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Last Stop on the Line

By Nadine |August 24, 2008 Add Comment »

laststop.jpgI love the NYC subway system. You pay one fare to go anywhere in the city, unlike Philadelphia or London (the only other cities whose public transportation I know about) which charges you based on how long you ride.

Here’s a fascinating story by Andy Newman in the Aug 22, 2008 New York Times called The Curious World of the Last Stop that describes most of the last stops on the NYC’s subways lines. The photos are great, too.

There are 24 stops on the New York City subway system past which you can ride no farther. For those who get off somewhere else — almost everyone — the end is just a sign on the train. New Lots: wonder what that’s like. Dyre Avenue? Sounds kind of grim. Middle Village — what is that, a jousting park? As it turns out, the end of the line, like most ends, is a place of abiding mystery. . .

Yet to visit all the system’s extremities is to see that the last stop is not a single, monolithic place. There are subway lines that end, logically, where the city runs out of land; lines that end, anticlimactically, where builders ran out of money; even a few that fetch up in bustling downtowns of one sort or another. From the marshy lowlands of Tottenville to the lush hills of Riverdale to the ceaseless clangor of Flushing, the end of the line manages to take in the entire breadth of the city beyond Midtown Manhattan.

This is from The Sun on Aug 7, 2007: First Time Renters are leaving Uptown in Droves by Candaces Taylor

I’ve extracted the best parts for you but you can read the full story by clicking here. And of course, RDNY.com has listings for all the buildings mentioned in the article.

 Move over, Normandie Court. The new go-to building for recent college graduates is in the financial district, at the three-year-old luxury rental tower at 2 Gold St.

“It used to be that on the Upper East Side you could get the largest spaces for the best price,” . . . “But now we’re seeing a lot of people coming towards the financial district. You can get the same space with all the amenities, and everything’s new.”

The median rent for an apartment on the Upper East Side is $3,600, compared to $3,495 in the financial district . . .

The median rent for an apartment on the Upper East Side is $3,600, compared to $3,495 in the financial district

the Upper East Side showed the highest vacancy rate in Manhattan at 1.45%, compared to 1.31% for the financial district and 1.21% for Manhattan overall.

Fun in the Water in NYC

By Nadine |August 24, 2008 Add Comment »

boating_in_nyc.jpeg

Sailing in the city:
Get back in the water without leaving the boroughs
By Ron Bishow
amny.com
August 1, 2008

Boating at Central Park
Impress a date by rowing her around while she relaxes, or, better yet, rent a gondola and sing to her in Italian. After all, it might be easier to learn a song in Italian than row a boat for a half-hour. (Loeb Boathouse, East 72nd Street and Park Drive North; 212-517-2233; www.centralpark.org; Rowboats: $10 for the first hour, $2.50 each additional 15 minutes; $30 cash deposit. Gondola Rides $30 per half hour)

Boating in Brooklyn
A favorite of small boat enthusiasts, the club doesn’t just include canoe fans, but also kayakers, sailors, rowers and flatwater racers. Membership gives you use of the clubhouse and club boats and instruction programs in every form of boating. There are also bi-weekly kayak trips on the bay and inter-club invitational events. (Sebago Canoe Club, 1400 Paerdegat Ave. North, foot of Avenue N, Brooklyn; 718-241-3683; www.sebagocanoeclub.org; $175 for year membership, $250 for family)

click here to read to entire story Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know how I missed this becasue I’ve been watching the news since mid-March when Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the original legislation, but effective March 26, 2008, renters in New York City cannot be turned down for an apartment because they have a Section 8 voucher. All legal sources of income have to be treated equally.

That means that every landlord in New York City who has 6 or more rental units must accept Section 8 vouchers if everything else about the applicant is acceptable.

This is a huge change and should have been splashed all over the papers and TV, but I never saw anything. Here’s a link to an article from the Gotham Gazette that has a pretty good explanation. This kind of protection has been in place for years in New Jersey.

cornerinbillyb.jpgI visited my artist friend Robert in Williamsburg a few days ago and I took my camera. It was a beautiful summer day and I wanted to update my Brooklyn portfolio. He lives a few blocks from the 7’s Graham Ave station. This is the corner of Graham and Metropolitan.

And this is further down on Graham Ave.

gladdbldginwillms.jpgWe had lunch at DuMont, a small restaurant at 432 Union Ave where I had a lovely crab cake sandwich.

Then we shopped at the Brooklyn Kitchen at 515 Lorimar St.

I’m looking for vintage Sylvester the cat glasses, if anyone knows where I can find them.

dumont.jpg brooklynkitchen.jpg Read the rest of this entry »

olivia.jpgYeah, I never heard of her either but she snagged a 2-page spread in New York Magazine (June 29-July 7, 2008). Of course, I saw “Juno” but I don’t remember her too much. Anyway, she’s living in Greenwhich Village and regretting it:

“I probably shouldn’t discuss my finances,” she says, “but I’m poor!” On the list of complaints: taxes, agent fees, publicist fees, and “obscene rent” on her West Village apartment, which, frankly, is her own damn fault. “My God, I know!” she says. “It was, like, a horrible decision. I wish I lived in Bushwick and was paying $650 a month for a crappy sublet.” (Article by Jada Yuan)

Oh, to be 21.

