Real Estate | The New York Observer

Silverstein Goes to the Mattresses! Takes Legal Action To End WTC Stalemate

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:11:16 -0400

The private developer of three buildings at the World Trade Center, Larry Silverstein, is taking a legal action to break an impasse over the rebuilding of the site destroyed in 2001. The move is a significant change in course, as it comes after the top elected officials in the city and state attempted, and failed, to broker a revised deal amid the economic crisis.

In a letter sent Monday to other stakeholders involved with...

Marisa Noel Brown's Madoff-Tainted Townhouse Gets A Deal: $9.75 M.

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:40:21 -0400

"The five Noel women have made a name for themselves by shoring up the virtues of a nearly extinct aristocracy," said a 2002 Vanity Fair piece on Fairfield Greenwich Group founder Walter Noel's pristine daughters. "They’re well educated and well married, and they’re raising a pack of well-behaved, multi-lingual children while keeping their string-bikini figures intact ... with not a divorce or scandale among them." The scene was a lawn party thrown for youngest...

The Grande Dame of New York City Land Use

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:52:35 -0400

The way Doris Diether tells it, she was the last holdout in her Waverly Place building a few years back, when the landlord moved in someone new to intimidate her.

“Every time he’d go by me, he growled. Then one night he banged on my door and said, ‘If you think you’re getting any money, forget it,’” recalled Ms. Diether, 80, who moved into her basement apartment in 1958 and, thanks to rent control,...

Inside Nicholas Cage's Museum Tower Condo

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:25:47 -0400

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Original Real Estate Stories This Week on Observer.com

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:48:10 -0400

A slide show of Tribeca's Marble House asking $24.5 M.

After renegotiation, financial analysts warm to Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards...

... But! State's highest court agrees to hear eminent domain case against it.

St. Regis hires Darcy Stacom to market Fifth Avenue retail condos.

Why the refinancing of Douglas Durst's One Bryant Park isn't good news.

A new hotel at 100 Varick will use solar technology unprecedented for New York.

Manhattan Housing Market Coverage:
Key 2Q statistics.
Where the market's...

Bike Community Goes After John Liu Over Yassky's Bill

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:41:42 -0400

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Cold Case: The Domed Central Park Penthouse That's $7.25 M., Not $14.5 M.

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:08:49 -0400

When the domed duplex penthouse at 285 Central Park West came on the market 15 months ago, the asking price was $16.5 million. Less than three weeks later the tag was down to $14.5 million, according to the listings Web site StreetEasy, which became $12,999,000 in September, $11.7 million in October, and then $9.9 million in November.

This week it fell to $7.25 million, less than half of the penthouse's original price.

"I've been through this...

Hurray for Apple Cider! Madison Square Park to Get Autumn Market

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:35:06 -0400

A new autumn market is coming to Madison Square Park, care of the folks who organize the Union Square holiday market, along with the public-private Madison Square Park Conservancy that manages the greensward on behalf of the city.

Starting Columbus Day weekend, and extending through Halloween weekend, the west side of Madison Square Park will be host to a seven-days-a-week, open-air, artisan fair.

"It definitely has an autumn, fall, fashion and food theme," said Eldon Scott,...

As Stores Citywide Falter, Temporary Markets Grow More Popular with Retailers

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:16:14 -0400

As malls across the United States suffer diminishing sales, and storefront rents across New York City fall, markets of the more old-fashioned variety are growing increasingly more popular among retailers.

“[T]his year we are witnessing about a 20 percent increase in demand,” said Sar Inbar, one of three partners behind Upsilon Ventures.

Upsilon Ventures operates the Holiday Shops at the Pond at Bryant Park, and as the July 17 application deadline for vendors approaches, Mr. Inbar...

To Boost Its Coney Island Plan, Bloomberg Administration Buses in Supporters for City Council Hearing

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:07:00 -0400

There’s a common tactic that accompanies most development fights: packing a public hearing.

