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Upper West Side

  1. neighborhood watch
    You’re Now Priced Out of Crown Heights, TooChelsea: If you want to keep your job at the (historically and refreshingly) unfabulous McBurney Y, you better be edgy. [Chelsea Blog] Crown Heights: Behold yet another gentrification benchmark: the first $1 million-plus condo. [One Hanson Place] Dumbo: Disagreement among residents (for) and developers (against) about landmarking the area is prompting sure-to-be a contentious public hearing. [DumboNYC] East Village: Opponents of a new NYU dorm on 12th Street continue to fight construction, which has been going on for eight months. The new target? Air rights. [Runnin’ Scared/VV] Flushing: Whatever that big box going up on 163rd Street is going to be, it’s going to clash with the traditional homes next door. Did somebody say “stop-work order?” [Queens Crap] Upper West Side: Residents (including, probably, Bill Moyers) fear that the Landmarks Commission has given New-York Historical Society the green light for changes including a view-crushing 23-story condo on its property. [NYS]
  2. neighborhood watch
    Hipsters on a RampageChinatown: In a fit of ironic violence or violent irony, a hipster mob (including, reportedly, Neckface) trashed an empty building slated for demolition. [
  3. buy low
    Reinvest Your Bonus in Central Park West Attention, bonus babies: If that extra compensation’s burning a hole in your vault, this five-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath triplex penthouse on Central Park West may be just your thing. The Web listing screams “major price reduction,” and it’s no joke: According to Streeteasy.com, 115 Central Park West was reduced a week ago by $2.6 million to $13.9 million. (You could buy a pied-à-terre downtown with the 15 percent discount alone.) The asking price seems downright reasonable for a building of this caliber — it’s at the Majestic, after all, an exclusive prewar co-op that’s one of a handful of named buildings with storybook histories like the Dakota and the San Remo. If you’re looking to spend much more, way more, there’s always the $70 million triplex at the Pierre. —S. Jhoanna Robledo
  4. buy low
    Get in Before the Manhattan Valley Historic District Does A two-bedroom for $989,000 just steps from Central Park? It does exist, and you won’t even have to shoehorn yourself into a cave. This condo at 44 West 106th Street is fairly roomy (1,100 square feet), has tons of light, and was built just five years ago, so you could get by without doing any renovations. Though apartments around the corner fetch hundreds of thousands more for nearly the same size, listing broker Catherine Holmes of Barak Realty says buyers are still not fully sold on Manhattan Avenue, hence the discount. For years, the area suffered from neglect. But that was long ago and like nearly everywhere else in the city, Manhattan Avenue has undergone a renaissance — a fact that house hunters seem slow to embrace. That could change soon: The stretch between West 104th and 106th Streets is up for historic districting, says Holmes; if so designated, nothing ugly will go up near your building. While the designation process just started back in January, a favorable ruling will surely spike property values. Until then, it’s cheap Upper West Side living, close to the park. —S. Jhoanna Robledo
  5. intel
    UWS Asian-Food Crisis Spreads as Labor Problems Hit Ollie’s, TooThe great Asian-Food Apocalypse of 2007 continues, with the protests that have been plaguing Saigon Grill spreading today to the Ollie’s Noodle Shop chain on the Upper West Side, where staffers — deliverymen, waiters, others — filed suit for a string of labor violations. While print reporters took notes and TV cameras rolled, a group of Chinese immigrants — most from Fujian province and claiming they were paid only $1.40 an hour — gathered at the Lincoln Center location to announce the legal action. David Colodny, a lawyer with the Urban Justice Center, filed the federal suit on behalf of 44 workers at three of the five Ollie’s locations — Lincoln Center, Times Square, and West 84th Street — for violating minimum-wage and other employment laws.
