The New York Observer » Dana Rubinstein

Manhattan Dumbo

"Everything has to spread west," said Jed Walentas, 36, describing livable Manhattan's ever-expanding front line while striding through the construction site that is his family's 11th Avenue gamble, Clinton Park.

It was a foggy Tuesday morning, early in October, and Mr. Walentas wore jeans, a hoodie and black New Balance sneakers, his face covered in Read More

Everybody Go Downtown!

At the northern end of midtown, where the skyscrapers abut Central Park, there's a rarified realm called the Plaza district. Bounded, depending on whom you ask, by 54th and 64th streets, Park and Sixth avenues, this is where the kings among men work: the billionaires, the families with foundations, the private-equity royalty. It's expensive, exclusive Read More

Gotham Handcuffs: What Happens When You Make It Here and You Want to Leave?

When Kathleen Parker, foil to Eliot Spitzer on CNN, wrote an op-ed in the Sept. 29 Washington Post about her displeasure with her recent move to New York City--the "rules for potted plants on an apartment terrace"; "a building ban on lighting birthday candles"--Manhattan media meted out a swift punishment.

The Awl encouraged her Read More

Krugman: ARC Is Nation’s ‘Most Important Current Public Works Project’

"It was a destructive and incredibly foolish decision on multiple levels," writes New York Times columnist and eminent economist Paul Krugman in today's paper. He was referring to Governor Chris Christie's decision to put the kibosh on ARC, a tunnel that would burrow under the Hudson River, dramatically increasing train capacity between New York Read More

The Disaster That Is Dubai’s Real Estate Market

It's been a while since we've read a good Dubai real estate disaster update.

This morning's comes care of India's NDTV. In a nutshell, vacancy rates are still rising, skyscrapers still remain incomplete, and purchasers of units in those incomplete towers are still unable to get their money back.

Here's a snippet:

Apartment buyers who made down payments Read More

Vans Tries to Increase East Coast Footprint

Did you know that Vans has only eight employees in New York? And that's an improvement over the one employee the shoemaker had in New York three years ago?

Well, Vans, the popular West Coast purveyor of checkered canvas slip-ons is trying to change all that. The Wall Street Journal reports that the firm is on Read More

It’s Free to Look: The River House’s Deco Duplex [SLIDESHOW]

Yesterday, the Real Estate Desk poked a little fun at this $11 million, 14-room duplex at the "has-been" River House co-op. First off, it is asking a million dollars more than what is reportedly the $10-million record for the building -- pre-recession, no less. And who could forget that the unit has changed Read More

Real Estate Execs Who Helped Inflate Bubble Now Profit From Its Burst

Whoever coined the phrase "what goes around comes around" clearly didn't know anything about commercial real estate.

In yet another example of life's little injustices, two former Deutsche Bank executives who made fortunes lubricating the real estate juggernaut have just landed plum gigs at LNR Property.

The Journal's Lingling Wei reports:

Justin Kennedy, ex-head trader of real-estate Read More

Report: Julie Macklowe to Launch ‘Fashion-Related’ Company

Julie Macklowe, fashion maven, hedge fund manager, and wife of real estate macher Billy Macklowe, is finally following her passion.

Trade mag Hedge Fund Alert reports that Ms. Macklowe (profiled by Irina Aleksander in the Observer last year) is ditching the hedge fund business for fashion: "Specifically, she plans to start a fashion-related company Read More

Elegy For a Train Tunnel

Capital New York's got a solid piece on the likelihood that Governor Chris Christie will shelve plans to build a new train tunnel under the Hudson River, a project known as ARC (it stands for "Access to the Region's Core").

The project would do the following:

Named "Access to the Region's Core," or A.R.C., the project Read More

Commercial Real Estate Begins Long, Hard Slog Uphill

The Journal examines the state of the national office market in today's newspaper. The prognosis: tepid. Asking rents are, in some places, stabilizing (not rising, just stabilizing). Investors like Mort Zuckerman are once again investing. And while the national vacancy rate is still rising, it's doing so more slowly.

Which is to say, commercial real estate Read More

The Son Also High-Rises

William Macklowe rubbed the bridge of his nose and said he was suffering from a sinus headache. It was the first sign of human frailty he'd allowed during the interview, and the interview was almost over.

The nose where he pressed his fingers was aquiline, like the beak of a barn owl. Below, his thin Read More

Forbes: Tamir Sapir’s Net Worth About $700 M.

Forbes just came out with its 400 richest people list, and guess who isn't on it? Even so, Manhattan developer Tamir Sapir--presumably because his demise has proven so intriguing--still merits an article. And Forbes digs up some dirt.

First, the magazine estimates the developer's worth at about $700 million, "still wealthy indeed but not nearly enough Read More

Sam Zell: Optimistic About New York’s Real Estate Future

We talked to Sam Zell, the grave dancer himself, this afternoon. It was short and sweet, and mostly about a profile The Observer's working on. But, Mr. Zell, whose Equity Residential recently bought three apartment buildings in Manhattan, did have this to say about the New York real estate market:

"I think it’s Read More

Following Goose Massacre, Prospect Park Tries to Make Amends

Prospect Park's administrator--under whose nose the city and federal government culled Prospect Park's beloved goose population, in the dark of early morning, without public notice, in early July--is trying to make amends.

This afternoon, the Prospect Park Alliance, a nonprofit that operates Prospect Park on behalf of the Parks Department and of which administrator Tupper Read More