Usually this is carried out by a variety of groups fighting or supporting a given project—advocates, unions, angry neighbors, wary businesses—who enlist (ideally) scores of people to testify at a hearing in favor of their position, filling a room with sign-holding supporters and making it seem like their argument has more support than the opposition's.

But for a City Council...

Nicolas Cage's $9.75 M. Museum Tower Condo Comes Back on the Market

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:56:15 -0400

Last November, Nicolas Cage put his 3,550-square-foot, 48th-floor, five-bedroom, two-unit apartment in the Museum Tower on the market for exactly one day: The $9.75 million condo was pulled once a reporter called the actor's broker to ask about it.

Eight months later, his apartment is back on at the same price. Its interior photographs are insanely great: The master bathroom, which has a tub and steam shower, is caked in lights and what seems to be...

Is the Manhattan Housing Market Growing Up? Condo Party Busted

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:55:49 -0400

The new condo was the ubiquitous symbol of Manhattan’s housing boom. Tens of thousands—as many as 9,000 in 2005 alone, according to an analysis at the time by The Real Deal—either were proposed for the borough or developed and sold.

Not surprisingly, condos eventually outpaced co-ops in sales—a not insignificant trend given that, even with the condo-building explosion, co-ops still outnumbered condos roughly 3 to 1 in Manhattan. In the second quarter of 2009,...

Back to the Future on Manhattan Housing: How This Movie Ends

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:35:55 -0400

The New York Times on the local housing market: “Even at the peak of the spring buying season, brokerage offices across the city have been eerily quiet, buyers have been holding out for steep discounts and the inventory of unsold apartments has been growing.”

That was June 1989. A years-long wave of co-op conversions had helped drive the market to dizzying heights, altering not only neighborhoods, seemingly forever, but the very perception of home...

The 2Q Manhattan Housing Market Reports: Key Stats

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:34:51 -0400

Second-quarter Manhattan housing reports are out from Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel; the Corcoran Group and PropertyShark; Brown Harris Stevens; and StreetEasy.

Here are comparisons of key stats to the second quarter of 2008. (Keep in mind the reports generally cover deals closed from April through June. The deals could have been negotiated months earlier.)

For analysis on where the hell the Manhattan housing market's headed, click here.

Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel:

Average sales price:...

A Farewell to Hermes? Luxury Retailers Test Waters in Hamptons

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:24:53 -0400

As Manhattanites pack up their cars and zoom east on Friday, July 3, they will find Hamptons streets rather spiffed up, despite dire economic predictions.

According to real estate broker Faith Hope Consolo's retail newsletter, a branch of Michael Kors has opened at 55 Main Street in East Hampton this season. A couple of doors down, Hermes has moved in at 63 Main; a few more doors down, at 69 Main, Tommy Hilfiger has opened...

In Coney Island Fight, Recchia Backs Developer Joe Sitt Over Bloomberg

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:21:09 -0400

For years now, the Bloomberg administration has been pushing a plan to redevelop Coney Island, trying to ensure its approval in the City Council amid resistance from the amusement district’s main landowner, Joe Sitt. Now, as the Council approaches a vote on the plan in coming weeks, one major line of resistance is emerging: Domenic Recchia, the area’s councilman, is siding with Mr. Sitt on almost all of the developer's key points, threatening the...

Extell's Hudson Square Ambitions

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:03:15 -0400

Will it never end?

Just yesterday, The Observer reported yet another Extell building plan submitted to the city for approval, in that case for a 24-story, 175-unit hotel at 30 West 46th Street. And that was just the latest in a flurry of Extell applications for everything from a hotel at the site of the Antiques Garage to condos at 147 West 21st Street .

Forgive us for speculating, but we may possibly have bureaucracy, of...

Extell Continues to Flood Development Pipeline, Filing Plans for Yet Another Hotel

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:23:34 -0400

Extell Development chief Gary Barnett continues to pump projects into the development pipeline, economic concerns apparently no more than a vague nagging feeling at the back of his mind.

