Price for Novogratz-designed penthouse keeps falling; and see-through balcony arrives

Back in February, we wondered what those thingamajigs things were above the garage at 238 E. Fourth St., the fancy new six-level home...



Well! Now we all know... they hold up the see-through balcony...





Meanwhile, the magazine-ready two-floor (plus deck!) penthouse that Bob and Cortney Novogratz designed here will now cost you less... the PH was listed by Corcoran in March at $3.75 million... Last Thursday, the PH was reduced by $200,000 ... Here's the pricing history via Streeteasy:

03/10/2010 Listed by Corcoran at $3,750,000.
04/08/2010 Price decreased by 9 percent to $3,400,000.
04/21/2010 Price decreased by 6 percent to $3,195,000.

So the price has fallen 15 percent in less than two months... Perhaps that Novogratz name had prompted some inflated pricing at the outset... Naaaah.

E2E4's private, gated drive gets plowed

Or at least shoveled yesterday morning for those residents who likely don't live here yet.



Perhaps enough room for a toy car.



On Saturday, the 15-stories of condo at East Fourth Street and the Bowery were starting to feel a little homey.



Previously.

Ta-da: It's Tonda

Signage appears at the recently shuttered E.U. on East Fourth Street near Avenue B.



As Eater noted, Tonda will be an Italian trattoria and pizza place...and work appears to be going on behind the papered windows...

What's doing at 72 E. Fourth St.?

As we noted early last month, one-story structures in the neighborhood seem to be an endangered species. (And Jeremiah reported last month that Jam Envelope & Paper's one-level storage space is history.)

So I was curious to learn more about the now-familiar scaffolding around the single-level structure at 72. E. Fourth St. (Between Second Avenue and the Bowery.)



Turns out to be an interesting project. In October 2005, New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) purchased the vacant building -- a former New York City storage facility -- “as is,” from New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development for $1.

According to the NYTW Web site, the site will be "a new scenery, costume and prop workshop. Construction is scheduled to begin in the winter 2008 and be completed in 2009. The facility will be designed and built using sustainable design principles and widely accepted LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) standards, optimizing comfort and health benefits to its employees. Manufactured materials with recycled content will be used, and wood produced from sustainably harvested forests will be used exclusively."



By the way, the day I walked by, there was a "stop work order" slapped on the front dated Nov. 25.