  6. neighborhood watch
    Prospect Heights Does More Than Just Hate Bruce RatnerEast Village: Beloved St. Brigid’s Church has been spared the Catholic archdiocese’s wrecking ball yet again — at least for a few more months. [The Villager] Fort Greene: The landlord at 20 Grand Avenue is trying to evict its creative-type tenants from the 60,000-square-foot, commercially zoned warehouse. [Brownstoner] Harlem: What’s that weird plant hanging from the wall at the cute new florist shop on 123rd and Freddie Douglass? It’s a staghorn fern, duh. [Harlem Fur] Prospect Heights: Opponents of the Atlantic Yards project flew into action last week … to help find an activist’s black Lab, Lady Day, after she was dognapped. Is Ratner involved? [Brooklyn Paper] Upper West Side: If this condo tower gets built above West-Park Presbyterian Church, the poor folk inhabiting subsidized units will have to use a different entryway — and stay out of the gym. [NYS] Willets Point: The “Iron Triangle” of car-related businesses near Shea Stadium is up for redevelopment — but with no sewers in the area, what toxic goop lies beneath? [Curbed]
  7. neighborhood watch
    Upper East Side Reinforces Its Own Worst StereotypesCarroll Gardens: There’s a new indie bookstore on Court Street called Pranga. Check the back for used books, CDs, and DVDs. [423Smith] Midtown: Is the city’s second-tallest building the Chrysler or Renzo Piano’s Times-tower-in-progress at Eighth and 41st? Surprisingly, that’s debatable. [i’m not sayin’, i’m just sayin’] Tribeca: All that’s left of an 1800s tenement at One York is a façade, to be worked into architect Enrique Norten’s new luxury condo. [Curbed] Upper East Side: Madame, the climbing hydrangeas are hurt! In these hypercivilized parts, even vandals are reprimanded politely. [flickr/Stu_Jo] Upper West Side: Philip Milstein, who just bought Leonard Bernstein’s Dakota digs for $25.5 million isn’t famous in a celebrity way, but he sure is rich. [Gawker] Williamsburg: In the area’s Hasidic south, the Oorah “donate your car” billboard just got weirder, thanks to a sly Purim twist. [Razor Apple]
  8. neighborhood watch
    I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen — to Gramercy!Chelsea: Turns out the broker listing the penthouse in the old McBurney YMCA is former gay-porn star Fredrik Eklund. Oh, and the price keeps dropping. [Blog Chelsea] Gramercy: A massive new condo on 23rd Street is being advertised as a pied-à-terre to Irish jet-setters. Times have changed. [Curbed] Greenpoint: Magic Johnson is sinking $12.4 million into the 110 Greene Street condos, hoping to draw more yuppies to the area. [Crain’s] Harlem: Blogger finds community cleanup of St. Nicholas Park dog run nearly too nice and fun to comment on. [Harlem Fur] Upper West Side: Was the recently renovated Beresford penthouse of Coach CEO Lew Frankfort destroyed by fire? [Curbed] Williamsburg: Zipcar’s bringing a fleet to the ‘burg! Now what about Fort Greene and Clinton Hill? [Gowanus Lounge]
  9. neighborhood watch
    Manhattan Too Inexpensive — for ParkingAstoria: The 121-year-old waterfront Sohmer Piano factory has been landmarked (despite the unlikely opposition of the community board) and will soon house 70 apartments. [Times Ledger via Queens Crap] Dumbo: Residents sickened by the area’s rampant condo-ization can now seek palliatives at a pharmacy coming to the first floor of the massive new J Condo. [DumboNYC] Harlem: Call it luxury lockdown. Jail turned condo 10 Mount Morris Park West is near-ready for its inmates — uh, residents. [City Specific] Manhattan: Blame the traffic congestion on free or cheap parking in the city. [Streetsblog] Tribeca: Jewish alterna-singles to descend on the land of JFK Jr. and Bubby’s when Makor moves to Hudson and Canal this fall. [92Yblog via Curbed] Upper West Side: The revolution will come with a schmear of cream cheese — when the area secedes from the city, that is. [Upper West Side Liberation Front via Curbed]
  10. the in-box
    Bill Moyers Does Not Care for Glass Phallic Symbols (or, Not Unreasonably, for Us)A few weeks ago, Daily Intel’s “Neighborhood Watch” mentioned Bill Moyers’s involvement in neighborhood protests over a residential tower the New-York Historical Society wants to build on the Upper West Side. (Later, we got confused and suggested he was also opposed to a Chelsea development, a mistake we quickly corrected.) In a letter to the magazine, Moyers takes issue with our portrayal, takes another jab at the Historical Society, and concedes that we did at least spell his name correctly. The text of his letter is after the jump, or you can read it here as a PDF. (See real Moyers letterhead!)