On June 26, Extell filed plans to build a 24-story, 175-unit hotel at 30 West 46th Street, just a block over from Mr. Barnett's controversial $750 million Gem Tower at 50 West 47th Street, on which he began construction in May.

Mr. Barnett, himself a former...

Gerhard Andlinger's Time Warner Penthouse, Once $65 M., Sells for $37.5 M. in Biggest Apartment Deal Since July '08

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:54:23 -0400

It's been a humbling year for monstrously expensive, monumentally plush New York real estate: Not only is the most expensive townhouse ever sold in Manhattan asking a few million dollars less than it was bought for, but the price of Julian Schnabel's five-floor Palazzo Chupi penthouse has gone from $59 million to $38 million to $27.9 million.

Yet this month, according to city records filed late last week, a five-bedroom, 8,300-square-foot penthouse at the Time...

Sun Rise! New Hudson Square Hotel to Use Solar Technology Rare for New York

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:03:44 -0400

At the corner of Varick and Watt streets a hotel will rise with a facade wielding a more attractive and versatile kind of solar technology that may well be unprecedented for New York City.

"This is the future," said Anthony Morali, principal of MStudio. Mr. Morali has been hired by developer Charles Fridman, of Shalimar Management, to design an eco-friendly, 26-story hotel at 100 Varick Street. Mr. Fridman filed plans for the project on June...

One Bryant Park, St. Regis Retail Good News for Commercial Real Estate? Hardly

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:39:28 -0400

Settle down, everyone.

One Bryant Park’s $1.275 billion financing, as well as the marketing of the St. Regis New York retail condos and a 49 percent stake at 299 Park Avenue, do not mean, contrary to some cautiously ebullient speculation, that the New York commercial real estate market is turning.

It’s not even pivoting.

The deal and marketing pushes—news of which emerged in the last few days—involve particular...

New Uncertainty for Atlantic Yards as Court of Appeals Takes Eminent Domain Suit

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:27:23 -0400

New York’s highest court has agreed to hear an eminent domain case over the Atlantic Yards project proposed for Brooklyn, a move that infuses new uncertainty into the planned $4.9 billion development that entails a new Nets basketball arena and 6,400 apartments.

The decision by the Court of Appeals was not expected by the project’s developer—Bruce Ratner and his Forest City Ratner—at least based on its public statements and actions. After a year and...

Broker, Please! St. Regis Markets Glittery Fifth Avenue Storefronts

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:20:42 -0400

Starwood Hotels, owner of the gloriously stuffy Astor-built St. Regis New York, has hired CB Richard Ellis investment broker Darcy Stacom to market its cluster of tony storefronts along Fifth Avenue at 55th Street, according to a number of industry sources.

Rumor has it that a group of investors approached Starwood out of the blue with an incredibly generous offer for the retail condominium—which houses pre-recession luxury artifacts like a De Beers outlet, and Emilio...

Analysts: New Atlantic Yards Deal A 'Significant Positive' for Forest City Ratner

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:26:00 -0400

After a renegotiation of the terms of the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project, financial analysts have warmed to the project.

A look at a recent rating of Forest City Enterprises by investment firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods shows that the development company, which is the parent of Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, seems to be making at least a little bit of a comeback. After months of tanking stock prices—the stock...

Unreal Estate: Stalking Exotic Quarry in $24.5 M. Marble House

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:25:12 -0400

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Original Real Estate Stories This Week from Observer.com

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:33:55 -0400

Meet Young Woo, the visionary developer who bought AIG's downtown towers.

The Sit-Down! Kingmaking broker Roger Erickson on the downturn and upturn.

Your Open House! Finding one-bedroom deals on the far Upper East Side.

Extell moves forward with West 25th Street boutique hotel.

Law firm Aaronson, Rappaport, Feinstein and Deutsch wants lots of office space along Third.

Bob Weinstein officially lists Beresford penthouse for $29.75 M.

Deutsche Bank pulls out of Worldwide Plaza deal...

