Lysandra Ohrstrom

Usually, we wouldn't encourage any Americans to heed President Bush's advice, but in the case of tax rebate checks we’re all for a little indulgence. Here are some ideas. [NY Magazine]

The Amstel beer bike will pedal into the Upper West Side this weekend to celebrate the Dutch settlement of New York. [Gothamist]  read more »

Last night, a friend who lives on 11th Street and Second Avenue told me she keeps on getting woken up in the middle of the night by a bird that mimics the sound of a car alarm. I did not believe her, but it turns out her account of the strange urban bird call is actually a northern mocking bird adapting to New York City life, said Haley Main, the environmental educator of the Audobon Society’s "For the Birds!" program. The birds also mimic cellular phone rings, and they are “all over” the city.

This week brought a flock of notable stories of wildlife adapting and, sometimes, colliding with development here.  read more »

That perspiring, uncomfortable-looking Wall Streeter you sat next to on the subway this morning might have been a Morgan Stanley banker. Dealbreaker reports that as part of the firm's new "new cost-cutting initiative, taxi reimbursement will not be provided until after 10 pm."

Morgan Stanley posted its first-ever quarterly loss at the end of last year after taking a $9.4 billion dollar write-down on subprime mortgage investments.  read more »

Luke and his fiancé are getting married at the Foundry in Long Island City this weekend. Like many of the New York couples tying the knot in this uncertain economic climate, they are still going all out for the big day. “We just said, ‘Let’s hang the cost because it’s only going to happen once right,'” said the British native.

His American-born fiancée’s parents have thrown in $30,000 from their 401(k) to help foot the bill for the 125-person reception. The newlyweds will cap off the celebration with a two-week honeymoon in Bali, which Luke just bought new scuba gear for.

Based on reports from about a dozen of the city's bridal retailers, the economic slump has done little to dilute the appetite for lavish weddings. Like Manhattan's luxury real estate market, the wedding industry here not only appears to be impervious to a recession, but also has been buoyed by Europeans taking advantage of the almighty euro.  read more »

Tenant advocates claim they have begun to see a pattern of "predatory equity" and harassment of rent-stabilized apartment dwellers. [NY Times]

For the time being Cipriani's won't be serving Bellinis until the family resolves a dispute with the State Liquor License Authority. [NY Times]  read more »

Let's hope the Christian Right doesn't drink a lot of coffee, otherwise Starbucks is in for agita. [Gawker]

The annual Dumbo designers showcase kicks off this weekend. [Dumbo NYC]

Hundreds of security guards marched on Midtown this afternoon to demand better benefits in a new contract being negotiated. [Crain's]  read more »

Ground Zero's "train in a box" is a supposedly subterranean railroad held up in midair and exposed to daylight, but passengers shouldn't notice service changes. [NY Times]

The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission is ending its relationship with a developer that wanted to build thousands of homes and a golf course atop several landfills. [NY Times]  read more »

The microwavable meals delivered to eligible senior citizens in the Bronx pass City Room's taste test, but they come up short in the cultural sensitivity department. [City Room]

Is the new "Citi Never Sleeps Slogan" the first step of Citibank CEO Vikram Pandit's “Double Secret Plot to Golden Parachute” plan?  read more »

Curbed alerted us to a new satirical blog "Stuy Town's Lux Living" written by a resident of the rent-stabilized housing complex as it makes its transition to fully market-rate. Though Stuy Town's new landlord Tishman Speyer is never mentioned by name, the blog does a good job of taking the developer to task with sardonic, over-the-top posts about the gentrification process.

Our favorite post from May 3, "Illegal Immigrants? No way Jose," details the Stuyvesant Town management's effort to keep undocumented foreigners from "raiding the complex" with an "elaborately cloaked, rusty chain link fence."  read more »

Hermès, the French luxury brand that birthed the Birkin bag and all sorts of other status symbols, announced that global sales rose 13.4 percent to 415.1 million euros—that’s $642.9 million now, ouch!—year-over-year in the first three months of 2008.

Surprisingly, gains were felt on both sides of the Atlantic, with U.S. sales rising 23 percent annually in the first quarter. Even more suprising is that the banner performance of Hermès’ Wall Street branch drove up the numbers, WWD reports.  read more »

Despite the truckloads of statistics floating around lately indicating that U.S. consumer confidence is plummeting (not to mention the millions of tax rebate checks in the mail), the city’s retailers seem convinced that New Yorkers will continue to shop, recession or not.