  11. developing
    Robert A.M. Stern Tweaks the Upper West SideA brand-new storefront is coming to the Upper West Side and — get this — it’s not a chain store. Starchitect Robert A.M. Stern this afternoon unveiled his redesign of the Kaufman Center, a music school born in 1952 as a Jewish art school and installed in a modernist structure back when the area was scruffy. The natty neoclassicist presented plans for a “vivid fire-red granite” two-story lobby and glazed-glass exterior to make the 67th Street façade glow at night — all the better to stand up to hulking Victoria’s Secret next door, on the corner of Broadway. (Click here for a larger version of the rendering.) Like the more avant-garde firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro, which is redesigning neighboring Lincoln Center by leveling that forbidding plaza, Stern tells us he’s “tweaking” a modernist façade to draw passersby in a neighborhood that’s gone domestic. “A lot of new buildings around here are bunkers,” he told us. Indeed. An example: the soon-to-be-completed 15 Central Park West, that pile of limestone and columns just down the block. Who designed that? Oh, yeah: Robert A.M. Stern. —Alec Appelbaum
  12. neighborhood watch
    Don’t Mess With Bill Moyers’s ViewRed Hook: The shady demolition of the Revere Sugar Factory is making the neighbors furious. [Gowanus Lounge] Brooklyn Heights: Want a Mexican restaurant? It’s yours for only $389,000. [Brooklyn Heights Blog] Chinatown: Some major street changes are in place, including a buffered bike lane on Grand Street, making it safer to eat sticky pork buns while cycling. [Streetsblog] Clinton Hill: Looks like the topiary-stealing first reported two weeks ago by Brooklyn Record continues. Who’s the sticky-fingered horticulturalist? [Clinton Hill Blog] South Slope: Developer Gregory Rigas has been quietly been buying up — and not so quietly demolishing — mucho property on Fourth Avenue between Prospect Avenue and 16th Street. [Brownstoner] Upper West Side: Bill Moyers leads a pack of angry rich people against the New-York Historical Society’s plan for a high-rise condo off Central Park West and 76th Street. [Curbed]
  13. the morning line
    Steamrolling in Our Time • Ladies and gentlemen, your new catchphrase for the day: “I am a fucking steamroller.” If we are to believe the Post exclusive, this gem was uttered by none other than Governor Spitzer — in response to a GOP assemblyman who complained about being shut out of the legislative process. [NYP] • Albany Democrats, who apparently didn’t get the above memo, are, in the delicate Times phrasing, “leaning toward reneging” on their deal with Spitzer that lets him hand-pick the Hevesi replacement. [NYT] • The White House has approved $25 million in aid to combat lung diseases and others in 9/11 first responders. And to think all it took was five and a half years, and the Dems pretty much parading a dead cop around the State of the Union address. [NYDN] • Guess who’s about to sign a lease for $50,000 square feet at Lincoln Center vacated by the dear old Tower Records? T. J. Maxx, that’s who. And so, suburbia encroaches one step closer. [Crain’s] • And the Landmarks Preservation Commission has bestowed its blessing on three heretofore unprotected sites, thus saving them from, you guessed it, a fucking steamroller: two Harlem churches — one built by the architect of St. Patrick’s — and the awesomely named Horn & Hardart Automat-Cafeteria Building. (Now, sadly, a drugstore). [amNY]
  14. buy low