... But buyers still interested!

Luigi Zunino is...

SL Green Meets the Market and Fills Up Scrapers

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:07:52 -0400

SL Green CEO Marc Holliday wasn't kidding when, at a recent industry conference, he said, “Rents in the city have gone down fairly significantly but with that said, if you have the ability to meet the market and the balance sheet to meet the market, there’s still velocity.”

SL Green tells us that its scraper at 461 Fifth Avenue has now reached 100 percent occupancy with the signing of a 17,528-square-foot lease with Everest...

New Column! Hook Lines: Life and Property in Red Hook

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:54:40 -0400

Editor's note: Hook Lines is a new biweekly column by Sadie Stein, an editor at the blog Jezebel and a Brooklyn resident, about the property and daily life of Red Hook.

Red Hook is a rough place to break up. “As soon as it happened, I knew I’d have to move,” says Charlie Stein, 24, who tends bar at two of the neighborhood’s watering holes. “It’s too small. I didn’t want to...

Cold Case: Five Years After Woody Allen, $30 M. Rothschild Mansion Stays Unsold

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:50:46 -0400

It's almost impossible to exaggerate the wild absurdity of high-end Manhattan real estate: On any given day, the price of one five-floor penthouse will be lowered to $27.9 million (even if its original price was twice as high), while the tag for an equally glam penthouse will be hiked from $25 million to $39 million. It's not that the huge real estate brokers who are handling these properties are fools; it's just that no...

Following CB Richard Ellis' Toilet Paper Trail

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:35:49 -0400

“They always say there’s two things you can’t mess with: people’s paychecks and people’s tushies.”

That’s Jeremy Benkin, CB Richard Ellis’ national director of procurement for the asset services division, speaking by phone from Memphis, Tenn.

Why take up Mr. Benkin's precious time asking pesky questions about bathroom tissue? Well, his colleague Sally Wilson, CBRE’s global environmental strategist, majorly piqued our interest when, at a recent Urban Land Institute conference covered by the Washington Business Journal,...

New York Stimulus Counter: $3 M. Spent, $2.861 B. to Go

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:09:55 -0400

The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this week posted its most recent numbers on state-by-state infrastructure spending in the federal stimulus package. The result: Money certainly doesn't get out the door quickly. As of May 31, according to the committee, of the $2.86 billion going to New York State for physical infrastructure, just $3.2 million had been “outlayed,” or spent since the stimulus funds became available in early March.

Specific projects weren’t detailed,...

The Observer 100 Speak! Voices From the Party for the Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:52:58 -0400

Just a random sampling of the boldface names that turned out on Wednesday evening at the Four Seasons for The Observer 100 party for the Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate: Paul Massey, Robert Knakal, Robert Tierney, Michael Bloomberg, Sheldon Silver, Donald Trump, Stephen Ross, Marc Holliday, Bill Rudin, James Cooper, David Arena, Amir Korangy, Jonathan Miller, Howard Lorber, Pam Liebman, David Walentas, Jane Walentas, Daun Paris, Peter Hauspurg, William Zeckendorf, Veronica...

Observer 100 Party at the Four Seasons' Grill Room

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:10:15 -0400

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Manhattan Office Trophies Lose Luster: Midtown Rents Off 24 Percent, Worse To Come

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:25:21 -0400

Summer, 2008. Cut to gauzy image of real estate brokers toasting a $120-per-square-foot deal over martinis at the Four Seasons. Yes, things like that happened. On June 17, 2008, The Observer reported the following, based upon Jones Lang LaSalle’s biannual Skyline Review of rents in upper-crust "trophy" office buildings -- a subset of the larger Class A marketplace:

In these so-called trophy buildings—midtown towers like One Bryant Park and the GM Building—average asking...

M.T.A. Approves Less Lucrative Atlantic Yards Deal

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:43:20 -0400

Bruce Ratner can now cross a major task off his to-do list.