According the New York Magazine dated June 23, 2008, new building codes effective today (July 1, 2008) will change how the doors, the stairs, and smoke detectors look in new apartments. (Illustration by Kagan McLeod.)buildingcodes.jpg

Entrances: One of the coveted touches of the luxury loft—your key operates the elevator, which opens directly into your apartment—will go away. Elevators must now open into a vestibule, an arrangement that’s deemed safer in a fire.

Internal Stairs: Indoor staircase risers—that is, the upright back on each step—may have no more than four inches of their height open, and handrails must have vertical uprights. Designers are going to hate this one. That floaty glass staircase in the Soho Apple store? You won’t see another one like it.

Smoke Detectors: No more individual smoke detectors in bedrooms and hallways of newly constructed apartments — they’ll have to be wired together. Sprinkler systems will be required in residential buildings of three units or more, in attached two-family homes, and even in single-family homes of over three stories.

Fire Escape Stairs: In many buildings, the two required sets of fire stairs are intertwined to save floor space. That’s over, in buildings of more than twelve stories. New stairwells will have to be wider, too—up to 44 inches from 36—and sheathed in impact-resistant Sheetrock. We may see fewer sliver buildings because of the smaller salable square footage on each floor, adds Michael Zenreich, an architect who helped write the new code.

(Excerpts from article by S. Jhonna Robledo)

waverly_diner.png(photo from the realestsblogspot.com)

Gay Street in Greenwich Village is the city’s shortest street — it’s one block long and kind of private, snug between Christopher St and Waverly Place. Little did I know until I read the July 1, 2008 New York Times that Gay Street is the place to go to build up an appetite.

I’ve been to the Waverly Diner — not to be confused, EVER, with the Waverly Inn — all my life, but I had no idea I could have had a pre-dinner spliff a mere 1/2 blocks away. And now it’s too late.

potongay.png

The cops hang around Gay Street because pot busts are like shooting fish in a barrel (is that the right cliche?). Randy Credico, who lives on Gay Street and is a comedian and free speech warrior, is now in trouble with the police because he warns strollers not to light up, thus messing with the local precinct’s bust numbers. Here’s the link to his story and to a video where he explains everything. (That’s Mr. Credico on the job from a frame in the video.)

gayflag.jpgKevin, my co-worker in the RDNY.com Listings Dept, watches NY1 TV all the time and saw a TV report today (June 25, 2008) that said that Brooklyn has the city’s largest gay community and the 4th largest in the whole country.

This is from the NY1 website:

According to the borough president’s office [Marty Markowitz], Brooklyn now has the largest gay population in the city and the fourth largest in the country. Opening a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender center is in the works. The planners for the Brooklyn Community Pride Center say 25 percent of same-sex couples in the city live in Brooklyn, mostly in Park Slope.

baker.jpgPerhaps that’s why Brooklyn had its 2008 Gay Pride parade last night while Manhattan’s won’t happen for 4 more days (June 29, 2008).

I’ve been to many Gay Pride parades in Manhattan and here’s my advice: stand on the west side of Fifth Ave. The parade starts at noon but it really gets going when the later contingents strut in the afternoon. That’s when the shade will fall on the west side of Fifth, and trust me, you’ll enjoy the marching bands much more when you’re not swooning from the sun and heat on the east side of Fifth.

rdny.jpegThe RDNY.com office at 101 Fifth Ave is a great spot to watch Manhattan’s parade, by the way. We’re on the 4th floor and we have very large windows that look over Fifth Ave and they open, plus we (and the 3rd floor) have a ledge for the brave youngsters to sit on. (Photo courtesy of Oto Gillen of Property Shark.)

I watched the 2007 Gay Pride parade from our office windows and it was really fun. Unbeknownst to me until tonight, my family scheduled some get-together for Sunday, but too bad. I have plans for Sunday. This year, I’m bringing my baton. I do a mean windwheel and I can catch a toss as high as a 2-story house.

I get a daily e-mail update from Inman News, and today brought more evidence that more people who used to be buyers are renting instead. Whoda thunk that millionaires would be renters?

I spent a lot of time with buyers who wandered off, decided they didn’t have money — my favorite was the guy with $10 million who decided he was too poor to buy a $1 million apartment — and just in general soaked up my time. I took a listing with high spirits in March and now, five offers later, I’m still hawking it. Getting jumbo financing is still a struggle, and many, many customers are deciding to rent instead. (Alison Rogers)

I emphasized that last line. It’s a tough economy when rich people decide to be renters. Sure, they’re probably renting luxury high-end places that are way outside the budget of our RDNY.com clients, but they add to the over-all pressure on the rental market by driving down vacancy rates that were already low.