Since New York developers love to put on a happy face while spinning their architecture plans to the public, Lost City has made a translation guide so it's a bit easier to follow along. Here are a few key phrases:Statement: "Our design is meant to respect the historical and architectural context of the neighborhood." Translation: "This building is not as big and ugly as we'd like it to be." Statement: "We support the approval process."......

Rendering via Curbed. The NY Times has some new news on the Battery Maritime Building. They pose the question, "What if you had a majestic skylighted, columned hall in a Beaux-Arts ferry building at the tip of Manhattan and were required to use it as a public space? What would you do with it?" This is something that Dermot along with Rogers Marvel architects have been slowly figuring out. Plans were set to include......

Brookfield Properties, which had offered a plan to bring back streets - as well as 12 million square feet of development and 15 acres of public space - to the West Side Rail Yards, has declined to continue in the bidding process. The MTA had requested revised Hudson Yards proposals with more financial details by yesterday and the bids received were from Durst and Vornado, Tishman Speyer and Morgan Stanley, Extell, and Related Companies.......

After news spread that Upper West Side institution Cafe La Fortuna would close today, many people came by to bid farewell. The restaurant was packed last night and this morning and afternoon, as people enjoyed the sandwiches, Italian coffee drinks and opera music one last time, lamenting the closing of another standby. One woman arrived with a bouquet of flowers and a card for the staff. Owner Vincent Urwand explained that the West 71st......

Aside from the concerts, there isn't much reason to go to the Southstreet Seaport unless you're 14 and need to hit Abercrombie & Fitch. The NY Sun reports that General Growth Properties, the developer who owns the rights to the area (the Seaport and Fulton Fish Market), is on a mission to turn that all around; but is their mission misguided? With a commercial and residential project that promises a floating pool and a community......

A lawsuit filed Monday against the City Campaign Finance Board seeks to overturn a recently enacted funding law that opponents assert will just make the City Council richer - and whiter. The recently-enacted campaign finance restrictions reduces the contributions from companies who do business with the city by a whopping 92%. Translation: In a mayoral race, the individual limit on giving is now $400, versus $4,950; in City Council races, it's $250, down from $2,950.......

Move over Crazy Cat Ladies of New York, a West End Avenue tenant may just have you beat. The Post reports that court papers have been filed by a building owner against 71-year-old tenant Jacqueline Bartone, calling her apartment a "zoo" and listing the pets that reside with her -- including three dogs, several reptiles and cats, "and as many as a dozen birds, including an African Grey parrot and a macaw parrot." Bartone and......

Has the Super-real estate market finally encountered economic kryptonite? Manhattan's housing market has seemed utterly impervious to any hint of real estate meltdown, even as other boroughs have suffered mortgage foreclosures at four times the national average. But one can't pass a Chase bank branch or a Duane Reade before coming across yet another building going up or being retro-fitted as luxury condos. The New York Times has an article today indicating that the gilded......

Ever since real estate developer Vornado revealed plans for a boxy, glassy skyscraper at 125th Street and Park Avenue last March, people were curious what might companies might lease some of the 640,000 square feet. Now the NY Times reveals Major League Baseball will take a swing at starting its cable network in the building. Wow. The 21-story building, dubbed Harlem Park, would be Harlem's "first prime office to be built" in the neighborhood "in......

What Lower Manhattan will look like after Silverstein's buildings are completed; the Woolworth Building with its ornate green roof is on the left, 99 Church is the tall building to it right (and to the left of what is an illuminated Church street); to the right is the WTC site, with Freedom Tower and the other three towers; image from dbox/Silverstein Properties Developer Larry Silverstein announced yesterday that he will build an 80-story building......

Over the weekend, hundreds rallied for Pier 40's next transformation to be a park. This Thursday, the Hudson River Park Trust is meeting to discuss two existing bids for the pier located off Houston Street, but a more recent plan, from a group of local parents who hope their $120,000 study, has been gaining some recent momentum. Previously, the Related Companies had proposed an elaborate plan with a Cirque du Soleil theater and restaurants, while......

Photo from Restlus We've seen some unusual housing lately, from a houseboat in the Bronx to a trailer in Brooklyn. The latest comes from Restlus and shows an unusual little urban hut on Grand and Driggs in Williamsburg. What is this little inhabited fixture? It has a light glowing through the window, so someone has definitely set up shop in there. We asked an architect about the structure, and she said, "looks like a......

One Bed-Stuy family is making some money by renting out rooms in their house. Not an uncommon practice, but the lady of the house recently recounted the faces that have passed through the revolving door of their cheapest room for rent: the windowless bedroom! This gem (pictured) is generally rented out to the early-20s set. Since Craigslist tends to bring out the crazies, let's take a look at a life of living with some C-list......

Williamsburg missed a crucial stage of gentrification; the phase where gay people were supposed to pioneer a neighborhood before the young hipsters could supplant them. The social hop-scotching has left gay people out in the cold in Billyburg, unwelcome in what should be a pioneer ghetto. The nightlife reflects the less-than-edgy environment that marginalized NYers try to seek out.“There’s like one go-go boy, what is that?” grumbled Matthew Kane, a scruffy 22-year-old photo agent. Still,......

Photo of a house in Victorian Flatbush via mercurialn's Flickr. Brooklynometry has a heartwarming tale from the days of old New York. The story is of one anonymous Brooklynite's family home in Victorian Flatbush which was about to be lost during the Depression when a west coast well-wisher stepped in and purchased it for $1 (plus taxes). The catch was that she promised to leave it to the family in her will.Thankfully she was......

