly after the Tishman Speyer partnership bought the complex in late 2006, nine tenants of seven apartments in the complexes filed suit claiming that the landlord had improperly charged market-rate tenants for thousands of apartments while collecting more than $24 million in tax breaks since 1992 under the city’s J-51 housing program.
- The program was intended to encourage landlords to rehabilitate their properties by providing tax breaks on the cost of various building improvements or renovations.
- There are about one million apartments with regulated rents in New York City. Over the past two decades, landlords have lobbied successfully to loosen those restrictions. Under state law, landlords can deregulate an apartment when the rent for a vacant unit reaches $2,000 or more per month, or the rent is above $2,000 and a tenant’s household income is above $175,000 for two consecutive years.
- Landlords are also allowed to pass along a portion of the cost of major renovations to the tenants. At Stuyvesant Town, for instance, the landlord routinely spent about $40,000 renovating vacant apartments and as a result was able to impose a $1,000 a month rent increase. As a result, the total rent would exceed the $2,000 threshold and the landlord was permitted to charge market rates.

20 Oct 09

When Love Is a Schlep - NYTimes.com

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NYC Housing schlep

15 Oct 09

An Apartment Complex Teeters - WSJ.com

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realestate NYC commercial Housing

Investors who bought into the deal were confident that real-estate manager Tishman Speyer would be able to greatly boost profits by raising rents in Manhattan's sizzling apartment market. But today, the 56-building, 11,000-apartment property is suffering from a slowing New York economy, a lawsuit that has hindered the owner's ability to convert rent-controlled units to market rentals, and the debt load.
Realpoint estimates that the property is worth only $2.1 billion now, less than half of the purchase price.
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- Commercial mortgage-backed securities -- the kind that financed a chunk of the Peter Cooper-Stuyvesant deal -- are high on the list of concerns. Some $700 billion worth of CMBS were issued during the boom years but they have never been tested by a protracted downturn.
- But even a victory by the Tishman/BlackRock partnership likely won't save the deal from a default. One indication: a "special servicer" is in the process of taking over the deal's CMBS debt, say people familiar with the matter. Special servicers are experts in dealing with troubled loans. The transfer to the special servicer, CW Capital, could occur as soon as this month, the people said.
- Major players in these talks will likely be Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together own more than $1.5 billion of the most highly rated, triple-A slices of the CMBS debt, according to people familiar with the matter. They would likely benefit from a fast foreclosure because, as senior lenders, they would be paid back first.

Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending - NYTimes.com

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NYC libraries digital reading

About 5,400 public libraries now offer e-books, as well as digitally downloadable audio books. The collections are still tiny compared with print troves. The New York Public Library, for example, has about 18,300 e-book titles, compared with 860,500 in circulating print titles, and purchases of digital books represent less than 1 percent of the library’s overall acquisition budget.

As New York Adds Housing for Poor, Market Subtracts It - NYTimes.com

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Housing NYC

It has already financed the creation or preservation of 94,000 units, including 72,000 for low-income households, city officials say.
But those efforts have been overwhelmed by a far larger number — the 200,000 apartments affordable to low-income renters that New York City has lost during the mayor’s tenure.