Frank Ghery’s first residential project features 903 rental units, a public school for 630 students, 21,000 square foot medical center and 22,000 sq. ft. of amenities including indoor / outdoor entertainment center, spa spaces and concierge services.

Current Availability:

Studio Start at $2,785 ( no fee )
1 Bedrooms Start at $3,590 ( no fee )
2 Bedrooms Start at $5,995 ( no fee )

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Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
May 4, 2011–July 31, 2011

The exhibition, organized by The Costume Institute, will celebrate the late Alexander McQueen’s extraordinary contributions to fashion. From his postgraduate collection of 1992 to his final runway presentation which took place after his death in February 2010, Mr. McQueen challenged and expanded the understanding of fashion beyond utility to a conceptual expression of culture, politics, and identity. His iconic designs constitute the work of an artist whose medium of expression was fashion. Approximately one hundred examples will be on view, including signature designs such as the bumster trouser, the kimono jacket, and the Origami frock coat, as well as pieces reflecting the exaggerated silhouettes of the 1860s, 1880s, 1890s, and 1950s that he crafted into contemporary silhouettes transmitting romantic narratives. Technical ingenuity imbued his designs with an innovative sensibility that kept him at fashion’s vanguard.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
May 4, 2011–July 31, 2011

Stools, wicker lounge chairs and cocktail tables by Poul Kjœrholm. Custom carpet by V’Soske with square ottomans covered in Loro Piana linen by Jonas.

A Hudson River View with Hoboken and Jersey City in the background. Kitchen stools by Lapalma by Unica Home. Dining table by Martin Szekely for Galerie Kreo.

Etchings by Helen Frankenthaler (left) and Robert Mangold. Atollo sofa by Paola Lenti upholstered in Bergamo fabric with a pair of Alvar Aalto chairs.

In the master bedroom, two circa-1925 Pierre Chareau sconces are stacked vertically beside #12, a photograph by James Welling.

Article by- http://www.architecturaldigest.com/

Bacchus House at 40 west 10th street in Greenwich Village is a restored, 24 foot wide – carriage house which has been on and off the market in the recent years. The six bedroom house features amenities such as a private garage, indoor swimming pool and gym. Previously owned by Italian liquor heir Enrico Cinzano for over twenty years, the Bacchus House just found a buyer at $20 million.

According to REW, the buyer was listed as Rivendell House LLC, a subsidiary of Founders Fund. The Founders Fund is a San Francisco based venture capital firm headed by, among others, Sean Parker, former president of Facebook and the co-founder of Napster.  Recently portrayed by Justin Timberake in the Social Network, Parker was renting the pad for $45,000 per month.

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Vintage photos of New York’s Iconic buildings, landmarks and streets.

Justin Timberlake: singer, actor, and perhaps among the most skilled celebrity dealmakers to grace these pages? Rumors flew in October that Timberlake had plans to buy PHA at Soho Mews, tired of the paparazzi hanging around his old place. Timberlake’s penthouse purchase has just closed, and according to public record, he paid $6,567,712.50 for the 2,598-square-foot apartment. It was most recently asking $7.65 million, and once as much as $8.66 million. Okay, fine, we’re willing to crown Timberlake a bargain-hunter: Timberlake reportedly paid $4.689 million for his Pearline Soap Factory condo two years ago, down from its list price of $6.75 million.

A rumor that the Cooper Square Hotel, at 25 Cooper Square and Bowery Street, was going to be sold to the same people who run the Soho Grand and Tribeca Grand was confirmed last night at Community Board 3′s State Liquor Authority committee meeting. The deal hasn’t been completed yet, so few details were available, according to Gothamist, though the application lists the Soho Grand as a related entity. The three men looking to take over the Cooper Square Hotel’s liquor licenses — which could happen in the next few days — were concerned about the transfer being smooth if it occurred over Christmas. One of the lawyers told Gothamist that the deal was “very close” to being completed.