For months now, Mr. Ratner, the developer planning the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards apartment and arena complex in Brooklyn, has been seeking financial relief from an agreement he struck with the M.T.A. in better times.

Lawsuits and other issues have pushed back the project, which involves selling the rights over an M.T.A.-owned rail storage yard, by years. The old deal from...

Deutsche Say No! Spurned Suitor Still 'Ready, Willing, Able and Eager' To Buy Worldwide

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:25:23 -0400

Deutsche Bank may have unceremoniously kicked would-be Worldwide Plaza buyer George Comfort & Sons to the curb on Monday afternoon—to the shock of nearly everyone involved—but the spurned suitor will not be deterred. George Comfort & Sons just released the following statement to The Observer via their spokesman at Rubenstein (no relation to this writer):

Despite a report that the deal to buy Worldwide Plaza has collapsed, the investment group in contract to purchase...

Did Dolly Lenz Do $522,473,436 Last Year? Maybe So, But Serena Boardman Is No. 1 [Updated]

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:58:35 -0400

Is Dolly Lenz, the only broker in the world with her own BlackBerry commercial, the single biggest real estate agent in the nation? Or is the quieter 39-year-old Serena Boardman?

Ms. Boardman, a Sotheby's senior vice president, takes the top spot in the annual list of the nation's top brokers that a group called Real Trends publishes in The Wall Street Journal. Ms. Boardman, whom other agents seem to actually like, which is rare, sold...

Real Estate Stories in The Observer's Print Edition

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:36:30 -0400

Luigi Zunino is on the hook for $45 M. at the Plaza. Too bad Berlusconi didn't buy.

Steve Wynn wants $25 M. for his 817 Fifth condo, fixed up from a major flood.

Big-time broker Roger Erickson on Steve Jobs, Bono and Madonna's odd choice.

Related vs. unions vs. elected officials over Bronx's Kingsbridge Armory.

Major law firm picks another recession to Manhattan office hunt.

Lease Beat! New office leases at 1 Bryant Park, 600 Lexington and 866 UN...

The Mystery of 787 Lex! Who's Taking the Doll Hospital?

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:26:53 -0400

A spa may be taking the place of 109-year-old Upper East Side fixture the New York Doll Hospital.

The hospital for broken and damaged dolls went out of business last May after its longtime owner, Irving D. Chais, passed away at the age of 83 after a long illness. “My understanding is that there was nobody in the family to take over the business,” said David Hazelcorn, who represents the building’s landlord...

Eloise Is Other People: Parents Sneer as Plaza Pushes Thousand-Dollar Slumber Parties Themed to Its Mini-Mascot

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:34:11 -0400

Last week, the Plaza announced a pair of special packages in honor of their most famous fictional resident: Kay Thompson’s Eloise.

The Live Like Eloise Slumber Party Package accommodates six guests and includes a suite, a copy of The Eloise Guide to Life, Eloise DVDs, Eloise postcards, Eloise snacks, rollaway beds, and a trophy party for elementary schoolers, or, the hotel hopes, a “girls night” for adult women. It starts at $3,595.

The regular Live Like...

Deutsche Know? No We Didn’t! Bank Blindsides Would-Be Buyers of Worldwide Plaza

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:45:19 -0400

Deutsche Bank blindsided real estate investors George Comfort & Sons and RCG Longview on Monday, June 22, when they learned—just hours before the Wall Street Journal ran an item leaked by Deutsche through their broker Eastdil Secured—that the bank was backing out of its deal to sell a controlling interest in Harry Macklowe’s old Worldwide Plaza. Sources involved said even some Deutsche players were taken aback.

George Comfort and his partners had already made a...

Lease Beat! One Bryant Park, 600 Lexington Avenue, 866 U.N. Plaza

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:25:34 -0400

Fair tidings for VORNADO chieftain Steve Roth: intellectual property law firm FROSS ZELNICK LEHRMAN & ZISSU—which has proudly repped Cab Calloway’s grandson as well as the family with merchandising rights to Winnie the Pooh—renewed its 53,000-SQUARE-FOOT lease at 866 U.N. PLAZA for ONE DECADE. NEWMARK broker MARK WEISS repped Fross Zelnick in talks with GLEN WEISS.

