NYC Apartments

Amazing. If there ever were lessons to take away from the effects of acronyms on NYC real estate values, we know from SoHo, NoHo, TriBeCa, NoLIta, etc., that cute acronyms are like catnip to luxury apartment developers. But a cute acronym, plus the evocation of the lovable misfit of a baby elephant that most New Yorkers—secretly—fancy themselves to be, plus industrial-strength industrial chic, and you’ve got yourself a veritable NYC real estate black hole that not even ennui that comes with gentrification can emerge from!

So why on earth did the artistic types who moved into the inexpensive industrial spaces on Brooklyn’s Fulton Landing actually believe that they could camouflage their wedge-shaped neighborhood between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges from developers by calling it DUMBO [Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass]?!

But to be fair, the New York Post reports that even before DUMBO was coined as a defensive measure in 1978, developers David and Jed Walentas—the father-and-son team who run Two Tree Management—had been quietly buying up property in the Brooklyn neighborhood since the early 1970s. To this day, the Walentas own and/or control more than half of DUMBO. And just as the creator of the original Dumbo was rumored to not have been entirely evil, many of the changes made or facilitated by the Walentas have also brought joy—at a price.

In the last decade, Brooklyn Bridge Park has replaced a chain-linked truck lot with snarling junkyard dogs, industrial/Gothic warehouses and factories have been preserved through luxury apartment and condo conversions, the neighborhood has been declared a historical district ensuring the integrity of it’s industrial chic for generations to come, and the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) reports the average price per square foot in DUMBO is now the most expensive in Brooklyn, at $917, having risen 25% between the second quarters of 2007 and 2008.

DUMBO rents are also some of the most expensive any NYC apartment. According to a representative from Two Trees, the very least expensive one-bedroom apartments rent for $2800. per month and the most expensive three-bedrooms go for $8000.

Why so expensive? According to the New York Post, just like the lovable Disney character, DUMBO is cute:

Visiting the area is like stepping back in time. Sections of obsolete train track, which once carted raw materials from the water inland, push up through narrow cobblestone streets. Looming brick warehouses give way to views of the Brooklyn Bridge. And, whether you're at DUMBO's waterfront parks or just peering out a window, Manhattan plays backdrop to it all - stretched out just beyond the water, so close and yet totally removed.

Like Dumbo, DUMBO is hip:

As happening as DUMBO is, it can also be completely unassuming. Its restaurants and boutiques don't scream out to be noticed, but instead sit on nearly vacant blocks patiently awaiting those in the know.

Like Dumbo, DUMBO is the product of calculating, imperialist genius:

But DUMBO, with its industrial aesthetic and low-key lifestyle, didn't evolve naturally. It was carefully planned. [...] David Walentas began investing in the neighborhood in the '70s; he opened 1 Main, the area's first major residential conversion, in 1998. Since then, Two Trees has slowly continued to convert historic buildings into residences, ever careful to preserve their character.

And, like Dumbo, DUMBO’s creators discriminate:

And though DUMBO has gourmet-food shops and a mom-and-pop drugstore, there isn't a Key Food or Duane Reade in sight. [...] [T] he Walentas family is extremely picky about tenants, preferring to give preferential rent to mom-and-pop shops and local chefs than to fill spaces with big-box stores and chain restaurants. It isn't uncommon for them to give a local storefront to a working artist (rent-free) until a suitable tenant shows up.

Uncanny.

Labels: NEIGHBORHOODS, NEWS

It didn't look like Ikea had the Swedish meatballs to do it, but they did.

The blue big box behemoth is officially no longer cool with allowing freeloading Red Hookers to use the free shuttle buses and Water Taxis it sponsors for their customers as their own personal commuter service between their remote Brooklyn neighborhood and downtown Manhattan.

No Ikea handstamp, no Ikea receipt, no Ikea ride...

Labels: NEIGHBORHOODS, NEWS

The main reason why real estate bargains and lost tribes of headhunters - and possibly dinosaurs, Sasquatches, and giant anacondas - still abound in Red Hook, is that the Brooklyn neighborhood is so under-served by public transportation that its fragile Urban/Industrial Chic ecosystem has been allowed to flourish untouched by the hands of gentrifiers for far longer than almost any other NYC neighborhood.