Monday brought a flood of new retail news, some of it reflective of the economic slump and some less so.  read more »

Young artists find private space and low rents at McKibben lofts in East Williamsburg, but no privacy. [NY Times]

The urban farming movement is growing, bringing crops from vacant lots to market. [NY Times]  read more »

The outrage over the spray-painting of Williamsburg's own "Myrtle the Turtle" continues. [Gowanus Lounge]

The MTA will begin selling advertising space on subway exteriors, leaving no surface in the city unbranded. [Second Ave. Sagas]  read more »

We knew buyers are being a bit more finicky these days, but is the market so bad that a broker needs to hire a supermodel to unload two prime Upper East Side listings?

Page Six reported that supermodel/tsunami survivor Petra Nemcova has partnered with a mysterious new one-man brokerage called Aglow Properties to sell two apartments in the $25 million range at Fifth Avenue and 80th Street and on Park Avenue in the 60’s.

Details on the stunning partnership, the Czech beauty's role, and the listings are still unclear--Aglow's Web site is only one page with a logo and a phone number for broker Ron Schnackenberg, who used to be the head of sales at Trump University, according to his Linked profile.  read more »

At least a dozen people at 15 Central Park West have thrown out an extra $800,000 or so for a pied a terre for the help to complement their own palatial condos. Penthouse owner Sanford Weil even paid $950,000 for a second unit that we can only assume is a closet since it is not denoted by the S-prefix--supposedly the S stands for "suite," but we can't help but notice that it's also the first letter of the word staff.  read more »

The Rent Guidelines Board proposed increasing rents on the city’s 1 million stabilized apartments by between 3.5 to 9.5 percent at their annual meeting at Cooper Union last night, in an upset for tenants and landlords alike.

The nine-member board will hold two public hearings before determining in June an increase that could be substantially larger than those of the past two years. The increases could range from 3.5 to 7 percent for one-year leases and 5.5 to 9.5 percent for two-year leases renewed between October 2008 and September 2009. Rents rose 5.75 percent on two-year leases and 3 percent on one-year leases in 2007; and 7.25 percent and 4.25 percent, respectively, in 2006.

Only a smattering of mainly senior, picket-wielding tenants were in the audience on Monday night, a relatively poor showing compared to past meetings. But otherwise it followed the same script as its predecessors, pitting beleaguered tenants against landlords claiming hardship.  read more »

"Matzo Gate" comes to a close as residents of 475 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn are allowed back into their live-work spaces. [NY Times]

A new subsidized ferry route from Queens to Lower Manhattan, via Brooklyn, will begin next week. [NY Times]  read more »

The posse of anti-Atlantic Yards bloggers went nuts over all the weekend news about Forest City Ratner's maligned Brooklyn development. Here are some of the highlights and a list of links. [Brownstoner]

We never thought we'd see the day when our favorite avenger of the mom-and-shop would lament the loss of a chain bookstore, but apparently even a Barnes & Noble is better than another gym.  read more »

The Department of City Planning is forging ahead with its plan to rezone 114 blocks of the East Village and the Lower East Side to limit the height and density of future development, despite allegations of racism from community groups in the Bowery and Chinatown, which were not included in the rezoning.  read more »

A Forest City Ratner project in Yonkers is embroiled in controversy. [NY Times]

A wave of supermarket closures in the city is making affordable, healthy food scarce in some neighborhoods, especially in Brooklyn and Queens. [NY Times]  read more »

Will a new Danny Emerman wine bar replace the mom-and-pop shops facing eviction along Chelsea's Ninth Avenue? [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]

Having artists move into an edgy neighborhood usually boosts property values (see Soho and Williamsburg); 533 Greenwich Street is another story. [Curbed]  read more »

Protesters and politicans plan to rally in Chelsea on Saturday against the displacement of a handful of small businesses on Ninth Avenue by landlord Morris Monian.

Eight stores along what organizers are calling “the last ungentrified block in Chelsea” —including Chelsea Liquors, the Ninth Avenue Gift Shop, Sweet Banana Candy Store, New Barber Shop and Famous Deli—have between three months and two years before their lease expires.

Organizers said the shops cater directly to residents of the Fulton Houses affordable housing complex across the street.  read more »

After Morgan Stanley took a beating from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, one would think the firm's global co-chief of real estate investment might have second thoughts about making any real estate investments of his own. But not only did K.S. Kalsi (a.k.a. Sonny) and his wife pay $14.6 million for a fifth-floor condo at 15 Central Park West, according to city records, he took out two different mortgages--one for $1 million and the other for $8 million--on the apartment.  read more »

“If we do not have [a Business Improvement District], we’ll be like Cinderella stuck downstairs while the rest of the city is having a party, and we will still be filthy and stinking,” said the executive director of the Chinatown Partnership, Wellington Chen.