[Gothamist]

While we were admiring the floors upstairs, buyers were busy going into contract for the third and fourth floor apartments at 54 Bond Street, aka the Bouwerie Lane Theater. Those deals have finally closed, and developer Adam Gordon made it through the long months of celebrity rumors with a decent take: $4.365 million for the third-floor (down from a $4.5 million ask) and $4.35 million (down from a $4.75 million ask) for the fourth floor. The third-floor buyer is the mysterious Msd Ny Inc., which the Observer notes, don’t seem like celebrity initials. – Curbed

]]> http://downtownlifenyc.com/third-and-fourth-floors-unload-at-54-bond-street/feed/ 0 http://downtownlifenyc.com/frank-gehry-on-beekman-tower/ http://downtownlifenyc.com/frank-gehry-on-beekman-tower/#comments Wed, 06 Oct 2010 01:15:04 +0000 admin http://downtownlifenyc.com/?p=7346

The gleaming new Beekman tower designed by architect Frank Gehry won’t be open for renters until early next year. But reviews are beginning to pour in of the 76-story skyscraper—New York’s tallest residential building—that already has become a major presence on the downtown skyline.

Most of the reviews of the tower and its distinctive, crinkly metal facade have been good. While some architects privately describe the design as “forced” and “exaggerated,” the consensus is that it’s a welcome addition that complements the nearby Woolworth Building and Municipal Building, which were built nearly a century earlier.

Frank Gehry’s Iconic Buildings:

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“Here is Gehry relatively restrained, his usual geometrical gymnastics tempered by more traditional skyscraping aspirations,” says the new AIA Guide to New York City.

For Mr. Gehry, the tower marks only his second major work in New York—after his IAC/InterActiveCorp headquarters building overlooking the Hudson River—and it is by far the most significant local contribution of the 81-year-old Pritzker Prize-winner.

His earlier designs for major signature projects, like a new Guggenheim museum over the East River and a Nets Arena at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, never got off the drawing boards.

In an interview he discussed the new tower, which is going to be marketed by its developer, Forest City Ratner Cos., as “New York by Gehry at Eight Spruce Street.” Here are excerpts:

WSJ: How did you come up with the design concept for the tower?

So I decided to work with that. I also saw a lot of modernist mistakes like putting glass at the corner of towers. It sort of weakens the form of the building. In the best buildings the corners are solid. There’s a strength to that.

Beekman Tower – Downtown Manhattan

WSJ: Many of your best known projects are almost sculptures themselves that house museums or performing arts halls. How does your design of this one reflect its residential use?

FG: Since it was a residential tower, I wanted to do something that there aren’t many of in New York, which is have apartments with bay windows. If you walk to a normal facade, you can push your nose against the window and you can see in either direction a little bit.

If it’s a bay window, you feel like you’re walking into space.

But if you have a bay window at the same place in the floor plan in every floor you get a vertical projection that’s lined up all the way to the top, which would have been a harsh move. I wanted to soften that like a fabric.

WSJ: Is that why you selected the look and texture of the facade?

FG: I’ve been fascinated with the studies of fabric by great artists through time—like Michelangelo, Leonardo. Apparently in their spare time they always drew fabric. You find a lot of those drawings in their archives.
I probably rationalize this but there’s probably a primate sense that when you’re in your mother’s arms as a baby: the folds in their clothes become very intimately associated with comfort and warmth. So those folds are functional.

WSJ: How did your design take into account its neighbors like the Woolworth Building?

FG: I am a contexualist. I pay a lot of attention to where I’m doing things. And I have a mind-set not to talk down to people or places. People have been telling me this is a New York building. I don’t think you would build that building anywhere else. With its stair-steps, it has a New York persona. I think I’ve nailed that part of it. That was intentional. I think it talks to the Woolworth Building. I like the juxtaposition. It sure as hell doesn’t talk down to it. It holds its own.

WSJ: You’re well known for using computer-assisted design techniques. How were they utilized in this project?

FG: That’s what made it possible. According to my client, the premium for our work, the architecture in this building was zero.

There was no added cost over his normal pro forma for a building of this topic. We had an economic pro forma. We lived within it and we got a premium aesthetic and a premium function within the same price as a normal building.

FG:That was possible because the precision of the tools I used to define the building and cut back on change orders and waste.

WSJ: It must feel satisfying to see this tower completed after some of your other projects here, like the Guggenheim and Atlantic Yards, didn’t come to fruition.

FG: The Atlantic Yards was the same client [Forest City Ratner] and there was a business decision to change and make it a much smaller building.
It wasn’t like everyone says that my building was more expensive. That wasn’t it. My building was within the parameters of their program and not more expensive. I’m very careful about that.
The Guggenheim over the water was never real. It was always kind of a dream.

