Grand opening for 52E4!

I see. It's for the business next door to the 15-story condo on the Bowery at Fourth Street. Seemed odd to spend $89 gajillion dollars on a condo and 39 cents at the 99-cent store on a "grand opening" sign.

52E4 gets some stairs

Whoa, look up in the sky! Atop the 15-floor condo on the Bowery between Third Street and Fourth Street...what will be 52 East Fourth Street (home to Moby!) some day...




Stairs! That lead where?

The ghost in you: Looking at 215 Ave. B

I continue to keep tabs on 215 Ave. B at 13th Street. I stop by and take photos every few weeks. This is how it looked Sunday afternoon.




Curbed has the details on the Copper Building, home once to the Roberto Clemente Center community clinic and, before that, a grocery store.

When I was taking these shots a month or so ago, this couple walked up behind me. The man, hipstery in his late 20s, says in my direction, "Who in the fuck would want to live there?" As if maybe I was taking photos as a potential buyer! Hey get your own blog!




No information just yet one how much one of the 17 units will cost (from studios to two bedrooms). But you will have prime views of the the Housing Authority's Campos Plaza just a few hundred feet due east...







Here's how it looked last Sept. 7.

Taking a look at 52E4, and where the Moby mobile may park

I've been trying to avoid the construction hell on the Bowery between Third Street and Fourth Street, the stretch that will soon be home to the new 52 East 4th Street -- feel free to refer to it as 52E4 here on out!




Now that the construction has quieted down a bit, it's time to revisit the spot and enjoy exactly what's going up in this luxurious 15-story condo. The promo photos, previously available on the 52E4 Web site, are up for the unwashed masses to see. Let's take a look!



You have your roof deck and pool and, as various commenters have pointed out, no Cooper Square Hotel blocking your Midtown views...



And whatever this is.



And this is the best: The parking spot, where soon-to-be-tenant Moby will keep it real and park his Moby mobile.



Not sure exactly where the parking spaces will be kept. I'm assuming on East Fourth Street then...?





Anyway, the 59R2ERW site has more details. And images.



For further reading:
Another Bowery tower (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Taking another look at Clinton and Stanton: Where's the synagogue?

Just a few follow-up items from my Remembering 172 Stanton St. post from yesterday...First, thanks to commenter KMC for the link to the photo below of what Clinton and Stanton used to look like...



Then, something was bothering me about the artist's rendering of what the corner will look like soon courtesy of the new million-dollar condo 32 Clinton...



This is what it actually looks like as of yesterday...something's missing from the artist's version and reality...



It's the historic synagogue at 180 Stanton Street...I don't see that in the artist's version...it's replaced by what looks like a fancy new building.



I hope the artist doesn't have any kind of inside information...

Report: 43.1 percent of East Village sellers have cut their asking prices (for real estate, not drugs)

The Daily News reports today on StreetEasy's latest assessment of the Manhattan real-estate market...(Curbed had this yesterday.) The Daily News break it down:

Manhattan neighborhoods with the most price cuts
These neighborhoods have seen the highest percentage of sellers cutting prices from quarter three to quarter four 2008:

Beekman - 50.6% of listings cut prices
Manhattan Valley - 45.7%
East Village - 43.1%
Central Park South - 41.9%
SoHo - 41.7%

I dunno...still seems to me like the time I was dragged to a Barney's Warehouse Sale...$950 sweaters were on sale for $600!

What's doing on at the northern end of Avenue B?

Been keeping my eye on the new development at 215 Avenue B at 13th Street that was once home to The Sylvia del Villard Program of the Roberto Clemente Center. The outpatient clinic was taken down in less than a week in September 2007. As Curbed reported in May, this site will be home to really-out-of-place-looking digs designed by the Stephen B. Jacobs Group, who did the Gansevoort Hotel, among many other things. (Oddly enough, I don't see this project listed anymore on the Jacobs Group Web site.) Whatever is going in here, it seems to be happening quickly. It appears as if another level is completed every time I walk by. Which is fairly often. The two shots were taken just a few weeks apart.

And workers have even been there in the early evening hours.



Meanwhile, I can't help but notice how many empty storefronts line Avenue B from 12th Street to 14th Street. I counted six. Or maybe seven. And I'm just thinking of some of the bigger names that have come and gone, like Sonic Groove at 206 Avenue B (Sonic Groove is online only now) and Luca Lounge at 220 Avenue B. And that lingerie shop that sold bras next to the coffee shop B Cup. (Heh.)

Condo bender

Where oh where to begin. From the Times today:

Here’s one mistake that stressed out financial workers may want to avoid right now: Don’t get so drunk over the bear market that you dial up your broker and buy a luxury Manhattan condo on a boozy whim.