A Chinatown BID is not a new idea. The proposal has been around for about 20 years, said Mr. Chen, and he has been promoting the BID since well before the Partnership even came into existence after Sept. 11.

But with Chinatown’s economy still in tatters since then and the specter of gentrification looming larger than ever, the BID is gaining urgency for advocates and becoming a target for opponents.  read more »

State officials said New York is heading towards a deep recession. [NY Times] 

Weekend Explorer: The melting pot is on high boil in Flushing. [NY Times] 

Credit card payment in cabs and the battle behind the scenes. [NY Times]   read more »

Introducing mini-Michael Shvo! Some might argue that one is enough. [Curbed]

Cue the violins: Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein may be the lowest-paid CEO. [Forbes]  read more »

You know things are tight when the good people start to forgo their daily caffeine fix, but it appears not even Starbucks has been spared from the drop in consumer spending. With profits down 28 percent, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced the company has cut the number of U.S. branches it plans to open this year from 1,175 to 1,020 and will open fewer than 400 from 2009 through 2011, The New York Times reports today.  read more »

The City Council overwhelmingly approved the rezoning of 125th Street yesterday, but not before all audience members were ejected from the building for booing. [NY Times]

Atlantic Yards opponents filed a suit challenging the construction timeline outlined in the agreement between the city and Forest City Ratner. [NY Times]  read more »

An Upper East Side doorman doubles as Queens historian during the graveyard shift. [City Room]

Remember when Miranda moved to Brooklyn and was nearly ostracized by Carrie, et al? Well Sex and the City scribe Darren Star has apparently softened to the outer-boroughs since he is launching a new show chronicling the sexploits of the Park Slope Stroller Brigade. [Daily Intelligencer]  read more »

We've got good news for the die-hard fashionistas who had been plotting a lunch-time run on Bloomingdale's today before a possible strike tomorrow. It's been averted (for the time being at least)!

Womens' Wear Daily reported today that the management of the 59th Street flagship reached a deal with leaders of the Local 3 branch of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union that "eliminates any possibility of a strike being called against the retailer."  read more »

The City Council is expected to approve a modified plan to rezone 125th Street to allow for denser residential and commercial development today, but the rezoning’s most vocal opponents are not giving up the fight.

The Coalition to Save Harlem is mounting its umpteenth protest against the plan, which they contend “falls woefully short of what is needed for the future development of Harlem," outside the City Council’s legislative building at noon.  read more »

An appeals court ruled that the Port Authority was 68 percent responsible for the '93 World Trade Center attacks, leaving the agency liable for over $100 million in damages. [NY Times]

Pushcarts give way to high-end boutiques on the Lower East Side. [NY Times]  read more »

So whatever happened to the $354 million of federal funding earmarked for Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing bill? Some of it went to a similar traffic reduction program in Chicago. [City Room]

Is 15 CPW loosing its cache with monied, Eastern European ex-pats? A Moldovan-born diamond wholesaler and his wife bought a $5.6 million condo there. [TRD]  read more »

When Joseph Betesh opened an Army-Navy store in the South Bronx in 1975 he probably never imagined he would become a full-fledged hip-hop clothing mogul with 19 branches of his Dr. Jay's store spread across the five boroughs. Now the Sephardic Jewish retailer who made a fortune selling "urban apparel" to 18- to 30- year-olds is moving about as far away from his retail roots as possible.

Mr. Betesh has paid $5.6 million for a 28th-floor condo at 15 Central Park West, city records show.  read more »

A Wall Street tycoon's plan to combine three Carnegie Hill brownstones into one massive single-family home (or McMansion to critics) has neighbors and preservationists on edge. [NY Times]

Developers and unionized workers are concerned that the city's safety crackdown could lead to delays and layoffs at building sites. [NY Times]  read more »

Donor and Barnard alum Diana Vagelos will get to choose the name of the new $15 million student center at the all women’s college, but it has already been dubbed the "Vag" on campus. For the record it will not have a cafe called the "G-spot." [New York Magazine]

A guide to the city's chicest yarn shops. If it’s knitting grannies you're after, we're afraid you're out of luck in Manhattan. [Gridskipper]  read more »

The 6,300 miles of streets and the transportation infrastructure spread across New York City's 321 square miles “is coming up against limits,” the commissioner of the New York Department of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan, said in the agency’s “Sustainable Streets” plan announced today.