WSJ: Has it been frustrating that these projects didn’t move forward?

FG: There are a lot of good architects that have never done anything in New York. So I’m blessed.
The other good thing about this is that my father was born in New York. He lived in Hell’s Kitchen and was very poor. Emotionally I think of him. And I wish he were here to see it.

- Wall Street Journal

Condo sales declined 34% from the end of June to the end of July, according to Radar Logic’s RPX Index. It was the largest decline for July since Radar Logic began collecting such data in 2000, the firm said. As sales declined, prices increased by 3% from June to July and 5.4% from a year earlier to an average of $1,019 per square foot.

Since most condo sales in New York close in 60 days, April’s deadline for new home buyers to claim federal tax credits had helped boost condo sales in June by 27%. Sales of units under $1 million represented a disproportionate number of condo sales in June, increasing 41%, while sales of units for $1 million or more increased by 9%. In July, sales of units under $1 million fell 44%, while sales for $1 million or more decreased by 17%.

“Increased activity at the low-end of the price spectrum skewed prices lower in June. As low-end sales decreased as a percentage of total sales in July, prices increased by 3%,” says Quinn Eddins, Radar Logic’s director of research.

The East Village/Lower East Side, where average prices fell 14.7% from June and 9.7% from a year earlier, posted the largest decline in July. The Upper West Side posted the July largest gain.

—Shelly Banjo WSJ

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- Curbed

Hotel Casa Verde – Costa Rica

La Belle Epoque

The record has been shattered with the $308 million sale of a palatial penthouse in Monaco. The Monaco property, called La Belle Epoque, has quite a history; formerly the home of billionaire banker Edmund Safra, it’s where he was found dead following a mysterious fire that gutted the apartment in 1999. The three-bedroom, 17,500-sq-.ft. duplexpenthouse, which includes a double-height library and vast roof terraces complete with mature 15-foot trees and an infinity pool.

The apartment’s luxe features include a panic room with reinforced glass and surveillance cameras, cinema screens which emerge from walls at the touch of a button, numerous walk-in wardrobes and dressing rooms, a leisure room with billiard tables and arcade video games, a Jacuzzi and spa, and a media room with special executive chairs which convert into beds. The penthouse was sold by British property developers Christian and Nick Candy, who acquired the space relatively cheaply following the fire from Lily Safra and hired designer Martin Kemp to oversee $40 million in renovations, including a dining room with a platinum leaf ceiling. – Luxist

So where the heck is Tiger’s lair? Initial reaction/wild speculation: He’s renting, given the speed of the deal and the lack of any leaked details, and probably in a neighborhood already loaded with celebrities, such as Tribeca or the West Village. And we all know the guy needs his privacy. Maybe the star-studded Superior Ink, with its residents-only indoor parking garage?

-  Tiger Woods Moves Into NYC Bachelor Pad Post-Divorce ( US )

- Tiger Woods Moves to Downtown Manhattan Mystery Building ( Curbed )

Article –  by Curbed

259 East 7th Street, The Flowerbox Building

The Best East Side story: Off Avenue D, The Flowerbox is the best building you’ve never seen.

More mystery surrounds E. Seventh St. between Avenue C and D than who shot Kennedy.

- Curbed

Full Building Details – 176 Perry Street

Full Details – Here

Story by - TRD

Check out 54 Bond Street in our Building Directory

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The House of Representatives has passed the Federal Housing Administration reform bill that triples the cap on annual premiums, limiting the charges that the FHA can impose on borrowers to .55 percent from 1.5 percent, according to MSNBC. What didn’t make it through was an amendment to the bill that would have raised the mandatory down payment on FHA-backed loans. The current minimum down payment requirement is 3.5 percent — which many critics claim allows unfit buyers to take out loans they’re not prepared to handle.

The tenants were cleared out and conversion plans for single-family residential usage were drafted and approved. And after gutting the building, also known as 1024 Lexington Avenue, remnants of its original fireplaces and residential plumbing revealed that Goldman’s idea to build a Manhattan mega-mansion wasn’t such a novel one, after all.

At 24,207 square feet, the converted building would already be the borough’s largest single-family home by a wide margin (the 21,700-square-foot Harkness Mansion at 4 East 75th Street currently holds that title), even before the 2,700-square-foot duplex BLDG is planning to add above it. But 133-137 East 73rd Street, which appears to be the combination of two neighboring townhouses, isn’t the only former mansion angling to capture the biggest-in-the-borough distinction.