    When No Views Are No Problem Near Columbus CircleSay you want three bedrooms and three baths on the Upper West Side. And say you’ll pay $1,000 per square foot but not much more. Seem impossible? Not entirely. At 10 West End Avenue, the Sunshine Group is offering 7H and 7J — a total of 1,974 square feet — for just over $2 million. That’s a deal in a new 33-story building, with occupancy scheduled for this spring, where average active prices run $1,146 a foot. “It’s a very easy combination and a functional layout,” says sales director Loretta Bradbury. And it includes unlimited dips into the building’s pool, gym, and Children’s Museum of Manhattan–designed playroom. But you’ll need to spend lots of time in the common space or outdoors (gasp!) to enjoy the surroundings. You get no terraces on the seventh floor, and your windows offer, um, “city views.” On one side you face the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. And across West End Avenue, you’re looking at a vacant lot that won’t stay vacant. Bradbury won’t comment on when a new building will cast its shadow. But, hey, you might be able to afford boarding school by then. —Alec Appelbaum
  15. neighborhood watch
    It’s Official: Broken Angel to Live On as CondosClinton Hill: The son of the owners of the Broken Angel home says new developers will help keep his parents’ vision intact — and add an arts center on the lot next door! [Clinton Hill Blog and Gowanus Lounge] Fort Greene: Watchdog says documents show that Empire State Development Corporation blew off Atlantic Yards enviro-impact concerns. [Atlantic Yards Report] Midtown: Catch media artist Doug Aitkens’s film Sleepwalkers (with Donald Sutherland and Tilda Swinton, no less) on MoMA’s walls tonight. [The L Magazine] Park Slope: High-tech activists in Greenwood have started filming potentially illegal demolitions and posting them on YouTube. [Curbed] Upper West Side: Amid a Ben Stiller–inspired frenzy, sleepover nights at the Museum of Natural History are sold out through summer — except girls’ night on April 28. Come on, girls, embrace your inner geek! [
  16. neighborhood watch
    Relaxing, Fighting Fires in the South Bronx• Brooklyn Heights: Other community theaters do Fiddler on the Roof; this one gets all uppity with Into the Woods. [A Brooklyn Life] • Morrisania: A century ago, South Bronx firefighters had it easy. [Brooklyn Ramblings] • Prospect Heights: City takes steps to prevent tenants from moving into Robert Scarano’s crappy buildings. [Brooklyn Papers] • Sunset Park: Mom from Park Slope beat neighborhood roosters, no question. [Sunset Parker] • Upper West Side: What’s the point of living here if you don’t enjoy the CNN-obstructed view? [CitySpecific]
  17. neighborhood watch
    Williamsburg’s Spawn Indoctrinated EarlyBoerum Hill: For those keeping score at home, that’s 583 car crashes on Atlantic Avenue between Flatbush Avenue and the river since January 2005. [Brooklyn Record] East Village: East Village blogger Jim returns from Scranton to find his neighbors filching his online style. [Neither More Nor Less] Prospect Heights: If a 95-year-old bakery can’t get landmark status, none of us can. [Brooklyn Papers] Soho: Following the close of disreputable bar, the Falls, the space is reincarnated as an Indian restaurant. Better luck to Midnight Cafe II. [Villager] UWS: Metropolitan Montessori School saves energy by switching over to wind power. No word on whether this will make annual tuition dip to $20,000. [NAW via Metadish] Williamsburg: Beatles covers for your own little hipster-in-training. Yikes. [Willy Bees]
  18. neighborhood watch
    How Much Is That Cat in the Window?Brooklyn: Area man throws cat out window, gets arrested. Honestly, who throws a cat? [NYS] Chelsea: After renting an unheated, bathroom-less space in an attempt ride to Larry Gagosian’s coattails across the street, artist Hubert Waldroup closes up shop without selling a painting. [Chelsea Now] Greenpoint: Ladies and gentlemen, Greenpoint is gentrifying. (Is this news?) [amNY] Lower East Side: There’s no eruv — a boundary within which certain things usually forbidden to orthodox Jews on Shabbat are allowed — on the Lower East Side. Should there be one? Maybe. [Downtown Express] Midwood: One public high school produced three U.S. senators. Huh. [Brooklyn Record] Park Slope: New kiddie boutique makes it that much easier to scar kids for life dressing them in psychedelic, cuddly, fluffy getups. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn] Upper West Side: It’s not quite Stuy Town, but it’s still a big deal: The Apthorp has sold for $425 million. Strangely, the new owners plan to keep it rental. [NYT]
  19. vu.