Since Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan never got off the ground, the DOT laid out a new blueprint to ease travel within the city by making streets more pedestrian friendly; targeting improvements in bus mobility, safety, and bicycling; and reducing the transportation network's impact on the environment. It's ambitious, but since Albany has no say in the matter it might be more likely to become a reality than its predecessor.  read more »

Compared to some of the other blue-chip investment banks in the city, Deutsche Bank was not well represented at 15 Central Park West. The lone Deutsche banker with a condo in the tower has been flying solo in a sea of Goldman and Lehman residents since he closed on a $9.9 million unit in February.

It seems he's finally gotten a buddy. Deutsche's Head of Trading for Emerging Market Debt, Kay Haigh, paid $5.3 million for a 24th-floor unit, city records show.  read more »

It’s a rainy day, but hopefully the 150th anniversary of the day Central Park’s design was selected won’t be a total washout. In honor of America’s first major public park, the city has christened the 72nd Street Cross Drive "The Olmsted & Vaux Way" after the park's two architects, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.  read more »

New York City Councilman and Peter Cooper Village resident Dan Garodnick helped Stuy Town (square) dance its way toward landmark designation on Saturday night, as tenants of the 110-building, World War II-era housing complex officially (re)launched their landmarks campaign.

We stopped by the party after 6 before any real dancing had begun, but the Gramercy Park church hall was already packed with mainly elderly residents decked out in denim, flannel, and other Western regalia, fuelling up on dinner before the main event.

Gaining protective status for Stuy Town is not a new idea. The Historic Districts Council first endorsed the proposal seven years ago and five years later told the Tenants Association that the complex was eligible for honorary state landmark status.

But the square dance was the first push to get the landmarking process off the ground since Tishman Speyer paid $5.4 billion for the planned community in 2006, though the tenants we spoke to Saturday night insisted the campaign is not related to their new landlord.  read more »

Shoppers who were hoping to pick up a Mother's Day gift at Bloomingdale's on Thursday may find picketing workers instead.

Crain's reported on Friday that the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union authorized a strike action at the Bloomingdale's flagship on 59th Street to amp up the pressure on management to increase employee benefits before the union's current contract expires on April 30.

The union wants Bloomingdale's to keep the current health plan, which is managed by the union, rather than switch to an HMO and is also pushing for pay increases.

We stopped by Bloomie's over the weekend and spoke to a couple of the department store's 2,000-plus workers about the possibility of the first walkout there in 43 years. The sales people were pretty in the dark, but all said they are prepared to walk out on Thursday if an agreement is not reached.  read more »

A 38-year resident of a building affected by the March crane collapse fears that a temporary vacate order could turn permanent. [NY Times]

If there is a national recession, how deep will it hit New York City? [NY Times]  read more »

For your weekend enjoyment: A map of the best outdoor watering holes in the city. [Down by the Hipster]

Home owners in the outer boroughs are making curb cuts to extend entrances to their driveways, making enemies with neighbors in the process. [City Room]  read more »

Jerry Kokes made his fortune selling boxing gloves. Now he's moving into one of the most white-gloved buildings in the city. The founder of T.K.O. and his wife Lynda have paid $5.4 million for a 6th-floor condo at the Plaza, city records show.

The couple are currently based in Brielle, NJ.

The first and only woman to gain entry into the 15-member boys club that is the Lehman Brothers’ executive board has now penetrated one of the city’s most exclusive buildings. Erin M. Callan, the recently appointed Lehman CFO, paid $6.5 million for a 31st-floor condo at 15 Central Park West, city records show.  read more »

“I personally think this will destroy N.Y.U. and the Greenwich Village community—and I’m being nice,” said Ruth Rennert.

A handful of seniors clustered around her shook their heads in agreement.

Ms. Rennert, a resident of Greenwich Village for the past four decades, was speaking to a conservatively dressed young woman wearing an N.Y.U. name tag during the university's fifth Expansion Open House on Wednesday evening.  read more »

Brown Harris Stevens, one of the city’s oldest and most respected real estate firms, is being sued in federal court for housing discrimination. [NY Times]

The foreclosure wave makes its way to Greenwich but even the most financially stressed homeowners there have been able to keep their properties off the auction block. [NY Times]
 read more »

Call it karma: Tudor City residents are suing New York's most litigious developer, Sheldon Solow, to block his East River mega development from blocking their views.  read more »

The city's calorie count order is delayed for an appeal next week. [NY Times]

Construction of the biggest water filtration plant in the world in the Bronx now has a $3 billion price tag, much bigger than the $660 million projected a decade ago. [NY Times]    read more »

Community Board 1 drafted an almost Shakespearian plea to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to deny ground-floor retail at 74 Hudson Street; a design "more appropriate in a strip mall in Queens--No, that denigrates Queens." [Curbed]

CB Richard Ellis becomes the first commercial real-estate company to rank among the Fortune 500. [TRD]  read more »