The great Alphabet race

We waited until last night to wade through the cover story of the real-estate section in the Post... A piece on "Alphabet City" titled "Love Letters." It's the usual blather about how expensive the East Village is getting, how people luck out and find a $4,000 apartment, etc.

In any event, we learned a few tidbits about projects that we've been watching...

• For instance, 316-318 E. Third St. — the 33-unit Karl Fischer jobbie — "should be finished in the fall of 2013."

• The empty lot across the street at 321 has been sold. We've seen some activity at the location...

David Amirian, co-principal of the development firm for 316-318, told the Post "that a deal was in the works for the empty lot directly across the street by a developer."

• Amirian also that "another project adjoining his (with frontage on Avenue D) is going to be a rental with both market-rate and affordable units."

That development will be going at this now-empty field on the northwest corner of Avenue D at Houston.

This is what that field looks like now...

This is what the corner looked like at the start of demolition in July 2008 ...


This is what was in the works a few years back, as for reported on by the Lo-Down ...

And why the popularity in the East Village? To the Post...

"Inventory is so limited and so many people want to be in the neighborhood," says Elizabeth Kee, a broker for Core who lived in the neighborhood in the early 2000s. "Never in our wildest dreams did we ever imagine [prices would be this high], but it's a simple supply and demand curve."