Real Estate

The National Bureau of Economic Research officially announces a U.S. recession; the Dow drops 680 points. [NY Times]

A bus driver is stabbed to death in Bed-Stuy after denying a passenger a transfer. [City Room]

Jersey City’s City Council votes against naming a street by the Trump Plaza after The Donald. [Jersey Journal via Curbed]

Greenpoint actually likes Dean Palin’s idea for a 40-story waterfront tower?! [Curbed]

New York retailers like Tiffany and Barnes & Noble pull back on expansion plans as the economy nosedives. [TRD]

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition files a civil rights suit against two Wall Street ratings agencies on behalf of minority subprime mortgage holders. [TRD]

The Edge is opening its lofty doors to low-income and middle-income New Yorkers—but act now! They shut again on Dec. 3. [Williamsburg is Dead]

Two Queens residents pushing to transform Flushing Airport from 26 acres of abandoned wasteland into a “light recreation facility” with baseball fields and a driving range. [Queens Crap]

The EDC bows to common sense and agrees to open the Essex Street Market on Sundays… but only for December. [Racked via BoweryBoogie]

Crain’s poll shows 40 percent of New Yorkers fear losing their jobs. [Crain’s via Gowanus Canal]

Once mighty 20 Pine renting units on the (relatively) cheap. [Streeteasy via Curbed]

6 p.m. to 8 p.m. How can New York and New Jersey take advantage of their ample waterfronts to better serve their communities and jumpstart a stalled economy? Find out at “On The Waterfront: Finding the Balance for Development and Communities” hosted by the Center for New York City Affairs and Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy. Opening remarks by Port Authority executive director Christopher Ward. Eugene Lang Building, 65 West 11th Street, Wollman Hall, 5th floor. Free. Reservations required. Call 212-229-5418 or email centernyc@newsschool.edu.

6 p.m. to 9 p.m. “The 4th Annual Latina Leadership Summit: Building Your Future in Uncertain Times,” hosted by the New York chapter of the National Society for Hispanic MBAs. American Express Headquarters - World Financial Center, 200 Vesey Street. Free for members; $15 for non-members. Register online or call 212-318-3296 or email vpmembership@newyork.nshmba.org.

Bruce Ratner has drawn resentment and scorn in the Brooklyn community surrounding his planned $4 billion Atlantic Yards project, but now he’s inspired cultural enrichment. Sort of.

A local theater company has created a production, running this week, on the fight over and the effects of the Atlantic Yards project, for which Mr. Ratner’s firm plans to build a Frank Gehry-designed arena for the Nets and more than 6,000 housing units.

Brooklyn at Eye Level, put on by The Civilians production company, will run from Thursday through Sunday at the Brooklyn Lyceum, exploring the debate around Atlantic Yards.

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We dropped on you this morning the gong-rattling pronouncement that Manhattan is now a tenant's market by the two most important measures: rents (they're dropping across the board) and vacancies (they're up and climbing).

But there's more to the math.

According to The Real Estate Group New York, which released its November report just before sun-up (PDF here), the number of Manhattan apartment vacancies may be higher than signified. Why? Because some owners of higher-end rentals don't want everyone to know about all their vacancies: "[V]acancies, may actually be even higher than reported, particularly in doorman buildings, as many landlords are not releasing their full vacancy list."

Why would some landlords play their vacancies so close to the chest? More empty apartments might further drive down rents and demand of landlords ever more concessions and incentives to lure tenants.

From Curbed: "Legendary Upper West Side landmark, coveted luxury rental building, celebrity-filled hideaway—the Apthorp is/was all of these things, and now thanks to an epic and bitter condo conversion, the 19th-century beauty at Broadway and 79th Street is now on sale. And what timing! Five listings have hit the Elliman website, under its address of 390 West End Avenue, and there are more floorplans available on the Apthorp's website ..."

Somewhere, Nora Ephron weeps.

It's 1999 all over again! Nervous New York apartment landlords are offering more concessions to lure tenants. [NY Mag]

"Condo owners are definitely dropping their starting prices. Those living downtown—in Chinatown, the financial district, and Greenwich Village, especially—appear to have made the most peace with the new financial-world order, cutting their median asking prices by nearly 11 percent." [NY Mag]

The banking industry's taking pre-emptive measures to help borrowers with their mortgages. [NY Times]

General Growth Properties, developer of the South Street Seaport and a giant mixed-use development on East 125th Street, got a reprieve on repaying $900 million in debt. Here's the kicker: It's a sign of what could come. "Real-estate observers are watching General Growth's plight for signs of how lenders will handle imperiled borrowers in this financial crisis. Analysts predict that, as billions of dollars of commercial loans come due in the coming months, many borrowers will seek extensions of payment deadlines from their lenders if new capital remains scarce." [WSJ]

State Liquor Authority Chairman Daniel Boyle, ranked No. 21 on The Observer's 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate, has lost some clout in the apparent political fallout from his unsuccessful fight to sink the Cipriani family's restaurant empire.

According to the New York Post, fellow SLA commissioners Noreen Healey and Jeanique Greene "sprung a surprise resolution to strip Boyle - the sole board member to vote against the Ciprianis - of all powers previously delegated to him to conduct authority business. Instead, the resolution required approval of the full three-member board for any actions."  read more »

Last November, the Post's Steve Cuozzo railed against the campaign to preserve Hotel Pennsylvania, which he called "one of the gloomiest structures between the Battery and The Bronx."

Now, the paper is listing the old Glenn Miller hangout among its "10 Endangered Buildings Worth Saving" -- No. 2, in fact, just behind Harlem's Corn Exchange Bank.

Built in 1919 by the Pennsylvania Railroad as part of Penn Station's development. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, and now owned by one of the developers involved in Moynihan Station, it has been engulfed by that controversy. Worst-case scenario: no Moynihan Station and a demolished Hotel Pennsylvania.

Yowza! In an email time-stamped 6:38 a.m., The Real Estate Group New York declared that Manhattan was now, for all intents and purposes, a tenant's market going forward.

"Landlords are feeling a lot of pressure this month," Daniel Baum, the firm's COO said in a statement. "I have heard everything from ‘anything for a lease’ to ‘just bring me bodies.’ Concessions have become standard and price drops are happening across the board."  read more »

“Tin Pan Alley is gone,” Bob Dylan wrote in the jacket of his 1997 album Biograph. “I put an end to it.”

The neighborhood that was once the hub of the American music-publishing industry in the early 20th century has undergone many transformations since it became known as Tin Pan Alley. Between 1893 and 1910, nearly 20 music-publishing companies moved to West 28th Street, according to the Historic Districts Council. Over the years, they have been replaced by furriers, florists and, lately, mass-market wholesalers, but the five-story, 1852 rowhouses at 49-51 still exist in much the same condition today as when the first songwriters, M. Whitmark and Sons, first moved there.

In October, however, it looked like the last remnants of Tin Pan Alley could be demolished to make way for a condo, when the Lost City blog broke the news that all five buildings were on the market for $44 million.  read more »