But then the Swedes landed on that pristine, 19th Century dry docked peninsula with their big box pestilence against which the indigenous Red Hookers had neither the immune systems nor the well-organized community groups to defend against. Exactly one month ago today, a 346,000 square foot Ikea opened it's doors on their Brooklyn neighborhood's waterfront.

A major objection to the new Ikea's location was that the lack of public transportation to Red Hook would cause the narrow, cobblestone streets to be flooded with the private vehicles of Manhattan, Queens, and other Brooklyn-area residents who - unfurling maps, their rear view blocked by walls of corrugated cardboard bearing strange umlauted markings - would crush-under-tire and smog-out the indigenous peoples - and their property values and whatever dinosaurs may still roam free among them - into extinction.

Ikea attempted to assuage many of the traffic concerns by enhancing the Brooklyn neighborhood's meager public transportation options with free shuttle buses to and from the two near-ish-by subway stations and even the major Court Street/Borough Hall station between Downtown Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights. Ikea has also sponsored a free, direct Water Taxi route to and from downtown Manhattan and Red Hook.

So did the Swedes succeed? Perhaps a Swede-tad better than they had intended...

It seems that Red Hook residents just love what Ikea has done with their daily commutes! Apparently, on any given free Ikea shuttle or Water Taxi, you are as likely to to be seated next to a hitching Red Hooker as you are someone looking to get their big box shop on. Dorothy Shields, a tenant advocate for Red Hook public housing tells New York Magazine:

"The working people have been making good use of the water taxi and the buses. [...] It's made it so much easier to get to work."

For now, Ikea is publicly cool with the freeloading locals:

[Bork, bork, bork!] "We don't care whether they are or are not coming to the store. If they want to ride to Ikea Brooklyn and go to the Red Hook neighborhood, they’re welcome to do so."

So how will this unforeseen boost in mass transit accessibility affect property values in Red Hook? Will there be more or less turnover in rental apartments, condos, co-ops, and brownstones? Thor only knows...

But if you find yourself worrying that a generous gesture by a new neighbor is being unfairly taken advantage of, don't be so hasty. By now, there is no excuse for underestimating the ever-adaptive, ever-opportunistic nature of the intrepid New Yorker.

Labels: CULTURE, NEIGHBORHOODS, NEWS

¿Quién es más macho?

Brooklyn’s Red Hook may have been the setting for H.P. Lovecraft’s terrifying short tale, “The Horror at Red Hook,” but don’t expect Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen—the setting for “West Side Story”—to go down without menacing finger snaps, a show-stopping dance number and a flurry of jazz hands!

These two NYC neighborhoods are well-matched in terms of their working class roots and vestiges of a bad-ass history that seem to inspire nostalgia in newer residents who seek out this authenticity in a neighborhood, although demand driven condo and co-op prices and merciless credit checks might be prohibitive to any apartment applicant who actually has a working class income or bad-ass history of their own.

For such NYC real estate seekers, Hell’s Kitchen past may trump Red Hook in terms of bad-assed-ness, but Red Hook is a serious contender to the title of Uber-Urban 'Hood of Industrial Chic in that it's about ten years behind Hell’s Kitchen in the relentless march of gentrification, so highly coveted Brooklyn condos, co-ops, apartments, and brownstones can be more easily hunted down here than in virtually any other NYC real estate market.

More specs for Hell's Kitchen's can be found here, but below are the components of the quality of whoop-ass that Red Hook brings to the chain-link octagon for the epic NYC Neighborhood Smackdown that is surely playing out with gratuitous brutality in your real estate addled brain:

RED HOOK

LOCATION
Red Hook is a peninsula in the East River on the southern edge of Downtown Brooklyn, so the only non-nautical border is the Gowanus Expressway and Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel approach that effectively lops this pointy “Southern Brooklyn” appendage.

POPULATION: Approximately 11,000
Hell's Kitchen: Approximately 42,000

AREA: .82 Square Miles
Hell's Kitchen: .91 Square Miles

AVERAGE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY SALE PRICE (Mar-May '08): $773,750
Average Brooklyn Condo, Co-op, Home: $670,296
Average Hell's Kitchen Condo, Co-op, Home (Dec. '07-Feb. '08): $1,200,000
Average Manhattan Condo, Co-op, Home: $2,286,490

AVERAGE PRICE PER RESIDENTIAL SQUARE FOOT (Mar-May '08): $388
Brooklyn Average: $349
Hell's Kitchen Average: $778
Manhattan Average: $1265

TRANSPORTATION
Yeah, about that… Red Hook is very under-served by public transportation, contributing to the isolated quality of the neighborhood that some residents love but that others find annoying.