The 18,267-square-foot Henry T. Sloane mansion at 18 East 68th Street famously emptied the tenants who had been occupying its 11 apartments, before hitting the market as a single-family home in 2008. At $64 million, it was, at the time, the highest official asking price for a house ever in New York, though technically the city still lists the property on the tax rolls as an elevator apartment building. The Corcoran Group’s Leighton Candler is now asking $39 million for the home.

As it turns out, Manhattan’s biggest mega-mansions are difficult to pin down. Like the Henry T. Sloane mansion, many of the palaces that the city’s wealthiest called home through the Great Depression have since been converted to rental apartments, condos and offices; often, said property appraisal guru Jonathan Miller, they’re worth more that way.

After the Harkness Mansion, the largest single-family homes in Manhattan — as per their current taxable usage — all fall under the 20,000-square-foot mark, according to data compiled by PropertyShark.com for The Real Deal. The top 10 were all built between 1899 and 1915, and they are all located on the Upper East Side.

Among them is the 17,676-square-foot townhouse at 4 East 80th Street (No. 5), originally commissioned by Frank Woolworth for his daughter, Barbara Hutton, and more recently owned by the late fitness entrepreneur Lucille Roberts.

There is also 14-16 East 67th Street, renamed the Milbank Mansion to help it sell after Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione lost it to creditors in 2006. Tenth on the list at 14,626 square feet (though the property has been marketed as covering 22,000 square feet), the Milbank Mansion was purchased by hedge funder Philip Falcone for $49 million in 2008 in one of the five largest single-family deals of the decade.

But not all of the single-family behemoths on the list are actually being used to house the well-to-do. At No. 3, the 19,580-square-foot Henry P. and Kate T. Davison House at 690 Park Avenue is the Italian consulate. The consulate of the Republic of Indonesia is located at the 19,746-square-foot 5 East 68th Street (No. 2). Both are still classified as single-family homes.

And although the sellers at 133-137 East 73rd Street dream of “a Madonna-type person” stepping up and turning the place into “one of the nicest and most unique mansions Manhattan has ever seen,” according to listing broker Ivan Hakimian of Itzhaki Properties, calls have been pouring in from private schools, museums and, once again, investors looking to open medical offices. For the right price, Hakimian said, the sellers would consider abandoning the mega-mansion goal.

According to Anne Snee, a townhouse specialist and a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group, that’s what tends to happen when times get rocky. “When financing is tight, it has to be somebody who is an all-cash buyer. There are a lot of very, very wealthy people around, but obviously that pool of buyers is far smaller when people don’t know what’s going on [with the market],” she said.

Still, in a city of densely packed co-ops and condos, there’s a certain cachet to having a house to call your own, and brokers for the largest of them hold that there’s a buyer for everything — especially in New York.

Take 4-8 East 94th Street, for example. The 60-foot-wide property — created through the combination of three neighboring townhomes over the course of the 20th century — was most recently a seven-story office building. But its 24,463-square-foot interior has since been gutted, and Corcoran’s Carrie Chiang and Loy Carlos are now marketing the space for $35 million to “a discerning purchaser who desires the ultimate New York mansion.”

That’s $1,431 per square foot. By comparison, the largest apartment on the market at ultra-luxe condo 15 Central Park West, a 5,600-square-foot combination spread on the 35th floor, is asking $55 million, or $9,821 per square foot.

For Manhattan single-family homes, “the upper threshold tends to be in the low 20,000-square-foot range,” said Miller, who runs the appraisal firm Miller Samuel. “There’s a diminishing return [beyond that] because the market segment it would appeal to gets smaller and smaller. … The price tag gets to be so high if you look at it on a per-square-foot basis, you are limited as to how many people can afford to purchase it.”

Indeed, mega-mansion sellers appear to be finding just that. The Henry T. Sloane mansion has gone from $3,504 per square foot to $2,135 per square foot in the more than two years it has sat on the market. Meanwhile, 4-8 East 94th Street was originally listed for $59 million; at $35 million, its price per square foot has been slashed by around 41 percent.

But Snee said that’s all a function of the market.

“Is [a mega-mansion] going to fly off the shelf right now? Probably not. Will it, given better times? Very likely.”

- Story by TRD