New York City's Department of Finance is projecting that real estate values in the city will remain nearly flat this fiscal (ending September) year. More precisely, it expects only a 1.4% increase in property values, versus an 18% climb this past year. It will be the slowest increment of growth since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, during a real estate boom that enabled budget surpluses, tax cuts, and astounding growth in city spending. The......

Photos by Miss Heather Today Miss Heather posted photos of a nice little set up on Willoughby Avenue (pictured above). Sure, this isn't what most have in mind when they think of the perfect New York living space, but a few of the positives are pointed out: large front yard, extra storage under the stairs, lawn ornaments that really make a house a home. We dig the digs, and Miss H is smitten with the......

The Independent Budget Office of the City of New York released a five page report [pdf] yesterday projecting that beginning next year, the City will face a serious fiscal crisis when it runs a deficit of $3.1 billion. By 2011, that budget shortfall could more than double, to $6.3 billion. The projections merely take into account current trends in New York City and don't factor in the possibility of a widespread national recession. The title......

The fate of Pier 40, located at West Houston Street on the Hudson, was much discussed and debated last year, and 2008 seems to be a year of further reflection. At one point, there was a $625 million idea for it to become an elaborate entertainment venue with a Cirque du Soleil theater, restaurants, and more, while opposing forces wanted there simply to be more green space. In the waning weeks of December, another......

There's a old joke that many people look through the obituaries to find apartments in the city. Whether that's true or not is unclear, but what is known is that there can be difficulties in selling a deceased person's apartment. The NY Times has a big feature, "Heirs to a Headache," about this very phenomenon that pits sibling against sibling, in the midst of the very raw emotions of death and the vicious real estate......

Manhattan real estate sales set a record in the fourth quarter of 2007, with residential sales averaging out to be $1.4 million (according to data from Prudential Douglas Elliman), an increase of 17.6% over 2006's fourth quarter. However impressive that statistic is, the growth was primarily driven by super high-end sales of at least $10 million. Apparently sales for condos at The Plaza and 15 Central Park West helped drive the average condo sale......

New Yorkers have been known to live in some pretty dismal conditions just to avoid the hassle of finding another apartment. Roaches, rats, mice, bedbugs, loud neighbors with thin walls, odd smelling hallways...but where does one draw the line? The Post has a story about a brother and sister who ran screaming from their new Greenwich Village digs after finding out it was above a clinic for sexual deviants.William and Amy Grace claim landlord Dr.......

Thanks to the soft real estate market everywhere except our fair city, many New York City residents have been able to pick up and move out of the Big Apple for less expensive and literally greener pastures. The NY Times had an article yesterday about people who cash out of their NYC apartments and "get much more for their money outside the city." The first example is a couple who sold their Upper West Side......

Forget blowing your savings on a generic luxury condo. The NY Times has the story of a family who found their non-high rise dream home in the Bronx. Marcel and Sherrie Deans located their future home in June 2006, while driving through the Bronx (they rented in Harlem at the time). Their diamond in the rough, a mansion, was right there on Anthony Avenue. The Deanses first saw the 16-room, 3,300-square-foot landmarked home in 2006......

We knew Sean Connery was a tough guy (or so his screen persona and Darrell Hammond's impression would have us believe), so we might have imagined the lawsuits between him and his East 71st Street neighbor would pile up. But who knew that it would get to the point of a judge complaining that the two parties were being too fighty? Dr. Burton Sultan, who lives on the first four floors of the Upper East......

Courtney Love wished us all a belated Merry Christmas today via her MySpace blog (which we don't normally check in on, but thankfully Curbed was on the ball). What did Santa bring her? An apartment in the West Village! So really, it's like a present for us all. She stated, in perfectly readable English:i think/hope we foundteh PERFECT plaCE, its a w village 4 floor house 2 floors are being rented by the owners, itllcost......

On a recent weekend, we saw Jacques Torres loading boxes of delectable treats from a van into his new store Jacques Torres Chocolate store at 285 Amsterdam Avenue, near 73rd Street, leaving us impressed at his commitment as a small business owner. Today, the chocolatier and the store are mentioned in a NY Times article that examines the emergence of Amsterdam Avenue as an option for retailers, who have traditionally been attracted to Broadway and......

The Daily News and NY Times have some updates on 74 Grand, the landmarked residential building that sank into the ground after a rainstorm in 2004. The would-be tenants are still battling their way through the court system, and one of them never even got to sleep in her $1.6 million loft. Caroline Hunt, a British business woman, was getting her life together in New York when her dreams (and dream home) literally began to......

The MTA has apparently narrowed down the list of contenders to develop the West Side Rail Yards - and may even ask them to team up together. According to Crain's New York, the MTA favors the developers who have already lined up tenants. Which means the front runners are The Related Companies with News Corporation and Goldman Sachs, Durst & Vornado with Conde Nast, and Tishman-Speyer with Morgan Stanley. But front runners may need......

In Following the Equator, Mark Twain wrote:“In America the ice-storm is an event. And it is not an event which one is careless about. When it comes, the news flies from room to room in the house, there are bangings on the doors, and shoutings, ‘The ice-storm! the ice-storm!’ and even the laziest sleepers throw off the covers and join the rush for the windows.” Yesterday, we had the latter day equivalent, with television......