It must be getting serious! Developer HAL FETNER will move in with best pal DOUGLAS DURST on Thursday. More...

The Bronx Is Kvetching

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:07:11 -0400

It’s probably safe to assume that the faculty dining room at the Bronx’s Lehman College will be packed the evening of June 24 with a lot of people wanting a lot of things from the Related Companies.

The prolific developer is coming before Community Board 7 to discuss its planned development of the behemoth Kingsbridge Armory, a whale of a 92-year-old, 588,000-square-foot building just beyond Manhattan. The city has been trying to develop the building...

A Businessman, a Berlusconi and a Recession Walk Into the Plaza … Zunino on Hook for $45 M. Sprawl

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:03:43 -0400

Amid all the snickering about the Plaza’s conversion into mega-haute condominiums, all the guessing about what will happen to its re-listed apartments (which, The Times said this weekend, are asking more than $250 million in all) and all the gasping about Russian billionaire Andrei Vavilov’s suit over his penthouse triplex, awfully little attention has been paid to a third-floor drama that may be the most lip-smacking of all.

There, according to two sources, the troubled...

Rainbow! Steve Wynn Wants $25 M. for Fifth Ave Condo Damaged in the Flood

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:32:37 -0400

On the one hand, if a Fifth Avenue apartment couldn’t sell six years ago when it was asking $15 million, and then suffered a flood that damaged walls, ceilings, floors and furnishings, it’s slightly disconcerting that the place would hit the market again for $25 million.

But the seventh-floor condo at 817 Fifth Avenue is no mere apartment. It is a Steve Wynn experience.

“I will tell you,” said Roger Erickson, the casino magnate’s broker, “it...

Claremont Prep Looking at 200K Feet in 25 Broadway

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:18:22 -0400

The Claremont Preparatory high school is negotiating for about 200,000 square feet at the Cunard Lines Building at 25 Broadway, according to sources familiar with negotiations. If inked, it would be one of 2009’s biggest commercial leases.

Claremont, one of educational firm MetSchool’s handful of for-profit private academies in New York City, earlier this year was on the verge of signing a lease at the Sapir Organization’s chandelier-bedecked 100 Church Street. Sources say there was...

The New Atlantic Yards: Less Pretty, More Pricey

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:15:35 -0400

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Bloomberg On the Recovery; Business Owners On the Recession

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:41:46 -0400

“Put me down in the category of optimistic on the economy,” Mayor Bloomberg said at a sumptuous breakfast at Isabella’s Tuesday morning celebrating the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District (BID)’s 10th anniversary. “But I don’t think we’re going to see a spur. I think you’re just going to see slow growth—but I do think we’re over the worst.”

Before darting off to speak at a fifth-grade graduation in the Bronx, Mr. Bloomberg pitched a...

Quinn Sides With Bloomberg, Not Times, on World Trade Center Development

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:05:59 -0400

Christine Quinn did her best to be diplomatic, but she trusts Mayor Bloomberg over the Grey Lady—on the question of World Trade Center development, at least.

Speaking before the New York Building Congress on Tuesday morning, Ms. Quinn was asked about a Times editorial Sunday that was critical of the mayor’s position in the ongoing World Trade Center redevelopment dispute.

“I love The New York Times with all of my heart...

It's On! City Moves To Extend Historic Districts on Upper East Side, Greenwich Village

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:17:57 -0400

The Bloomberg administration is going crazy for historic districts, as the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is moving toward designating five new or extended ones.

At a hearing Tuesday afternoon, the LPC is slated to begin the designation process on extensions to historic districts in the Upper East Side, Greenwich Village, and Soho, and designate new historic districts in Crown Heights and Perry Avenue in the Bronx. Once the process begins, when districts are “calendared,”...