Urban Outfitters to Bring Freshman-Dorm Furniture to Cobble HillCobble Hill: Urban Outfitters is “coming soon!” [BK11201]
Downtown Brooklyn: After endless outrage, the city will spare the little Duffield Street house believed to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad. [DDDB via Gowanus Lounge]
Financial District: Maybe, in time, all the pretty old buildings in Manhattan will be reduced, like this one, to Hollywood-set-style façades for the big new buildings behind them. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Coney Island: The New Blackpool, England?Astoria: Everyone’s all excited about this new apartment building, but doesn’t it kind of look like a seventies computer or TV set? [OuterB]
Brooklyn Heights: Now that Norman Mailer’s dead, the hood’s most famous resident could well be right-wing scribe Peggy Noonan. How depressing. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Coney Island: If new visions for the amusement zone ever take hold, it may end up looking something like … Blackpool, England! Check out that twister coaster beside the tram. [Kinetic Carnival]
in other news
Downtown Gets Rich and Popular, Upending Neighborhood Stereotypes
This week, humanity was shocked by the news that downtown Manhattanites have a higher median household income than any other population center in the country. (Meanwhile, journalism professors were shocked by the fact that Daily Intel took this information directly from a press release sent out by a real-estate developer that operates primarily in downtown Manhattan.) “Downtown” is defined as the financial district and Battery Park City, as well as the “Civic Center region,” which we’d never heard of but apparently refers to the area around City Hall. This means it’s time for New Yorkers to revise our cherished wealth-related neighborhood stereotypes. After the jump, some suggestions.
neighborhood watch
Splasher Sighting at Dumbo Gallery?Carroll Gardens: With little legal recourse at this point, desperate locals are circulating this petition demanding that out-of-scale development stop at once. [Gowanus Lounge]
Dumbo: Was the duo trying to set off a stink bomb at an art opening last night actually the Splasher, or is that too obvious? [Gothamist]
Financial District: Has a little Greek church been bribed into not squawking that the forthcoming Chase tower’s cantilevered middle will block all its light? [Curbed]
Harlem: So it looks like Trump won’t be building at 110th and Central Park West after all … “for now,” that is. [NYO]
Prospect Heights: A man slept this week in the window of a Dean Street art gallery to make a statement about the controversial Atlantic Yards project soon to happen across the street. [Brooklyn Paper]
West Village: As though its chattering, chain-smoking 12-steppers don’t make enough ruckus out on the sidewalk, the gay community center on West 13th will enjoy a $50-million expansion. [365gay via Kenneth in the 212]
in other news
Snobby New York Parents Destroy New Private SchoolWhen last we checked in on Claremont Prep, the absurdly well-appointed new private school in the financial district, Andrew Marks profiled it late last year for New York as “the Next Dalton,” the start-up school with the city’s best student-teacher ratio, 125,000 square feet of space, a full-time nutritionist, three chefs, and a gym “the Reebok Sports Club would love to have.” The strategy was to snare the affluent families who now see lower Manhattan as a legitimate living option. So how’s Claremont doing after year one? In a word: Awful! In 2006 there were only 54 students instead of the projected 1,000, says today’s Sun; now enrollment is up to a more palatable — but still dire — 125. The school remains a last-ditch choice. “I couldn’t find too many, if any, families who were genuinely interested in Claremont,” school consultant Victoria Goldman told the Sun. Apparently, Claremont has no name-drop value yet, and Manhattan parents are loathe to send their kids to a school whose mere mention doesn’t make brunch partners choke with envy. Because, you know, that’s what’s best for the kids.
Snobbery Is Surprise Issue for a New School [NYS]
Related: Building the Next Dalton [NYM]
developing
South Street Seaport: Some Fresh Food With Your Towers?
The old Fulton Fish Market never caused such a stink. Word leaked last week that the new owner of South Street Seaport, General Growth Properties, wanted to create a tower and open space over what’s now the morose “festival marketplace” of Pier 17 — and last night, area residents attempted to slap down the idea. “People in this room are terrified at the idea of towers,” declared Jeffrey Schneider, head of the 117 Beekman Street condo association. General Growth’s architect, Gregg Pasquarelli, whose firm SHoP worked on the city’s plan to build pavilions and parkland on nearby East Side piers, promised that squeezing the mall’s square footage into a tower was just one of “25 plans” he’s mustering for the new owner. Neighbors want playgrounds and schools; Pasquarelli mentioned the possibility of an outdoor market. Indeed, civic types have proposed New Amsterdam Public, which would be a year-round healthy-food cornucopia. Locally grown kumquats near historic vessels sounds lovely, but General Growth rep Michael McNoughton tells us he expects “several more months” of public talks before his firm proposes a plan. Talks, indeed. As a 119 Beekman resident said: “If you think we’re difficult, wait until you deal with Brooklyn Heights.” —Alec Appelbaum
vu.
Battery Park City Is a Health Nut’s ParadiseFor years, Manhattanites viewed Battery Park City as being so inconvenient, so sleepy, so far west — you even have to cross the West Side Highway to get there — that it might as well be in New Jersey. Many grumbled about the lack of services and stores. But slowly people have discovered this downtown neighborhood’s appeal: enviable parks, great schools, harbor views, and an admirable cache of ecofriendly apartments — old and new, and of all sizes — featuring paint and carpets that don’t give off sickening fumes as well as “filtered” air and water systems. That makes it a haven for health freaks — which is ironic considering that Battery Park City is built on landfill. But families love it these days, as do Wall Street types — hence the glut of one-bedrooms on the market there — who want to be able to walk to work but feel as far away from it as possible when they need the psychological distance. After the jump, some of this weekend’s interesting Battery Park City open houses. — S. Jhoanna Robledo
buy low
A Financial-District 2BR Dips Under $1 MillionThree weeks ago, the price of this financial-district two-bedroom co-op at 176 Broadway was reduced by $30,000, according to Streeteasy.com, dipping its asking price below the million-dollar mark. At $995,000, it’s $105,000 cheaper than a similarly sized unit in the same building and considerably less than what another one of equal square footage went for early this year. Not bad for a space that comes with ten-foot ceilings, central air, and a wraparound terrace — all the better to appreciate that kicking downtown vista. The building has a part-time doorman and a landscaped roof deck, too, and falls within the coveted P.S. 234 school district. Yet there are still no takers. (Could a tough board be the reason? If so, be sure your finances are airtight.) Here’s where you try to negotiate an even sweeter deal with the seller. After all, the maintenance, at $2,060 per month, is a little on the high side. Even more significant, it’s been on the market for 270 days and counting, which could make the owner open to any decent offers. How decent you want to be is up to you.
— S. Jhoanna Robledo
neighborhood watch
Condos and Beer (Which Could Well Be New York’s New Motto)Bed-Stuy: A new wave of Bed-Stuy condos go where no condos have gone before. (East, of course). [Brownstoner]
Boerum Hill: Mmmm, beer: Cask Ale Festival kicks off at the Brazen Head on Atlantic Avenue. [Brooklyn Record]
Soho: Bedbugs chase Maya Rudolph and Paul Thomas Anderson from Greene Street. [NYP]
Financial District: A 24-hour diner will invade Gold Street in January. As if bankers don’t just order in, anyway. [MetroNY]
East Village: “Loanshark Bob” Marion returns to Avenue A after years of absence. Hooray. [Neither More Nor Less]