    Not Every Morningside Heights Residence Comes With an RAMorningside Heights — West 100th to West 122nd Streets, west of Morningside Avenue — might as well be Columbia-land (Barnardsville?), considering the university’s massive presence here. But tucked among the neighborhood’s Columbia-affiliated buildings — many of them used to house students — are co-ops and condos for the rest of us. The stock is mostly prewar, with the graciously proportioned rooms and flowing layouts that have attracted apartment-hunters to the area for years, but one glitzy new development, 110+Broadway, just joined the scene. It’s not as cheap to buy here as it was back in the nabe’s sleepy, under-the-radar days, but compared to the rest of the Upper West Side, Morningside Heights will seem quite reasonable. You may even find some bargains in the rough.
  20. the morning line
    Friendly Skies, Unfriendly Runways • More reasons to avoid Newark Airport: First a plane plops down on a narrow taxiway instead of a landing strip. Now two jets clip each other’s wings on a runway while one is taxiing and another is being towed. No injuries, but what the hell? [amNY] • A teenage trick-or-treater was killed in a hit-and-run after being chased onto Harlem River Drive by a knife-brandishing attacker. In a moment of discord, the Times puts the victim’s age at 13, the AP at 15, and the Daily News at 16. [NYT, AP via amNY, NYDN] • In other Halloween news: Two million took to Sixth Avenue to gape at 50,000 costumed marchers, one reveler got stabbed after catching his girlfriend parading with another man, and, of course, someone had to come to school in a Hitler costume, which he’s now defending as “satire.” Lovely. [NYDN, NYP] • George Steinbrenner was rushed to the hospital after reportedly fainting while watching his granddaughter perform in a college play. He’s fine, but the performance got canceled amid the ruckus. It may be worth noting the granddaughter was playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret. [WNBC] • Historical, yes; preservationist, not so much. The New-York Historical Society wants to build a glassy 23-story tower behind its palatial HQ as part of a renovation. The haughty neighbors are predictably up in arms over blocked park views. Perhaps they could drop that annoying hyphen as a compromise? [NYT]
  21. intel
    Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman, Dreamworks’ Scrubbing Bubbles We were confused when we arrived at the Loews Lincoln Square yesterday for the Flushed Away premiere and couldn’t find the red carpet out front, where it usually is. Then we rounded the corner from Broadway onto 68th Street, and it all made sense: Dreamworks had shut down the entire block — West 68th, from Broadway to Columbus — for the event, and it was suddenly very clear to us, and to the rest of neighborhood, what was going on and what we should be doing. The street was decked in wall-to-wall (curb-to-curb?) blue carpet, which is like red carpet but more toilet-appropriate. And atop the carpet sat a giant inflatable toilet, which enabled the animated film’s stars — Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman — to make a dramatic entrance by sliding down the toilet, effectively flushing themselves into the premiere.
  22. the morning line
    Forget It, Jake • Chinatown business owners are beefing with Hollywood crews that have flooded the neighborhood, with 25 film permits issued over the last twelve months. City Hall says it’s the neighborhood’s fault for being so damn photogenic. [amNY] • In one of the strangest street attacks in recent memory, a pedestrian was stabbed by a passing bicyclist last night on West End and 63rd. The assault appears completely random. Perhaps citywide bike lanes are a good idea after all. [NYDN] • Local news predicts an unrelieved Manhattan Bridge traffic nightmare for the next year while the lower level is closed for a spruce-up. Daily Intel’s AccuChopper 20,000 predicts the same nightmare for the twenty years following the Atlantic Yards groundbreaking. [WNBC] • Mets tie series, prompt the following tortured sports-pun headline of the day: NOW BATS MORE LIKE IT. [NYP, natch] • Finally, some club called Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers went out of business — with a name like that, what could be the problem? — hopefully stemming the steady flow of elegiac human-interest features. [VV, NYT]
  23. intel
    UWS Teen Vanishes With its yellow school bus–clogged streets and mom-and-pop-riddled baseball and soccer leagues, it’s easy to mistake the Upper West Side for the suburbs. (Okay, maybe not always — this also being the land of screaming street preachers and the occasional red state–blue state smackdown — but it’s close.) Which makes the appearance all over the neighborhood of this poster asking for information about missing Brooklyn Friends student Zachary Manning doubly distressing. Is there an abductor at loose? The Post says a suburban-style Amber alert isn’t likely; the police don’t believe Zach is the victim of “foul play.”