SUBWAYS: Ah, the sub-what now?
TRANSPORTATION TIME TO MIDTOWN, PEAK HOURS
B61 Bus to Jay Street/Borough Hall Subway Station: 25 minutes
? A, C, or F Train to Midtown stops: 20 minutes
B77 Bus to Smith and Ninth Streets Subway Station: 10 minutes
? F Train to Midtown stops: 25 minutes
Car, via Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel to Lower Manhattan: 15 minutes
Parking, Taking Subway to Midtown stops: 15 minutes
? Driving to Midtown: depends wildly on traffic.
WATER TAXI: Van Burnt Street (by the Fairway) has direct service to lower Manhattan and is on a route with stops in other parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan.

Hell's Kitchen: With all of the following transportation hubs in walking distance, infinite combinations of subway, bus, train, PATH, or airport shuttle can get you to almost any destination on the planet!
Time Square—42nd St. Subway Station (Grand Central Shuttle, S)
Port Authority Bus Terminal, W40th-W42nd Sts., 8th & 9th Aves.
Pennsylvania ("Penn") Station, W31st-W33rd Sts., 8th & 9th Aves.

PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, PS 15 AND PS 27
45% Read At Or Above Grade Level (2007 State Test Scores)
Hell's Kitchen: 71%

PUBLIC MIDDLE SCHOOL, PS 27
21% Read At Or Above Grade Level (2007 State Test Scores)

EATING AND DRINKING An industrial peninsula of Foodie heaven...
The Good Fork, 391 Van Brunt St. (at Coffey St.), 718-643-6636

Tini Wine Bar and Café, 414 Van Brunt St., 718-855-4206

Defonte’s Sandwich Shop, 379 Columbia St. (at Luquer St.), 718-625-8052

Sixpoint Craft Ales, 40 Van Dyke St. (at Dwight St.)

Hell's Kitchen: Lots of great places, but Restaurant Row (W. 46th bet. 8th, 9th Aves.) is it's own inner circle of Hell for area residents. Someone really ought to take down that sign:

"Tourists! Proudly unfurl your maps of Manhattan in the middle of the sidewalk and be sure to elbow other pedestrians in the face or poke them in the eye when you point without looking! Ask Ask hurrying midtown residents and workers for directions to the Disney Store then get angry and refuse to believe them when, a) they give you directions that you did not expect, or b) they say that they do not know. And please do not forget to use others' reactions to your inconsiderate behavior as proof that all New Yorkers are rude but that you out-smarted them by being rude first!"

SHOPPING
Ikea, 1 Beard St. GRAND OPENING: Monday, June 18 9AM
Still no end to the media Swede-ing frenzy: NYSun, WNYC, NYO, Newsday, NYT
OPENING DAY SWAG ALERT!!!

Edible Schoolyard Project, Red Hook Farmer's Market, 6 Wolcott (at Dwight)
(Teenage Mutant Ninja Organic Farmers!)

Fairway Market, 480-500 Van Brunt St.
(Just like the one on the Upper East Side, but Brooklyn-ier!)

Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies, Pier 41, 204 Van Dyke St., 718-858-5333
(Why Al Roker can't keep the weight off...)

FUN
Waterfront Arts Festival

Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge, Pier 44, 290 Conover St., 718-624-4719

Red Hook Boaters, Louis Valentino Jr. Pier Park, 917-676-6458
Who says there is no free kayaking in NYC?

OF INTEREST
Statue Of Liberty: Red Hook is the only NYC neighborhood that gets a full frontal view of Lady Liberty, as Red Hook happens to be in the sight line of the land that that privilege is reserved for—her nation of origin, France.

Brooklyn Cruise Terminal: In 2006 this revamped industrial pier became the new home to that Grand Dam of floating wedding cakes, the Queen Mary 2.

Feast at the Red Hook Ball Fields: Apparently well worth whatever intestinal risk you might incur. The Department of Health tried to close these unlicensed food vendors and foodies and locals alike went all apoplectic. Their case is still pending.

