Speaking from London earlier today, Mayor Bloomberg said the deal for the West Side rail yards was still alive, and called on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to work out its differences with Tishman Speyer and come to an agreement. The M.T.A. said it reached an impasse with Tishman Speyer yesterday.

“These projects are phenomenally complex—they have lots of different layers of government involved,” Mr. Bloomberg said, speaking to reporters. “My hope is that the state government, really the M.T.A. in this case, can get together and solve the problems that they have and that Tishman Speyer has so that they can come together. But I don’t think it’s the least bit fair or accurate to say that anything’s dead.”

One of the sticking points, he said, was Tishman CEO Jerry Speyer’s concern that the 1.5-mile extension of the No. 7 subway line would not be completed, leaving the site without transit access. Many have questioned whether the M.T.A. has the appropriate financing for the line, as the $2 billion budget has remained the same for years despite rising costs and modest changes.

On this issue, however, Mr. Bloomberg seemed to side with the Speyers.

“They want to be able be sure that we are going to build that line,” he said. “I talked to Jerry last week or two weeks ago, and I said, ‘If I were you, I would make absolutely positively sure that we are going to build that subway before I put one dime of my own money.’”

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Arizona Cardinals quarterback Tim Hasselbeck and his wife, Elisabeth, the blond, slightly annoying Survivor star-turned-View co-host, just bought a four-bedroom, 2,349-square-foot apartment at Ariel West, the new tower developed by Gary Barnett at Broadway and 99th Street. According to city records, they spent $3.25 million.

The floor plan says that two of the bedrooms, the 30-foot living/dining room, the family room, and the master bathroom are all lined against a massive wall of windows. Of course, that means there will be a nice view for the View co-host, which would have easily made for a nice pun-dripped headline—but there are times in every real estate writer's life when the opportunity to write genuinely idiotic double-entendres must be resisted.

In any case, it's not the first Upper West Side place for the couple. They spent $999,000 in 2005 on an apartment 20 blocks south, city recoreds show, which they haven't sold off yet. That place probably didn't have Ariel's über-condo bonuses like a 51-foot indoor pool, an outdoor basketball court, a pet grooming salon, billiards parlor, and an "elaborate" childrens' playroom, which will suit Ms. Hasselbeck's elaborate tastes.  read more »

Did Jerry and Rob Speyer dive into a project too big for the real estate giants to handle?

When Tishman Speyer Properties was announced winner of the West Side rail yards development rights in late March, the scene was a cheery one, with the governor and mayor on hand at the yards to hail the Speyers as victors. Now, with the deal apparently dead, the mood has changed substantially [background on the deal collapse here].

In the weeks since the March announcement, Tishman Speyer appeared to grow unexpectedly wary. What was ultimately the sticking point in negotiations—the firm wanted to wait an extra year or so before closing on the eastern rail yard, until the western rail yard was rezoned—was a point that Tishman accepted a few weeks back when it was selected.  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 »

With the West Side rail yards development deal on very shaky ground, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky today announced a bill that would chart a new course for the 26-acre parcel west of Penn Station, bringing in a new authority to follow a Battery Park City model of piecemeal development.

“Instead of selling at the bottom of the market for a price that was never really what the property was worth in the long run,” Mr. Brodsky said, “we should do what we know works.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the rail yards, has been trying to sell them to a private firm to develop, though yesterday talks broke down with selected developer Tishman Speyer, which had planned to pay the M.T.A. about $1 billion for the property.  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 »

Looking for some depressing news to read during lunch? See below.

Gene Sperling, top economic adviser to the Clintons, argues today in a Bloomberg column that the economy may be in for double-real-estate-bubble trouble.

That's right. Not just one deflating bubble. Two.

We all know about the recently poppped residential real estate bubble, but is there a second commercial real estate bubble that is on the brink of bursting, too?  read more »

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 »

Merle Gross-Ginsberg recalled a dinner hosted by the Real Estate Board of New York back in 1975, where she, Leona Helmsley and one other woman were grossly outnumbered by some 1,800 men—"all smoking the most enormous cigars you've ever seen," she said.

The industry's vast gender gap has slowly begun to close in recent years. Yet, even at the Association of Real Estate Women's 30th Anniversary gala at the Mandarian Oriental Hotel at Time Warner Center on Thursday night, males still dominated the crowd by about 2 to 1. Maybe even 3 to 1.  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 »