But Kipton Davis, a Prudential Douglas Elliman broker from Virginia, thinks a little bourbon could be good for sales.

Just as a few drinks may coax timid traders onto a dance floor, it could help them muster the courage to buy multimillion-dollar apartments.

That’s why on Wednesday night, Ms. Davis lured a half-dozen bankers, traders and friends on a condo tour of four TriBeCa buildings by offering wine and whiskey at every stop.

“Alcohol brings everyone together,” said Ms. Davis, after showing the group a $9.9 million penthouse at 16 Warren Street with an eight-seat hot tub. As the crowd debated whether they valued the hot tub over the layout of the $2.25 million unit downstairs, they sipped Chardonnay and a Chinon.

But they did not deliberate for long. There was tippling to be done. The pack headed to a $3.3 million bachelor loft at 132 Duane Street, where they were greeted by another Elliman broker, Francine Hunter McGivern, and a small spread.

“Have some food. Don’t be shy,” Ms. McGivern said.

They helped themselves to chicken satay and samosas and washed the snacks down with Sancerre wine, and Lagavulin ($77 a bottle) and Talisker ($60 a bottle) whiskeys. They sipped and listened while Ms. McGivern stressed that her client, a banker, did not need to sell. He will hold out for a buyer willing to pay for his meticulous renovation featuring Miele fixtures and wood floors imported from Austria. The crowd seemed pleased.

“The thing I dig is the bar across from the powder room,” said Patrick Nichols. Twenty-seven and newly married, Mr. Nichols, a trader with Jane Street Capital, scribbled in a leather-bound notebook and snapped photos. He is looking to spend $2 million to $3 million on a two- or three-bedroom apartment. He said he did not know many people hurt by the slowdown, and he was not worried about losing his job.

One way of looking at it, I suppose

Great post on Runnin' Scared at the Voice about those million-dollar condos coming to First Street and First Avenue.

As Tony Ortega writes:

"[T]his morning, we received a cheerful note from developer Bruce Kaplan about his new condo building at First Street and First Avenue. He wondered if a Voice feature might be in the offing, seeing as how Kramer, in an episode of Seinfeld, once referred to "First and First" as the "nexus of the universe."

Yeah, that's clever, and a nice selling point, no doubt. But with Kaplan's one-bedroom condos going for about a million bucks each, we shot back a response: what sort of a feature was he looking for, with his building only adding to the difficulty the non-filthy-rich are having staying in the city?

Here is how Kaplan responded:

Perhaps you might take a longer view.
From http://www.gvshp.org/history.htm, and as you probably know:

"between 1825 and 1840...shrewd speculators subdivided farms, leveled hills, rerouted Minetta Brook, and undertook landfill projects. Blocks of neat rowhouses built in the prevailing Federal style soon accommodated middle-class merchants and tradesmen. From 1820 a more affluent residential development emerged to the east near Broadway."

So without the actions of those shrewd speculators, there would not have been the canvas to paint on what would become the Village. Presumably the Minetta Brook Voice mourned that transformation.

As one of the Village's more famous residents wrote:

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

If one looks back over time, there are several theorists (Ricardo, Mills, Alonso's Urban Land Theory) whose theories are that rising prices increases, not decreases supply. See also, http://www.chpcny.org/default.html

In any event, for what it's worth, what this shrewd speculator hopes to do with his million bucks is create affordable rental housing in the outer boroughs and preserve that diversity you value.

What a Steel!

Ads have gone up around the East Village, like the one below seen at 8th Street and Avenue C, for The SteelWorks Lofts coming soon to Williamsburg. The sales gallery is opening in October for the lofts that are priced from $495,000 to $1.5 million.


Seems perfect for the East Village resident who's sick and tired of the overdevelopment and condofication of this neighborhood...to move to a neighborhood with even more ridciulous overdevelopment and condofication.

P.S.
What exactly is "handcrafted living"? And what's up with the blowtorch? Why is Jennifer Beals coming to mind?

And we're off! (on 350 W. Broadway)

Was in Soho the other day. So I took a peak to see how the soon-to-be-swank digs are doing at 350 W. Broadway. We have beams!

Meanwhile, check out the faboo penthouse: 2,902 square feet with 1,381 square feet exterior. Priced at $12.2 million. And the accompanying marketing copy?

“I’ll tell you why I need to live in Manhattan,” he trilled while thrusting his martini shaker into the air. “An Englishman must live on an island!”

“I’ll tell you why I need to live in a penthouse,” she replied with her
signature deadpan. “I’m only happy when I’m on top.”

“And the reason you live with me?” he asked while refilling her
glass. “You own the penthouse.”

Not sure if this is supposed to be funny. And on the street level...