Labels: CULTURE, NEIGHBORHOODS, SCHOOLS

HELL'S KITCHEN
North of West 34th Street to West 57th Street
West of 8th Avenue to the Hudson River

If your idea of public artwork is chalk outlines of bodies on cracked sidewalks, then you might be disappointed by what you find—or don't find—in the notorious NYC neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen. A seething cauldron of thievery, murder, and sleaze from the Civil War until the 1980s—when Giuliani effectively defanged the Irish and Latino gangs responsible for much of the violence—Hell’s Kitchen’s nom de guerre is so well-earned that many New Yorkers are unaware that the neighborhood’s official name is Clinton, dashing many real estate brokers’ hopes that the less colorful, more marketable moniker will ever stick.

Not that anything will ever stick—or unstick—to Hell’s Kitchen that could aversely affect it’s marketability to a wide range of different apartment hunters.

South of West 49th Street, there are lots of studios, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments in four- and five-floor walk-up tenement buildings and brownstones, and small elevator buildings that appeal to young folks who work in near-by midtown offices or the Theater District and who keep the many neighborhood restaurants, cafes, and bars lively at night.

These low-rise buildings are also home to many third- and fourth-generation blue-collar families who tend to do their inter-neighborhood socializing from their stoops while keeping a watchful eye on their children playing on the sidewalks below. Lack of park space and public schools that perform below the New York State averages for reading and math mean few new families are attracted to Hell’s Kitchen.

North of West 49th Street, newly constructed mid-rise and high-rise residential and mixed-use buildings are sprouting up like glass and steel weeds. These buildings offer studios, one-, two-, and three-bedroom luxury condos and rental apartments that are typically dripping with gooey, sweet amenities. Expensive, oui, but with so much space available, developers and management companies make quick with the throw-ins and other pot-sweeteners.

Well at least the name still sounds bad-ass.

Labels: CULTURE, NEIGHBORHOODS

Labels: CULTURE, NEIGHBORHOODS

[NYSun]
No one indulges in the charms of the City That Never Sleeps quite like the New Yorkers whose Manhattan apartments are only a quick lurch and stumble from their favorite inebria-torium. But it's nap time, Manhattan (and I'm looking right at YOU, East Village)! Pressure from community boards has made the NY liquor authority increasingly loathe to issue a license without a stipulated 2AM closing time.

Labels: COMING SOON, NEIGHBORHOODS

Manhattan apartments can be a tough habit to break. Sure, there will always be those individuals who can enjoy it responsibly and walk away when they’ve had enough. Maybe they are lucky and rent stabilized or maybe—as a few conflicted outer borough transplants might prefer to believe—they just haven’t had a jarring enough wake-up call yet.

For Liz Galbo and Partick Haggerty, it wasn’t until their mid-town studio habit had reached $1500. a month that they were ready to admit they had a problem. Ms. Galbo told the New York Times’ Joyce Cohen:

“[Columbus Circle] is so great it doesn’t matter much what your apartment is like. There is so much to do outside. But our luck ended. So that spun us into a little bit of a panic.”

The young couple’s first taste of “cold turkey” came in the form of flavorful wraps from a hip-ish café on Queens Boulevard. According to Ms. Galbo:

“It was the cutest little coffee shop that made me feel I was in Greenwich Village. Any doubt we had, sitting there eating lunch eased our minds.”

In a maneuver that exposed their lingering vulnerability to Manhattan-type trappings, they based their decision to move into a nearby one-bedroom apartment, in large part, on this pleasant lunching experience and were dismayed and terrified to find:

Their street was a busy thoroughfare. Teenagers congregated near their window. Streetlights glared. They [required] earplugs and sleeping masks. The heat and hot water cut out for days.

[Ms. Galbo said] “We didn’t walk down the street at different times of day… Inside, we heard all the chaos outside, and outside there wasn’t much to do.”

Cowering inside their apartment, however, not only spared Ms. Golbo and Mr. Haggerty from congregating teens, but also the expense of the $10 cocktails and dinners out that were integral to their daily Manhattan lifestyle. Mr. Haggerty said:

“A lot of our friends feel like they are struggling and it’s hard to build some momentum, but you really can do it if you stay away from the bars. It’s amazing how quickly you can get yourself to a place where you can build for the future.”

Within six months, their savings had snowballed to $40, 000, enough for a down payment on a beautiful 1,400 square foot, one-bedroom Kew Gardens, Queens co-op. Now Ms. Golbo says of her new, improved life:

“People think [Queens] is a different planet. I think I am in on some secret.”

Labels: CULTURE, NEIGHBORHOODS, TRENDS